It is always fun to play with your siblings. Mostly players start with playing in the backyards and streets with siblings and friends. It is always a treasured moment when some of your companions from your younger days are also sharing the pitch with you during national duty. From the very first test match where Australian captain Dave Gregory also had his brother Edward ‘Ned’ Gregory playing alongside him, there are quite a few instances of siblings playing the game either together or separately.
But the uniqueness comes when we consider the twins. Twins start their life together and share many things on their way. Even on the cricket field also there are quite a few renowned twins. Those most well known are obviously the Waugh twins, both Steve and Mark are legends in their won right and both won host of laurels for Australia and themselves. But they are not the first twins to play test cricket together. That honour goes to Rose and Elizabeth Signal, born on this day 57 years back in New Zealand.
On 4th May 1962, the signals had the twin babies Rose and Liz. They started playing cricket together and made their international debut together in 1984 in a test match for New Zealand against England at Leeds. The performances were not eye-catching as Rose scored zero and an unbeaten eight in two innings. Liz, on the other hand did not bat in the first innings and scored only one run in the second innings. Both of them also bowled without a success in that test match which ended in a draw.
For Rose, that was the only opportunity to play test cricket for her country and later she played six ODIs for them. Liz had a more successful career, played six tests and 19 ODIs for New Zealand and even scored a test fifty.
However, they will always remain in the history book of test cricket as the first twins. Along with these two, Waugh’s Hamish and James Marshall from New Zealand, Alex and Kate Blackwell from Australia and Kyshona and Kycia Knight from West Indies were the other pairs of twins playing for their national team successfully.
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