Featured Question:
Question: Last week you answered a question about Sri Lanka's progressive highest Test score - could you also give it for New Zealand?
Spider says: New Zealand's reads thus:
Roger Blunt - 45* vs. England, First Test, 1929/30
Stewie Dempster - 136 vs. England, Second Test, 1929/30
Martin Donnelly - 206 vs. England, 1949
Bert Sutcliffe - 230* vs. India, 1955/56
Graham Dowling - 239 vs. India, 1967/68
Glenn Turner - 259 vs. West Indies, 1972
Martin Crowe - 299 vs. Sri Lanka, 1990/91
Q: Who made Pakistan's first ODI century?
A :Majid Khan stroked 109 off 93 balls in just Pakistan's second-ever ODI,
against England at Trent Bridge in 1974. It would be 7-and-a-half years before the next was made.
Q: And how about New Zealand?
A: Ken Wadsworth scored 104 off 98 balls in 92 minutes against Australia, also in
1974, sharing (with Bevan Congdon) in his country's first ODI hundred partnership as New Zealand chased a total of 265 in a 35-over match.
Q: How many people have kept wicket in Tests as a teenager?
A: There have been, officially, 10 so far, but 4 of these cannot be regarded as certain as they are from Pakistan and Bangladesh where birthdates are (or at least were until recently) not always precisely known - West Indies' Ivan Barrow was the first when he made his Test debut against England in 1930 aged just 19; Hanif Mohammed and Asanka Gurasinhe would later become known as their country's first truly excellent specialist batsmen of their Test era but debuted as teenaged wicketkeepers; and in recent times there has been Adam Parore, Moin Khan, Tatenda Taibu, Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Karthik - 7 of the 10 come from 1985 onwards, including Bangladeshi Mushfiqur Rahim who was officially just 15 when he made his Test debut in 2005 but played initially as a specialist batsman and did not keep wicket until 2007.
Q: Last week you answered a question about the number of times Alec Stewart kept wicket and opened the batting in the same Test; who has done this the most times?
A: Farrokh Engineer opened in 48 innings' of matches in which he was also the designated wicketkeeper - spread over 26 matches in total. This is a total which may well remain a record for as long as Test cricket is played - Imtiaz Ahmed of Pakistan comes next with just 30 over 17 games. Nayan Mongia (India) and John Waite (South Africa) are the only others to have played 10+ Tests as wicketkeeper-openers.
Q: Which wicketkeeper holds the record for most dismissals in an ODI match?
A: The record is six dismissals, which has been achieved on eleven occasions - Adam Gilchrist has performed this feat most times, with six of the eleven, while Alec Stewart, Ridley Jacobs, Mark Boucher, MS Dhoni and Matt Prior all have one each.
Q: What about non-wicketkeepers?
A: Only one fielder has taken five catches in an ODI, Jonty Rhodes against West Indies at Mumbai in
1993.