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Z-score’s
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Charles Davis: Statistician of the Year (Association of Cricket
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Click on the Date to go to that Blog Entry… |
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The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1970s have now been
posted. More than two-thirds of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage;
virtually all others offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything
previously made available online. The starting page is here. An information page
outlining this database is here. A Bonus Page: some remarkable first-class
innings, re-scored. |
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A
contact in India, Gulu Ezekiel, has sent me a copy of an interview with Col
Hoy, published in an Indian cricket magazine (Cricket Quarterly Jan-Feb 1978). It
contained an interesting item about the Brisbane Tied Test (umpired by Hoy)
that I didn't know: Hoy says that the scoreboard at the ‘Gabba missed a run
during the last over, and showed the West Indies winning the match. The
operators had missed a bye off the fourth ball of the over. The scorers, who
were probably a bit snowed under at that point, had not called the scoreboard
to correct the error. It
is not mentioned in Fingleton's book or the newspaper reports that I have on
hand. I wonder if anyone has read about this elsewhere. The
reaction of the West Indies players at the end suggest that at least some of
them thought they had won the match. ******** Sreeram
has noted that Keith Miller had once hit the first ball of a Test day for six
(Adelaide 1946-47, Day 4, off a no ball bowled by Doug Wright) and asked if I
knew of any other cases. To my surprise I was unable to come up with anything
apart from Chris Gayle hitting the first ball of a Test for six against
Bangladesh. So Miller is the only known overnight not out to do this. ******** Sreeram
also tells me that during Ben Stokes' century at Leeds he scored 70
consecutive runs off the bat (61* to 131* plus a wide) scored between
Archer's last four and Leach's single. ******** |
6 December 2019 Here's
an odd coincidence... The
sharing of the strike can be an important factor in some innings. Most large
innings fall in the range 45-55%, but there are some outliers. I
figured out a way to easily calculate % strike received for major individual
innings, without rearranging my data. So I calculated this stat for all the
centuries and half-centuries that I could, over 3500 Test centuries in all
(out of 4100). Here
is the coincidence, for Test centuries: Lowest
% strike: 36.3% AC Gilchrist 101 Port of Spain 2003. Highest
% Strike: 66.3 % AC Gilchrist 113 SCG 2004/05 There
have been over 770 century-makers, so seeing the
same batsman at both extremes is strange indeed. One
factor involving Gilchrist is that innings with few balls faced tend to have
a wider spread in terms of the strike, and Gilchrist faced fewer balls in his
centuries than just about anyone. Longer innings tend to regress toward the
mean; it is very hard to farm the strike for extended periods. Highest %
Strike: Centuries
The
figure for Sinclair is only approximate. Lowest %
Strike: Centuries
The
extremes for half-centuries…
Ashraful’s
67 was an extremely fast innings; domination of the strike is much more
likely over short periods. Intikhab’s
innings was during a famous 9th-wicket partnership at The Oval in
1967, which is also represented, from the other perspective, in the century
by Asif Iqbal. I also remember watching Asif farm the strike at the WACA in
1978-79; he was the most skilled batsman in this respect that I have seen. ******** Dropped Catches Report, at last After
a long layoff, I have managed to update my database of missed chances
(catches and stumpings) that I have been maintaining since 2001. (Based on
searches of Cricinfo’s texts. These are wonderful; however, the searches are
tiresome work and I wish Cricinfo’s commentators had a way of ‘tagging’
chances. It would make it so much easier.) There
is enough data in the update to make a historical comparison of wicketkeepers
in this century. The results are interesting, I think. The Best Wicketkeepers
of the Century: Fewest Missed Chances
Minimum 50
chances as wicketkeeper (32 wicketkeepers qualified). Catches
and stumpings are only counted for those matches where missed chance data is
