Marc Dawson - Outside Edge: An Eclectic Collection of Cricketing Facts, Feats & Figures

Cricket Extras (1993) Probably the most complete set of cricketing quirks and coincidences ever to be collated in one volume. former England Test captain David Gower

Cricket Extras 2 (1994) Hundreds of eye-openers. Riveting stuff. David Frith,Wisden Cricket Monthly

Quick Singles (1995) A fascinating book.
ABC cricket commentator Jim Maxwell

Cricket Curious Cricket (2007) Splendid anthology of unusual facts and feats from the summer game.
Rob Shaw,The Examiner

The Cricket Tragics Book of Cricket Extras (2010) Lavishly and beautifully produced and illustrated. An outstanding publication. What is most remarkable is that so much has been packed into the book, with everything set out with such clarity of detail.
Indian cricket statistician Rajesh Kumar

Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Marc Dawson 2013

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Print ISBN 978-1-90917-855-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-909178-91-5

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A MERICAN ACTOR Robin Williams infamously, erroneously and tritely labelled cricket as baseball on valium, but he is obviously not cognisant of the fact that the USA actually played the first ever one-day international a thriller versus Canada back in the 19th century. Williamss ignorance can be enlightened if he thumbs through Marc Dawsons new opus Outside Edge. It will surely give him the info and the edge on his fellow countrymen.

Outside Edge chronicles facts, feats and figures of the wondrous game. Marc compiles, labels and catalogues thousands of cricket factoids, statistics, phenomena, coincidences and opinions. Some seem obvious and logical, others definitely do not. As an avid reader of cricket literature and miner of cricket statistics I found surprises coming thick and fast like a Stieg Larsson plot. Outside Edge is a page turner in every respect. I found myself flipping the next while still halfway through the final sentence on the previous. Seeking that extra page to find out just what obscure or obvious fact I would be presented with the umpire killed who? and why? Salman Rushdie said what about Imran Khan?

The volume raises curious occurrences and wonderful accomplishments and often eyebrow-raising relationships what do Jermaine Lawson and Geoff Lawson have in common, besides the obvious that they were both fast bowlers?

Cricket has been forever a game that produces, digests and often spits out statistics. In Marc Dawsons virtual gastro-intestinal tract you can check how the runs, wickets and catches are not the only figures that cricket produces the vital statistics of Liz Hurley, Errol Flynn and the yellow Wiggle appear. Rowan Atkinsons character Blackadder uses the expression as about as feminine as W.G. Grace or even Merv Hughes, if you get the gist. The very cunning Baldrick got the point.

Tendulkar, Hobbs, Bradman and Ranji all are featured but I bet you dont know how many century partnerships the Waugh brothers, or the Chappell brothers or the Crowe brothers or the Flowers have made together.

Ducks! There are plenty of them, often consecutive and well roasted. But who has made the most after making a hundred, between hundreds and before getting a hundred? The Chris Martin batting stat is guessable, but read it anyway!

Club, school and village cricket records and peculiarities get a serious run. The stats are far from ordinary and will win many a trivia quiz besides raising your interest and eyebrows. The CIA gets a mention, yes The Central Intelligence Agency, as does Barack Obama, David Cameron, John Major and Kevin Rudd.

Cricket has traditional roots and the not so traditional. Kenya could almost be described as having a foot in both camps but the Maasai Warriors XI wearing tribal garb didnt impress their trainer much besides bringing a new interpretation to the term leg cutter. The explanation is in these pages.

There is absolutely no question that Marc Dawson is well researched, thorough, intense, a finder of cricket nooks and an examiner of crickets crannies. You can read Outside Edge anywhere, anytime. The interest is a fascination. Clearly Marc needs to get out of the house a bit more. Read this and then loiter around the bookstore for the next instalment.

Geoff Lawson
former Australian Test cricketer

• Hot on the heels of scoring an unbeaten 189 in a one-day international in 2009, Zimbabwes Charles Coventry became the first batsman to follow a score of 150-plus with a duck. Coventry was out for nought just two days later at the same venue, Bulawayo, and against the same opposition, Bangladesh.

  Two months on from Coventrys 189 at the time the highest undefeated innings in a one-day international a team-mate hit an unbeaten 178 against Kenya at Harare. Hamilton Masakadza made 156 in the first match against Kenya, and with subsequent scores of 66, 44, 23 and 178, aggregated a record 467 runs, becoming the first batsman to achieve two innings of 150-plus in the same series.

• When Australia hosted Pakistan at the MCG in 1976/77, one batsman from each side scored a duck and a century. Both batsmen Rick McCosker (0 and 105) and Sadiq Mohammad (105 and 0) made exactly the same number of runs. In the early part of 2005, Englands Andrew Strauss and Pakistans Younis Khan both brought up identical knocks of 147 and a duck in a single Test Strauss against South Africa at Johannesburg, and Younis against India at Kolkata.
• In a three-match Test series in England in 2007, West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul raised an average of 148.66, overtaking a record for an overseas batsman set by Don Bradman in 1930. In five innings, Chanderpaul hit 446 runs while Bradman scored a record 974 in seven innings for an average of 126.50.
• After scoring a century on his one-day international debut, Zimbabwes Andy Flower didnt score another until his 150th match. With an unbeaten 115 against Sri Lanka at New Plymouth in the 1992 World Cup, Flower became just the third batsman to score a century on debut. And despite an unbeaten 99 along the way, he had to wait a record eight years to score a second hundred, an undefeated 120, also against Sri Lanka, at Sharjah in 2000/01.
• To celebrate Test crickets 105th ground, one batsman from each side scored 119. The Rose Bowl in Southampton became the newest of Test venues hosting England and Sri Lanka in 2011, with Ian Bell hitting an unbeaten 119 and Kumar Sangakkara dismissed for the same score. With an innings of 55, Alastair Cook produced a sixth consecutive Test match half-century, equalling the England record held by Patsy Hendren, Ted Dexter and Ken Barrington. Bell topped the averages in the three-match series, scoring 331 runs at 331.00, while Cook topped the run-scoring with an aggregate of 390 at 97.50.