Cummins and goings, and India's brothers

I had an interesting question the other day: apparently five players from the 1992 World Cup are also playing in the 2007 one, who are they? I got Lara, Tendulkar, Inzamam and Jayasuriya, but can't find the fifth, who is it? asked Mark Wilson

The fifth one is not obvious: it's Anderson Cummins, who played for the West Indies in 1992 and is now turning out for Canada. Cummins, who is now 40, made his official one-day debut for Canada in January 2007, more than 11 years after playing the last of his 63 one-day internationals for West Indies, which included most of the games at the 1991-92 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Will Anderson Cummins be the first man to play for two sides in the World Cup if he plays for Canada this year? asked Prasad Yavalkar from India

Assuming that Anderson Cummins plays a match for Canada in the forthcoming tournament, he will become only the second player to represent two different teams in the World Cup: Kepler Wessels played for Australia in 1983, and for South Africa in 1991-92. Graeme Hick, who played for England in 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1999, was in the Zimbabwe squad for the 1983 World Cup, when he was only 17, but was rather surprisingly not chosen in any of the matches, when Zimbabwe's captain was Duncan Fletcher.

How many pairs of brothers have played for India in Tests? asked Bhiman from India

Seven pairs of brothers have won Test caps for India, starting in their very first Test, against England at Lord's in 1932, when the side included Wazir and Nazir Ali. In India's next Test, in Bombay in 1933-34, Amar Singh played alongside his brother L. Ramji, and in the next Test, at Calcutta, CS Nayudu played alongside his brother CK. Since then the brothers have been spaced out rather more: in the late 1950s/early 1960s there was Arvind and Madhav Apte, Subhash and Baloo Gupte, and Kripal and Milkha Singh, while in the 1970s Mohinder and Surinder Amarnath played together several times. The Amarnaths have a good claim to being India's foremost cricketing family, as their father Lala captained India, and scored their first Test century (in that Bombay match mentioned above). For a full list of related Test players from all countries, click here.

Who called his autobiography Flying Stumps? asked Darren Wilcox from Canterbury

My first thought was that it was the former Lancashire and England fast bowler Brian Statham, but when I had a look on the bookshelves it turned out that his 1961 book was actually called Flying Bails. He'd been beaten by seven years to the title Flying Stumps: that was written by the Australian fast bowler Ray Lindwall. Both books were published in the UK by Stanley Paul.

I remember David Smith of Sussex scoring a century but not getting the Man-of-the-Match award in a NatWest final a few years ago. Has anyone else made a century in a Lord's final but ended up missing out on the match award? asked George Parker from Brighton

David Smith made 124 for Sussex in the NatWest final in 1993, but ended up on the losing side: Warwickshire won, and Asif Din, who also scored a century, picked up the Man-of-the-Match award. Sussex had made 321 in their 60 overs, the sort of score that usually guaranteed victory back then - times have changed a little since, as Australia found out last week! The only other man to make a century in a domestic final at Lord's but not carry off the match award was Nick Knight, whose 118 failed to take Warwickshire to victory in the C&G Trophy final in 2005: Sean Ervine won the award for his 104 for the winners, Hampshire.

How does the Duckworth/Lewis system for rain-affected one-day matches work? asked Shabbir Khan from Karachi

To explain it properly would take rather more space than we have here - the official explanation runs to more than 3000 words. The simplified version is that the method calculates the resources left (the number of overs left and the number of wickets standing) to the side batting second, and adjusts the target accordingly. The full regulations for the system can be found on the official ICC website.

And there's an update to last week's question about one-day internationals played in whites, from Vivek Srinivasan and others

"The last one-day series played in whites was not the Texaco Trophy series in 1998, which was the last one played in whites in England. It was the India-Zimbabwe series in India in December 2000."