What 24 January Tells Us About Cricket

Australia and India appear together on 24 January more than any other pairing in the record. The highest individual scores include three separate Australia v India encounters: Ricky Ponting's 221 off 404 in 2012, Michael Clarke's 210 off 275 in 2012, and Sachin Tendulkar's 153 off 205 in 2008. Clarke also reached 2000 Test runs on this date in 2008. The pattern extends to India v New Zealand and India v Bangladesh fixtures, suggesting 24 January has been a date when India hosts touring sides, with the subcontinent pitch conditions and opposition combinations producing high individual scores across multiple decades.

Bowling records on 24 January belong almost entirely to spinners: Erapalli Prasanna's 8/76 in 1976, Frank Woolley's 7/76 in 1930, and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar's 6/94 in 1976. The exception is pace bowlers reaching career wicket milestones. Muttiah Muralitharan reached both 400 ODI wickets in 2006 and 500 ODI wickets in 2009 on this date. Zaheer Khan took 7/87 on 24 January 2010 against Bangladesh, while Noman Ali and Jomel Warrican both performed for Pakistan and West Indies respectively in 2025. This suggests the date has historically favoured spin-friendly conditions and has marked the point at which leading bowlers pass significant career thresholds.

From 2018 onwards, 24 January has hosted T20 league cricket across multiple jurisdictions. CJ Ferguson and Faf du Plessis both scored 113 in T20 league matches in 2018 and 2023 respectively. Perth Scorchers appear twice on the date in the BBL, in 2018 and 2019. The WPL, SA20, BBL, and ILT20 now regularly schedule matches on 24 January, with recent years seeing concurrent fixtures across formats and leagues, reflecting how January has become critical to the T20 calendar in both hemispheres and the emergence of franchise-based cricket alongside international fixtures.