What is the record for the most sixes in a T20I innings?
And has anyone hit more sixes in their first T20I innings than Tristan Stubbs' eight?
Those 20 sixes in the first T20I against South Africa in Bristol last week was easily an England record, surpassing 15, which they had achieved five times, including twice in successive matches against West Indies in Bridgetown in January. But it was short of the overall mark: Afghanistan's batters hit 22 sixes in their 278 for 3 - the joint record for any senior T20 match - against Ireland in Dehradun in February 2019. There have been three cases of 21 sixes in a T20 international innings, and another of 20.
If we look at the men whose average at the end of their final Test was higher than at the end of any of their previous matches, there are eight (plus three current players) who averaged 30 or more. The most matches involved was 29, by Seymour Nurse of West Indies, who finished with an average of 47.60, helped by 258 in his final Test (against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1968-69), and India's Irfan Pathan (31.57). The old England opener Jack Russell averaged 56.88 - his highest - after his tenth and last Test, in which he scored 140 and 111 against South Africa in Durban in 1922-23. Note that Mushfiqur Rahim, who made 198 runs for once out in his most recent match (against Sri Lanka in Mirpur in May), currently has a higher average - 37.93 after 82 Tests - than after any of his previous matches, as does Ravindra Jadeja (36.56 after 60).
The 21-year-old South African Tristan Stubbs did hit eight sixes in his valiant innings of 72 from 28 balls in Bristol the other day. While it was his first innings in T20Is, it wasn't quite his first match; he played two against India in June without getting to the crease. In any case, the record for a T20I debut is ten sixes, shared by two men: Ravinderpal Singh for Canada against the Cayman Islands in Bermuda in August 2019, and Leslie Dunbar for Serbia against Bulgaria in Corfu two months later. JP Kotze smote nine sixes on debut for Namibia against Botswana in Windhoek in August 2019.
It's true that the South African fast bowler Duanne Olivier has the best strike rate in Tests among current bowlers (given a minimum of 2000 balls bowled). He has taken 59 wickets in 15 matches so far, at a rate of one every 35.3 balls; the only man ahead of him over a complete career is the 19th-century England bowler George Lohmann, who took a wicket every 34.1 deliveries. Currently in fifth place is Olivier's team-mate Kagiso Rabada (40.7), while Dale Steyn's 439 Test wickets came at the tremendous rate of one every 42.3 balls.
Sam Northeast, who scored a county-record 410 not out for Glamorgan against Leicestershire at Grace Road last month, is now 32. The only older quadruple-centurion was Brian Lara, who was 34 when he reached 400 for the second time, during the Test against England in Antigua in 2004. Slightly more surprisingly, perhaps, Lara's effort in that game was also, at 773 minutes, the slowest first-class quadruple; Northeast is next with 603. However, although it's difficult to be absolutely certain, it looks as if Lara was also the quickest to the mark - in the course of his unbeaten 501 at Edgbaston in 1994 he reached 400 in 367 minutes. The youngest to score a first-class 400 was Pakistan's Aftab Baloch, aged 20 in 1973-74. For the list of the highest first-class scores, click here.
Steven Lynch is the editor of the updated edition of Wisden on the Ashes