Most Balls Bowled without a Run Being Scored off Him

At Kingsmead in 1956-57, off spinner Hugh Tayfield bowled 137 consecutive deliveries without a run being scored off him. The South African offspinner ended the first innings of the 3rd Test against England in Durban in 1956-57 with 119 successive dot balls and he finished with figures of 24-17-21-1 and later on he added 18 more in the 2nd innings before finally conceding another run, making a total of 137 dot balls in succession that remains the first-class record. Hugh Tayfield took 8 for 69 in that 2nd innings. Most of Tayfield's dots were delivered to Trevor Bailey who "confronted him, almost regardless of length, with the dead-bat forward stab". Tayfield's record was seriously threatened but not broken in Madras (Currently Chennai) in 1963-64, when the Indian slow left-armer Bapu Nadkarni sent down 131 successive dot balls during the course of his extraordinary analysis of 32-27-5-0 in the first Test against England.

Hugh Tayfield of South Africa bowls against Surrey at The Oval, London, 18th July 1955