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Wednesday, 16 January, 2002, 11:05 GMT
Stump The Bearded Wonder No 19
Bill Frindall, aka the Bearded Wonder, is poised to solve your cricket queries and teasers.
The Test Match Special statistician will be busy answering your questions throughout the English winter.
Here's a selection of the latest answers
Has any batsman ever scored a double century in each innings of any first-class match?
Just one. Arthur Fagg, who played in five Tests (1936 - 1939) and subsequently umpired in another 18, scored 244 and 202 not out for Kent v Essex at Colchester in 1938. His match aggregate of 446 remained the first-class record in England until 1990 when Graham Gooch scored 333 and 123 for England against India at Lord's.
Murthy Dasika, United States
Is there any bowler who took wickets bowling left handed and right handed?
In the same match? Well, I did when I captained an 'England XI' in a Bush Ashes game at Tilpa (official population eight) in remotest New South Wales on 8 January 1983. We played on a matting-on-concrete pitch in an arena of red sand.
As the temperature was 40 C we had drinks breaks every four overs. I opened the bowling right arm medium-fast off a 20-yard run., taking a wicket - and a long break - before returning and taking another wicket bowling slow left-arm!
Fred Trueman could bowl very accurate left-arm spin and Brian Close was ambidexterous, but I don't think either employed it at first-class level. Hanif Mohammed bowled three balls of an over right-handed and the remainder with his left, possibly against Somerset at Taunton in 1967.
Dan Ring, Australia
Where does the term "duck" originate?
It evolved from 'duck's egg', the shape of which bears a close resemblance to the figure '0'. Similarly, the term 'love' in tennis derives from l'oeuf ('the egg').
It is reported that Gavaskar scored heavily against our powerful bowling attack. Please give us his batting record against our team comprising Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft.
Largely because of the Packer schism, that particular quartet appeared together only 11 times (v Australia, England and New Zealand between Dec 1979 and Feb 1982). As none involved India, we will never know how Sunil Gavaskar would have fared against those four world-class fast bowlers, each posing a unique package of problems.
Croft's career had ended by the only time Gavaskar encountered the other three, in the Caribbean in 1982-83. His scores then were 20, 0, 1, 32, 147*, 2 and 19; 221 runs, average 36.83, well below his career average of 51.12.
Holding dismissed him three times and Garner twice. He scored 18 and 1 in the 5th Test when Garner was absent.
In India in 1983-84, he faced Holding in all six Tests and was out to him four times, and Roberts, who never dismissed him, in two Tests. His scores were 0, 7, 121, 15, 90, 1, 12, 3, 0, 20 and, batting number 4, 236* - the record score for India until March 2001 when V.V.S. Laxman scored 281 against Australia.
Has England ever played an official Test in the United States?
The USA has never staged an official Test, although, in 1844, New York was the venue of cricket's first international match (against Canada).
The first touring team actually to reach its objective overseas was the English expedition to Canada and America in 1859. Organised by Fred Lillywhite, it was captained by George Parr and included John Wisden.
Philadelphia staged first-class matches between 1878 and 1913 and toured Britain in 1884, 1889, 1897, 1903 and 1908. Their greatest player was John Barton King (1873-1965), a right arm fast swing bowler who headed the English averages in 1908 with 87 wickets at 11.01 and subsequently took all ten wickets in a first-class match.
May I recommend to you 'A Guide to First Class and Other Important Cricket Matches in North and South America' by CJ Clynes, published by the Association of Cricket Statisticians (3 Radcliffe Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 5FF).
Rupert Barnes, USA
I seem to remember that on the 1985/86 England Tour of the West Indies, Carlton Best hit his first ball of his first Test match for a six off Ian Botham. Am I correct? If so, or not so, has there been any other occurrence of such a feat?
Best hooked his THIRD ball in Test cricket for six - at Kingston, Jamaica, in February 1986. I don't know of any player who has hit their first ball in Test cricket for six.
We know that Kepler Wessels started his Test career in Australia before subsequently leading South Africa. Any other instances like him?
Other players have represented two countries in official Tests: JJ Ferris, WE Midwinter, WL Murdoch, AE Trott and SMJ Woods (Australia/England); F Hearne, and F Mitchell (England/South Africa); Nawab of Pataudi, sr (England/India); AJ Traicos (South Africa/Zimbabwe); SC Guillen (West Indies/New Zealand); Amir Elahi, Gul Mahomed and AH Kardar (India/Pakistan). Wessels is alone in playing for Australia and South Africa.
In the first Test vs New Zealand, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden put on a stand of over 200. The previous Test (vs England at The Oval) was worth over 100. Is this the first time this has taken place in Test cricket?
No, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe made a habit of it. They celebrated their first appearance together (v South Africa at Edgbaston in 1924) with an opening stand of 136. England won by an innings and their next effort was 268 in the 2nd Test at Lord's.
Their first three partnerships in Australia the following winter (1924-25) were 157, 110 and 283. Since you asked this question Hayden and Langer have extended their remarkable sequence beyond even the feats of Hobbs and Sutcliffe with 158 (v Eng), 224, 223, 3, and 1 (v NZ), 80, 8, 202, 7, 219 and 17 (v SA).
Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes are the only other pair to have shared in four stands of 200 or more and that was in the course of 148 partnerships compared with the Australians' eleven.
Rajeev Kumar, UK
What is the highest number of ex-captains playing in a Test team? Does the current team of Zimbabwe hold these records?
It would take several days to check the bulk of the 1585 Test matches played to date but the answer could well be three. England had Michael Atherton, Mark Butcher, and Alec Stewart when Nasser Hussain was captain in three of last season's Ashes Tests, plus Graham Thorpe (past) and Marcus Trescothick (future) captains in Limited-Overs Internationals.
Zimbabwe's highest clutch of former Test captains in one match is only two. Andy Flower and Heath Streak appeared in the solitary matches under the respective captaincies of Brian Murphy and Stuart Carlisle in the two-match rubber in Bangladesh in November.
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