Cricket writing, from our own data
Cricket records, rules explained and notes on the daily puzzles. Written from our own dataset, never rewritten from a news site.
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.
What a cricket ball is made of, and why it matters
Cork, wound string, four quarters of leather and six rows of stitching. Every behaviour a bowler relies on comes from one of those four components.
The declaration, and the arithmetic behind when to make one
A captain ending their own innings is not asking whether they have enough runs. They are asking whether there is enough time left to bowl the other side out.
The doosra, and why it has been argued about for twenty years
An off-spinner turning the ball the other way requires a wrist position that makes straightening the elbow very hard to avoid, which is where the whole argument comes from.
Kookaburra, Dukes and SG: why the ball changes the cricket
Three balls with identical dimensions behave completely differently, and the reason is the seam. It decides how long a bowler can swing it and which bowlers get picked.
The maiden over, and why it means three different things
Six balls without a run is routine in a Test, notable in an ODI and close to extinct in T20 — and it is worth about eight runs when it happens.
The nightwatchman, and whether it actually works
Sending a tail-ender in late in the day protects a better batter from twenty minutes of danger, and costs a wicket most of the time it is used.
What a wicketkeeper is judged on, and what the card misses
Catches, stumpings and byes are the four numbers on the card, and three of them mislead. What a side actually watches is chances taken and whether they can stand up.