Stump The Bearded Wonder No 61

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.

Fill in the form on the right-hand side of the page to stump the Bearded Wonder.

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Lee English, UK

Some commentators have been belittling Matthew Hayden's Test record 380 because it was against Zimbabwe.

How does the Zimbabwe bowling attack compare with some of the other attacks that have conceded world record Test scores? If I remember rightly, Lara scored his 375 off Fraser, Caddick and Tufnell, which isn't that bad.

Hayden scored his 380 runs off Streak (187), Blignaut (34), Ervine (6), Price (36) and Gripper (5), whose career aggregates of Test wickets after that innings are shown in brackets. Apart from Streak, who took 0 for 131, that represents an inexperienced attack.

I scored Lara's 375 and can apportion the damage: Fraser - 79 off 132 balls; Caddick - 83 off 125; Lewis - 105 off 128; Tufnell - 68 off 100 and Hick - 40 off 51. Fraser went on to take 177 wickets, Caddick 234, Tufnell 121, Lewis 93 and Hick 23.

Sobers scored his 365 not out off a Pakistan attack which, after Mahmood Hussain had pulled his thigh muscle in the opening over and Nasim-ul-Ghani had fractured his thumb after sending down 15 overs, contained just two uninjured specialist bowlers, Fazal Mahmood (85.2 overs, 2 for 247) and Khan Mohammad (54 overs, 0 for 259).

Hutton's 364 came off Waite (1), McCabe (36), O'Reilly (144), Fleetwood-Smith (42), Barnes (4), Hassett (0) and Bradman (2) - career Test wickets in brackets. A makeshift opening attack relying on two specialist spinners.

O'Reilly took 3 for 178 in 85 overs and Fleetwood-Smith 1 for a record 298 in 87 overs as England amassed 903 for 7 declared. Hammond would not have declared if Bradman had not fractured his ankle bowling his third over!

Hammond's 336 not out (out of 492) was scored off Badcock (16), Dunning (5), Freeman (1), Newman (2), Page (5) and Weir (7).

Bradman's 334 came off Larwood (78), Tate (155), Geary (46), Richard Tyldesley (19), Hammond (83) and Leyland (6).

From those figures, Lee, I would assess Zimbawe's attack as stronger than New Zealand's (Hammond), possibly slightly inferior to those of Australia (Hutton) and Pakistan (Sobers), and considerably weaker than England's (Bradman and Lara).

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Graham Bass, Australia

The most striking aspect of Hayden's record-breaking innings was how quickly it was scored (438 balls, 622 minutes). How do these stats compare with Lara's 375 or some of the other individual Test scores over 300?

Lara batted 768 minutes and faced 536 balls for his 375. Sobers 365* in 614 min (balls not recorded), Hutton 364 in 797 min off 847 balls, Hammond 336* in 318 min (balls not recorded), and Bradman 334 in 383 min off 448 balls.

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Paul Grunill, UK

How many Norfolk-born players have played Test cricket for England?

Just three, Paul. A brace of Edriches - cousins Bill (born Lingwood) and John (Blofield), and Peter Parfitt (Billingford). Martin Saggers (King's Lynn) could join them shortly.

Three other England cricketers have been summoned by the Great Scorer while in Norfolk: 'Nobby' Clark (West Winch), Edward Tylecote (New Hunstanton) and Stan Worthington (King's Lynn).

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Kathy, England

Was Somerset's 377, or the winning margin of 191 runs, v Sussex on 21/9/03 a record? It seems an awful lot of runs for 45 overs.

Somerset's 377 is the highest total for the competition which began life as the 40-over John Player Sunday League in 1969 and subsequently has been subject to numerous changes of sponsor and two of length. Re-branded as the National League in 1999, its innings were increased to 45 overs.

Somerset's margin of victory is not a record. The previous Sunday/National League record of 375 for 4 was set by Surrey against Yorkshire at Scarborough in 1994 in just 40 overs and they won that encounter by 205 runs.

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Tony Borello, Australia

Has any player ever played every minute of a Test match?

Matthew Hayden was the 11th that I have listed and the first to be on the field throughout a Test for Australia.

