Who had the best end to his international career - the most runs in his last ten innings? asked Jamie Radford from England
The record in Tests is 766 runs in a player's last ten Test innings, by Seymour Nurse of West Indies, helped by the fact that his final knock was one of 258, against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1969. The five innings before that included two centuries and a 95. Nurse just nipped past the old Australian maestro Charlie Macartney, whose last ten innings amounted to 753 runs, including four centuries. Next comes another Australian, Graham Yallop, with 693, then Graeme Pollock (677) and Sunil Gavaskar (653). This excludes current players (Marnus Labuschagne's most recent ten innings have produced 958 runs). In ODIs, Kumar Sangakkara made 744 runs in his last ten innings, which included four centuries during the 2015 World Cup, and Ryan ten Doeschate 613, including a hundred in his final innings, against Ireland in Kolkata during the World Cup of 2011.
For the bowlers, Sydney Barnes took 88 wickets in his last ten Tests (matches, not innings), Colin Blythe 70, and Australia's Clarrie Grimmett 69. Another Aussie, Glenn McGrath, took 23 wickets in his last ten ODIs.
I was looking at the profile of Inzamam-ul-Haq, and you have his Test batting average down as under 50 - but in the Pakistan list it's over 50. Why the difference? asked Kazi Hussain from England
Inzamam-ul-Haq scored 8829 runs in 119 Tests for Pakistan, at the superb average of 50.16. Only Younis Khan (10,099) and Javed Miandad (8832) lie above him on Pakistan's run-scoring list. The discrepancy you spotted comes about because Inzamam also played an official Test match for the ICC World XI against Australia, in what turned out to be a one-off experiment in Sydney in 2005-06. Inzamam made only 1 and 0, which meant his overall Test average just dipped below the half-century mark, to 49.60.
What's the record for the most sixes by a team in one ODI innings, and in one T20I? asked Rahman Ali from India
The most sixes in a one-day international innings is 25, by England against Afghanistan during their World Cup match at Old Trafford last June. That included 17 from Eoin Morgan, the individual record. England broke their own mark, having hit 24 against West Indies at St George's, Grenada, in February 2019, a week after West Indies smashed 23 in Bridgetown.
In T20Is the record is 22 sixes, by Afghanistan's batsmen against Ireland in Dehradun in February 2019. This beat the existing mark of 21, set by West Indies against India in Lauderhill, Florida, in August 2016, which was equalled by India against Sri Lanka in Indore in December 2017, and then by Austria against Luxembourg in Ilfov, Romania, in August 2019.
Just to complete the set, the Test record in an innings is 22 sixes - five more than the next best - by New Zealand against Pakistan in Sharjah in 2014-15.
Which player made a 150-plus score in his first Test after his father had bagged a pair on debut? asked Ian Hugo from Nigeria
This topsy-turvy family is the New Zealand Rutherfords: father Ken Rutherford bagged a pair on Test debut, after being thrown in at the deep end and asked to open against West Indies in Port-of-Spain in 1984-85. He made a tortuous 21-ball duck in the first innings, and was run out without facing in the second. His son, left-hand opener Hamish Rutherford, started in style with 171 against England in Dunedin in 2012-13.
After those very different starts, things changed a fair bit: Ken finished his career with 2465 runs and three centuries, and captained in 18 of his 56 Tests. Hamish, meanwhile, has so far played 16 further Tests since that run-soaked debut, and managed only one further score of more than 50. They have strikingly similar averages: Ken 27.06, Hamish 26.96.
Do you know the unique cricketing feat achieved by my late father, Bill Baker? asked Geoff Baker from Australia
As it happens, I did remember this - mainly because I recalled answering a question about it a long time ago. It turned out to have been in the first months of the century, not long after the first Ask Steven columns appeared as part of a co-production with the Guardian newspaper. And so here's what I said all those years ago, while answering a question about whether Don Bradman was ever out stumped twice in the same match:
Bradman was out stumped 11 times in first-class cricket - twice in successive innings in 1927-28 - but never in Tests. George Duckworth and Arthur Wood, who did play for England, stumped him in first-class matches. But EA "Bill" Baker of Victoria pulled off a remarkable double in a Sheffield Shield match against South Australia in Adelaide in 1946-47: he stumped the Don in both innings. Baker was a teacher at Upwey High School outside Melbourne, and in his form at the time was Murray Hedgcock, now [in 2000] a distinguished sportswriter who covers events in England for the newspaper the Australian. Hedgcock remembers his headmaster Bill Woodfull - himself a former Australian Test captain - announcing the latest score from the MCG to an afternoon assembly, and adding that "Mr Baker has 17 not out", to much applause.
Bradman was out hit-wicket only once in his entire career - in the first Test against India in Brisbane in 1947-48. He had made 185, though, before he broke his own stumps while playing one from opposing captain Lala Amarnath. And he was run out only once in Tests, by England's Jack Hobbs in Adelaide in 1928-29, after scoring 58. In all first-class matches he was only out this way four times.
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