Most frequent opponents, and nervous 99s

Sachin Tendulkar has fallen for 99 three times in ODIs this year. Is he the only player to have done so? asked Sanjay Lalchandani from Trinidad & Tobago

Not only is Sachin Tendulkar the only man to be dismissed for three 99s in ODIs in the same year, he's the only man to make three 99s in ODIs full stop. The only other batsman to make two is Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya. For a full list of one-day 99s, click here.

Can you tell us which two players have faced each other on most occasions in Test matches - could it be Gooch and Border? asked Luke Bull

That's not a bad guess. Graham Gooch and Allan Border were on the opposite side in 32 different Tests, which puts them equal third on the list alongside Wilfred Rhodes of England and Australia's "Big Ship", Warwick Armstrong. Another pre-Great War Ashes duo, England's Archie MacLaren and Syd Gregory, faced each other in 33 Tests. But the leaders here are a rather more modern pairing: David Gower and Allan Border opposed each other in 39 different Test matches. The record for non-Ashes Tests is 31, by Border and Desmond Haynes of West Indies.

Who played the fewest number of domestic games before playing a Test match for Australia? asked Andrew Male from Australia

Tom Kendall and John Hodges, two of the Australian team in the very first Test of all - in Melbourne in 1876-77 - were also playing in their very first first-class match. Only 33 people in all have made their first-class debut in a Test, 28 of them before 1905, most of them rather obscure South Africans at a time when there wasn't much domestic cricket there: the most recent person to do this was the Bangladesh fast bowler Nazmul Hossain in 2004-05. Of more recent Australians, John Watkins had played five first-class matches before winning his first (and only) Test cap in 1972-73, while Jeff Thomson also made his debut that season, after six games. In 1986-87 Peter Taylor had also played six first-class matches before his surprise call-up for the final Test of that season's Ashes series in Sydney.

I noticed that the South African batsman Alan Melville once scored four hundreds in successive Test innings. Has anyone else managed that? asked Hendrik de Wet from Cape Town

Two others have equalled the feat of Alan Melville, whose four centuries were actually spread over more than eight years, separated by the Second World War. He made 103 against England in the Timeless Test in Durban in 1938-39, then started the 1947 series in England with 189 and 104 not out at Trent Bridge, and 117 at Lord's. The others to manage four in a row were the Australian opener Jack Fingleton, in 1935-36 and 1936-37, and India's Rahul Dravid, during 2002. But the record is actually five centuries in successive Test innings, which was achieved by Everton Weekes, the West Indian great. He made 141 in the final Test against England at home in 1947-48, then started the 1948-49 series in India with 128, 194, 162 and 101, before being somewhat contentiously run out for 90 in his next innings, in Madras. For a complete list, click here.

How many ODI matches have India won in matches where Sourav Ganguly went in as an opener and was dismissed for less than 10? asked Michael Gojer from India

That's a very specific question - and it's the sort of thing that Cricinfo's Statsguru can do rather well. Sourav Ganguly has been dismissed for less than 10 on no fewer than 65 occasions after opening the innings, and India have won 21 of those matches (plus another one in which he opened and retired hurt for 2).

I played against someone in a club match this year who claimed he had appeared in an official one-day international ... for Hong Kong! Was he pulling our leg? asked David Grierson from Sussex

Well, he was probably telling the truth. Hong Kong have played two matches which are classified as official one-day internationals, during the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka in 2004. Not surprisingly, perhaps, they lost both games comfortably - the first, against Bangladesh at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo, by 116 runs, and the second, a rain-affected match against Pakistan, also at the SSC, by 173 runs on the Duckworth/Lewis method. You can see the players Hong Kong used in those by clicking here.