available (not necessarily total career). In the case of Rashid Latif, that
makes the numbers rather provisional, because only 18 Tests out of his
37-Test career have data. This includes a couple of Tests from the 1990s
where data was logged by Bill Frindall. I took a close look at Rashid’s stats
because Rashid himself asked me about them. For
Adam Gilchrist, some early matches are missing. For
most players data ends in May this year, except for Tim Paine whose data
includes the recent Ashes. Paine’s figures are remarkable; we will see if he
can sustain this (Gilchrist and Boucher were also in single digits at the
same stage of their careers, but both faded a little in later years) It
is also interesting that Matthew Wade, who was Australia’s keeper in between
Nevill and Paine, had a much higher drop rate of 17%. Wade, of course, is a
much better batsman than either of the others and is now back
in the team as a specialist batsman. I did calculate once that the extra runs
conceded through Wade’s missed chances (compared to Nevill) almost exactly
counterbalanced the extra runs that he scored. At
the far end of the scale, about half a dozen wicketkeepers have missed over
25% of their chances. Mushfiqur Rahim missed over 30%. ******** After
a lot of thought, I have decided to change the layout of the ball-by-ball records
of matches in the Test Match Database. Previously, I presented data with two
overs per line. The saved space and was quite neat in presenting overs at
each end in a side-by-side configuration. However, I finally decided that
this layout was just too difficult to read. I had thought that readers could
figure out the complexities if they really wanted to, but it was all a bit
too difficult. The
new layout presents one over per line, rather like linear scoring. There are
also line breaks where wicket(s) occur during an over, and at the end of
every session, so that the exact score at these events is clearly displayed.
An example of the new layout is linked below. https://www.sportstats.com.au/zArchive/1980s/1984AW/1984AW4bbb1.pdf The
new layout uses more pages in the pdf format, but I hope it is more
user-friendly. Eventually, I will redo all the old ones, about 700 of them
(!) I
have just reached Test # 1000 in my database! ******** |
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I
have added some bits of data to certain post-War series in my database. Some
if this data came from Ashru. Other data concerns batting milestones,
particularly times for half-centuries. Series affected include Eng v NZ 1949,
Aus v Win 1951-52 and v SAf 1952-53, and series in India and Pakistan in
1954-55 and 1958-59. |
14 November 2019 One
of the most fascinating innings from the ‘Golden Age’ of Test cricket is
Jimmy Sinclair’s 104 against Australia at Cape town in 1902. It was one of
the fastest innings of its day – it would even be the fastest century of all
time if some reports are to be believed. In truth, though, the
record-breaking claims are very dubious. I
have studied Sinclair’s tour de force in the past, and some years ago posted
online my reconstruction, based on
contemporary newspaper reports. Recently, Robin Isherwood sent me a copy of
another over-by-over analysis of the innings, made many years ago by R.H.
Curnow. Curnow also based his analysis on newspapers, perhaps a more
extensive set than I had access to. I have posted the resulting over-by-over
score here . In short,
the two versions are substantially in agreement with regards to Sinclair’s
innings and its statistics, although there are differences in detail. One
contentious aspect of this innings is that some newspapers state that
Sinclair’s innings lasted an hour or less; this would make it the
fastest-ever Test century in terms of time. However, my analysis and Curnow’s
agree that there were far too many overs bowled for this time to be possible,
and 60 minutes is in clear conflict with times given for other milestones in
the innings, stated in the same reports. One report said 80 minutes rather
than 60, and this seems to be correct. The error may have arisen if the
dismissal of Shalders was used as Sinclair’s starting time (leading to a time
of 60 minutes), when in fact Sinclair had come to the wicket at the dismissal
of Smith about 20 minutes earlier. Reports saying that Sinclair reached 50 in
35 minutes are similarly almost certainly wrong; the real figure is 55
minutes, in all probability. I
wondered if there had been a 20-minute tea break, but no report mentions any
