England's families, and Gabriel's start

	Marcus North: a familiar face around the county circuit © Hampshire County Cricket Club Enlarge
Related Links Ask Steven : Last week's column: Trumper and the frogs

Jonathan Bairstow just followed his father into the England side. How many father-and-son combinations have England had - and how many of them both made their Test debuts at Lord's? asked James Morrison from London
Jonathan Bairstow, England's 652nd Test player, became the 13th son to follow his father into the England side during the match against West Indies last week. The late David Bairstow played four Tests, the first of them against India at The Oval in 1979, alongside Alan Butcher, another man whose son would later play for England too. The only pair to make their debut on the same ground were the Huttons, who both won their first caps at Lord's - Len in 1937 and Richard in 1971. England's other fathers and sons, with their debuts shown in brackets, were: Charles (Lord's 1899) and David (Port-of-Spain 1934-35) Townsend; Fred (Old Trafford 1902) and Maurice (Edgbaston 1924) Tate; the Hardstaffs, Joe senior (Sydney 1907-08) and Joe junior (Headingley 1935); Frank (Johannesburg 1922-23) and George (Durban 1948-49) Mann; James (Lord's 1937) and Jim (Old Trafford 1954) Parks; Colin (Brisbane 1954-55) and Chris (Bombay 1984-85) Cowdrey; Micky (Lord's 1962) and Alec (Kingston 1989-90) Stewart; Alan (The Oval 1979) and Mark (Edgbaston 1997) Butcher; Jeff (Bombay 1963-64) and Simon (Lord's 2002) Jones; Chris (Lord's 1984) and Stuart (Colombo 2007-08) Broad; and Arnold (Trent Bridge 1985) and Ryan (Lord's 2001) Sidebottom.

How many West Indians have made their Test debut at Lord's, as Shannon Gabriel did? asked Mark Jones from London
Shannon Gabriel, the Trinidad fast bowler, is actually the 24th West Indian to make his Test debut at Lord's. That number is swelled by the fact that West Indies' inaugural Test, in 1928, was at Lord's, so all 11 players then were winning their first caps. Since the Second World War the only ones to make their Test debut for West Indies at Lord's have been Nyron Asgarali in 1957, Michael Findlay and Grayson Shillingford in 1969, Ian Allen in 1991, the current coach Ottis Gibson in 1995, and Dwayne Bravo in 2004.

How many people have scored a double-century and a hundred in the same first-class match? asked Pradip Kumar Dhole from India
The new Wisden says there are 59 instances of a batsman scoring a double-century and a century in the same match - this includes Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for England v India at Lord's in 1990, and Arthur Fagg, who made two double-centuries in a county game in 1938. Five further instances (apart from Gooch) were in Tests, by Doug Walters, Sunil Gavaskar, Lawrence Rowe (on debut), Greg Chappell and Brian Lara. Pride of place in first-class cricket goes to Zaheer Abbas, who achieved the feat on four occasions (no one else has managed it more than twice) and was not out in all eight innings!

Whose record for most overall international runs did Sachin Tendulkar overtake, and when? asked Aditya Agarwal from India
Sachin Tendulkar became the leading run scorer in all international cricket on October 24, 2001, in the course of making 146 against Kenya in Paarl, during a triangular one-day tournament in South Africa. During the innings - his 56th international century - Tendulkar passed the previous record-holder, Australia's Allan Border, who scored 17,698 runs (11,174 in Tests and 6524 in ODIs). Tendulkar hasn't been headed since, and now has a big lead: he currently has 33,906 runs in all international formats, with Ricky Ponting next on 27,451.

Has anyone yet taken a hat-trick in a Twenty20 international? asked Jim Rogers from Scotland
So far there have been three hat-tricks in Twenty20 internationals. The first was by Brett Lee, for Australia against Bangladesh during the inaugural World Twenty20 in Cape Town in 2007-08. Jacob Oram followed suit against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 2009, and another New Zealander, Tim Southee, took a hat-trick during a spell of 5 for 0 in nine balls against Pakistan in Auckland in 2010-11.

Players move counties so often now that it's hard to keep track. Who has played for the most different teams? asked Trevor Mitchell from Sussex
By coincidence (I think!) this record changed hands last week, after you had sent in the question. The Australian left-hander Marcus North made his debut for Glamorgan, his sixth first-class county - he'd already played for Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire. In 2009, North had missed by a week becoming the first to play first-class cricket for five counties: he was pipped by the fast bowler Andrew "AJ" Harris (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire). The slow left-armer Richard Davis also played for five counties - but only in one-day games for Sussex, to go with first-class stints with Kent, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire. Another Australian, Ian Harvey, represented five counties too - Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Hampshire and Northamptonshire - but appeared only in one-day games for the last two.

And there's an update on Test cricketers who also played tennis in the Davis Cup, from Max Bonnell in Australia
"Leslie Poidevin was another 'near-miss' - having been 12th man for Australia against England in the first Test at Sydney in 1901-02, he played Davis Cup tennis for Australasia against the United States in 1906."