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This article was first published 12 years ago

The Expert replies: Which family has given most brothers to Test cricket?

Last updated on: December 17, 2011 10:20 IST

Image: Mushtaq Mohammad
Photographs: Getty Images

If you have a question relating to cricket and did not know who to ask, bounce them off to Rajneesh Gupta. Each week he will pick questions readers send him and provide answers. Your queries should be addressed to: Ask Rajneesh on Facebook or askrajneesh@rediffmail.com

Rajneesh's answers some questions he received from readers last week:

Which family has delivered the most number of Test players as brothers? - Soumya Batabyal

This distinction goes to Pakistan's Mohammad family. Four of them -- Hanif, Mushtaq, Sadiq and Wazir -- went on to represent Pakistan in Test cricket. Another brother -- Raees -- was unlucky to miss out, although he played first-class cricket for 15 years.

There are seven other instances of three brothers playing Test cricket. They are listed hereunder (in chronological order):

GRACE - Edward, WG & Frederick (England)

HEARNE - Frank, Alec & George (England)

TANCRED - Augustus, Vincent & Louis (South Africa)

CHAPPELL - Ian, Greig & Trevor (Australia)

RANATUNGA - Dammika, Arjuna & Sanjeeva (Sri Lanka)

ELAHI - Manzoor, Zahoor & Salim (Pakistan)

AKMAL - Kamran, Adnan & Umar (Pakistan)

Note:

Frank Hearne also played for South Africa.

All three Grace brothers played against England at the Oval in 1880.

All Hearne brothers played in the match between South Africa and England at Cape Town in 1891-92 (Alec and George for Engl#8743 and Frank for South Africa).

Hanif, Mushtaq and Sadiq played together against New Zealand at Karachi in 1969-70.

Previous column:

Ask the Expert: How many times was Gavaskar LBW in Tests?

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Tendulkar has played Tests with/against 567 players

Image: Sachin Tendulkar

How many players have played with or against Sachin Tendulkar in his career in Tests and ODIs? Please give a break-up of Indians and the rest. - Ramakrishnan

In Test cricket, Tendulkar has played with/against 567 players, which includes 103 Indians. The break-up from other countries is: 70 from England, 61 from Australia, 61 from New Zealand, 54 from Sri Lanka,50 from Pakistan, 50 from South Africa, 44 from West Indies,38 from Zimbabwe and 36 from Bangladesh.

In ODIs, Tendulkar has played with/against 842 players. The tally includes 119 Indian and 723 overseas players. The list of overseas players consists of 79 players from England, 76 from Pakistan, 76 from Sri Lanka, 72 from Australia, 72 from West Indies, 69 from South Africa, 67 from New Zealand, 54 from Bangladesh, 53 from Zimbabwe, 23 from Kenya, 22 from UAE, 21 from Netherlands, 17 from Ireland, 11 from Bermuda and 11 from Namibia.

Ashwin one of five to score hundred and take five wkts in debut series

Image: R Ashwin

R Ashwin scored a hundred and took a five-for in his debut Test series. How many cricketers have done this before him? - Arjun Budhraja

Ravichandran Ashwin had a dream Test debut, as he returned figures of 3 for 81 and 6 for 47 in the Delhi Test against the West Indies. He then scored 103 in the first innings of the third Test at Mumbai, while batting at number 8.

Ashwin is one of the five cricketers who have performed the feat of scoring a hundred and taking a five-for in their debut Test series. The first to achieve the feat was England's Len Braund. Making his Test debut against Australia at Sydney in 1901-02, Braund returned figures of 5 for 61 in the second innings. He followed it up with a maiden Test hundred (103) in the third match of the series at Adelaide.

Australia's Jack Gregory was the second player to accomplish the feat. He made his Test debut against England in 1920-21. In his only second Test at Melbourne, Gregory scored 100 off just 115 balls while batting at # 9. He then took 7 wickets in England's first innings of the same Test. New Zealand's Bruce Taylor was the third player to shine with bat and ball in his debut series. Taylor, in fact, scored his hundred and took his five-for on Test debut – a feat unparalleled in Test chronicles - versus India at Calcutta in 1964-65.

Taylor scored 106 and then followed it up with figures of 5-86 in India's first innings.

Australia's Michael Clarke was the last man before Ashwin to perform the all-round feat in the debut series. Clarke scored 151 on his Test debut against India at Bangalore in 2004-05 and took six for 9 runs in the second innings of Mumbai Test of the same series.

Most balls faced by players while carrying the bat


Can you please provide a list of batsman who have carried their bat in a complete ODI innings (played full 50 overs) with details of balls faced and 4s & 6s hit? - Sanjeev Dhingra

There are more than 50 instances of a batsman opening the innings and remaining unbeaten after playing full 50 overs or more. It is not possible to give the complete list here. However, the players who faced most balls while carrying the bat are listed below:

Batsman

Score

Balls

4s/ 6s

Vs

Venue

Date

GM Turner (NZ)

171

201

16/2

East Africa

Edgbaston

07-06-1975+

SM Gavaskar (Ind)

36

174

1/0

England

Lord's

07-06-1975+

H Masakadza (Zim)

178

167

17/4

Kenya

Harare

18-10-2009

ML Hayden (Aus)

181

166

11/10

New Zealand

Hamilton

20-02-2007

DL Haynes (WI)

138

164

12/2

England

Gwalior

27-10-1989

GM Wood (Aus)

114

165

10/1

England

Lord's

03-06-1985#

Shahriar Nafees (Ban)

123

161

17/1

Zimbabwe

Jaipur

13-10-2006

SC Ganguly (Ind)

