1971: Pakistani cricketer Zaheer Abbas scores 274 vs England at Edgbaston in 544 minutes.
1984: 1960 champion Arnold Palmer fails to qualify for the US Open Golf Championship for the first time in 32 years.
1987: American hurdler Edwin Moses’ 122 race winning streak which extends to nearly 10 years ends when he is beaten by countryman Danny Harris in Madrid, Spain.
1991: Birth of England allrounder Ben Stokes, hero of their 2019 World Cup win and the Headingley Ashes chase a month later. Stokes made his debut during England’s 5-0 thrashing in Australia in 2013-14, not faring too badly, with 279 runs and 15 wickets in four Tests. An attacking left-hand middle-order batter and right-arm seamer, his credentials went up a notch when he scored 92 and 101 and picked up three crucial second-innings wickets in England’s come-from-behind win at Lord’s against New Zealand in 2015. In the Newlands Test in 2016, he blazed 258 off only 198 balls, the second-fastest double-hundred in Test history. A few months later, he experienced the heartbreak of conceding four sixes in the final over of the World T20 final, as West Indies took the title. Shortly before the 2017-18 Ashes, in which everyone was expecting Stokes to be England’s lynchpin, he was arrested for his involvement in a punch-up outside a pub in Bristol. He missed the Ashes, which England lost 4-0. However, the incident didn’t have an impact on his market value – he was bought by Rajasthan Royals for US$1.95 million in the 2018 IPL auction.
1995: New Zealand creates world record score for a Rugby Union international in thrashing Japan, 145-17 in the World Cup in Bloomfontein, RSA; Marc Ellis 6 tries, Simon Culhane 20 conversions.
2011: French Open Women’s Tennis: Li Na becomes first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam singles title; beats Italian defending champion Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6.
2013: Less than a month after three Indian cricketers were arrested for their involvement in spot-fixing, Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful confessed to participating in spot-fixing and match-fixing in the Bangladesh Premier League earlier in the year. The Bangladesh board decided not to involve him in any form of cricket till the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit submitted its report on investigations into the goings-on in the BPL. He was banned for eight years, but that was later reduced to five, with the last two years suspended.