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Q: Bill, I'm interested to know the lowest score which has never been posted by any individual playing Test cricket. If I had to guess, I'd say it was somewhere in the high 200s. Possibly more difficult to answer, but do you know the answer to the same question for first-class cricket?
Phil

Bearders' Answer: In Test matches the answer is much lower than you expected. Batsmen have yet to register three scores below 250: 229, 238 and 245.
As you would expect when assessing the scores in nearly 50,000 matches compared with just 1,841 Tests, the lowest individual score at first-class level is higher: 289. A surprising omission considering the next absentees are 326, 327 and 328.

Q: I think I was very lucky to witness the most unique hat-trick in Test cricket: Merv Hughes against West Indies in about 1988 in Perth. 3 wickets - 3 different overs - 2 innings, I think about 3 days apart. I am sure you will know the exact details. Obviously the uniqueness of this is only my opinion, but I would be pleased to hear of any better.
Adam Lloyd

Bearders' Answer: The Hughes hat-trick remains the most convoluted in Test cricket because it involved three separate overs in two innings. Bowling for Australia against West Indies in the Second Test at Perth in December 1988, he ended the first innings (on 3 December) by dismissing Curtly Ambrose with the last ball of his 36th over and Patrick Patterson with the first of his 37th. He then trapped Gordon Greenidge lbw with the first ball of their second innings (on 4 December). It was the 19th hat-trick in Tests, the first by an Australian for 31 years and only second to be taken over two innings following the one by Courtney Walsh in the previous Test.

Q: You kindly answered a question for me last year and I am hoping you could do so again. If a bowler bowls a legal delivery, the batsman hits the ball and the bowler takes the catch for a caught and bowled, can the bowler then, if the non-facing batsman is out of his crease, run out the non-facing batsman, taking two wickets with one delivery? Now, there is 5 Euro resting on your answer to this one, so feel free to agree with me and say no, it's not allowed!
Mike Kimber

Bearders' Answer: You are richer by five Euros, Mike. Cricket does not deal in double strikes! Once a batsman is out, the ball is dead - Law 23 (a) (iii). The fielding side can dismiss only one batsman from any one delivery.

Q: It is relatively unusual for a team's innings to have all 11 players reaching double figures. My question is: has there ever been a first-class game in which all 22 players in the match reached double figures in both innings?
John Martin

Bearders' Answer: No. There has not even been any instance at first-class level of all 22 players scoring ten or more in ONE of their two innings.

Q: A question that has been puzzling the local team I play for regarding run outs. When the stumps have been broken, the bails removed by a direct hit and the batsmen are in their ground, if they choose to run again due to the deflected ball, then, for a run out at the same end, one stump has to be lifted out of the ground with the ball in hand. What happens if, when the ball initially hits the stumps, only one bail is dislodged, leaving the second bail still perched on top of its two stumps? Would the fielding team have to break the stumps again or lift the stump out of the ground for the run out to be effective?
James Pickering

Bearders' Answer: If a bail is perched on top of the stumps it has not been completely removed. Therefore, according to Law 28 (1) (b), the wicket is not broken. The fielding team would have only to remove that bail and not lift a stump to accomplish a run out.

Q: When was the last time an England side fielded three Hampshire players? Has it ever happened?
Ralph Brooker

Bearders' Answer: Yes, six times. The last England team to include three current Hampshire players was at Kingsmead, Durban, in February 1923. That ended a sequence of those six instances in the space of seven Test matches; two against Australia (Old Trafford and The Oval) in 1921 and four out of five in South Africa in 1922-23. The Ashes trio comprised George Brown and Phil Mead (who both featured in all six instances), and the Honourable Lionel Tennyson (the last two of his nine England appearances). Alexander (‘Alec’) Kennedy was the third Hampshire man in South Africa.

Q: The Surrey v Sussex match ended in a draw without a ball being bowled last week with the teams being awarded 4 points each. Could the captains not have agreed to declare each innings closed at 0-0 and then tie the match, receiving 7 points each?
Andy

Bearders' Answer: Play has to have started for an innings to be declared closed. The only possible strategy would be for the captains to forfeit their innings but while they can forfeit either innings they cannot forfeit both - Law 14 (2). The ECB regulations governing the County Championship decree that ‘if, due to weather conditions play has started when less than eight hours playing time remains, the first innings of each side shall automatically be forfeited and a one innings match played.’

