A Tea Time Quiz - Ten Testing 'T's

Answer: Hugh Tayfield

Hugh 'Toey' Tayfield played Test cricket for South Africa from 1949 to 1960. His nickname came from one of his pre-bowling habits, stubbing his toes into the ground prior to taking his run up. In the course of the 37 Test matches he played, he took a total of 170 wickets - a South African national record until it was surpassed by the fast bowler Allan Donald in 1997.

The annual awards given out by the 'Wisden Cricketers' Almanack' are based around the performance of the England team, and generally honour the best cricketers to have played for or against England during the previous year. Tayfield was selected for the 1956 awards thanks to his dominant performance in South Africa's 1955 tour of England, despite the fact that his team lost the series 3-2. The four other winners were the England players Colin Cowdrey, Doug Insole and Frank Tyson and the South African batsman Jackie McGlew.

Answer: Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor was the second Australian cricketer to receive the honour of being designated Australian of the Year; the first was his predecessor as team captain, Allan Border, in 1989. For the majority of his Test cricket career he was one of Australia's opening batsman, although his reputation for slow-scoring meant that he was often excluded from the one day international (ODI) team. He achieved his career best score in the second Test against Pakistan in 1998; his final tally of 334 not out equalled the record set by the great Sir Donald Bradman in 1930.

Taylor stood down from the captaincy and retired from international cricket in 1999. During his time as head of the team, Australia played 50 Test matches and won just over half of them.

Answer: Graham Thorpe

Englishman Graham Thorpe played in a total of 16 Test matches against Australia across five different Ashes tours, both at home and Down Under. However, despite scoring three centuries and achieving a batting average of 45.74 during Ashes matches, Thorpe never got to lift the trophy - Australia won all five series.

Thorpe played in exactly 100 international Test matches for England and made a total of 16 centuries over the course of these matches. In total, he contributed to England Test series victories against India, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Answer: Jeff Thomson

Australia's Jeff Thomson ranks as one of the fastest bowlers in the history of Test cricket. His fastest recorded delivery was 160.5 km/h - equivalent to 100 mph. He made his debut in the second Test of Pakistan's tour of Australia in December 1972; he bowled 19 overs but took no wickets. Arguably the highlight of Thomson's Test career was the 1974-75 Ashes series against England during which he took 33 wickets for the cost of 592 runs over the five matches. His last international Test appearance for Australia was against England in 1985.

In the 1970s and 1980s the rules regarding safe bowling techniques and the safety equipment worn by batsman were less stringent than in the modern game. Thomson's statement before the 1974-75 Ashes that "I enjoy hitting a batsman more than getting him out. I like to see blood on the pitch" was controversial then, but would likely be unacceptable to 21st century audiences.

Answer: Fred Trueman

Fred Trueman was one of the greatest bowlers to play for the England cricket team. He was a fast bowler and took a total of 307 Test wickets with a bowling average of 21.57 over his 13-year international career. He also played for his native county of Yorkshire, who won the County Championship seven times during the period that Trueman played for them (and shared an eighth title with Middlesex).

After his retirement from the sport in 1968 (with the exception of a brief return in 1972), Trueman began a second career in television and radio as a cricket commentator and presenter of a game show called 'The Indoor League'. He also had a minor acting role in the classic sitcom 'Dad's Army' as the character E. C. Egan, a top cricketer recruited by the ARP wardens' team to play in a match against the Home Guard.

Answer: Glenn Turner

Glenn Turner's total of 103 first-class centuries were scored over 455 matches between 1964 and 1983 (a strike rate of 1 every 4.4 matches). By contrast his seven Test centuries were scored over a total of just 41 matches - around 1 for every 5.9 matches played. He spent the majority of his professional career playing in England and was a member of the Worcestershire team from 1967 to 1982.

Turner was a member of New Zealand's Test cricket squad from 1969 until his retirement in 1983. His centuries came against Pakistan, the West Indies (where he scored over 200 runs), Australia and India - however, these particular efforts only helped his team to victory on two occasions, both of which came at the expense of Australia.

Answer: Don Tallon

"The Invincibles" was the nickname given to the Australian cricket team of 1948 who toured England under the captaincy of the great Don Bradman without losing a single match. Don Tallon was one of the team's two wicket-keepers and played in four of the five Test matches contested as part of the tour.

Tallon played in a total of 21 Test matches between 1946 and his retirement in 1953. His top class international career was relatively short due to the fact that he didn't receive his first cap until the age of 30, after the end of the Second World War. However, he was highly respected for his wicket-keeping technique, was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1949 and also stood out as a good lower-order batsman - although he didn't achieve any centuries in a Test match, he did manage quite a few in other first-class games.

Answer: Hashan Tillakaratne

Hashan Tillakaratne played 83 Test cricket matches for Sri Lanka between 1989 and 2003. For the final ten of those he was also the team's captain, but his team's poor performance in only winning one of those matches led to his resignation and the end of his international career.

Tillakaratne tended to play as a mid-order batsman (and was also a regular wicket-keeper in the early part of his career). As such he didn't actually get to bat in the 1996 Cricket World Cup final, although he had played an important role in the team's route through the competition. He also played in one day internationals (ODIs) and set a record in 1995 as the first player to score a century in an ODI from seventh place in the batting order.

Answer: Phil Tufnell

Phil Tufnell competed in 42 Test matches for England between 1990 and 2001, taking a total of 121 wickets with an average of 37.68. He also spent more than ten years playing county cricket for Middlesex and achieved more than 1,000 first-class wickets over the course of his career. Tufnell's somewhat unusual nickname was "The Cat", given because of the number of times he was found asleep in the dressing room by his team-mates.

Although a well-known figure because of his sporting career, Tufnell found fame in 2003 after winning the second series of 'I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!' (a survival reality show). He has also been a team captain on the long-running sports quiz 'A Question of Sport' as well as appearing on a variety of popular TV shows, including 'Strictly Come Dancing', 'They Think It's All Over' and 'The One Show'.

Answer: Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar played his first Test match for India in 1989 at the age of 16 and remained an important member of the team for 24 years, playing in a total of 200 Tests. During his lengthy career he surpassed the previous all-time run record of 11,953 set by Brian Lara and went on to extend it by nearly 4,000 runs (although his highest score in a single innings of 248 remained well short of Lara's 400). He also set a new record of 51 Test centuries and in total scored 100 international centuries, including his one day international (ODI) results.

He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1997, crowned player of the tournament at the 2003 Cricket World Cup (in which India were runners-up) and awarded the Sir Garfield Sobers trophy for cricketer of the year in 2010. In 2011, Tendulkar finally won the world cup with India at the sixth attempt.