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They call him, Mr Cup Match

All smiles: Tucker takes a break during training at Somerset

They don’t call him Mr Cup Match for nothing.

Even when Janeiro Tucker doesn’t produce with the bat, he still has something special to contribute to the team. Now the man who already leads the most runs chart, best batting average, highest individual score and most MVP awards is heading up another table — most catches — according to statistician Charles Brown’s updated records.

Last year Tucker followed up his first-ball duck in his only innings by taking six catches in the match to move past five players — including his father, John, a top slip fielder in his day — to top the catches chart with 27 catches. It also landed him the Calvin “Bummy” Symonds Safe Hands Award for the second time.

Tucker has two more catches than Amon Hunt and Charlie Marshall, whose record of 1,357 runs in Cup Match was surpassed by Tucker in 2013 in the same innings he scored a record fourth century in the classic.

At 40, Tucker’s Cup Match days may be numbered but on a ground where he scored the centuries, few would bet against him producing something special yet again. He may just have one more big innings left in him.

The Southampton Rangers and Bermuda captain already has five Cup Match MVP awards to his name since 1999 when he scored his first century. And despite that duck last year, Tucker remains the only batsman with an average over 50 from ten innings or more in Cup Match.

His average dropped from 62.45 to 59.74 but he still leads Colin Blades, who averaged 49.54, Alma “Champ” Hunt, at 38.10, and Nigel Hazel, who averaged 37.42.

Lionel Cann, who has an average of 37.17, slipped to fifth but has been ruled out this year through illness, while OJ Pitcher climbed to seventh on the all-time list with an average of 35.00 after his first century last year.

Pitcher’s 525 runs is the third most runs among present players and puts him 26th on the aggregate list.