[rafiq]

This is a great puzzle. The Sports reporter knew we were bored so did not want to give the answer away. He sprinkles his article with several clues, and also hid valuable information in the next article "Viva Victoria". I think we should try to guess how much Musfiq scored before someone who reads his stats elsewhere posts it here.

Let's see, we know he scored at least 40 (10 boundaries) but less than 174, Victoria's total for 6 wickets.

He came to the crease about 17 minutes before lunch. (252 mins at the crease) minus (240 for the two sessions) plus (5 min for the last over not bowled). We can deduce that the allrounder Mushfiq came out to bat with approximately 3.3 overs to be bowled before lunch.

Now we know the score at lunch was 35/3. With a careful start let's say Mushfiq went into lunch on 4 not out over those 3.3 overs. The trail is getting warmer...

Between 35/3 and 112/6 (77 runs), let's assume other batsmen scored 40 (Azam scores 20 of 28 and the rest chip in another 20). That leaves our friend Mushfiq to score 37 more runs since lunch. So with the score at 112/6, Mushfiq was sweating out there at 41 not out (37 plus 4 n.o at lunch).

The rest is easy. Anisur Rahman scored 33 of the 62 runs in the unbroken 7th wicket partnership. That leaves Mushfiq to score 29 of the runs in that partnership, giving him an unaudited total of 70.

Now, I know what you are thinking. So far I haven't accounted for extras. Even though we know there were 9 men in the slips at the end of the day, extras are really hard to figure out. For this the learned Sports Reporter wants us to search through the Daily Star Archives to calculate how many extras Mohammedan typically gives away in two sessions. Let's skip this part of the puzzle and make a simplifying assumption that 20 were given away during the innings of 174, and perhaps 15 while Mushfiq was batting (the 9 slips helped keep extras down as all balls were outswingers, at least during those overs).

So therefore we must subtract 15 from our previous unaudited total of 70 to come up with 55. Now, we must do a gut check on this number. We know he hit 10 scintillating boundaries. We must know more about Mushfiq the batsman. Was he in a particularly aggressive mood? Naah, he was just trying to survive. Didn;t he take a lot of singles with the 9 slips in place? Nope, the bowling was too good at the end.

Ok, applying the gut check we have to conclude that Mushfiq scored a tad more than 55, in fact he scored 61 not out, giving him a strike rate of a bit less than 33% (193 ball innings). This is in line with our historical understanding of how Mushfiq would perform when called upon.

So, you see, this is how much work you have to do to figure out the Sports Reporter's article.

Disclaimer: certain assumptons and calculations above may be incorrect. I look forward to other calculations and reasoning should anyone else be so inclined.

and p.s., congrats to mushfiq, he finally did something!!