What 2 November Tells Us About Cricket

On 2 November, standout batting rarely belongs to one player alone. In 2013, Rohit Sharma's 209 off 158 for India against Australia shared the match with James Faulkner's 116 off 73 for Australia. In 2001, Inzamam-ul-Haq's 118 off 124 for Pakistan against Sri Lanka sat alongside Naved Latif's 113 off 141. In 2024, West Indies v England, which finished West Indies 328 v England 329, produced both Liam Livingstone's 124 off 85 and Shai Hope's 117 off 127. And in 1951, India v England gave three centurions in one Test: Vijay Hazare's 164, Vijay Merchant's 154 and Allan Watkins' 137.

Milestones on this date tend to land inside the same games as the headline scores. Chris Gayle's 133 off 135 in South Africa v West Indies, 2006, doubled as his 15th ODI hundred, in the match where Shiv Chanderpaul brought up 6000 ODI runs and AB de Villiers reached 500 ODI runs. In 1956, Ghulam Ahmed's 7/49 and Richie Benaud's 6/52 and 5/53 for India v Australia came in the Test where Ian Johnson brought up 1000 Test runs. In India's 357 v Sri Lanka's 55 in 2023 at Wankhede, Mohammed Shami's 5/18 and Lokumarakkalage Madushanka's 5/80 arrived alongside Shreyas Iyer's 2000 ODI runs and Madushanka's 25 ODI wickets.

2 November also sits inside crowded weeks for shorter-format tournaments away from the main international calendar. In 2023, T20Is were played between Oman and Nepal, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, and Bahrain and Kuwait. In 2025, Bulgaria met Cyprus twice and Mexico played Brazil. The Women's Big Bash League has used this date repeatedly too, with matches listed in WBBL 2019/20, WBBL 2022/23, WBBL 2023/24 and WBBL 2024/25, suggesting early November is a recurring fixture point in that competition's schedule.