Which player has taken the fastest five-for in ODIs by balls bowled?

I know Charles Bannerman still holds the record for the highest percentage of a completed Test innings. But what's the record for the highest percentage by two batters? Did Harry Brook and Jamie Smith get close at Birmingham? asked Kunal from India
Harry Brook scored 158 and Jamie Smith an unbeaten 184 in England's 407 in the second Test against India at Edgbaston earlier this month. That's 84.03%, which comes in fourth on the list for a pair of batters in a completed Test innings. Leading the way are Mushfiqur Rahim (175 not out) and Liton Das (141), who made 86.58% of the runs in Bangladesh's 365 against Sri Lanka in Mirpur in 2022.

Next come Kepler Wessels (74) and Peter Kirsten (52) with 85.14% of South Africa's 148 in their comeback Test against West Indies in Bridgetown, in 1992, and Rohan Kanhai (84) and Seymour Nurse (70) with 85.08% of West Indies' 181 against Australia in Melbourne in 1960. Nurse features in fifth place too: in his final Test, against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1969, he scored 258 and Joey Carew 91 - 83.69% of the total of 417.

It's probably worth repeating that Charles Bannerman does still hold the record for one batter in a completed Test innings, set in the very first Test of all, in Melbourne in March 1877. His 165 (retired hurt) in Australia's first innings represented 67.34% of the total of 245.

Shubman Gill's batting average improved by 6.15 after the second Test. Was this the highest jump for anyone who had played 50 or more innings? asked Sagar Iyer from India
Shubman Gill's Test batting average climbed from 36.57 to 42.72 after that stunning double of 269 and 161 in the second Test against England at Edgbaston earlier this month. It was his 34th Test, and his 62nd and 63rd innings.

This is indeed the biggest improvement in a player's Test batting average, given a minimum of 50 innings: Gill just squeezed past England's Wally Hammond, whose 336 not out against New Zealand in Christchurch early in 1933 - his 64th innings - improved his average by exactly 6.00, from 60.63 to 66.33. The 311 (and 4 not out) of Australia's Bob Simpson at Old Trafford in 1964 raised his average by 5.94 to 41.87, while Zaheer Abbas's 235 and 34 - both not out - against India in Lahore in 1978 improved his by 5.60 to 44.25. Another Pakistani, Younis Khan, boosted his average by 5.38 by scoring 267 and 84 not out against India in Bangalore in 2005.

Leicestershire's total of 398 the other day included three centuries, one of them over 150 - surely a record? asked Ben Preedy from England
That remarkable innings in Leicestershire's Championship match in Derby last week included 115 from Rehan Ahmed, 151 from Lewis Hill and 101 from skipper Peter Handscomb. The other eight batters contributed just 15 runs between them - there were four ducks (and a 0 not out).

Almost as remarkably, this is not the lowest all-out total to include three centuries: in a Ranji Trophy quarter-final in Bangalore in 2014, three batters - Robin Uthappa, Karun Nair and Chidhambaram Gautam - all made exactly 100 as Karnataka scored 349 against Uttar Pradesh. There were four ducks too. Leicestershire's innings, though, is the lowest to include three centuries of which one was above 150.

I noticed that in a one-day international in 2017 the Pakistan fast bowler Usman Shinwari took his fifth wicket with his 21st delivery. Was this the fastest five-wicket haul by balls? asked Zaheer Ahmed from Pakistan
That feat by left-armer Usman Shinwari came against Sri Lanka in Sharjah in October 2017. It is the quickest-known five-wicket haul for Pakistan in ODIs (we don't have ball-by-ball details for all games), but there are a few faster ones overall.

Three bowlers have taken their fifth wicket of an ODI innings with their 16th ball. Chaminda Vaas did so for Sri Lanka against Bangladesh during the 2003 World Cup, in Pietermaritzburg, where he took a hat-trick with the first three balls of the match and added another wicket in the first over. Mohammed Siraj followed suit for India against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 2023. And you could be forgiven for having overlooked the United States seamer Ali Khan, who did it against Jersey in Windhoek (Namibia) in 2023.

Shinwari was playing in his second ODI. Scotland's Charlie Cassell started his international career against Oman in Dundee last July by taking five wickets in his first 19 balls, on the way to debut figures of 7 for 21. Ryan Burl (Zimbabwe) and Aryan Dutt (Netherlands) have picked up five wickets with their first 18 balls in a one-day international, while Timm van der Gugten of the Netherlands has done it in 20.

Further to my recent query about players who scored centuries in the second and third innings of a Test, has anyone done it in the first and fourth innings? asked Nirmal Mendis from Sri Lanka

There were only two answers to your original question - and only one to this one! It requires someone to score a century in the first innings of a match, then watch the opposition follow-on but score enough runs to allow him to reach three figures in the final innings of the match. And that's what happened to South Africa's captain Alan Melville, in the first Test against England at Trent Bridge in 1947. He scored 189 as his side ran up 533, then England managed only 208. Denis Compton made 163 in the follow-on as England reached 551, which left South Africa a target of 227 in the four-day match. They made 166 for 1, with Melville reaching his second hundred of the match shortly before the draw was agreed.

It gave Melville three centuries in successive Test innings, the first having come more than eight years before, in the famous Timeless Test in Durban in March 1939, and he added a fourth in the first innings of the next Test, at Lord's.