Alastair Cook was out in the nervous 9990s. Has anyone else suffered this fate in Tests? asked Peter Sumpter from England
In the second Test against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street, Alastair Cook was dismissed just five short of becoming the 12th batsman to complete 10,000 runs in Tests. Of the others, two of them were also briefly stranded in the 9990s. Brian Lara was actually out twice there: his dismissal for 13 by Ashley Giles at Edgbaston in 2004 left him with 9993 runs, then he was bowled by Andrew Flintoff for a duck in the next match, at Old Trafford. Flintoff got him again in the second innings, fourth ball - but by then Lara had collected the seven runs he needed to reach five figures overall. The other one was Mahela Jayawardene, who was run out going for the vital single, against South Africa in Centurion in December 2011. He was briefly stranded on 9999, but completed 10,000 runs on Boxing Day in Durban.
Four Sri Lankans conceded more than 100 runs at Chester-le-Street, yet England declared with less than 500 on the board. Was this the lowest total to feature four bowling centurions? asked James Darvill from England
England's 498 in Chester-le-Street included individual bowling centuries for Shaminda Eranga, Suranga Lakmal, Nuwan Pradeep and Rangana Herath. Rather surprisingly, perhaps, there have been four lower totals to feature four bowling tons, the lowest of all being New Zealand's 452 for 9 declared against Zimbabwe in Harare in 2005: apart from one over from Brendan Taylor, the only bowlers used were Heath Streak (2 for 102), Blessing Mahwire (3 for 115), Chris Mpofu (2 for 100) and Graeme Cremer (1 for113). The following innings, all against England, also featured four bowlers conceding 100 or more: India's 454 at Lord's in 1990, Australia's 492 in Brisbane in 2002-03, and New Zealand's 496 for 9 declared at Old Trafford in 1999. The lowest innings total to include five bowling centuries is Australia's 607 for 6 declared against New Zealand in Brisbane in 1993-94.
Dasun Shanaka took two Test wickets before conceding a run. Has anyone else done this? asked Ashwin de Silva from Sri Lanka
Dasun Shanaka's fine opening spell - he dismissed Alastair Cook and Nick Compton in the first Test at Headingley - made him only the third bowler in Test history to take two wickets before conceding a run. Richard Johnson also did this, on debut for England against Zimbabwe in Chester-le-Street in 2003: he trapped Mark Vermeulen lbw with his third ball, and Stuart Carlisle with his fourth. (The only other bowler to take two wickets in his first over in Tests is Graeme Swann, for England against India in Chennai in 2008-09, but he conceded some ruins as well.) Recent research by the Australian statistician Charles Davis produced the other case of a bowler starting with 2 for 0: Australia's Tom Horan, playing in his tenth Test but bowling for the first time, dismissed Walter Read with his first ball in Sydney in 1882-83, and added the wicket of Dick Barlow before anyone scored a run off him. After his initial strikes Shanaka conceded a run, but then dismissed Joe Root, so had 3 for 1 - which I believe is a record start by anyone.
Who was the first to play 50 Tests? And 100, and 150? asked Subhan Bhatia from Canada
The first man to reach a half-century of Tests was the durable Australian Syd Gregory, who made his debut in 1890. In 1909, on the seventh of his eight Test-playing tours of England, he made it to 50. The first to clock up a century of caps was Colin Cowdrey, who marked his 100th Test - for England against Australia at Edgbaston in 1968 - with a hundred with the bat. The first to 150 caps was Allan Border, in 1993-94; and of course the first - and so far only - man to reach 200 was Sachin Tendulkar, in 2013-14.
Have England ever fielded a Test team of players from 11 different counties? asked Shalin Shah from India
As far as I can see this has occurred only four times in England's 971 Tests to date. The first occasion was against South Africa in Durban in 1930-31, and it happened again in the famous home series against West Indies in 1950, at Trent Bridge. Then, with largely the same set of players, 11 different counties were represented against Pakistan at Lord's in 1992, and also against India in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1992-93. The varied approach doesn't seem to produce very good results: after drawing the first match, which was badly affected by rain, England lost the other three.
Who has reached 150 most often in one-day internationals? asked Radhaa Gupta from India
There have now been 90 individual scores of 150 or more in one-day internationals, the first of them by Glenn Turner during the 1975 World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar managed five of them, including the format's first double-century, while Chris Gayle, Sanath Jayasuriya and Rohit Sharma have all scored four each. Hashim Amla, who currently boasts an ODI batting average of 52, has reached 150 three times, as have Tillakaratne Dilshan, Brian Lara, Viv Richards and Andrew Strauss.
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