#ShankarFacts: The Secret Life of Adrian Shankar

by Devanshu Mehta

A couple of days ago, I began a new Twitter hashtag, #ShankarFacts, to record the mythical, wondrous life of Adrian Shankar.

Who is Adrian Shankar, you ask? He’s a crafty young man who fooled two English counties about his age and background to get in to their teams.

So, taking inspiration from Chuck Norris Facts, here are the top #ShankarFacts that I created on Twitter so far:

  1. Adrian Shankar has batted at all eleven positions. In the same match.
  2. Adrian Shankar said WG Grace was the best batsman he ever played with.
  3. When Adrian Shankar bowls off spin, he has a doosra (2nd), teesra (3rd) and a unteesva (29th).
  4. Adrian Shankar fixes matches. He takes money to win.
  5. Sachin Tendulkar won the World Cup for Adrian Shankar. #forAdrian 
  6. Whichever end Adrian Shankar bowls from is called the Adrian Shankar End. 
  7. When Adrian Shankar bowls leg spin, he has an altavisty and a yahooey, in addition to his googley. 
  8. Adrian Shankar once hit 8 sixes in an over. 
  9. Adrian Shankar was the first wicketkeeper-bowler to captain a side.
  10. When Adrian Shankar hits the ball, it stays hit. #LikeATracerBullet
  11. Adrian Shankar’s wicket is equivalent to a collapse.
And my favorite one that was not written by me, from Howard Gadsby (@sir_velo on Twitter):
@AdrianShankar is a better sitar player than his uncle Ravi #ShankarFacts
And here’s the ultimate, true Adrian Shankar fact from his Lancashire team-mate, Luke Sutton:

Various rumours kept coming back that he was actually three years older than he stated. [He said] straight to my face without a shadow of doubt, was that he had been on a life support machine for the first three years of his life and was therefore physically three years younger than he should be. I challenged him on this and said that surely he grew during the three years on the life support machine. His simply replied ‘No I didn’t’ and walked off.

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