And has anyone gone in at every batting position in the IPL?
Steven Lynch15-Apr-2025Has anyone gone in at every batting position in the IPL? asked Mahesh Gupta from India
There’s only one man who fits the bill here: the West Indian spinner Sunil Narine started as a tailender with the bat – he had only two innings in 15 matches in his first IPL, in 2012. He batted in three innings at No. 11, then started to move up the order.Gradually Narine developed his left-hand pinch-hitting to the extent that he now usually goes in first, and he has scored more than 1300 IPL runs as an opener. In 2024 he clobbered his maiden century – 109 from 56 balls for Kolkata Knight Riders against Rajasthan Royals at Eden Gardens.Narine has also taken 185 wickets so far in the IPL – only three men have more as I write. He’s one of only five men to have done the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in the IPL, the others being Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Andre Russell.Two Bangladesh bowlers took five wickets in a recent women’s one-day international. Has this ever happened before in an ODI? asked Ahmedul Kabir from Bangladesh
The match you’re talking about was a Women’s World Cup qualifier against Thailand in Lahore last week: Bangladesh’s legspinner Fahima Khatun took 5 for 21, while offspinner Jannatul Ferdus had the eye-catching figures of 5-3-7-5 as Thailand slid from 65 for 3 to 93 all out.This was the first case in a women’s ODI of two bowlers taking five wickets apiece. It’s also happened just once in men’s ODIs, back in 1977 when Greg Chappell took 5 for 20 and Gary Cosier 5 for 18 for Australia against England with their medium pace at Edgbaston. “It wasn’t a day for the regular bowlers,” wrote Chappell, Australia’s captain that day. “At our lower pace we made the ball bend in the air and seam off the pitch, and with the help of some undistinguished batting by the England batsmen, whose footwork often left a lot to be desired, we finished off the innings for 171.”Is MS Dhoni the oldest man to captain in the IPL? How about in all T20 matches? asked Ajit Venugopal from India
The Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is due to celebrate his 44th birthday on July 7. He’s actually been the oldest IPL captain for a couple of years already: the previous record was held by Adam Gilchrist, who was 41 when he captained Kings XI Punjab for the last time, in Dharamsala in 2013. Gilchrist celebrated his impending retirement by bowling the last over of the innings – he was fairly safe, as Mumbai Indians needed 51 to win with the last pair at the crease – and took a wicket with the only ball he ever bowled in a senior T20 game.The table of the oldest captains in all T20 matches is skewed by the weird and wonderful selection of teams who now play official T20 internationals: there was a recent change at the top when 56-year-old Alan Dawson skippered the Falkland Islands against Costa Rica in Guacima last month.In all T20s, Ajit Ekanayake (46), Imran Tahir (45), Pearson Best of the Cayman Islands (44) and Misbah-ul-Haq (43) have captained when older than Dhoni, although Misbah is about to be overtaken.Imran Tahir (centre), who leads Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL, is currently the oldest captain on the T20 circuit, at age 45•Getty ImagesWhat’s the connection between Garry Sobers and the 1991 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner? asked Trent Jackson from England
I smell a sports-quiz question here! The Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of Britain’s premier National Hunt (jumps) horse races, was won in 1991 by Garrison Savannah, trained by Jenny Pitman and ridden by her son Mark. The same year, the horse finished second in the Grand National at Aintree, just failing to pull off a double achieved only by Golden Miller in 1934.The horse got its name from the Garrison Savannah racecourse in Barbados, just outside Bridgetown. The track’s most famous race is the Barbados Gold Cup. Horse racing has taken place there since the area was an army garrison, hence the name. And the link with arguably the island’s most famous son is that the former West Indies captain Garry Sobers was knighted there by Queen Elizabeth II in 1975, becoming Sir Garfield Sobers in front of a crowd of around 50,000.You wrote in last week’s column about the players who played the most Test matches without ever appearing in a white-ball international. What’s the reverse – who has played the most white-ball internationals without ever winning a Test cap? Is it David Miller? asked Liam Binyon from Australia
You’ve got it in one: the South African batter David Miller has so far appeared in 308 white-ball internationals (170 ODIs and 138 T20s) without ever playing in a Test match. Kieron Pollard, the West Indian, played 234 white-ball games (123 ODIs and 101 T20s), while Scotland’s Richie Berrington has so far appeared in 230 (123 ODIs and 97 T20s; Scotland haven’t yet played a Test). Another current player, the Australian legspinner Adam Zampa, comes next with 216 (111 ODIs and 95 T20s).Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of the above answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions
