Players
Career notes on the cricketers who turn up in the daily puzzles, written from their records rather than their headlines.
AB de Villiers by the numbers, and the 31-ball hundred
A Test average above fifty, the fastest fifty, hundred and 150 in one-day history, and a range of shots that made conventional field settings pointless.
Adam Gilchrist by the numbers, and the position he rewrote
A Test average of 47.60 at number seven, at a strike rate no keeper had approached, which changed what every side expected from the position.
Alastair Cook by the numbers, and 12,472 runs from an opener
The leading run-scorer in England's history, and the leading run-scorer among all Test openers, made in a career of almost no injuries and no dropped scores.
Allan Border by the numbers, and the side he had to rebuild
11,174 Test runs at 50.56, scored mostly for an Australian team that was the worst it has ever been, which he then captained back to the top.
Anil Kumble by the numbers, and the ten-wicket innings
619 Test wickets from a leg-spinner who barely spun the ball, took his wickets with bounce instead, and is one of two men ever to take all ten in an innings.
Brian Lara by the numbers, and the innings nobody has matched
11,953 Test runs, a 400 not out that still stands, and a 153 not out in a chase that is regularly named the best innings ever played.
Clive Lloyd by the numbers, and the decision that built a dynasty
7,515 Test runs and a captaincy of 74 Tests, in which he decided that four fast bowlers and no spinner was the answer and was proved right for fifteen years.
Courtney Walsh by the numbers, and 519 wickets from durability
The first bowler to reach 500 Test wickets, taken across seventeen years and 132 Tests by somebody who almost never broke down and almost never bowled badly.
Curtly Ambrose by the numbers, and the spells that ended matches
405 Test wickets at 20.99, including 7 for 1 in Perth and 6 for 24 in Trinidad, from a bowler whose length was almost impossible to leave or to drive.
Dale Steyn by the numbers, and the best strike rate of the modern era
439 Test wickets at 22.95, taken every 42 balls, which is the fastest strike rate of any bowler with 400 wickets in the history of the game.
Dennis Lillee by the numbers, and the back that should have ended it
355 Test wickets at 23.92 from 70 matches, taken by a bowler who broke his back at 24, was told he would not bowl again, and then took 300 more.
Don Bradman by the numbers, and the four runs that mattered
An average of 99.94 across 52 Tests, which is roughly twice anybody else. He needed four runs in his last innings to finish on a hundred and made none.
Glenn McGrath by the numbers, and the length he never left
563 Test wickets at 21.64, taken almost entirely by bowling the same ball on the same spot for fifteen years, at a pace nobody would call fast.
Graeme Smith by the numbers, and the youngest captain who lasted
9,265 Test runs and 108 Tests as captain, having been given the job at 22 in a side that had just lost its captain to a match-fixing ban.
Ian Botham by the numbers, and the summer that made him
383 Test wickets and 5,200 runs, and a career that is remembered almost entirely for six weeks in 1981 when he won a series nobody thought England could win.
Imran Khan by the numbers, and the side he built
362 Test wickets and 3,807 runs, plus a captaincy that took Pakistan from unreliable to a World Cup, largely by finding fast bowlers nobody else had noticed.
Inzamam-ul-Haq by the numbers, and the innings that made him
8,830 Test runs at 49.60 and 11,739 in one-day cricket, from a batter who hit the ball harder than anybody and ran between the wickets worse than anybody.
Jacques Kallis by the numbers, and the case for the best all-rounder
13,289 Test runs at 55.37 and 292 Test wickets. Nobody else has been a top-order batter of that standard and a front-line seamer at the same time.
James Anderson by the numbers, and 704 wickets as a seam bowler
704 Test wickets from 188 matches, more than any fast bowler in history, taken by somebody who was faster at 25 and much better at 35.
Javed Miandad by the numbers, and the last-ball six
8,832 Test runs at 52.57, appearances in six World Cups across twenty-one years, and the single most replayed delivery in Pakistan-India cricket.
Kapil Dev by the numbers, and the country he changed
434 Test wickets and 5,248 runs from a fast bowler India was not supposed to be able to produce, plus 175 not out that won a World Cup.
Kumar Sangakkara by the numbers, and the average nobody mentions
12,400 Test runs at 57.40, which is the highest average of any batter with 10,000 runs except one, achieved while keeping wicket for half of it.
Mahela Jayawardene by the numbers, and the 374
11,814 Test runs at 49.84, including a 374 in the highest partnership in the history of the game, from a batter who scored most heavily where the ball turned.
Malcolm Marshall by the numbers, and the best of the four
376 Test wickets at 20.94, which is the lowest average of any bowler with 300 or more, taken by the shortest and fastest of the great West Indian quicks.
Michael Holding by the numbers, and fourteen wickets at the Oval
249 Test wickets from 60 matches, taken by the fastest and quietest bowler of the great West Indian attack, whose run-up umpires could not hear.
MS Dhoni by the numbers, and the parts that are not countable
Two world titles, a Test mace, and a finishing record built on a method — take it deep, then win it — that nobody has successfully copied.
Muttiah Muralitharan by the numbers, and the 800
800 Test wickets, which is 92 more than anybody else, taken by a bowler whose action was tested three times and cleared three times.
Rahul Dravid by the numbers, and the balls nobody counted
13,288 Test runs at 52.31, and more deliveries faced than any batter in the history of Test cricket. The second number explains the first.
Ravichandran Ashwin by the numbers, and 537 Test wickets
537 Test wickets and six Test centuries, from an off-spinner who kept adding deliveries to his repertoire for fourteen years because he expected to be worked out.
Richard Hadlee by the numbers, and a bowling attack of one
431 Test wickets at 22.29, taken almost entirely without a supporting bowler at the other end, for a country that had won seven Tests before he arrived.
Ricky Ponting by the numbers, and the side he captained
13,378 Test runs at 51.85, and a captaincy record of two World Cups and 48 Test wins, in charge of the strongest side the sport has produced.
Rohit Sharma by the numbers, and three one-day double centuries
Nobody else has scored one double century in a one-day international and been able to do it twice. He has three, and a Test career that started properly at 32.
Sachin Tendulkar by the numbers, and what they cannot show
200 Tests, 15,921 runs at 53.78, and a hundred international centuries. The records are the least interesting thing about a career that lasted twenty-four years.
Shane Warne by the numbers, and what he did to leg spin
708 Test wickets from a discipline everybody had written off as too expensive and too unreliable for the modern game. The wickets are only half of what changed.
Shaun Pollock by the numbers, and an economy rate of 2.39
421 Test wickets at 23.11 with an economy rate of 2.39, plus 3,781 runs, from an all-rounder who almost never bowled a bad ball in seventeen years.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul by the numbers, and the stance nobody copied
11,867 Test runs at 51.37, scored from an open, crab-like stance that every coach would have corrected, for a side that lost most of the matches he saved.
Steve Waugh by the numbers, and the sixteen consecutive wins
10,927 Test runs at 51.06, and a captaincy record of forty-one wins from fifty-seven Tests including sixteen in a row, which nobody has approached.
Stuart Broad by the numbers, and the spells that broke matches
604 Test wickets, and a career defined by half a dozen spells in which he took five or six wickets in an hour and turned a losing position into a won one.
Sunil Gavaskar by the numbers, and the first ten thousand
10,122 Test runs and 34 centuries, made against the fastest bowling in history, without a helmet, opening the batting for a side that mostly lost.
Virat Kohli by the numbers, and the chase that defined him
An ODI average above fifty built almost entirely in run chases, plus a Test captaincy that made India believe they could win away from home.
Virender Sehwag by the numbers, and the fastest triple centuries
Two Test triple centuries scored at close to a run a ball, from an opener with one plan against every bowler on every pitch: see the ball, hit the ball.
Viv Richards by the numbers, and the batter who never wore a helmet
8,540 Test runs at 50.23, scored at a rate nobody else in his era approached, by a man who faced the fastest bowling in history in a cap.
VVS Laxman by the numbers, and the innings that outgrew them
8,781 Test runs at 45.97, a record that undersells him because most of what he was for happened in the situations nobody else could bat in.
Waqar Younis by the numbers, and the yorker that broke toes
373 Test wickets at 23.56 with a strike rate of 43.4, taken almost entirely by bowling fast, full and straight at the base of the stumps.
Wasim Akram by the numbers, and what he did with an old ball
414 Test wickets and 502 in one-day cricket, from a left-armer off a twelve-pace run who could swing a forty-over-old ball both ways at 145 kilometres an hour.
Sourav Ganguly by the numbers, and the one that gets left out
113 Tests, 7,212 runs and an average of 42.17, next to a captaincy record that those batting figures completely fail to explain. Both are true.