In which Test was the wicketkeeper the first bowler to take an opposition wicket?
And in which one-day international did brothers make their debuts for opposing sides?
Knowing that the lyricist of Chess was the cricket-loving Tim Rice - he was MCC's president in 2002 - I thought this was quite likely. And it's true: the world champion in the stage musical is called Freddie Trumper, after the great Golden Age Australian batsman Victor Trumper, while one of the Americans in his delegation (he's also a CIA agent) is Walter de Courcey, after the Australian batsman Jim de Courcy, who toured England in 1953. The musical's Russian grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky does not appear to be based on any former wearers of the baggy green cap.
Apart from Ireland, where there has only been one Test so far (the only century was Kevin O'Brien's 118 against Pakistan in 2018), there have also been no triple-centuries in Tests in Zimbabwe, where the highest score is Kumar Sangakkara's 270 for Sri Lanka in Bulawayo in May 2004.
This unlikely feat was actually achieved by the Zimbabwe wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu, in a Test against Sri Lanka in Harare in May 2004. Sri Lanka's openers, Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya, had already cruised past Zimbabwe's modest first-innings total of 199. Taibu, who was playing in his 15th Test but, aged 20, captaining in his first, decided to take off the pads and have a bowl for the first time - and ended the first-wicket stand at 281. It remained the only time Taibu bowled in a Test, although he did strike twice in ODIs.
This strange "dismissal" concerned Graeme Watson, the batting allrounder who played five Tests for Australia, and was the first to represent three states (Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales) in the Sheffield Shield. In his first match for Western Australia, in Perth in 1971-72, Watson had made 145 when he cut a ball from left-armer Warwick Neville into the gully and walked off, convinced he had been caught by Don Allen. After play the umpires informed Watson that he hadn't been caught at all, and instructed the scorers to record the dismissal as "retired out". I've never discovered why they didn't tell him before he left the playing area.
The match in question was England's first official one-day international against Ireland, in Belfast in June 2006. Dublin-born Ed Joyce opened the batting for England, and later his younger brother Dominick Joyce faced the first ball for Ireland (he was out to the third, from Steve Harmison).
Steven Lynch is the editor of the updated edition of Wisden on the Ashes