September 19, 2002

Name: Sharad
Question: Mr. Menon, could you produce a list of all contemporary players and all players who have retired in the last 5 years who have their Personal Best Test score against India? After Matthew Hoggard and Michael Vaughan added their PB's to the list in the Nottingham Test, this list should make for interesting reading!

Answer 1: Among current players the following batsmen have their personal best against India.

England:
J Foster (48), M Hoggard (32), R Irani (41), C White (121), M Vaughan (197)

Australia:
M Hayden (203), J Langer (223), M Waugh (153*), JN Gillespie (46), M Kasprowicz (25),

West Indies:
S Chanderpaul (140), CL Hooper (233), RD Jacobs (118), S Williams (128), M Dillon (43), PT Collins (24)

New Zealand: C Cairns (126)

Pakistan: Saeed Anwar (188*), S Afridi (141)

Sri Lanka:
M Jayawardene (242), S Jayasuriya (340), M Muralitharan (67), DK Liyanage (23), E Upashanta (6)

South Africa: N Boje (85), M Ntini (23)

Zimbabwe:
A Flower (232*), S Carlisle (77), D Ebrahim (94), D Viljoen (38), T Taibu (13), R Price (18)

Bangladesh: Aminul Islam (145), Khalid Masud (32)

Name: Ajai Kumar
Question: Dear sir, who bowled the first ball in ODI and to whom.

Answer 2: Australian Graham McKenzie bowled the first ball to England's Geoff Boycott at Melbourne on 5-1-1971 in the first ever ODI match.

Name: Vikram
Question: Hello Mr. Menon, much has been said and written about Rahul Dravid's reluctance to open in Tests. It seems that for such a gifted batsman, it is just in the mind...or is it? Could you give me figures of Dravid coming at one down when (a) the score is <10 and (b) >=10. Thanx.

Answer 3: In the last Test series against England, Dravid at number three.
Following are the details you requested:

Venue	1st inngs	2nd inngs
at Lord's	1-2 (0.5 ov)	1-61 (12.2 ov)
at Nottingham	1-6 (2.2 ov)	1-0 (0.2 ov)
at Leeds	1-15 (6.5 ov)	-
at The Oval	1-18 (3.4 ov)	-

Name: Saurabh
Question: Hi Mohandas, love your statistics knowledge. Helps me know so much... Here's my question. I saw Kapil has scored runs at strike rate of 95.70 in ODI and gave runs at 3.71 while bowling. Can you give me names of people who have such good strike rate and economy rate, people who have played atleast 150 ODI. Thanks, Saurabh

Answer 4: Only three players who have appeared in over 150 matches in ODI history have a batting strike-rate of over 80 runs per 100 balls and and an economy bowling rate of less than 4 runs per over:

Batsman	Mts	S/r	R/o
Kapil Dev	225	94.41	3.72
Wasim Akram	343	88.13	3.90
Shaun Pollock	165	81.54	3.83

Name: Ketan Bhave
Question: Is the length of the bat standard or can be changed at batsman's wish?

Answer 5: Law 6, clearly states the bat overall shall not be more than 38 in/96.5 cm in length. The blade of the bat shall be made of wood and shall not exceed 4^1/4 in/10.8 cm at the widest part.

Name: Keyur P. Sampat
Question: Hi mohan, this is regarding Tendulkar's dismissals. Can u give me a breakup of Tendulkar's dismissals in ODIs and Tests and if possible compare it with Lara's dismissals?

Answer 6:

Batsman	Ins	Bld	Ct	Cwk	C&b	St	Lb	RO	Htwkt
Tendulkar (ODI)	259	40	119	37	11	8	20	24	0
Lara (ODI)	175	32	73	31	8	4	16	11	0
Tendulkar (Test)	145	25	68	20	4	1	23	4	0
Lara (Test)	153	21	63	39	4	2	20	3	1

Ins: Innings, Bld: Bowled, Ct: Caught, Cwk: Caught by wicketkeeper, C&b: Caught and bowled, St: Stumped, Lb: Leg before wicket, RO: Run out, Htwkt: Hit wicket

Name: Kiran
Question: Dear Sir, Amongst all the states in India, which three states has produced the most cricketers (players born in a certain state) ? Thanks.

Answer 7: Bombay (now Mumbai) has produced the maximum Test cricketers - 67 (including one each who appeared for Pakistan and West Indies)

Name: Harish.K
Question: Can you tell me who are the top 5 bowlers who have the unique distinction of being hit the highest number of sixes in ODI's and Tests?

Answer 8: Exact records for this category are not available. However in Test cricket Shane Warne is believed to have conceded most sixes - nearly 100.

Name: Tareeq Ali
Question: Who was the first Muslim cricketer to play for India after independence?

Answer 9: The first Muslim to represent India after independence was Gul Mohamed, who appeared in India's first ever Test match after August 1947, which was against Australia at Brisbane.

Name: Sunil_bang
Question: We are a team playing in US and this issue is causing a serious problem in our matches. Please answer this question I'll really appreciate it. This question is very specific to One day International cricket In ODI cricket. If a ball is bowled outside the leg stump and going further down, definitely out of reach of the batsman to make any cricketing stoke. While attempting to play such a delivery if the batsman streches one of his leg awkwardly, may be off-balance, and ball hits/brushes his pads, then will the ball be called wide even if it has touched the pad but out of reach of the batsman, so that, the batting side gets an extra delivery?

Answer 10: If the ball touches any part of the batsman's bat or body it CAN'T be called a wide. To declare a wide ball the umpire has to be certain that the ball has not touched the bat or any part of the the body of the batsman and moreover the delivery should be out of reach of the batsman's bat.

Mail Cricket Editor