Q: You often refer to a Test series as a 'rubber'. Can you tell me what the origin of this terminology is?

Answer: Until fairly recently, a set of matches within a season was always referred to as a ‘rubber’, while the term ‘series’ signified the entire list of Tests between two countries played over many years. ‘Rubber’ has denoted a set of games in whist, backgammon and bowls for four centuries. As it originally denoted the deciding game of a set of three or five, it referred to the game that eliminated – or rubbed out – one of the contestants.

Q: Extra runs (byes, leg byes, wides and no balls) make a small portion of the total runs in an innings. What is the largest number of extras in an innings? What was the final score?

Answer: The Test record is 71 (21 byes, 8 leg byes, 4 wides and 38 no balls) conceded by West Indies in Pakistan’s first innings tally of 435 at Bourda, Georgetown, in April 1988.
The most in a first-class innings is 98 (17 byes, 17 leg byes, 16 wides and 48 no balls) conceded by Essex v Northamptonshire (579) at Northampton in 1999. Under ECB regulations two penalty runs were scored for each wide and no ball.

One for the nurdlers (I love the quote!):

Q: What is the highest Test match score made without boundaries? I have some cloudy memory about Graham Thorpe scoring a century with just one 4. I was wondering if that had been bettered?

Answer: The highest Test innings without a boundary is 77 by Geoffrey Boycott for England v Australia at Perth in 1978-79. I scored it and noted that although his innings included one four, it was all-run and included two runs from an overthrow. He batted for 454 minutes and faced 337 balls. Former Australian captain Lindsay Hassett remarked on air that it “was an exceptional innings by someone who could not find the middle of the bat”.

Thorpe’s century against Pakistan at Lahore in 2000-01 was indeed composed of one four, seven threes, 12 twos and 51 singles and provides the only instance of a Test hundred with just one boundary.