And was South Africa’s and the West Indies’ match total of 517 a T20I record?
Was the South Africa-West Indies match total from the other day a T20I record? asking South African Mason McKillop
at addition to breaking the 489 mark set by West Indies (245 for 6) and India (244 for 4) at Lauderhill, USA, in 2016, the match total of 517 runs between South Africa (259 for 4) and West Indies (258 for 5) in Centurion over the weekend was also a record for any senior Twenty20 match.
The previous record was only set two weeks prior, when Multan Sultans (262 for 3) and Quetta Gladiators (253 for 8) in Rawalpindi’s PSL match finished with an aggregate score of 515. A CSA T20 encounter in October 2022 in Potchefstroom, South Africa, between Titans (271 for 3) and Knights (230 for 9) was the only other T20 match to yield more than 500 runs.
In the ODIs against Australia, Suryakumar Yadav was removed from the game on the first ball three times. Has this been done before by anyone? questioned Trinidad and Tobago’s Dinesh Manraj (among others)
The first-ball ducks in Mumbai (lbw to Mitchell Starc), Visakhapatnam (lbw Starc again), and Chennai (bowled by Ashton Agar) during Suryakumar Yadav’s nightmare in the one-day series against Australia were the first of their kind in a bilateral one-day series.
Four other times, a batter had achieved three consecutive golden ducks against different opposition: Pramodya Wickramasinghe of Sri Lanka (1998), Lasith Malinga of Kenya (2009), Shem Ngoche of Kenya during the 2011 World Cup, and Scotland’s Hamza Tahir in 2022. In 2013, Malinga had another three-inning stretch during which he was twice out on the first ball and was also ran out without facing.
Was the lowest score by a batsman in a first-class match Ashley Chandrasinghe’s 46 in the Sheffield Shield final? asked Indian Arsiwala Husein
Ashley Chandrasinghe, the Victorian opener, batted for 46 during their first innings of 195 in Perth last week during the Sheffield Shield final. This is far from the lowest score ever achieved by a batsman: in a match between the Gentlemen of Kent and the Gentlemen of England in Canterbury in 1852, John Fagge scored just 4 out of a possible 90. Thirty years later, at Trent Bridge, Lancashire’s Dick Barlow, a ten-time serial bat-carrier (four in 1882 alone), was unbeaten with five out of 69 total against Nottinghamshire.
Alec Bannerman’s 7 (out of 60) for the tourists against Kent, also in Canterbury, in 1893, was the lowest score ever by an Australian. The lowest in Australia is still 21, scored in Perth in 1905–06 by John Rees for South Australia (who made 54) against Western Australia in what ended up being his only first-class match.
Many questioned whether this was actually a record low. Chandrasinghe batted the whole first day of play in last week’s final, concluding with 46 of Victoria’s 90-over total of 194 for 8 (they added only one more run the following morning). This is difficult to calculate because we don’t always know if a day’s play was continuous. However, Hashim Amla’s 37 not out appears to be the lowest score ever recorded by a batsman who batted through a full day of play when Surrey held out for a draw against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl in July 2021. On the fourth day, Surrey faced 96.2 overs and ended up with 122 for 8 from 104.5 overs; Amla, who had gone undefeated the previous night, faced 278 balls in total and struck five fours.
Fawad Alam has five Test hundreds, all against different teams (and all in separate countries), as far as I can tell. Is this a documented event? inquired of Scottish Michael Murdoch
Five Test hundreds for Fawad Alam came against South Africa (109 in Karachi in 2020–21), Zimbabwe (140 in Harare in 2020–21), New Zealand (102 in Mount Maunganui in 2020–21), Sri Lanka (168 on debut in Colombo in 2009), and the West Indies (124 not out in Kingston in August 2021).
Wasim Jaffer of India and Neil McKenzie of South Africa each scored five century in Test matches against five different opponents. Quinton de Kock, a fellow South African, is first with six; in his 54 Test matches, he amassed hundreds of runs against England, Australia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, and the West Indies. However, three of de Kock’s centuries occurred in South Africa; the only other person to score five in five separate nations is Fawad.
Are you able to resolve conflict? Was Jos Buttler’s run total the highest of any IPL season in the previous year? inquired Kotak Narendra from India
While Virat Kohli’s 973 runs for Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2016 was nearly the record total, Jos Buttler did lead the way for the Rajasthan Royals in the previous year’s IPL. David Warner is next, having scored 848 runs for Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016. No one else has scored more than two hundreds in an IPL season, with Buttler and Kohli each hitting four hundreds.
Some of the answers above were assisted by ESPNcricinfo’s stats team member Shiva Jayaraman.
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