Has a bowler taken a ten-for and then been dropped for the next Test?

Mohammad Abbas was dropped after taking eight wickets in the first Test in the West Indies. Has anyone ever taken more and missed the next Test? asked Iqbal Maqsood from Pakistan
The case of Mohammad Abbas is quite unusual - he took 3 for 63 and 5 for 22 for Pakistan against West Indies in Tarouba, but was dropped for the second Test. That initially seemed a strange decision - but, since Pakistan ended up winning the match and squaring the series, maybe the selectors got it right!

The problem here is that there are many reasons why a player might miss a Test, even if he'd done well in the previous one. For example, New Zealand's Matt Henry took 11 wickets in the second Test against England at The Oval in June, but didn't play in the third as he had a leg injury.

Henry is one of 18 bowlers who have taken ten or more wickets in a Test but missed the next one in the same series. The best figures were involved 14 for 124, by the Indian offspinner Jasu Patel in the second Test against Australia in Kanpur in 1959; he missed the third Test when he fell ill just before the start. The great England bowler Sydney Barnes took 14 for 144 against South Africa in Durban in 1914, but missed the next match. At the time it was put about that Barnes was injured, but he later admitted "I was at loggerheads with the management", and had declined to play.

It's difficult to tell without combing contemporary newspapers for selection details, but it looks as if only two of these 18 bowlers were left out of the next match when they were fit and willing to play. Both were rested against what was perceived as weaker opposition: Australia's Graham McKenzie was left out of the third Test against India in 1967-68 after taking 10 for 151 in the second in Melbourne (Bill Lawry called the decision "a joke", while Ian Chappell thought it "a disgrace"), while Muthiah Muralidaran was benched after taking 10 for 98 against Bangladesh in Colombo in 2002. Sri Lanka made several changes for the second Test (among the others given a rest was Aravinda de Silva, who'd made 206 in the first match: he never played again). I've only looked at cases that fell within the same series.

West Indies' first Test against Pakistan was held at the Brian Lara Academy in Trinidad. Is Trinidad the first Caribbean country to have two different Test venues? asked Sheldon White from Trinidad
Both Tests of West Indies' series against Pakistan were held in Trinidad: the first was held at the Brian Lara Academy in Tarouba, and the second at the traditional Test ground at Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

Tarouba became the 13th ground to stage a Test in the West Indies. Of those, two were in Guyana (in Georgetown and Providence) and two in Antigua (St John's and North Sound). Trinidad has now hosted 65 Tests, 64 of them at Queen's Park. Barbados and Jamaica have both staged 56 Tests on the same ground, while Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia and St Vincent have all had one Test venue.

I read that Jos Buttler recently passed Chris Gayle's runs in T20 matches. Is there anyone else ahead of him? asked Peter McDonald from England
Not so long ago, Chris Gayle led the way for runs scored in all senior T20 matches by quite a distance: when he finished in 2022, he had reached a total of 14,562. Jos Buttler passed that recently, and as I write tops the list with 14,834. But it's tight at the top: Kieron Pollard actually went past Gayle first, and he currently has 14,803. Three other current players are also past the 14,000 mark: Alex Hales (14,458), David Warner (14,284) and Virat Kohli (14,218). Buttler himself knows nothing is forever: "Someone will surpass it one day - and his name is probably Sooryavanshi!"

Shemaine Campbelle scored her first half-century after more than 150 T20 internationals. Has anyone else - man or woman - taken longer to score their first fifty? asked Haseeb Ahmad from Pakistan
West Indies' Shemaine Campbelle scored her first T20I half-century in her 123rd innings in her 155th match, with an undefeated 90 against New Zealand during the 2026 T20 World Cup in Southampton in June. She's the only one to wait more than 100 innings for her first fifty: next come Janet Mbabazi of Uganda (97th innings, in 105th match), and New Zealand's Maddy Green (92nd innings in 112th match).

The identity of the men's record-holder is perhaps a bit of a surprise: MS Dhoni did not make a T20I half-century until his 66th innings, in his 76th match, against England in Bengaluru in 2017. Next come Sri Lanka's Thisara Perera, who scored his first fifty in his 63rd innings (72nd match), and the Irish pair of Kevin O'Brien (62nd innings in 69th match) and George Dockrell (59th innings in 103rd match).

Further to last week's question about the most consecutive victories in T20 internationals, what's the record for ODIs? asked Terry Jackson from England
The clear leaders here are Australia, who won no fewer than 21 successive completed ODIs in 2003, a run that included all their 11 matches in that year's World Cup. Australia are second on the list too, with 14 successive wins in 2023 and 2024. Sri Lanka had 13 successive wins in 2023.

The Australian women's team have done even better: they completed 26 successive victories between March 2018 and September 2021, which beat their own record of 17 from 1997 to 1999. They also won 16 in a row in 1999 and 2000. India also won 16 successive ODIs in 2016 and 2017.