An Iron man is an athlete of unusual physical endurance. This durability is generally measured by an athlete's ability to play without missing a game and/or start for an extended period of time, sometimes, even for an entire career. Some of the more notable athletes with significant streaks in sports history includes baseball's Cal Ripken, Jr., American football's Brett Favre, basketball's A. C. Green, ice hockey's Doug Jarvis, and stock car racing's Jeff Gordon.
Background
In 1941, endurance by an athlete was recognized as an "iron man" by the press when Lou Gehrig had a streak of 2,130 consecutive games end when he had asked the manager to take him out of the line up due to his fading abilities. Gehrig had been a consistent performer on the field having attained a batting average of at least .300 throughout his career until the previous season when he had fallen to .295. A common characteristic of an iron man is the ability to play through injury. Gehrig displayed this trait in 1934 when his streak was in jeopardy of being snapped at 1,427 games. He had been injured during a game and was pulled from the lineup. The next day, after receiving heat treatments and massages for a stiff back, he was able to get a hit before leaving the contest. Gehrig's record stood for 62 years until surpassed by Cal Ripken Jr. in 1995. After Ripken's record-breaking streak garnered attention from the media, the NBA's A.C. Green received attention for his own streak of consecutive games played in 1997 as he was approaching Randy Smith's record. Then in 1999, Brett Favre set the record for consecutive starts by a quarterback when he started his 117th consecutive game surpassing the mark established by Ron Jaworski. In 2009, Favre would surpass Jim Marshall's starts streak at any position with his 271st consecutive start.
In international cricket, because players can be taken out of the squad due to injuries, bad discipline, poor form, or even illegal bowling action or unfavourable conditions against certain bowlers, especially spin bowlers, even for Shane Warne or Muttiah Muralitharan, so it was remarkable that players to start more the 90 test matches are batsmen.
In 20 February 2016, Brendon McCullum would finish his international career, having started all 101 tests, which is remarkable not only because he has never been dropped due to poor form or poor health (though he has given up wicketkeeping due to back and knee issues), but because New Zealand has a far leaner schedule compared to Australia and England, even when he is nowhere near Allan Border's actual record of 153, but it wasn't throughout his own career. Also, since Test and limited-overs cricket would also feature different players, the consecutive starts streak would be counted separately. Brendon McCullum also started 122 consecutive One-Day Internationals from 2004-2010, the same as Mahela Jayawardene of India with 122 each, but the record is held by Sachin Tendulkar, when his streak was snapped due to injury.
The iron man streak can also be ended due to ill discipline. On November 3, 2015, Matt Kenseth was suspended after he caused a crash that ended Joey Logano's race, and NASCAR handed a 2-race suspension, ending his streak at 571 as an active pursuant.