Q: When Andrew Flintoff took 5 for 56 in his last limited-overs international, those figures became his "best bowling," superseding the 4-14 figures which had previously been his best. My question is, why is this stat called "best" bowling and not "most wickets" or something? I'm sure most captains would rather have 4-14 than 5-56. If Steve Harmison took, say, 8-120 in an innings, would this really be "better" than 7-12?
Charles Lane

Bearders' Answer: A very good point, Charles. Tradition has overcome mathematical logic with the number of wickets taking precedence regardless of the tally of runs conceded.

Q: In an "Ask Bearders" from a few years ago, you mentioned that if a batsman is out stumped off a wide, the run is added to the batting team’s score while they also lose a wicket. What happens in a one-day situation if Team A score 240 off the allotted overs, and Team B are 240-9 when the last batsman is stumped off a wide? Does Team B win and, if so, how is the result recorded? Theoretically, Team B would be all out for 241 chasing 240.
Marc J

Bearders' Answer: A great scenario, Marc. Law 25 (8) – Stumped off a Wide - decrees that the wide and its penalty run stand regardless of the batsman being stumped. Team B’s total is therefore 241 and they have won the match. Law 21 (6) states ‘that as soon as a result is reached the match is at an end. Nothing that happens thereafter shall be regarded as part of it.’ Therefore Team B would win by one wicket.

Q: You often refer to a Test series as a 'rubber'. Can you tell me what the origin of this terminology is?
Jon Dunster

Bearders' Answer: Until fairly recently, a set of matches within a season was always referred to as a ‘rubber’, while the term ‘series’ signified the entire list of Tests between two countries played over many years. ‘Rubber’ has denoted a set of games in whist, backgammon and bowls for four centuries. As it originally denoted the deciding game of a set of three or five, it referred to the game that eliminated – or rubbed out – one of the contestants.

Q: Please refresh my memory! I was four when I went to my first Test match - at Headingley in 1930. My Father, Mother and brother took me and all have since died. It was the second day. In my memory, Bradman was not out, having scored 304 on the first day. Soon after play started, (perhaps in the first over) he was clean bowled by Bill Bowes and some time later there was a cloudburst over the ground and play was either washed out for the day or for the rest of the match. Which was it, please, and is it my imagination or did the above happen as my fading memory would have me believe?
William Hullah

Bearders' Answer: I think you have confused the 1930 and 1934 four-day Headingley Tests, probably because The Don scored a triple century in each of them (334 and 304) and rain helped England to draw both games.
In 1930 Bradman scored 309 on the first day (105, 115 and 89 in the three sessions), before being caught at the wicket off Maurice Tate after adding another 25 runs in 39 minutes. Australia made 566 and reduced England to 212-5 at stumps on the second day. Rain delayed play until 5.30 on the third evening and England (391 and 95-3) escaped with a draw.
Four years later Australia were 39-3 in reply to England’s 200 all out at stumps on the first day. Bradman began his innings with boundaries off the first two balls next day and had scored 271 (including two of the six sixes he hit in his entire Test career) out of 494-4 at stumps. He added 33 in 50 minutes on the third morning before being bowled by Bill Bowes, who took 6 for 142 in Australia’s 584 all out. England were 188-4 at the close and had moved to 229-6 on the final morning, still 155 behind, when a storm ended the match.

Q: Has any number eleven batsman ever scored a hundred in first-class cricket and what is the record partnership for the last wicket with number ten and eleven batsmen in first-class cricket?
Duncan Green

Bearders' Answer: Number 11 batsmen have scored ten hundreds in first-class cricket, with Peter Smith’s 163 for Essex v Derbyshire at Chesterfield in 1947 the highest by 37 runs.
The highest first-class tenth-wicket stand between numbers 10 and 11 is 249 in 190 minutes between Chandra Sarwate and ‘Shute’ Banerjee for the 1946 Indians v Surrey at The Oval.