The Cricket Statistician No 195

12 TABLE D: NUMBER OF MATCHES NEEDED TO REACH BOTH 35 CENTURIES AND 30 5-FORS Player Matches WG Grace 114 MA Noble 203 WW Armstrong 214 MJ Procter 215 JW Hearne 229 Mushtaq Mohammad 233 GS Sobers 304 DI Stevens 312 FE Woolley 342 IT Botham 362 GL Jessop 362 GH Hirst 443 JR Gunn 447 DB Close 497 J Langridge 551 W Rhodes 610 RES Wyatt 611 WG Quaife 672 All of the seven cricketers who attained this twin landmark in fewer matches than Stevens were very significant figures in cricketing history. Table D also demonstrates how exceptional an all-rounder Grace was in the early part of his career. After his 114th match – for Gents v Players at Lord’s on 30 June and 1 July 1873 – his career figures were astonishingly good: Inns Runs Avge 100 50 Wkts Avge 5I 10M 183 9594 58.85 35 33 411 14.57 38 12 Stevens has also performed notably in limited-overs cricket. No less a judge than Stuart Broad has written that he “has to be considered very unlucky not to have played full limited overs cricket for England” and that his failure to do so “is a great shame because I have no doubts he could have been a force in international white-ball cricket”. Expanding the scope to all senior cricket – so as to include One-Day and Twenty20 – Stevens is in an elite club of just 25 who have scored more than 25,000 runs and taken more than 750 wickets. TABLE E: PLAYERS WHO HAVE SCORED MORE THAN 25,000 RUNS AND TAKEN MORE THAN 750 WICKETS IN SENIOR CRICKET Player Career Mat Runs Ave Wkts Ave Bat/Bowl WG Grace 1865-1908 870 54211 39.45 2809 18.14 2.1748 FE Woolley 1906-1938 978 58959 40.77 2066 19.87 2.0518 GS Sobers 1953-1974 478 31035 52.87 1152 27.22 1.9423 W Rhodes 1898-1930 1110 39969 30.81 4204 16.72 1.8427 GH Hirst 1891-1929 826 36356 34.13 2742 18.73 1.8222