Broad's eight, and Bell's ones

Has anyone other than Jim Laker bettered Stuart Broad's bowling figures in the Ashes? asked Melanie Hodgson from England
The England offspinner Jim Laker famously took 19 for 90 in the match - 9 for 37 and 10 for 53 - for England against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956. But the only other figures statistically better than Stuart Broad's 8 for 15 in Nottingham the other day were even longer ago: in Melbourne in 1920-21, the Australian legspinner Arthur Mailey took 9 for 121 in England's second innings. Broad's remarkable performance was the 20th eight-for in Ashes cricket - England's first since Bob Willis' 8 for 43 in that famous match at Headingley in 1981 - but the other 19 all cost more. For the full list of the best Ashes bowling figures, click here.

How often has the team that bowled first batted before lunch on the first day of a Test? asked David Charlton from England
England's achievement in bowling Australia out before lunch on the first day in Nottingham, and having a bat themselves, has happened only three times previously in Test matches. At Lord's in 1896, England bowled Australia out for 53, and started their own first innings before lunch. Wisden reported that "the Australians failed in a fashion that has seldom been seen on a dry, true pitch, being all got rid of in an hour and a quarter. The bowlers did wonders, but lack of nerve on the part of the Australians must have been largely answerable for such an astounding collapse". The two more recent instances were both inflicted by South Africa. In Ahmedabad in 2007-08 they shot India out for 76 in 20 overs, Dale Steyn taking 5 for 23; then in Cape Town in 2012-13 South Africa mowed New Zealand down in 19.2 overs for 45, Vernon Philander grabbing 5 for 7 (and Steyn 2 for 18).

Ian Bell was out for 1 at Nottingham, for the sixth time this year. Has anyone been out more often for 1? asked Paul Carlton from Australia
No one has been out more often this year for 1 in Tests, if that's what you mean: after Bell's six, next in 2015 is actually his team-mate Joe Root, with three dismissals for a single. Overall, Bell has now been out for 1 on 12 occasions in his Test career. Another current England player, James Anderson, leads the way here with 14, ahead of Harbhajan Singh on 13. Both Glenn McGrath and Javagal Srinath were also out a dozen times for 1. Bell is now the leading specialist batsman on this list, having eclipsed Sachin Tendulkar, one of four men with 11 (the others are Curtly Ambrose, Rod Marsh and Courtney Walsh).

Fawad Ahmed is in the Australian squad for this Ashes series, but hasn't played a match yet. Is Usman Khawaja the only Pakistani-born cricketer to play in the Ashes? asked Danish Syed from Pakistan
Usman Khawaja, who was born in Islamabad, has played four Tests against England so far: he made his debut in Sydney in 2010-11, and also appeared in three matches in the 2013 series in England. The only other Pakistan-born player to feature in the Ashes is another Usman - the Rawalpindi-born Usman Afzaal, who made his debut for England at Edgbaston in 2001, and played in two further matches in that series, which constituted his entire Test career. Owais Shah was also born in Pakistan (in Karachi): he appeared in six Tests for England, but none of them were against Australia.

The four openers in the current Ashes series are all left-handers. When was the last time that this happened in the Ashes, or all Test cricket? asked Savo Ceprnich from South Africa
All four openers being left-handers had never happened in any Ashes series until 2005 - but it's happened quite a bit since then. Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer opened in all five Tests in 2005, and Hayden, Langer, Strauss and Alastair Cook throughout the 2006-07 series. Cook, Strauss, Phillip Hughes and Simon Katich opened in the first two Tests of the 2009 Ashes (whereupon Hughes was dropped), while Cook, Michael Carberry, Chris Rogers and David Warner opened in all five Tests of 2013-14. So the 2015 series (Rogers, Warner, Cook and Adam Lyth) has really only continued that left-handed trend. It also happened in the Bangladesh-South Africa Tests that took place during this Ashes series. In all there have been 79 Tests now that featured four left-handed openers (some of them thanks to changes of batting order in the second innings), all but one of them since 1996. The only one before that was in Mumbai in 1961-62, when Peter Richardson opened with Geoff Pullar in England's first innings, and Bob Barber in the second; Nari Contractor opened (with the right-handed ML Jaisimha) for India. The first one to feature just four left-handed openers was the third Test between Australia (Hayden and Langer) and Pakistan (Imran Farhat and Taufeeq Umar) in Sharjah in 2002-03.

There were three centuries in the second ODI between Zimbabwe and New Zealand, but only 471 runs overall. Was this a record? asked Saurav Jain from India
That's a good spot: there were three centuries - by Sikandar Raza, Martin Guptill and Tom Latham - but only 471 runs in that match in Harare on August 4. And no other one-day international containing three hundreds has had so few runs: the previous mark was 501 by Australia (250 for 3) and India (251 for 3) in Jaipur in 1986-87. Geoff Marsh (104) and David Boon (111) put on 212 for Australia's first wicket in that game - an ODI record at the time - but they were trumped by Kris Srikkanth's 102.