breaks in the innings. In those days, there was usually no tea break if a
change of innings occurred after lunch, which was the case here. A
remarkable aspect of the reporting is the detailed account given in the Cape Argus. Amazingly, the report,
covering the entire innings, was published
on the same day as the innings (Monday Nov 10, 1902) even though
Sinclair’s innings did not end until 5:40 pm! The Argus was an afternoon paper with multiple editions, and
apparently they held the final edition open until the cricket report could be
completed. Reports were sent from the ground to the office by bicycle
courier. I
have a photocopy of this report, sent to me by Ross Smith many years ago;
unfortunately it is sometimes hard to read, and I haven’t been able to get a
better copy. I presume that Curnow had access to a clear version. Anyway,
here is my interpretation of some of the time features of the innings, based
on reports from five newspapers: 4:15-4:20
pm, over 31. CJE Smith out at 81/2. Sinclair in. 4:25
pm, over 36. South Africa 100 in 95 minutes. 4:30-4:35
pm, over 38. Shalders and Twentyman-Jones out. 115/4. Sinclair 26 off ~22
balls. 4:50
pm, over 44. Llewellyn out 136/5. 5:15
pm. Sinclair 53 off ~50 balls, 55 minutes. Over 49. Overs
51-52. Sinclair hits 34 runs in 2 overs. 5:30
pm over 55. South Africa 200 in 160 minutes. 5:37
pm. Sinclair 100 in 80 minutes, 70-75 balls. Over 57 5:40
pm. Sinclair 104 in 83 minutes, 75-80 balls. Over 58, stumps called. Uncertainties
about balls faced are unavoidable, because dot balls are mostly not mentioned
in reports, even though we have a good over-by-over account. In overs where
singles or threes are described but the specific ball numbers are not, dot
balls are distributed in what seems a reasonable fashion. It seems fair to
assume that Sinclair faced fewer dot balls than his batting partners, given
that he was making far more scoring shots. ******** Fast Centuries, Slow Times? I
was looking at some Tests from earlier this century when I came across some
odd stats for a century by Adam Gilchrist at Port of Spain in 2003. Gilchrist
reached his century off 104 balls, impressively fast as usual, yet he it took
him 208 minutes. He received only 36.5% of the strike during his innings; in
particular, he received little strike late in his innings, while batting with
Darren Lehmann (160) and Brad Hogg (17*). Gilchrist faced only 31 out of the
last 120 balls of the innings, which was declared closed when he reached his
century. I
decided to take a look at centuries with the most extreme ratios of minutes
to balls faced. Gilchrist is the leader here. Test Centuries:
Highest Ratio of Minutes batted to Balls Faced
At
the other end of the scale we have innings from long
ago, when over rates were much higher… Lowest Ratio
of
Minutes
batted to Balls Faced (where known)
[Note
that I only have the requisite data on about 70% of early centuries.] One
point that I would add is that while balls faced is rightly recognised as the
best way to compare the speed of innings, minutes batted should not be
ignored. The latter is an important element of the spectator’s experience. A
two-hour century will generally be more memorable than a three-hour century,
other circumstances being equal. Generally,
it is very hard to maintain a severe imbalance in strike over a long period,
but evidently there are exceptions. I don’t know if Gilchrist’s century is
the most extreme in % Strike, but I may report on that later. ******** |
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A
surprise to me, worth recording... In the 2002-03 Champions Trophy (ODI) in Sri
Lanka, lbw decisions were frequently referred to the
3rd umpire. Shoaib Malik was the first batsman given out lbw this way, on 12
Sep 2002. Back
then there were fewer hi-tech aids, and the 3rd umpire was simply making his
decisions from conventional replays. Many
catch decisions were also referred to the 3rd umpire; almost all ended up
'not out' because the available vision was inconclusive (in the days before
HD TV) and the batsmen got the benefit of the doubt. There were complaints
about this and about the delays it caused. The
lbw experiment was shelved after this series. The more sophisticated DRS was trialled in 2008 and introduced in Tests in 2009. ******** Tim
Paine recently scored his first first-class century for 13 years (125
matches). This ranks pretty high in the longest intervals between centuries,
but not at the top. Meyrick
