How many players does it take to dismiss a team?

"When Laker took 19 for 90 at Old Trafford, there were only six people involved in taking all 20 Australian wickets: Lock took one wicket and three catches, Oakman took five catches, Evans stumped one batsman, Cowdrey took two catches, Statham took one catch and Laker did all the bowling. Have fewer players ever been involved in all 20 wickets in a Test match?" asked Chris Ramirez in an email. Our records, unfortunately, aren't complete for substitutes and fielders involved in run-outs, so after excluding them from our calculations, here's what we found.

Jim Laker's match doesn't quite have the fewest players involved in 20 dismissals in a Test. During the Cape Town Test in 1889, only three England players were involved in all the South African dismissals. Johnny Briggs bowled 14 batsmen and had two others leg before, while Arnold Fothergill also bowled one, had another lbw and a third caught by Bobby Abel. There was a run out in South Africa's first innings but the identity of the fielder is unknown. Briggs' match-figures of 15 for 28 was a record but, in reality, these matches were awarded Test status only later. On three other occasions, England had only four players involved in all 20 South African dismissals - at Port Elizabeth in 1896, Lord's 1912, and Johannesburg 1927.

The dominance of 19th century and early-20th century Tests in the table below is largely due to the abundance of bowled and lbw dismissals in those matches, which is probably due to the state of pitches at the time. In South Africa's second innings at Port Elizabeth in 1896, for example, six batsmen were bowled (13 in the match). The entire innings lasted only 94 balls and the score of 30 was Test cricket's lowest until New Zealand were shot out for 26 in 1954-55.

There are 13 Tests in which only five players from a team were involved in all opposition wickets, the most recent among them being between West Indies and Zimbabwe at Port-of-Spain in 2000. Heath Streak took nine wickets, Brian Murphy four wickets and two catches, Andy Flower four catches, Henry Olonga three catches and Neil Johnson a wicket and a catch.

The table of Tests with fewest players being involved in all dismissals in an innings is also a slew of fossilised matches. The only 21st century Test in which three players were involved in all wickets in an innings was at Sharjah in 2002. West Indies were chasing 342 but were dismissed for 171. Shoaib Akhtar bowled four batsmen, Abdul Razzaq bowled one more and had two others lbw, while Rashid Latif took two catches and affected a run out.

No fewer than five players have been involved in taking all ten wickets in a Twenty20 international so far. In Dubai last year, Umar Gul, Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi combined to take eight Australian wickets. Then Kamran Akmal stumped Callum Ferguson and Saeed Ajmal snuck in among the wickets by dismissing last man Ben Hilfenhaus, lifting the numbers from three to five.

In one-day internationals, the fewest players involved in dismissing the opposition is three. During the India-Pakistan ODI in the Asia Cup in 1988, nine Pakistan batsmen were either bowled or lbw, while the other was run out. Arshad Ayub took five wickets, while Kapil Dev and Maninder Singh took two each.

Only twice have all 11 players had roles in taking all the wickets in a Test innings and both matches involved South Africa. The first time was against West Indies in Jamaica in 2001, when the hosts were dismissed for 301 in the second innings. More recently, however, all 11 South Africans played a hand in at least one dismissal against England at Newlands in 2010, and yet they managed only nine wickets in a thrilling draw.

South Africa were also the first team to have all 11 players being involved in bowling out a team in an ODI. They routed England by 122 runs in the 1999 World Cup, with Allan Donald taking four wickets, Jacques Kallis and Steve Elworthy two each, and Shaun Pollock and Lance Klusener one apiece. Mark Boucher, Herschelle Gibbs, Daryl Cullinan, Jony Rhodes, Hansie Cronje and Gary Kirsten took catches.

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