On 5th April 1974, two renowned West Indies cricketers Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai played their last day of Test cricket.
So, let’s have a look at some cases when two or more players from the same team took their retirement from Test cricket together.
Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai – v England, Port of Spain, 1974
When Kanhai and Sobers played their last day Test match, they held a number of records for West Indies:
- They were the two players, who had the maximum experience, played 79 and 93 matches respectively
- They were the two leading run-getters of West Indies with 6227 and 8032 runs.
- They together had the most 100 runs partnership (6).
- Sobers was the second-highest wicket-taker after Lance Gibbs
The loss of these two legendary West Indies cricketers was obviously a big thing, but the next big names were out of imagination. In the next series against India, West Indies gave a farewell to Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards, who were the finest batsmen of their team.
Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh – v Pakistan, Sydney, 1984
After the final test day against Pakistan in 1984 at Sydney, the well-known Australian trio of the 1970s and 80s decade took retirement simultaneously.
- Chappell was the most successful captain and the highest run-scorer in the Australia team, scored 7110 runs in 87 Test matches.
- Lillee concluded his career with 355 wickets
- Marsh also ended with 355 wickets.
Their final test match was memorable.
Greg Chappell overcame the record of 6996 runs of Don Bradman in his last test innings by scoring 182. Dennis Lillee became the 1st Australian bowler, who was able to take 350 number of Test wickets with the help of four wickets in a single inning. Rod Marsh played his 96 number test match as a wicketkeeper, going ahead of Alan Knott’s tally for maximum Tests by a wicketkeeper.
Marsh and Lillee, together have accounted for 95 dismissals in Tests, which is still a record done by a bowler-wicketkeeper duo.
In that last test match, Chappell was the Man of the Match and also achieved the uncommon feature of scoring 100 runs in his first as well as last Test.
Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall, and Jeff Dujon – v England, The Oval, 1991
These three combinations were the defenders of the West Indies team in the 1980s era. They were the top run-getter, wicket-taker as well as wicketkeeper of the team.
- Richards took his retirement with 8540 runs, just behind the Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border.
- Marshall took 376 wickets. Only Ian Botham and Richard Hadlee had more wickets than him.
- Dujon retired with 272 dismissals and was on the second position after Rod Marsh at that time.
Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer – v England, Sydney, 2007
The most victorious fast bowler as well as spinner McGrath and Shane Warne both took their retirement in the same Test series against England in the year 2007 in Sydney, along with one of the fantastic openers of Australia, Justin Langer. For the first time, three players got retirement, who have played more than 100 Test matches in the same match.
In the final Test match
- McGrath took three wickets in each innings.
- Warne picked up only two wickets of England but scored very important 71 runs in the first innings.
- Langer scored only 26 runs in the first innings, but in the second inning, he remained unbeaten as his partner hit the winning runs of the match.
Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq – v West Indies, Roseau, 2017
Very few times, a team’s most successful batsman, as well as the most successful captain, took retirement together. In the year 2017, Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq of Pakistan retired together in the Test match against West Indies at Roseau.
- Younis Khan concluded his career after earning 10,999 runs and became the only batsman of Pakistan, who score more than 10,000 runs in his final series.
- As a captain, Misbah won 26 times and it was for the first time for any Pakistan captain. Under Misbah, Pakistan lost only one series in the UAE.
Younis Khan played in 53 Test matches under Misbah’s 56 Tests as captain.
Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman – v Australia, Adelaide, 2012
In the year 2012, two most experienced and top run-scorers Test players played their last test match at Adelaide against Australia.
- The highest point for these two amazing batsmen was their outstanding 376 runs partnership in the Kolkata Test.
- They are two only Indian pair who put two triple century together in Tests.
- During their retirement, these two Indian players have more runs partnership.
Some other pairs who played their last Test simultaneously:
- Allan Lamb and Ian Botham Pakistan, Lord’s 1992
- Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch v Australia, Perth, 1995
- Herschelle Gibbs and Shaun Pollock v West Indies, Durban, 2008
- Morne Morkel and AB de Villiers v Australia, Johannesburg, 2018
- Dale Steyn and Hashim Amla v Sri Lanka, Port Elizabeth, 2019
