A bowling conundrum and a St Lucian one

I recently looked at the scorecard for the 1882 Oval Test, and the auditor in me noticed that Fred Spofforth of Australia had bowled 36.3 of the 71.3 overs that England faced. Surely this means that he must have bowled consecutive overs at some stage? I immediately ruled out the possibility that Cricinfo has printed an error, and leapt to the conclusion that the Aussies had cheated, the match should be awarded to England, and all subsequent Ashes matches have been a travesty and sham. Or have I missed something? asked Tom Allkins
Well, as it turns out you haven't destroyed the whole Ashes legend, which started after Australia won that match at The Oval in 1882. Gerald Brodribb's book Next Man In, a fascinating look at how the Laws of Cricket evolved over the years, reveals that the original 1744 code of Laws allowed the bowler to change ends just once during an innings, but allowed him to bowl successive overs when he did. In 1870 this law was tweaked slightly: "Provided he does not bowl more than two overs in succession, a bowler may change ends twice but no more often in an innings." So that's what happened in that 1882 match, and in several others around this time. In 1889 the law was amended again, to allow the bowler to change ends as often as he liked, but removing the ability to bowl successive overs, which remains the case today.

How many people born in St Lucia in the West Indies have played World Cup cricket? asked John Doe from Canada
There are two - but they don't include the name most people would think of. The only St Lucian to have played for West Indies is the current allrounder Darren Sammy, but although he has played in five Tests and 17 one-day internationals he has not yet appeared in the World Cup. Back in 1979 the Canadian side for their first World Cup was captained by wicketkeeper Bryan Mauricette, who was born in St Lucia before emigrating to Canada, and also included the St Lucia-born medium-pacer Cornelius Henry, who played in two of their three games, claiming the distinguished scalps of Andrew Hilditch and Allan Border in the second one. A more recent Canada representative, Ishwar Maraj, has played for St Lucia in the Stanford 20/20 tournament, but he was actually born in Trinidad.

Who was the first player to score 1000 Test runs? asked Arjun from India
The first man to reach the landmark of 1000 runs in Tests was the Nottinghamshire and England batsman Arthur Shrewsbury, who passed four figures during his 106 in the Lord's Test against Australia in 1893. It was his 21st match.

Has there ever been a Test innings in which no one reached double figures? asked Faisal Jaan from the Netherlands
There have been 25 instances in Tests of ten batsmen failing to reach double figures - but only once have all 11 made single-figure scores. The unlucky side was South Africa, when they were dismissed for just 30 by England at Edgbaston in 1924: the highest score was 7, by the opener and captain Herbie Taylor. For the full list showing all the instances of ten, click here. It's also happened twice in ODIs, not surprisingly involving the two lowest totals in that format - Zimbabwe's 35 against Sri Lanka in Harare in 2003-04, and Canada's 36, also against Sri Lanka, in Paarl during the 2002-03 World Cup, when two players actually scored 9 - but there were also five ducks.

Which captain has had the most success as a bowler in Tests? asked Gagan from Canada
The man who has taken most wickets in Tests while captain is Pakistan's Imran Khan, with 187 wickets in charge. Next comes Australia's Richie Benaud, with 138 in 28 matches, while five others have taken more than 100 Test wickets while captain: Garry Sobers (117), Kapil Dev (111), Wasim Akram (107), Bishan Bedi (106), and Shaun Pollock (103). In one-day internationals Wasim Akram leads the way with 158 wickets while captain, ahead of Pollock (134) and Imran (131).

And there's an update on last week's question about international cricketers who were born in Portugal:
Several people, including Vaughan Garner from Australia, emailed to point out that Moises Henriques of New South Wales could one day join South Africa's Dick Westcott as a Test player born in Portugal. Henriques, 21 and a former captain of Australia's Under-19 team, was born on the Portuguese island of Madeira, and was recently added to the Australian one-day squad for the matches against Bangladesh in Darwin, although he didn't actually play. A further correspondent, Charles Curzon from London, suggests that another South African Test player from the 1950s, David Ironside, could loosely be considered as Portuguese: he was born in Mozambique, which at the time was a Portuguese colony (it did not attain full independence until 1975).