Payne of Middlesex, like his near namesake a wicketkeeper by trade, scored a
century in 1907 and his next in 1927. For a career uninterrupted by War,
Arthur Sims went 17 years between centuries. His second century, in 1913-14,
was notable for a world record partnership of 433 for the 8th
wicket with Victor Trumper. Fred
Titmus went 293 f-c matches between centuries, from 1965 to 1976 (age 43). He
had made his f-c debut in 1949. ******** Some
years ago I did a study of some of Bill Frindall's scores that recorded shots
that went off the edge (as Frindall saw it). I logged the edge shots from 27
Tests. FWIW, there were 1443 runs off the edge out of 25,156 total runs off
the bat - about 5.7%. ******** Rohit
Sharma made 176 and 127 in the recent Test at Visakhapatnam, repeating
exactly the scores of Herbert Sutcliffe at the MCG in 1925. It is only the
second time that a century in each innings has been repeated exactly. The
other was Inzamam making 109 and 100* at Faisalabad in 2005, matched exactly
by Azhar Ali at Abu Dhabi in 2014. Only
two batsmen have made higher scores in both innings than Sharma (and
Sutcliffe): Brian Lara with 221 & 130 in 2001 and Greg Chappell with 247*
& 133 in 1974. There
was also Andy Flower 142 & 199, if you reverse the innings. ******** Most
dismissals by a fielder/bowler pair in first-class cricket: I get 356 for
Ames/Freeman. Next is FH Huish/C Blythe on 320 and Hunter/ Rhodes on 307. The
above figures include a large proportion of stumpings. For catches alone I
get 252 for George Dawkes off Les Jackson for Derbyshire. I also get 250
catches for Edward Brooks off Alf Gover (Surrey). (Data
before 1984 only) ******** |
17 October 2019 Long-time
correspondent Ashru has reminded me of an unresolved anomaly in the score of
the Trent Bridge Test of 1950, and pointed out that Brodribb discussed this
incident briefly in Next Man In (1952). Day
3 of this Test ended when rain interrupted, after Reg Simpson had hit the
first ball of an over for three. When play restarted after a rest day, there
was confusion over who should bowl and who should face. First Ramadhin, then
Valentine, were told to bowl, before the scorers (Ferguson and Wheat) ruled
that Ramadhin had to finish the over. Unfortunately he then bowled to Simpson
again, so the wrong batsman was facing anyway. The
surviving score does not resolve matters satisfactorily. It seems clear from
the score that only Ramadhin and Valentine bowled between tea and stumps. The
overs are not numbered in the score, but Valentine must have bowled the
odd-numbered overs, starting at Over 37, and
Ramadhin the even; this preserves the correct sequence of scoring strokes for
the batsmen, which otherwise goes haywire under any other bowling order.
There were no extras in the session. The
main problem in the score is that, after Ramadhin bowled Over 48 to
Washbrook, the three by Simpson follows immediately, off the first ball of
Over 49, apparently with Ramadhin bowling again. There are no other available
overs in the recorded score to insert after Over 48. The scores published in
newspapers next morning reproduce exactly the bowling figures in this
scenario, recording 6.1 overs for Ramadhin and 14 for Valentine. Tea-Stumps
Day 3, Trent Bridge 1950
The
best explanation that I can suggest is that the three was actually hit off
Valentine, and erroneously (or confusingly) recorded by the scorers when play
suddenly ended. Press reports say that when Ramadhin lined up to bowl next
day, umpire Frank Chester intervened and wanted Valentine to bowl instead,
but this was overruled by the scorers. Ramadhin continued ‘his’ over, but to
the wrong batsman. Perhaps Chester was right after all. So
in effect, Ramadhin has been recorded as bowling two consecutive overs,
something known on only two other occasions in Test history. If
readers can suggest other scenarios, let me know. ******** At
Christchurch in 1977-78, in England’s second innings, there was an unusual
set of contentious run out incidents, all in the space of five overs. England
needed quick runs in advance of a declaration, but captain Geoff Boycott
decided to bat in his customary manner (26 off 80 balls). In
Ewen Chatfield’s third over, Derek Randall cut a ball through gully and ran a
quick two, returning to the ‘danger’ end. He made it, but keeper Warren Lees
saw that Boycott was sauntering back to the bowler’s end, while looking back
to see that Randall had made his ground. Lees threw down the bowler’s wicket.
