New Delhi:
The perfect 10 is one of the rarest feats achieved by a bowler in First Class cricket. In 142 years of Test cricket, only two players have ever achieved the perfect 10, which is taking all 10 wickets in the innings. One is England's Jim Laker, who took 10 wickets against Australia in Manchester in 1956 while Anil Kumble managed to take all 10 wickets during the Test against Pakistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 1999. However, in first class cricket, on Wednesday, a young Meghalaya bowler matched the feat of Kumble and Laker by taking all 10 wickets in the innings.
The incident took place during the Vijay Merchant Under-16 game between Nagaland and Meghalaya in Tezpur. Nirdesh Baisoya, an offspinner originally from Meerut but plying his trade for Meghalaya, took all 10 wickets in the innings to decimate Nagaland. Baisoya registered figures of 21-10-51-10 as Nagaland were bowled out for 113. In response, Meghalaya ended day 1 on 109. For Nagaland, only Sravan Naga Ravi Konidena smashed 55 and three other players managed to get double figures.
In Indian First Class cricket, this feat has been achieved by other players as well. Debashish Mohanty, Subash Gupte, Pradeep Sundaram and PM Chatterjee are those who have taken 10 wickets in an innings in Indian domestic cricket. Last year, Rex Singh, a teenager from Manipur, took all 10 wickets in an innings in the U-19 tournament Cooch Behar Trophy.
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In an interview with IANS, Baisoya, who has been coached by Sanjay Rastogi, who has also trained the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Praveen Kumar, said, "It’s yet to sink in. I was not born when Anil Kumble picked up 10 wickets, but I heard a lot about it. I always wanted to do something like that, never thought it would happen so early in my life. I just spoke to my parents and they became emotional as well. I had picked six wickets by the first session. That is when I started to believe that I can go for all 10. My teammates backed me a lot. There was turn on the pitch since morning and the overhead conditions also helped."
