The Cricket Statistician No 195

11 an impressive 8.60 (5,929 runs, av. 34.07 and 514 wickets, av. 25.47), and Ben Stokes, with a differential of 5.95 (8,424 runs, av. 35.39 and 335 wickets, av. 29.44). Two notable career landmarks which Stevens reached at the start of the 2021 season were his 35th century and his 30th 5-for. Only eighteen players in first-class history have scored at least 35 first-class centuries and taken at least 30 5-fors: TABLE C: PLAYERS WHO HAVE SCORED 35 CENTURIES AND TAKEN 30 5-FORS IN FIRST-CLASS CRICKET Player Career 100 5w W Rhodes 1898-1930 58 287 WG Grace 1865-1908 124 240 GH Hirst 1891-1929 60 184 FE Woolley 1906-1938 145 132 JW Hearne 1909-1936 96 107 J Langridge 1924-1953 42 91 JR Gunn 1896-1932 40 82 MJ Procter 1965-1989 48 70 IT Botham 1974-1993 38 59 WW Armstrong 1899-1922 45 50 DB Close 1949-1986 52 43 GL Jessop 1894-1914 53 41 Mushtaq Mohammad 1957-1985 72 39 GS Sobers 1953-1974 86 36 MA Noble 1894-1919 37 33 WG Quaife 1894-1928 73 32 RES Wyatt 1923-1957 85 31 DI Stevens 1997- 36 31 Of these eighteen, only twelve appeared in Table B. Botham (the most recent in time to achieve this landmark before Stevens) scored 19,399 (average 33.97), but his 1,172 first- class wickets cost 27.22 each. Noble’s averages with both bat (40.74) and ball (23.11) were admirable, but he only scored 13,975 runs. Sobers averaged 54.87 with the bat, but his bowling average was 27.74. And a number of cricketers highly placed in Table B did not make it into Table C. Hazare, who topped Table B by some distance, scored 60 first-class hundreds but had only 27 5-fors. His status as a serious all-rounder at the highest level is undermined by the fact that his 20 Test wickets cost 61 runs each. Tarrant took 133 5-fors, but only scored 33 centuries. Rice’s 48 centuries more than doubled his 23 5-fors. The Notts all-rounder of the early 1900s James Iremonger, whose career figures suggest he is the strongest challenger to Stevens’ claim to being the best all-rounder never to have been capped by England at cricket, took 35 5-fors, but only scored 31 centuries in 534 innings. Iremonger had the consolation of being selected to play football for his country. All of the cricketers in Table C played Test cricket – except Stevens. And Stevens’ appearance in Table C cannot be attributed solely to his cricketing longevity, as is apparent from Table D.