Love actualities?

If the answer is yes then crikey, are you in for a treat with Benedict Bermange's South African tour statistics!

Benedict's on hand to bring you the very best facts this winter

Short on stats? Then don't worry because Benedict's back and he's unearthed some crackers ahead of England's tour of South Africa. But don't take our word for it! Dive in to...

Benedict's fantastic facts...

1) In the Durban Test of January 1957, South African off-spinner Hugh Tayfield bowled a record 137 dot balls in a row to the England batsman. His 16 consecutive eight-ball maiden overs spanning two innings (including nine to Trevor Bailey) remain a Test record to this day. 2) The Wanderers is the only current Test ground to stand at an altitude of more than a mile above sea level at 1,631 metres. Its predecessor, the Old Wanderers was even higher, but was rebuilt in 1946 as Johannesburg Railway Station. By contrast, the pitch at Kingsmead is laid slightly below sea level. 3) Three Hearne brothers appeared in the Cape Town Test of March 1892. Alec and George made their debuts for England, while Frank appeared for South Africa after playing twice previously for England. In the same match, John Ferris and Billy Murdoch debuted for England having already played for Australia. 4) At Lord's on 30 June 1924, England advanced their score from 28/0 overnight to 531 for two declared against the South Africans, thanks to a double-century from Jack Hobbs and centuries from Herbert Sutcliffe and Frank Woolley. The 503 runs in 118 overs is still an England record for a single day's Test cricket, and this match provided one of only four occasions when a team has won a Test losing only two wickets. 5) At Durban in December 1948 Athol Rowan bowled 44 consecutive eight-ball overs in England's first-innings total of 253. These 352 deliveries without change were a Test record for more than forty years, until India's Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 six-ball overs unchanged (354 deliveries) against England at The Oval in 1990. 6) That Test saw the only occasion in Test history when a match ended in a team scoring the winning run off the last ball of the match. England won by two wickets with Alec Bedser and Cliff Gladwin scampering a leg-bye off Lindsay Tuckett's final delivery after the ball had hit Gladwin on the thigh and trickled just a couple of yards. 7) In the same series, it was announced during the second Test at Johannesburg that Athol's older brother Eric would be dropped for the next match. He responded by scoring an unbeaten 156 that enabled his team to salvage a draw. Reinstated for the fourth Test, his unbeaten 86 helped save that match too, and his 236 at Headingley in the 1951 series remains the highest score by a player in his forties in Test history. 8) Since their re-admission to Test cricket in 1992, South Africa's pacemen have taken 86 percent of all Test wickets taken by their country. As a comparison, the figure for all other countries over the same period of time is much lower - 66 percent. 9) A six hit in the thinner air on the Highveld at the Wanderers or at Centurion will travel approximately seven metres further than the same shot hit at a ground located on the coast such as Kingsmead, Durban or Newlands, Cape Town. 10) Dale Steyn's strike rate is the best of all the 82 bowlers who have taken at least 150 Test wickets, taking just 39 deliveries per wicket. However, Steyn has the worst economy rate of all those bowlers - giving up 3.62 runs per over. 11) In 2008, Kevin Pietersen became the fifth England batsman to score a century against the country of his birth, followng Colin Cowdrey (v India), Nasser Hussain (v India), Graeme Hick (v Zimbabwe) and Andrew Strauss (v South Africa). Jonathan Trott and Matt Prior will try to join that club this winter. 12) Andrew Strauss is one of eighteen men to have captained England having been born outside the country. South Africa have only had three Test captains born outside South Africa - all in England: Ernest Halliwell (Ealing, Middx), William Milton (Little Marlow, Bucks) and Frank Mitchell (Market Weighton, Yorkshire). 13) The South African tail used to be a big strength for them. From 1992 to 2006, batsmen 8-11 averaged 19.86 each for them - the highest of all the Test nations over that period. However, in the past three years, they average just 13.04 each - only West Indies and Bangladesh are worse. England's tail-enders boast twelve fifties in that period - more than any other team. 14) Makhaya Ntini has been hit for 62 sixes in his Test career, which is by far the most off any pace bowler. Next are the 36 from New Zealand's Chris Martin. Shane Warne was hit for 170 sixes in his career and Muttiah Muralitharan is currently a close second with 164. Nicky Boje holds the South African record with 82 whereas Ashley Giles and Monty Panesar share the English record with 63. 15) England's first tour of South Africa took place in 1888/89 and was a private tour which was not deemed to be a Test series until years later. In all, there were 16 matches against teams made up of anything between 15 and 22 players before the first Test. On this tour, England only plays three one-day and two two-day warm-up matches. 16) England's captain on that first tour was Aubrey (later Sir Aubrey) Smith - who is the only England cricketer to captain the side in his only Test. He is also the only one to star in a film with Elizabeth Taylor (Mervyn Le Roy's Little Women) and to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 17) Jimmy Sinclair played 25 Tests for South Africa while also managing to play rugby for both England & South Africa. A ball which he had hit for a six at the old Wanderers' Ground in Johannesburg landed on a train bound for Port Elizabeth and was only recovered at that destination 556 miles away - surely the furthest that any ball has ever been hit. 18) South Africa boasts the first man to play Test cricket whose first name began with the letter X. Xenophon Balaskas was born to Greek migrant parents in Kimberley and bowled South Africa to their first victory in England by taking nine wickets at Lord's in 1935. West Indian Xavier Marshall is the only other X-man to date. 19) Colin Wesley holds a unique place in the history of Tests between these two sides. At Trent Bridge in 1960 the South African middle-order batsman became the only player to be dismissed for a first-ball duck in each innings - completing a 'king pair' being dismissed by Brian Statham on each occasion. 20) South Africa returned to the international cricket fray on 10 November 1991 when they played India in front of a capacity crowd at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Since then, a South African has topped the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders 77 percent of the time, and for ODI all-rounders 54 percent of the time.