Wicketkeepers who stepped up

The regular Tuesday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket.

Both captains in the first two ODIs between India and Australia were wicketkeepers. How often has this happened in international cricket? asked Sriram from the United States, and many others

Last week's games involving Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Adam Gilchrist were the 11th and 12th occasions in ODIs in which both captains were wicketkeepers. The first three were in 1995-96, when the rival captains in the New Zealand-Zimbabwe series were Lee Germon and Andy Flower, and Flower was half of the equation on the next four occasions too, all of them in 2000 - twice against Pakistan (captained by Moin Khan) and twice in England (captained by Alec Stewart). The last three instances came in the Bangladesh-West Indies series late in 2002, when Khaled Mashud faced Ridley Jacobs in three matches. There have been only five Test matches in which both sides were captained by their wicketkeeper: two involving Germon and Flower in New Zealand in 1995-96, and two involving Mashud and Jacobs in 2002-03. The other instance was also in 2002-03, when Mark Boucher stood in as South Africa's captain against Bangladesh (led by Mashud) in East London.

In a recent ODI between Zimbabwe and South Africa, both wicketkeepers scored centuries. Has this happened before? asked Hans Eric Paree from the Netherlands

That match in Harare was only the second time both wicketkeepers had scored centuries in the same ODI. The first one was the game between India and Sri Lanka in Jaipur in 2005-06, when Dhoni answered Kumar Sangakkara's ton with an amazing 183 not out.

I was stumped by a quiz question recently: which record was set in the very first Test of all, and still stands? asked Vijay Bhosle from Kolkata

The record set in the inaugural Test match, in Melbourne in 1876-77, that still stands concerns the highest percentage of runs scored by an individual player in a completed innings. Charles Bannerman, who scored the first run and went on to the first century in Test cricket, retired hurt with 165 towards the end of Australia's innings of 245, which represents 67.35% of the total. More than 130 years later, that percentage has never been beaten: the closest was by another Australian opener, Michael Slater, with 123 out of 184 (66.85%) against England in Sydney in 1998-99. In all, 14 batsmen have made more than 60% of the runs in a completed innings of a Test.

What's the highest score in Tests by a right-hander? asked Tom Bowman from Canterbury

That record changed hands last year after belonging to England's Len Hutton (364 against Australia at The Oval) since 1938. The man who broke it was Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene, who made 374 against South Africa in Colombo, in the match in which he and Sangakkara broke the world record for any partnership with a stand of 624 for the third wicket. Of the top seven individual scores in Tests, five have been by left-handers - Brian Lara's 400 not out and 375, Matthew Hayden's 380, Garry Sobers' undefeated 365, and Sanath Jayasuriya's 340.

Which team holds the record for hitting the most runs in the first ten overs, and which team has made the most in the last ten? asked Sandeep from India

We can't be definitive here, as we are missing a lot of the over-by-over scores - particularly from Sri Lanka's record score of 443 for 7 against Holland in Amstelveen in 2006, which obviously must have seen some very quick scoring - but Cricinfo's own Travis Basevi, the man who built Statsguru, has dug out two instances which it would be hard to better. When Sri Lanka beat England at Headingley in 2006, they had reached 133 for 0 after 10 overs. And when New Zealand slaughtered the United States at The Oval during the 2004 Champions Trophy, they scored 142 (for the loss of two wickets) in the last 10 overs, including an amazing 110 runs in the last five.

Whose autobiography was called I'll Spin You a Tale? asked Robin Ritchie from Cambridge

This was Eric Hollies, the Warwickshire and England legspinner, whose life story was published by the Museum Press in 1955. Hollies had an unusual career: he played his first three Tests on tour in the West Indies in 1934-35, then (not helped by the War) didn't win another cap for more than 12 years, at the end of which he was recalled to play South Africa in 1947 and took 5 for 123 in his first innings back, at Trent Bridge. But Hollies made his indelible mark on Test history the following year, at The Oval in 1948, when he bowled Don Bradman for a duck in his final Test innings, when Bradman needed just four runs to finish with a Test average of 100. Hollies took 44 wickets in 13 Tests in all, at an average of 30.27. A famously inept batsman, he ended up with many more first-class wickets (2323) than runs (1673) in his long career, which stretched from 1932 to 1957. He died in 1981.