1st April, 2002

Name: Karthik
Question: How many ODIs has India won, when Dravid has top scored ?

Answer 1: Dravid has top-scored on nine occasions when India has won an ODI match. He has also been a joint top-scorer (with Ganguly) on one occasion.

Name: N Gopi
Question: Dear Mr Menon, can you please provide some info on Test cricket's first tournament. Thanks

Answer 2: The first ever three-nation Test cricket tournament was played from 27 May 1912 to 22 August 1912 in England.

The host nation won the tournament by winning four of its six games (two were drawn), while Australia were runners-up with two wins, one loss and three drawn, while South Africa, who lost five of its matches and drew one, finished last.

Name: Amar
Question: Sir, India has yet again crossed the 300-run mark in an ODI by scoring 333 in Guwahati. How many times has India crossed the 300 mark? How does it stand in comparison with other teams who have done so? Thanx.

Answer 3: 300-plus scores have been achieved on 119 occasions by ODI teams. Australia and India have achieved it on most occasions - 19.

Interestingly, India achieved this target just six years ago at Sharjah against Pakistan on 15-4-1996. It was then India's 283rd ODI match.

This means India, in the last 212 matches, have crossed the 300 run mark on 19 occasions, while Australia achieved this after playing in 491 matches, after doing so for the first time in its ninth match in 1975. Moreover, India's 19 300-plus scores came in 50-over matches.
India 19
Australia 19
Pakistan 18
South Africa 16
West Indies 11
England 9
New Zealand 9
Sri Lanka 9
Zimbabwe 8
Kenya 1

Name: Mihir
Question: Sir, Please you tell me how many batsman in the history of one day cricket have batted through the 50 overs

Answer 4: Dinesh Mongia at Guwahati provided the 43rd instance in ODIs. Note that this list includes Sunil Gavaskar and Glenn Turner, both who have carried their bat thro' the complete 60 overs

Name: Suresh Ramasamy
Question: When was the last occasion India won three and four one-day matches continously? How many times India and all the other countries won three one-day matches continuously in the last 10 years?

Answer 5: The last time India won four matches in a row in ODIs was from 24-6-2001 to 4-7-2001 when it beat Zimbabwe twice at Harare and Bulawayo and then beat West Indies at Bulawayo and Harare.

In the last ten years India has won three or more matches in a row on 18 occasions.

Name: Steve
Question: I was told that South African Team was banned from playing ODI as well as Test matches for a period of years. Is it true? If so what was the reason and when was it? Thank you

Answer 6: They were banned because of the aparthied policy followed by then South African governament. The country was banned from all international sporting activities, including the Olympic Games during the seventies and eigthties.

The country's cricket team too was banned from 1970 to 1991 by the ICC. They were readmitted to the ICC in July 1991.

Name: Ajay Trivedy
Question: Has an eight-ball over ever been used in Indian first-class cricket. Answer 7: Yes. It was used only once on an experimental basis during the season of 1962-63. However, one trial first-class match between Maharashtra Past and Present and Rest of India at Poona in September 1947 was also played as an 8-ball over match, as a preparation for the Indian tour of Australia of 1947-48. Other than these instances 8-ball over was not used in Indian first-class cricket.

Name: Sunil Manoharan
Question: It's the last ball of a match in a ODI and the team batting second needs one run to win. This is the last batting pair. Now the last ball is a wide but the batsman had stepped out to hit and was stumped. What happens in such a situation?

Answer 8: The team batting second will win since the moment the umpire declares a wide one run is added to the batting side's total. What follows after this, including the dismissal, will not be counted.

Name: Ravindra Kumar
Question: Dear Menon, How are bowlers rated fast/fast medium/slow. Is there any rule in the books for this. Does it depend on the playing conditions.

Answer 9: The rating of bowlers as fast/fast medium/slow is normally done by the media and now more so by the TV commentators. Laws/rules and playing conditions have nothing to do with this.

Name: S.Shivanand
Question: Dear Mr.Menon, I had once asked you in these columns about classification of pace bowlers into Fast and Fast Medium. Could you kindly share with rediff cricket fans the statistics, if any, on various bowling speeds/related topics?

Answer 10: Fast bowlers are called such since they consistently bowl at a genuinely fast pace, say over 140 kph.

For example Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar can be classified as such. While there are bowlers, such as Shaun Pollock and Glenn McGrath, who can bowl fast (over 140 kph) but not consistently and hence can be termed as fast medium.

These bowlers attain average speeds between 130-135 kph.

Recently Brett Lee was timed at 157.4 kph during the Cape Town Test on 8-3-2002. He surpassed the previous fastest was the 157.2 kph by Shoaib Akhtar against Australia on 9-6-2001 at Cardiff.

Mail Cricket Editor