Have all four top batsmen made hundreds in the same Test innings before?
Also, have both captains ever bagged golden ducks in the same ODI?
Pakistan's innings of 555 for 3 against Sri Lanka in Karachi last month, in which Shan Masood made 135, Abid Ali 174, Azhar Ali 118 and Babar Azam 100 not out, was only the second occasion that the top four all made centuries in the same Test innings. The other instance came in Dhaka in 2007, when Dinesh Karthik hit 129, Wasim Jaffer 118, Rahul Dravid 129 and Sachin Tendulkar 122 not out as India hustled to 610 for 3 against Bangladesh.
The Pakistan batsman Abid Ali hit an unbeaten 109 on his Test debut, against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi last month, to go with 112 in his first one-day international, against Australia in Dubai in March 2019.
The man with this lopsided record is the former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy, who scored four centuries in his 119 Tests. In 112 other first-class matches, 55 of them for Queensland, he reached 50 on 17 further occasions, but never made it past 90. Curiously, however, Healy averaged 27.39 in Tests, but 34.05 in those other matches.
Virat Kohli and Kieron Pollard were both out first ball in the match between India and West Indies in Visakhapatnam in December. This was indeed the first time both captains had bagged golden ducks in the same ODI. It hasn't happened in T20Is either or, as far as I can see, in Test matches, although we don't have ball-by-ball data for several early Test matches.
Rohit Sharma's ten centuries in all forms of international cricket in 2019 was the most; Virat Kohli came next with seven, while Babar Azam and David Warner both made six. Kohli, though, scored more runs overall, with 2455 to Sharma's 2442. Babar came next with 2082.
Steven Lynch is the editor of the updated edition of Wisden on the Ashes