Okay, it's been long enough. Two of my previous trivia questions were unanswered.
- Who are the two Test players to have a higher average than their highest Test score?
Sadashiv (Sadu) Shinde played 7 Tests for India between 1946 and 1952, garnerning an average of 14.16 but a high score of 14. Five not out scores in eleven innings helped him along the way.
Antao D'Souza played 6 Tests for Pakistan between 1959 and 1962, with an average of 38 but a high of 23*, helped by 8 not outs in 10 innings. Other fun fact, he is one of the very few non-Islamic cricketers to represent Pakistan in Tests...count one less depending on if you count Yousuf Youhana/Mohammad Yousuf as one or not.
- Sometimes, wicketkeepers have to bowl. Which designated wicketkeeper has bowled the most balls in Tests? And who has the most wickets despite being behind the wicket otherwise in the match?
This one goes way back to when Test cricket was in its infancy. English keeper Bill Storer bowled 168 balls across 4 innings in Tests in the waning days of the 19th century and early part of the 20th, picking up 2 wickets. In First Class matches, he was a bit more effective, picking up 232 scalps with four 5-fors. But we don't know if he was the designated keeper in all of those FC matches.
Another Englishman, Alfred Lyttelton, only ever bowled once in Tests, but those 12 (4-ball) overs in 1884 saw him pick up 4-19, which remains to this day the best return by a designated keeper. Not just in an innings, but actually it's the most a designated keeper has ever picked up in his career. Even if you want to add AB de Villiers or Rahul Dravid into the mix, both considered designated keepers at one point or the other in their careers...AB only has 2 Test wickets, both of which came when he wasn't keeping in the match. Dravid has 1, again, not as the keeper for the match.
If we want to get out of the Stone Age, MS Dhoni would be the keeper who has bowled the most this millennium, with 96 balls but no wickets to his name. Tatenda Taibu has bowled 48 balls in Tests and picked up 1 wicket as the next most-bowled since the turn of the century.
And the last note on keepers, you add all of Mark Boucher's keeping dismissals, you get 999. Except he bowled one over and two balls at the ARG in Antigua and got the wicket of DJ Bravo for 107. That's the 1k right there. It was a match where all 11 South Africans bowled, and Boucher actually didn't have that bad of an action for a never-offspinner.
Will leave a scenario or two in a bit.
