Ask The Spider #87

Last week you answered a question about Sri Lanka’s progressive highest Test score – could you also give it for New Zealand?

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

Who made Pakistan’s first ODI century?

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.

And how about New Zealand?

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.

How many people have kept wicket in Tests as a teenager?

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.

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?

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.

Which wicketkeeper holds the record for most dismissals in an ODI match?

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.

What about non-wicketkeepers?

Only one fielder has taken five catches in an ODI, Jonty Rhodes against West Indies at Mumbai in 1993.