130

160

5/2

Sri Lanka

Nagpur

22-03-1999

+ batted for full 60 overs

# batted for full 55 overs

Solkar's catch-per-Test ratio is best

Image: Eknath Solkar
Photographs: Getty Images

As far as I know, Eknath Solkar had made a catching record when he used to field at forward short-leg. The record was 25 Tests and 52 catches, which is more than two catches per Test. Has this record been broken? If so, by who? - Bharat Talwar

Eknath Solkar actually took 53 catches in 27 Tests, which gives a figure of 1.96 catches per Test. Among all players who have taken at least 50 catches in the field, Solkar's catch per match ratio is the best. New Zealand's Ross Taylor comes next with 1.82 (60 catches in 33 Tests), followed by Australia's Bob Simpson (1.77; 110 in 62), New Zealand's Bryan Young (1.54; 54 in 35), Stephen Fleming (1.54; 171 in 111), Australia's Mark Taylor (1.51; 157 in 104) and England's Tony Greig (1.50 ; 87 in 58).

After how many years of starting to play Test cricket did international teams get their first win - Khursheed Zamir

The following table gives details of each Test-playing country's maiden wins:

Country

Versus

Venue

Date

Margin of victory

Year

Test

Australia

England

Melbourne

19 March,1877

45 runs

1st

1st

England

Australia

Melbourne

4 April,1877

4 wickets

1st

2nd

South Africa

England

Johannesburg

4 January,1906

1 wicket

17th

12th

West Indies

England

Georgetown

26 February,1930

289 runs

2nd

6th

New Zealand

West Indies

Auckland

13 March,1956

190 runs

27th

45th

India

England

Madras

10 February,1952

Inns & 8 runs

20th

25th

Pakistan

India

Lucknow

26 October,1952

Inns & 43 runs

1st

2nd

Sri Lanka

India

Colombo (PSS)

11 September,1985

149 runs

4th

14th

Zimbabwe

Pakistan

Harare

5 February,1995

Inns & 64 runs

3rd

11th

Bangladesh

Zimbabwe

Chittagong

10 January,2005

226 runs

5th

35th

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Dravid has the highest percentage of wins

Image: Rahul Dravid
Photographs: Getty Images
Which Indian has the highest percentage of wins when he goes on to score a century? Sunny, Vengsarkar, Vishy, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman? or someone else? To clarify, if Sunny has scored 34 centuries, how many of them resulted in India winning? - Abhay Not only among the players mentioned by you, but among all Indian players who have scored 10 Test hundreds or more, Rahul Dravid has the highest percentage of wins, as is clear from the following table:

Player

Test 100s

100s in Won matches

%

Rahul Dravid

36

15

41.67

VVS Laxman

17

7

41.18

Sachin Tendulkar

51

20

39.22

Gundappa Viswanath

14

4

28.57

Dilip Vengsarkar

17

4

23.53

Sunil Gavaskar

34

6

17.65

It may be noted here that although 15 of Dravid's 36 hundreds came in won matches for India, the actual number of wins is 14. This is because two hundreds came in the same match -- versus Pakistan at Calcutta in 2007-08. If we consider this as one instance, then Dravid's win-percentage becomes 38.88 and he comes down to third in the above list behind Laxman and Tendulkar. There have been some better performances than Dravid or Laxman (depending upon how you interpret the figures) if we remove the qualification limit of 10 hundreds. Seven Indian batsmen have scored only one hundred in their Test career, which came in a winning cause. They are: Ajit Wadekar, Surinder Amarnath, Nayan Mongia, Sanjay Bangar, Deep Dasgupta, Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay. Syed Kirmani scored two Test hundreds and India won both the Tests. Three of Vinod Kambli's four hundreds came in Tests won by India (won%-80.00), whereas three of five hundreds scored by MS Dhoni came in won Tests for India (won%-60.00).

Navjot Sidhu and Gautam Gambhir have nine Test hundreds against their name, out of which four were for the winning cause (won%-44.44).

Three bowlers have performed the 'trick' in first Test

Image: Damien Fleming
Photographs: Getty Images

Which bowler is the quickest in terms of Tests to get a hat-trick? What is the similar stat for ODIs and T20Is - Manoj Singh

Three bowlers have taken a hat-trick in their very first Test. They are: England's Maurice Allom (v New Zealand, Christchurch, 1929-30), New Zealand's Peter Petherick (v Pakistan, Lahore, 1976-77) and Australia's Damien Fleming (v Pakistan, Rawalpindi, 1994-95). Sri Lanka's Nuwan Zoysa (v Zimbabwe,Harare,1999-00) took a hat-trick off his first three balls in the match, whereas India's Irfan Pathan (v Pakistan, Karachi, 2005-06) took a hat-trick off last three balls of his first over. Zoysa's over was the second over of the match, while Irfan's over was also the first over of the match.

Pakistan's Jalaluddin is the quickest to claim a hat-trick in One-Day Internationals. He did so in only his second match (v Australia, Hyderabad, 1982-83). This, incidentally, was the first hat-tricks in this format of the game.

Australia's Anthony Stuart (v Pakistan, Melbourne, 1996-97) and Pakistan's Mohammad Sami (v West Indies, Sharjah, 2001-02) did so in their third and sixth matches respectively. Chaminda Vaas holds the record of being the quickest in terms of balls bowled in a match. In 2003 World Cup Vaas decimated Bangladesh with figures of 6 for 25, which also included a hat-trick completed off the first three balls of the match.

Three hat-tricks have been recorded in Twenty20 internationals so far. Australia's Brett Lee holds the record of being the quickest in terms of matches, doing so in his sixth match (v Bangladesh, Cape Town, 2007-08). New Zealand's Tim Southee and Jacob Oram performed the hat-trick in their 17th and 19th matches respectively.