CricTrivia

	Sachin Tendulkar is the first Test victim for Peter George and nine other bowlers © Getty Images Enlarge

Australia scored over 400 in both Tests in India, yet lost them both. Has this ever happened before? 

There have been only two previous instances of a team scoring more than 400 in either innings of successive Tests but ending up losing, and one of those hardly qualifies really as it involved the match atThe Oval in 2006, which Pakistan forfeited after making 504 in the first innings; they had also lost the previous Test, at Headingley, after scoring 538. The other instance occurred in the 1924-25 Ashes series, when England lost successive Tests to Australia: in Sydney they made 411 in their second innings, but had been set a target of 605; then in the next Test, in Melbourne, England made 479 in their first innings but lost again. Both of those games in Australia were timeless matches which stretched into the seventh day.

India have scored more than 200 in the last innings to win each of their last three Tests. Has any other country ever done this? 

The short answer is no, no other country has ever emulated India's feat of scoring, in successive Tests, 257 to beat Sri Lanka in Colombo, and 216 and 207 to beat Australia in Mohali and Bangalore. The only other country to manage even two consecutive successful chases of more than 200 is Australia, who overhauled 292 to beat South Africa in Johannesburg in 2005-06, and followed that with 307 to beat Bangladesh in Fatullah later in 2006.

Sachin Tendulkar became the first victim of Peter George in Bangalore, and he seems to make a bit of a habit of this. How many bowlers have claimed him as their first wicket, and is it a record?

Peter George was actually the tenth bowler to have claimed Sachin Tendulkar as his first Test wicket, which equals the record of the Englishmen Colin Cowdrey and Herbert Sutcliffe. The others to have Tendulkar as their distinguished first Test scalp are Hansie Cronje (South Africa), Ujesh Ranchod (Zimbabwe; Tendulkar was his only Test wicket), Ruwan Kalpage (Sri Lanka), Mark Ealham (England), Neil Johnson (Zimbabwe), Jacob Oram (New Zealand), Monty Panesar (England), Cameron White (Australia), and Peter Siddle (Australia). A further 19 bowlers have so far claimed Tendulkar's wicket as their first in one-day internationals.

Who has played Tests on the most different grounds? 

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the man on top of the list is the player with the most Test appearances: Sachin Tendulkar has so far played Tests on 57 different grounds. Next, with 51, are Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Muttiah Muralitharan, with Shivnarine Chanderpaul one short of his half-century. Mark Boucher and VVS Laxman have so far played on 48 grounds, as did Mohammad Azharuddin. In one-day internationals it's a different story: Tendulkar has played ODIs on 95 different grounds and Dravid on 96, but they are both behindSanath Jayasuriya, who has so far played on 99 different grounds. He may yet make it to 100 if he plays a one-day international at the new ground in Hambantota.

In India's second innings in the first Test, every Australian bowler's runs per over was a whole number. Has this ever happened before? 
I wasn't quite sure how to attack this one, but fortunately Travis, the manipulator of the Cricinfo database, came to my rescue. He says it has only ever happened once before, for any innings in which four or more people bowled, and even then the innings lasted only six overs - in this match between India and Pakistan in Calcutta (as it was then called) in 1952-53. India's second innings in Mohali was rather longer - 58.4 overs - yet the runs-per-over column shows Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson going for exactly 3.00 an over, Doug Bollinger for 4.00 and Nathan Hauritz for 5.00, with Marcus North chiming in with a miserly 2.00.