WATCH: When Indian wicket-keepers bowled in Tests Ft. MS Dhoni, Ajay Ratra and Rahul Dravid

Cricket tends to throw up unlikely aspects given its diverse vagaries time and again, be it with the game results, the mannerism in which they are achieved or the unusual on-field moments.

One such infrequent sight has been of wicketkeepers rolling their arms over. There have been numerous such instances in Test cricket, with former greats like Mark Boucher and MS Dhoni having done so during their illustrious careers.

In a video doing rounds on Twitter, designated Indian wicketkeepers can be seen bowling in three different Tests: Antigua 2002, Faisalabad 2006 and Lord’s 2011 – with the ever reliable Rahul Dravid taking the gloves on each of the three occasions.

The first instance came in the fourth Test during India’s tour of the West Indies in 2002, during visitors’ strong response to India’s first innings total of 513/9 declared. Ajay Ratra, who had already scored an unbeaten 115 earlier in the Test, was tasked to bowl what would turn out to be the final over of a high-scoring game.

Ratra bowled an over of his off-breaks, conceding a single in an innings which ended at 629/9 declared, with skipper Carl Hooper, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ridley Jacobs scoring tons.

Interestingly, it was one of the only four instances, when all 11 players bowled in a Test match innings, the other three being: England vs Australia (Oval, 1884), Australia vs Pakistan (Faisalabad, 1980) and South Africa vs West Indies (Antigua, 2005).

The second and third involved former India captain MS Dhoni bowling, the first coming in just his fifth Test appearance against Pakistan in Faisalabad. Dhoni, who had scored a blistering 148 off 153 in India’s first innings, came onto bowl in the final session of the game, conceding 13 runs in an over of medium pace.

In the 2011 Lord’s Test, the 100th between India and England and the 2000th overall, Dhoni, the captain then, took upon himself to send down some overs with his premier quick Zaheer Khan unavailable with injury. With the Lord’s surface doing its tricks, Dhoni had a close leg-before call against Kevin Pietersen turned down, before Billy Bowden adjudged the batter caught behind not long after. Pietersen managed to overturn the call on review, and went on to get a game-setting 202*. Dhoni returned 8-1-23-0 and 2-0-16-0 in the Test.

Watch Indian glovemen rolling their arms over here:

2002 Antigua, 2006 Faisalabad, 2011 Lord’s – 3 examples when Indian Keepers bowled in Tests. Rahul Dravid kept wickets in all 3 samples.
PS: This is just a mere observation. Not meant to be a typical ‘Rahul Sir played for the team, walked on broken glass etc’ glorification post. pic.twitter.com/Fp92dBAgag

— Mainak Sinha🏏📽️ (@cric_archivist) June 3, 2022