Couple of minor observations. (Thanks ever so for generous comments about some other stuff I said, by the way).
The musicianly sense of gunshot rhythm claimed on behalf of Michelle Burger might sound a bit precious, but I'm sure many of us will instinctively understand it. Although I'm not a musician, if I'm in a room where a clock is chiming the hour, and I've paid it no attention so far but I suddenly become actively conscious of it late on in the chimes, I can glance at the clock and immediately know how many chimes are still to come. I certainly wouldn't call it a talent! But I think there is an innate rhythmic auditory memory that some people have - which might seem improbable to those who don't possess it. So even though a person's perception might be expected to be a bit hazy in the moments after being woken up, if they feel that they know they heard exactly four gunshots (or whatever), there's a good chance they're right. I think it's the sort of thing which bypasses the conscious intellect, whilst still registering.
I don't fancy the cricket bat/gunshot confusion at all, for reasons of sound (regardless of whether they're sound reasons). However, if you do think there could be something in it, I'd say don't dismiss the theory simply because it's impossible to make repeated swings of a bat with the required rapidity. It's true that a cricket bat is quite a weighty object (about 3 pounds), and rapid swinging or chopping motions would be very difficult to achieve. But if I was trying to break a door down with a bat, I'd grip it in much the same way as a canoeist grips a paddle in that half-kneeling stance they adopt. So I'd be pummelling away at the door, with the bat at shoulder level and oscillating longitudinally. That way I'd have a better chance of concentrating the damage done onto the same part of the door, rather than just distributing gashes all over it. If you have strong wrists (as OP probably does) you could easily administer three powerful strikes per second that way.