Boycott was almost certainly out of his ground, but the umpire Goodall said
he was ‘unsighted’ (not paying attention is more likely) and ruled not out. This
incident probably provoked what happened a few balls later, when Chatfield
did the ‘Mankad’ on Randall. Personally, I don’t have problem with bowlers
doing this, but in this case, Chatfield did not even enter his delivery
stride, breaking the stumps underarm. New
batsman Ian Botham soon became fed up with Boycott’s slowcoach methods. Off
the first ball of Chatfield’s fifth over, Botham patted a shot to cover point
and called Boycott through for an impossible run. Boycott called “NO!”, but
Botham carried on and managed to pass Boycott before Stephen Book returned
the ball to Lees and the stumps were down. Boycott was judged run out. If
there was any doubt that it was a deliberate act by Botham, it was put to
rest when Botham cheerfully admitted it. There is YouTube video of the incident, featuring a Botham with extensive mullet, here. ******** |
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In
the 2003 World Cup, both Kenya and Pakistan fielded 10 players who had played
in the previous World Cup. The
only team that has changed completely in consecutive World Cups is Australia
in 1975 and 1979. The 1979 team selection excluded the Packer players. The
longest interval between two identical teams appearing in ODIs is 682 days,
for a Sri Lanka team on 14-Apr-2002 and 25-Feb-2004. The players were: DPMD
Jayawardene HDPK
Dharmasena KC
Sangakkara M
Muralitharan MS
Atapattu RP
Arnold ST
Jayasuriya TM
Dilshan UDU
Chandana WPUJC
Vaas ******** A note following Steve Smith’s
sequence of high scores. Ray Illingworth in 1970-71 exceeded his batting average
(as it stood at the time) in 10 consecutive innings (during the Ashes
series). Navjot Sidhu did the same in 1992-93. ******** I
can find 10 cases of a player making a double century having missed the
previous Test of the same series (excluding Test debuts), prior to Steve
Smith’s 211 at Old Trafford. Not sure how many were due to injuries - not
many - but the most notable must be Len Hutton missing the Leeds Test of 1938
through injury then scoring 364 at the Oval. Hutton did it again in 1950, injured
for the 3rd Test but made 202* in the 4th. Bob
Simpson missed the 3rd Test of 1965-66 through illness but scored 225 in the
4th Test. Bob Cowper was dropped for that 4th Test to make way for Simpson
but returned for the 5th Test and made 307. Ijaz
Ahmed made 211 in the Asian Test final in 1998-99 having missed the previous
match, but I think he had been dropped previously, not injured. That was the
most recent case that I found. ******** |
25 September 2019 Yes
it has been too long since any real posts. I have no explanation available,
apart from some waning in enthusiasm after about 15 years on this blog. I
have kept busy, though, with progressively adding to the online database,
which has now reached 1982. I have also upgraded all available ball-by-ball
records to include, where available, times of day for each start and close of
play (even this small addition involved a lot of work, considering that there
are now more than 700 Tests online. The time upgrades for the most part are
from 1905 onwards). The ends of sessions are now colour-coded for easier
reading of the scores, and exact scores are now displayed for every lunch,
tea and stumps break. There are upgrades and additions to how other breaks of
play are recorded. I hope the changes allow for a clearer picture of the flow
of play for each ball-by-ball score. ******** Here
is some data examining the historical incidence of lbws in Tests. I was looking
for a purported ‘DRS effect’. There was a common expectation that introducing
the Decision Review System would lead to a spike in lbws. DRS was introduced in 2009, and by 2012 was being used in more
than half of Tests. By 2017, it was being used in almost every Test. If
there is any DRS effect, it is not evident in the broad data. Over the long
term, lbws have increased, but the trend seems to have plateaued in the 1990s
or early 2000s. Historical
Incidence of lbws
I
took a closer look at lbw decision after the introduction of DRS, comparing
Tests where it was used against the rest. Again, no effect evident, without
forgetting that DRS and non-DRS represented a somewhat different mix of
countries. If anything, DRS Tests had fewer lbws, although the effect is
weak.