Only two others have managed this feat in Tests where there has been play on all five days. Both instances were achieved against New Zealand, John Edrich for England at Leeds in 1965 and Brendon Kuruppu, on debut, for Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1986-87.

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Jude, England

Who is the only cricketer to have scored a century against all 18 first-class counties?

Mark Ramprakash became the first to complete this feat when he scored 110 for Surrey against Middlesex, his former county, at Lord's in June 2003. He did so in his first championship innings against the county with which he had been involved for 22 years from the age of nine.

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Lavanya Mohan, India

I once heard that a famous author took a single wicket, that of W.G. Grace, and wrote a poem about it. Who was it? My best guess is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

And a very good guess too, Lavanya. It was indeed the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, who played in ten first-class matches, mainly for the MCC, between 1900 and 1907.

A lower-order right-handed batsman and occasional slow bowler, he scored 231 runs, average 19.25, in 18 innings with a top score of 43. His only first-class wicket came against London County at Crystal Palace on 25 August 1900 when he had WG caught by the wicket-keeper off a skyer for 110.

The verse of his poem which celebrates this eccentric dismissal reads:

Out - beyond question or wrangle!
Homeward he lurched to his lunch!
His bat was tucked up at an angle,
His great shoulders curved to a hunch.

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Nathan, New Zealand

Who was the only English captain to travel to New Zealand but never actually play in a Test match?

The old ones are best, Nathan! I suspect your answer has nothing to do with cricket and involves Yorkshire's most famous seafarer, Captain James Cook, who 'toured' New Zealand three times between 1769 and his murder in 1779.

In 1933 his cottage, built in 1755 at Great Ayton by his father, was dismantled, shipped in 253 cases to Australia and reassembled in Fitzroy Park (close to the Melbourne Cricket Ground) to commemorate Victoria's centennial year.

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Alasdair Mackenzie, UK

Presumptuous though it may seem to question you, Bill, but I'm not sure it's true that Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day for India at Madras in 1981-82 (Stump Bearders 57).

Was there not a third batsman involved? I think Dilip Vengsarkar retired hurt during the course of the day. If I remember rightly, he was hit on the head by Bob Willis. Then again, I might be wrong. All the best.

I am relieved to write that you are wrong, Alasdair. Vengsarkar did indeed duck into a ball from Willis but that was soon after tea on the first day. At stumps India were 178-2 with Viswanath 64 and Yashpal 5. They batted throughout the second day, which ended with india's total 395-2, Viswanath 181 and Yashpal 102.

Their partnership of 316 ended at 11.32 on the third morning and India declared on 481-4 at lunch without Vengsarkar resuming his innings of 71.

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David Caple, England

Has a side ever won a Test by scoring over 300 runs on the last day?

Yes, the most notable instance being at Headingley, on 27 July 1948, when Australia scored 404 for 3 from 114.1 overs to gain an historic victory after England had batted for six minutes on the final morning.

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Paul Avis, Australia

What is the record for the most catches by a player in one innings in first-class cricket?

The most by a fielder is seven, a record jointly held by Micky Stewart (Surrey v Northamptonshire at Northampton in 1957) and Tony Brown (Gloucestershire v Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1966).

The most by a wicket-keeper is eight and there have been four instances: Wally Grout (for Queensland in 1959-60), David East (Essex 1985 - the first eight wickets to fall and on his 26th birthday), Steve Marsh (Kent 1991) and Tahir Rashid (Habib Bank 1992-93).

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Paul Hodges, UK

Has there ever been a wicket-keeping hat-trick in either Test or first-class cricket?

Not in Test matches but there have been three in County Championship matches.

The first instance occurred at Cheltenham in 1893 when William Brain stumped three Somerset batsmen off successive balls from Charlie Townsend. Then, in 1958, Les Jackson's hat-trick victims for Derbyshire v Worcestershire at Kidderminster in 1958 were all caught by George Dawkes.

The most recent instance was achieved in 1986 by Jack Russell off two different bowlers when he held three catches off consecutive balls from Courtney Walsh and Syd Lawrence (2) for Gloucestershire v Surrey at The Oval.

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