99

As England stumble to another Test match defeat, this article in the Guardian shows a strange little statistical quirk (though it's not as if cricket's short of a statistical quirk or two) - yesterday, Andrew Hall became only the fifth Test batsman to be stranded on 99 not out at the end of an innings. What I found interesting, is that in the more than 100 years of Test cricket, it wasn't until 1979-80 that a batsman got stuck on 99 (ironically, Geoff Boycott, finally realising that maybe he should have gone for that second run one time), then it didn't happen again for 15 years, but has now happened three times in the last four years - twice to South Africans.

If the incidence of 99 not out increases at the current rate, it's only going to be a few years until every innings ends with some batsman stranded there. Probably some number 11 bowler on his debut against England, if the other recent trend continues.