Double Headers

133 Railways India Pakistan 1958/59 to date 1953/54 – 1995/96† 30 (1958/59 to 1993/94) Western Province South Africa Sri Lanka 1889/90 to date 1990 – 2004/05† None The symbol † indicates that there have been significant breaks in the team’s first-class appearances within the dates stated. I have only included simultaneous instances in the above table when the two sides concerned have been named identically. Matches involving teams called (for example) East Pakistan Railways, or Hyderabad Blues, or Western Province B etc, have therefore been disregarded. Similarly, I have excluded the longstanding Ranji Trophy side ‘Services’ from this table; it is only England and Pakistan that have been home to sides called, specifically, ‘Combined Services’. Also under this heading mention should be made of the communal sides in pre-independence India. Teams called ‘Europeans’ played in the annual Bombay Tournament from 1892/93 until 1945/46, in an annual Presidency match at Madras between 1915/16 and 1947/48, and in a shorter-lived tournament at Lahore between 1922/23 and 1929/30. The Lahore tournament also featured teams called Hindus and Muslims; teams with these names had also been playing in the Bombay Tournament since 1907/08 and 1912/13 respectively. But all these tournaments were held at different times of year, and there was never any overlap between them – which meant that there were never any occasions when two or even three teams of ‘Europeans’ were playing simultaneously, nor two teams of Hindus or of Muslims. A final batch of near misses Billy Gunn in Christine Keeler mode. Principally a batsman, he took the only two ‘five-fors’ of his first-class career during a double-header match in 1885, and apparently forswore tobacco some time between September 1884 and March 1887.