********* Against
West Indies in August/September, Jasprit Bumrah had a sequence of 10 wickets
for 16 runs, across two Tests. Similar sequences are very rare. George Lohmann
had a run of 10 for 4 in South Africa in 1895/96, but that was against
ultra-weak opposition. The next best sequence of 10 wickets that I can find
is Tony Lock against New Zealand in 1958. Across 2 Tests at Lord's and Leeds,
Lock's bowling included a sequence of 10 wickets for 15 runs. He finished the
first innings at Lord's with 4 for 1, took 4 for 12 in the 2nd innings, and
started with 2 for 2 at Leeds. If
you extend the sequence back to the final Test of 1957 against West Indies, I
found that Lock had sequences of 20 wickets for 68 and 30 for 97. ******** Some new
notes on Test scorers: Sreeram
has discovered a report that Sahal S. Laher, a scorer for Zimbabwe’s
inaugural Test in October 1992 (v India) was 16 years and 10 months old. That
would make him the third-youngest scorer known, after Mark Kerly and Scott Sinclair in
New Zealand in the 70s. Some
early instances of two women scorers… Sandra
Hall and Dumi Desai, Zim v NZ, Bulawayo (Athletic) 1992-93 The
first Test in Australia with 2 women scorers was SCG 2001-02 (v S Africa):
Merilyn Fowler and Ruth Kelleher. Merilyn
Fowler is called Merilyn Slarke in CA. One of those is presumably a married
name. ******** |
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In
the Perth Test of 1988-89, West Indies won the match with only 11 minutes
left on the clock (5:48 pm). However, the over rate had been so slow that
there were still 25 overs left to be bowled. ******** In
an ODI at Dhaka on 9 Oct 1999, Ridley Jacobs stumped two Bangladeshi batsmen
off wides: Shaharia Hossain Campbell, and Aminul, both off the bowling of
Campbell. It is the only case of two such dismissals in an ODI innings. While
a stumping off a wide is not rare in shorter forms of the game, as far as is
known, there has never been a stumping off a wide in a Test match. ******** In
the 1891-92 Ashes Test series, WG Grace, at age 43, took more catches (9) than the
teams’ wicketkeepers combined. He took
most of the catches at point: the number of catches that went to point in 19th
Century Tests is one of little mysteries of the early game. ******** |
31 May 2019 Bowler Breakdown A
while back I think I mentioned that injuries to bowlers during play were
becoming more common than injuries to batsmen (in Tests). I have taken a look
at bowlers’ injuries now, in terms of bowlers who were unable to complete an
over. The
rules concerning this changed in the early 1980s. Prior to 1981, if a bowler
was injured during an over, then the over was left uncompleted and the next
over began from the other end. The first bowler to have an over completed by
another was Graham Dilly at Kingston in 1981; his over was completed by Robin
Jackman. Dilley was able to resume bowling not long afterwards. I
have made a list of 178 bowlers failing to complete an over since then (up to
late 2017 in my ball-by-ball data). This is not the complete number; for one
thing I am (for simplicity) only considering Tests for which I have complete
bbb data. There is also the issue of bowlers going off injured after
completing an over – I can’t really detect those reliably, and they are not
considered. In
these terms, the bowler who has ‘broken down’ most times is Dale Steyn… Most
uncompleted overs 1981-2017 (Tests)
Murali
was once injured while on a hat-trick; he returned later in the innings but
could not complete the hat-trick. In an odd incident at Mumbai in 2002-03,
the batsman (Dravid) and the bowler (Dillion) retired off the same ball. Historical
incidence of uncompleted overs (retirements /100,000 balls)
Data from Tests with bbb data
only As
you can see from the basis of 100,000 balls, retirements are not a frequent
event. There is, however, an upward trend in the data, although shorter-term
fluctuations are perhaps the more notable feature. Bowling retirements have
indeed become more common than batting retirements, even allowing for the
fact that there will be additional cases of bowlers retiring after finishing
an over, and this is not captured in the data. 133 bowlers have retired in
mid-over since 1998, as against 97 batsmen retiring hurt (or ill) in the same
Tests. Close
to one-third of the retiring bowlers were able to resume later in the
innings; the return rate for batsmen is closer to 60% since 1998. Two bowlers
have retired twice in the same innings: Aamir Nazir at Joburg in 1994-95, and
Dale Steyn at Durban in 2015-16. ******** I
have been making a few improvements to early pages in the Online Database.
