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The Expert replies: Which family has given most brothers to Test cricket?

If you have a question relating to cricket and did not know who to ask, bounce them off to Rajneesh Gupta. Each week he will pick questions readers send him and provide answers. Your queries should be addressed to: Ask Rajneesh on Facebook or askrajneesh@rediffmail.com

Rajneesh's answers some questions he received from readers last week:

Which family has delivered the most number of Test players as brothers? - Soumya Batabyal

This distinction goes to Pakistan's Mohammad family. Four of them -- Hanif, Mushtaq, Sadiq and Wazir -- went on to represent Pakistan in Test cricket. Another brother -- Raees -- was unlucky to miss out, although he played first-class cricket for 15 years.

There are seven other instances of three brothers playing Test cricket. They are listed hereunder (in chronological order):

GRACE - Edward, WG & Frederick (England)

HEARNE - Frank, Alec & George (England)

TANCRED - Augustus, Vincent & Louis (South Africa)

CHAPPELL - Ian, Greig & Trevor (Australia)

RANATUNGA - Dammika, Arjuna & Sanjeeva (Sri Lanka)

ELAHI - Manzoor, Zahoor & Salim (Pakistan)

AKMAL - Kamran, Adnan & Umar (Pakistan)

Note:

Frank Hearne also played for South Africa.

All three Grace brothers played against England at the Oval in 1880.

All Hearne brothers played in the match between South Africa and England at Cape Town in 1891-92 (Alec and George for Engl#8743 and Frank for South Africa).

Hanif, Mushtaq and Sadiq played together against New Zealand at Karachi in 1969-70.

Previous column:

Ask the Expert: How many times was Gavaskar LBW in Tests?

Tendulkar has played Tests with/against 567 players

How many players have played with or against Sachin Tendulkar in his career in Tests and ODIs? Please give a break-up of Indians and the rest. - Ramakrishnan

In Test cricket, Tendulkar has played with/against 567 players, which includes 103 Indians. The break-up from other countries is: 70 from England, 61 from Australia, 61 from New Zealand, 54 from Sri Lanka,50 from Pakistan, 50 from South Africa, 44 from West Indies,38 from Zimbabwe and 36 from Bangladesh.

In ODIs, Tendulkar has played with/against 842 players. The tally includes 119 Indian and 723 overseas players. The list of overseas players consists of 79 players from England, 76 from Pakistan, 76 from Sri Lanka, 72 from Australia, 72 from West Indies, 69 from South Africa, 67 from New Zealand, 54 from Bangladesh, 53 from Zimbabwe, 23 from Kenya, 22 from UAE, 21 from Netherlands, 17 from Ireland, 11 from Bermuda and 11 from Namibia.

Ashwin one of five to score hundred and take five wkts in debut series

R Ashwin scored a hundred and took a five-for in his debut Test series. How many cricketers have done this before him? - Arjun Budhraja

Ravichandran Ashwin had a dream Test debut, as he returned figures of 3 for 81 and 6 for 47 in the Delhi Test against the West Indies. He then scored 103 in the first innings of the third Test at Mumbai, while batting at number 8.

Ashwin is one of the five cricketers who have performed the feat of scoring a hundred and taking a five-for in their debut Test series. The first to achieve the feat was England's Len Braund. Making his Test debut against Australia at Sydney in 1901-02, Braund returned figures of 5 for 61 in the second innings. He followed it up with a maiden Test hundred (103) in the third match of the series at Adelaide.

Australia's Jack Gregory was the second player to accomplish the feat. He made his Test debut against England in 1920-21. In his only second Test at Melbourne, Gregory scored 100 off just 115 balls while batting at # 9. He then took 7 wickets in England's first innings of the same Test. New Zealand's Bruce Taylor was the third player to shine with bat and ball in his debut series. Taylor, in fact, scored his hundred and took his five-for on Test debut – a feat unparalleled in Test chronicles - versus India at Calcutta in 1964-65.

Taylor scored 106 and then followed it up with figures of 5-86 in India's first innings.

Australia's Michael Clarke was the last man before Ashwin to perform the all-round feat in the debut series. Clarke scored 151 on his Test debut against India at Bangalore in 2004-05 and took six for 9 runs in the second innings of Mumbai Test of the same series.

Most balls faced by players while carrying the bat

Can you please provide a list of batsman who have carried their bat in a complete ODI innings (played full 50 overs) with details of balls faced and 4s & 6s hit? - Sanjeev Dhingra

There are more than 50 instances of a batsman opening the innings and remaining unbeaten after playing full 50 overs or more. It is not possible to give the complete list here. However, the players who faced most balls while carrying the bat are listed below:

Batsman	Score	Balls	4s/ 6s	Vs	Venue	Date
GM Turner (NZ)	171	201	16/2	East Africa	Edgbaston	07-06-1975+
SM Gavaskar (Ind)	36	174	1/0	England	Lord's	07-06-1975+
H Masakadza (Zim)	178	167	17/4	Kenya	Harare	18-10-2009
ML Hayden (Aus)	181	166	11/10	New Zealand	Hamilton	20-02-2007
DL Haynes (WI)	138	164	12/2	England	Gwalior	27-10-1989
GM Wood (Aus)	114	165	10/1	England	Lord's	03-06-1985#
Shahriar Nafees (Ban)	123	161	17/1	Zimbabwe	Jaipur	13-10-2006
SC Ganguly (Ind)	130	160	5/2	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	22-03-1999

