Bowlers and their wicket-taking ways

Some statistics, like Bradman's average and the number of centuries Tendulkar has made are known to pretty much every cricket buff. But The List will bring you facts and figures that aren't so obvious, adding fuel to those fiery debates about the most valuable middle-order bat, and the most useless tailender. If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.

Which bowler hits the stumps most often? Whose stumps rarely get hit? Has Kapil Dev ever been run out? And how many times has Joe Darling been out lbw? The List looks at modes of dismissals for bowlers and batsmen.

Younis Khan plundered India in the recent Test series, scoring 553 runs at 110.60 in five innings. That he was not bowled even once but was lbw thrice in the series fits the pattern of dismissals over his career. In 74 innings, Younis has been bowled just thrice - the least bowled percentage for a player with a minimum of 50 innings - but has been lbw 20 times, putting him sixth among the highest lbw percentages.

Renowned for his accurate line and length, Chaminda Vaas is Younis's bowling equivalent. Vaas has just 29 bowleds in 301 wickets, the lowest percentage (9.63%) amongst bowlers with more than 100 Test wickets, while he has hit the pads successfully 81 times. Irfan Pathan is a potent force with the new ball and the one that swings into the right hander is his stock wicket-taking ball. His 25 lbws out of 81 wickets gives him the second highest lbw percentage - below Terry Alderman and above Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. These bowlers running in to Joe Darling would have been a good contest for Darling was never lbw in his 34-Test career. Fred Spofforth on the other hand had more than half of his wickets bowled (50 out of 94) but had just three lbw wickets.

When asked who is most likely to get a batsman out caught behind, several fearsome fast bowlers would spring to mind. But Mudassar Nazar , with his military medium pace, tops the list. Of his 66 wickets, 24 have been caught behind (36.36%) - a figure higher than Allan Donald (30.30), Dennis Lillee (27.32) and Glenn McGrath (27.12). George Giffen was a polar opposite: just one of his 103 wickets came from an edge to the wicketkeeper.

Nazar was also never run out in 116 innings, something Graeme Hick also achieved. But for running between the wickets Kapil Dev beats all else. He's never been run-out in 184 innings and has been involved in just two instances when his partner was run out.

Of the current spinners, Danish Kaneria has a better stumping frequency than the others. He has 15 stumpings out of 148 wickets while Kumble has 16 out of 494, Warne 33 out of 659 and Murali 31 out of 584.

For batsmen who've never been stumped, Nasser Hussain heads the list with 171 innings. Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Saleem Malik are other batsmen who've played over 150 innings without being stumped.

If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.