da wazamba： The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket

da realsbet： Steven Lynch10-Jul-2006The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

Brearley: great captain, and a bit of a tortoise with the bat © AFP
Who is the most boring ODI batsman ever – I mean the one with theslowest strike rate? asked Samuel Yoganathan
Given a minimum of 20 innings, the slowest batsman around in ODIs is theWest Indian fast bowler ReonKing, whose 65 runs came at a rate of 32.02 per 100 balls. Allan Donald is next (34.05).The first ten names on the list are all specialist bowlers, but in 11thplace is David Obuya, theKenyan wicketkeeper/batsman (45.41), just ahead of England’s Mike Brearley (45.53). Otherspecialist batsmen who scored their ODI runs at less than 50 per 100balls are Zimbabwe’s Mark Dekker (47.49), Sidath Wettimuny of Sri Lanka(48.04), Australia’s John Dyson (48.62), Chris Tavaré of England (48.95)and the New Zealander Bruce Edgar (49.23).I was just looking at my first-class record, and wondered if anyonehad played more than 13 first-class games without scoring a run, as Imanaged?! asked John Howarth
Well, it’s nice to get a question from the horse’s mouth, as it were -John Howarth played 13matches for Nottinghamshire as a fast-medium bowler in 1966 and 1967,taking 19 wickets, but never once managed a run, in seven innings(average: 0.00). This appears to be the most first-class matches in acareer by anyone, anywhere, who failed to make a run, although Seymour Clark, a wicketkeeperand famously inept batsman, had more innings without scoring – nine infive matches for Somerset in 1930.Which bowler has dismissed the most batsmen for ducks in the sameTest innings? asked Thomas Woods from New Zealand
There have been five instances of a bowler inflicting five ducks in thesame Test innings. The first was in 1947-48, when Ray Lindwall’s 7 for38 for Australia against India at Adelaide included five batsmen who failed to score. The nextinstance was also in Australia, at Melbourne in 1978-79, when Sarfraz Nawaz polished off theAussies with a spell of 7 for 1 – 9 for 86 in all – including fiveducks. The most recent instance came in 2002-03, at Dhaka, when Jermaine Lawson dismissed five batsmen for 0in the course of taking 6 for 3 for West Indies against Bangladesh.How often have both wicketkeepers scored hundreds, in Tests andODIs? asked Samit Patel from Calcutta
Rather surprisingly, it’s only happened twice – once in each format -and India have been involved both times. The Test instance was in2001-02, in Antigua: Ajay Ratra scored 115 not out forIndia, and Ridley Jacobs replied with 118 for West Indies. The ODIoccurrence was more recent – at Jaipur in October 2005 Kumar Sangakkara batted through SriLanka’s innings for 138 not out, but was trumped by Mahendra SinghDhoni’s amazing blitz for India. His unbeaten 183 included 120 inboundaries, a record at the time (since surpassed by Herschelle Gibbs).What’s the lowest total in Test history that led to an inningsvictory? asked Mahesh Singham from Delhi
There have been three totals of less than 200 that were sufficient toset up an innings victory in a Test. In the fifth Test at Melbourne in 1931-32 Australia made only 153 – but still won byan innings, as they bowled South Africa out for 36 and 45, with the49-year-old left-arm spinner Bert Ironmonger taking 11for 24 in the match. In what turned out to be a two-day Test atOld Trafford in 1888, England were bowled out for 172, which provedmore than enough as they then shot Australia out for 81 and 70. And atWellington in 1945-46 Australia declared at 199 for 8: they’dalready bowled New Zealand out for 42, and then rolled them over againfor 54. That was the first Test played between the two sides – and therewasn’t another one for almost 28 years.I’m sitting here watching Wimbledon, and was wondering if any Testcricketers have played there? asked Jeremy Browne fromStreatham
One I know of is “Buster” Farrer, theBorder batsman who played five Tests for South Africa in the 1960s.Before that he played at Wimbledon, with limited success. A later SouthAfrican batsman, KeplerWessels, was a fine tennis player in his youth – he beat JohanKriek, who later won the Australian Open, in age-group tennis – butWessels later concentrated on cricket. Two Test players – India’s Cotar Ramaswami and Ralph Legall of West Indies -have also played in the Davis Cup, tennis’s international competition(by coincidence Ramaswami was the Indian tour manager in the Caribbeanin 1952-53, when Legall made his Test appearances), but I don’t thinkeither of them ever played at Wimbledon. One other oddity is that whenVirginia Wade, who went on to win the women’s title in 1977, firstplayed at Wimbledon in 1962, her first opponent was married to afuture Test cricketer at the time – Pat Stewart, Mrs John Edrich.