When was the last time a spinner struck with the first ball of a Test innings?
And does Flavian Aponso still hold the record for being the oldest batsman to score a fifty in a World Cup?
Flavian Aponso, who made 58 in the 1996 World Cup at age 43 years and 121 days, remains the oldest player to score a fifty in a World Cup • BK Bangash/Associated Press
It's always great to receive a question from the horse's mouth, as it were - so I'm pleased to be able to confirm that Flavian Aponso remains the oldest batsman to make a half-century in the World Cup: he was aged 43 years 121 days when he scored 58 for Netherlands against Pakistan in Lahore in March 1996. The only other 40-year-old to reach 50 in a World Cup innings was Misbah-ul-Haq of Pakistan, but he was still around two months short of his 41st birthday when he made four half-centuries in the 2015 World Cup.
There have been 25 instances of a batsman being run out in both innings of a Test, by 23 players - it happened to the Australian pair of Ian Healy and Mark Taylor twice. The most recent double victim was Cheteshwar Pujara, for India against South Africa in Centurion in 2017-18.
The man with the most Test runs at Lord's without the aid of a century - which would have meant his name would be enshrined on the honours board in the dressing room - is the former England captain Michael Atherton. He amassed 852 runs in 15 Tests at Lord's, but his highest score was 99, agonisingly run out against Australia in 1993. Next comes Graham Thorpe, who made 711 runs in 13 Lord's Tests, with a highest score of 89.
As I write, England's Jofra Archer has had 18 innings in Tests and been dismissed in every one of them. As this table shows, he's well down the overall list, which is headed by Sri Lanka's Kaushal Silva, who was out in every one of his 74 Test innings, 12 more than Pakistan's Salman Butt. Quite where Archer stands in relation to other tailenders depends how you classify them: the West Indian fast bowler Alzarri Joseph, who I think fits the bill, has so far been out in all his 24 Test innings. The Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Guy de Alwis was dismissed in all his 19 Test innings, despite never going in above No. 8.
R Ashwin dismissed Rory Burns with the first ball of England's second innings in the first Test in Chennai. It was the first such instance in a Test for more than 130 years, since slow left-armer Bobby Peel nabbed Alec Bannerman with the first ball of Australia's follow-on at Old Trafford in 1888.
Steven Lynch is the editor of the updated edition of Wisden on the Ashes