CricTrivia

Last week Trent Johnston of Ireland was bowling to Nitish Kumar of Canada in a one-day international. Johnston is 20 years older than Kumar. Has an age gap this big occurred before? 

The biggest age gap one can find in one-day internationals between a bowler and a batsman is 26 years, between Zimbabwe's John Traicos (then 44) and Sachin Tendulkar (18) during a World Cup match in Hamilton in 1991-92. In Tests, Wilfred Rhodes of England was 52 when he bowled against West Indies in 1929-30: in two of the Tests, West Indies includedDerek Sealy, who was only 17 at the time. Rhodes caught and bowled him for 0 in the second of those, making it an age difference of 35 years!

What is the biggest first-innings deficit which has been overturned to win a Test? 

Strictly speaking the answer is 331, which is the first-innings lead England conceded against Pakistan at The Oval in 2006 before, later in the game, Pakistan forfeited the match after being accused of ball-tampering. The biggest lead overturned in the normal course of events in a Test is 291, by Australia against Sri Lanka in Colombo in August 1992. After Australia made 256, Sri Lanka replied with 547 for 8, with three centuries, including a rapid one from the debutant Romesh Kaluwitharana. Australia then made 471, setting a modest victory target of 181 - and although Sri Lanka seemed to be cruising at 127 for 2 they lost their last eight wickets for 37, to lose by 16 runs. The last three went to Shane Warne, his first significant contribution in Test cricket.

Which bowler has the highest percentage of caught-and-bowled dismissals in international cricket? 

The highest percentage in international cricket (Tests, one-day and Twenty20 internationals all lumped together) for anyone who has taken at least 20 caught-and-bowleds is 14.15% by Chris Harris of New Zealand (31c&bs out of 219 dismissals). That's nearly double the next best - Ravi Shastri's 7.14% (20 c&bs out of 280 wickets).