+ batted for full 60 overs

# batted for full 55 overs

Solkar's catch-per-Test ratio is best

As far as I know, Eknath Solkar had made a catching record when he used to field at forward short-leg. The record was 25 Tests and 52 catches, which is more than two catches per Test. Has this record been broken? If so, by who? - Bharat Talwar

Eknath Solkar actually took 53 catches in 27 Tests, which gives a figure of 1.96 catches per Test. Among all players who have taken at least 50 catches in the field, Solkar's catch per match ratio is the best. New Zealand's Ross Taylor comes next with 1.82 (60 catches in 33 Tests), followed by Australia's Bob Simpson (1.77; 110 in 62), New Zealand's Bryan Young (1.54; 54 in 35), Stephen Fleming (1.54; 171 in 111), Australia's Mark Taylor (1.51; 157 in 104) and England's Tony Greig (1.50 ; 87 in 58).

After how many years of starting to play Test cricket did international teams get their first win - Khursheed Zamir

The following table gives details of each Test-playing country's maiden wins:

Country	Versus	Venue	Date	Margin of victory	Year	Test
Australia	England	Melbourne	19 March,1877	45 runs	1st	1st
England	Australia	Melbourne	4 April,1877	4 wickets	1st	2nd
South Africa	England	Johannesburg	4 January,1906	1 wicket	17th	12th
West Indies	England	Georgetown	26 February,1930	289 runs	2nd	6th
New Zealand	West Indies	Auckland	13 March,1956	190 runs	27th	45th
India	England	Madras	10 February,1952	Inns & 8 runs	20th	25th
Pakistan	India	Lucknow	26 October,1952	Inns & 43 runs	1st	2nd
Sri Lanka	India	Colombo (PSS)	11 September,1985	149 runs	4th	14th
Zimbabwe	Pakistan	Harare	5 February,1995	Inns & 64 runs	3rd	11th
Bangladesh	Zimbabwe	Chittagong	10 January,2005	226 runs	5th	35th

Dravid has the highest percentage of wins

Which Indian has the highest percentage of wins when he goes on to score a century? Sunny, Vengsarkar, Vishy, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman? or someone else? To clarify, if Sunny has scored 34 centuries, how many of them resulted in India winning? - Abhay Not only among the players mentioned by you, but among all Indian players who have scored 10 Test hundreds or more, Rahul Dravid has the highest percentage of wins, as is clear from the following table:

Player	Test 100s	100s in Won matches	%
Rahul Dravid	36	15	41.67
VVS Laxman	17	7	41.18
Sachin Tendulkar	51	20	39.22
Gundappa Viswanath	14	4	28.57
Dilip Vengsarkar	17	4	23.53
Sunil Gavaskar	34	6	17.65

It may be noted here that although 15 of Dravid's 36 hundreds came in won matches for India, the actual number of wins is 14. This is because two hundreds came in the same match -- versus Pakistan at Calcutta in 2007-08. If we consider this as one instance, then Dravid's win-percentage becomes 38.88 and he comes down to third in the above list behind Laxman and Tendulkar. There have been some better performances than Dravid or Laxman (depending upon how you interpret the figures) if we remove the qualification limit of 10 hundreds. Seven Indian batsmen have scored only one hundred in their Test career, which came in a winning cause. They are: Ajit Wadekar, Surinder Amarnath, Nayan Mongia, Sanjay Bangar, Deep Dasgupta, Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay. Syed Kirmani scored two Test hundreds and India won both the Tests. Three of Vinod Kambli's four hundreds came in Tests won by India (won%-80.00), whereas three of five hundreds scored by MS Dhoni came in won Tests for India (won%-60.00).

Navjot Sidhu and Gautam Gambhir have nine Test hundreds against their name, out of which four were for the winning cause (won%-44.44).

Three bowlers have performed the 'trick' in first Test

Which bowler is the quickest in terms of Tests to get a hat-trick? What is the similar stat for ODIs and T20Is - Manoj Singh

Three bowlers have taken a hat-trick in their very first Test. They are: England's Maurice Allom (v New Zealand, Christchurch, 1929-30), New Zealand's Peter Petherick (v Pakistan, Lahore, 1976-77) and Australia's Damien Fleming (v Pakistan, Rawalpindi, 1994-95). Sri Lanka's Nuwan Zoysa (v Zimbabwe,Harare,1999-00) took a hat-trick off his first three balls in the match, whereas India's Irfan Pathan (v Pakistan, Karachi, 2005-06) took a hat-trick off last three balls of his first over. Zoysa's over was the second over of the match, while Irfan's over was also the first over of the match.

Pakistan's Jalaluddin is the quickest to claim a hat-trick in One-Day Internationals. He did so in only his second match (v Australia, Hyderabad, 1982-83). This, incidentally, was the first hat-tricks in this format of the game.

Australia's Anthony Stuart (v Pakistan, Melbourne, 1996-97) and Pakistan's Mohammad Sami (v West Indies, Sharjah, 2001-02) did so in their third and sixth matches respectively. Chaminda Vaas holds the record of being the quickest in terms of balls bowled in a match. In 2003 World Cup Vaas decimated Bangladesh with figures of 6 for 25, which also included a hat-trick completed off the first three balls of the match.

Three hat-tricks have been recorded in Twenty20 internationals so far. Australia's Brett Lee holds the record of being the quickest in terms of matches, doing so in his sixth match (v Bangladesh, Cape Town, 2007-08). New Zealand's Tim Southee and Jacob Oram performed the hat-trick in their 17th and 19th matches respectively.