Some text descriptions of Tests are being added: these are from material I
wrote for a book years ago, covering Tests in Australia only. I have also
made some appearance improvements in pages showing the ball-by-ball data and
session-by- session data. In the ball-by-ball data, ends of session are more
clearly marked and are colour-coded. ******** |
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5 May 2019 The fastest Test batsmen, adjusted for historical scoring changes These scoring rates attempt a better comparison
of leading batsmen of different eras, since scoring standards have changed
over the years, particularly with the shrinking of grounds and introduction
of “superbats” since the early 21st century. Scoring rates of 21st
Century batsmen have been ‘discounted’, based on the
recent general rise in scoring speeds. Virender Sehwag’s rate has fallen from
82.2 to 72.9 runs per 100 balls, although he retains #1 position. Scoring
rates rose substantially after about 2001. Data is to March 2019. Qualification is
restricted to fully recognised batsmen only, with an average batting position
of 6.1 or less. This generally excludes wicketkeeper/batsmen or
lower-middle-order all-rounders, who have become
more prominent in recent fast-scoring lists.
I
have updated the Hot 100 scoring lists, and the above
table is included. ******** The
online database now encompasses 100 years of Test cricket 1877 to 1977! |
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In
the second Test of 1936-37 at the SCG, Joe Hardstaff, on 11, offered a catch
off Bill O’Reilly, but it was dropped by 12th man Ray Robinson at
square leg. That’s not so unusual, but Hardstaff had a double dose of luck;
he trod on his stumps during the shot, but umpire
Borwick, watching the catch, did not see it. Stan McCabe appealed, but the
umpire ruled in the batsman’s favour. There
is a picture of the incident in Jack Fingleton’s Cricket Crisis. (Thanks
to Ashru) ******** In
1974-75, Srinivas Venkataraghavan (Venkat) captained India against West
Indies in the second Test in Delhi, but was dropped to 12th man
for the next Test and did not play again in the five-Test series. His
captaincy had been a fill-in job in the absence of the Injured Pataudi, and
once Pataudi returned, the spin team of Prasanna, Bedi and Chandra kept
Venkat on the sidelines. Lindsay
Hassett also experienced the captaincy in one Test and 12th man
the next, in 1951-52. Hassett was injured, however, and his appointment as 12th
man seems to have happened as part of some strange selections, with Sid
Barnes kicked out of the team “for reasons other than cricket”, and Phil
Ridings selected and then dropped again before the match began. Ridings never
did play Test cricket. ******** |
15 April 2019 I
have re-scored the two (complete) Test scores from 1893 (second and third
Tests) that I obtained some weeks ago. Some notes of interest... At
Old Trafford, George Giffen opened the bowling for Australia and bowled his
67 overs without change (!) These were 5-ball overs, but even so, the 335
balls ranks third on the longest spells of all time
(where known). It is the longest spell by an opening bowler. The
first hit for 'six' in a Test in England: W Gunn scored six by running four
with two overthrows, off CTB Turner. All-run sixes, even with overthrows, are
still very rare. JJ
Lyons hitting fours off five consecutive deliveries at The Oval, in two
separate overs, is confirmed. (This is still very rare). The last two would
be counted as six nowadays. He was out next ball. Harry
Trott played a very unusual innings: out for 12 off 4 balls (444W). AB De
Villiers in 2004 is the only other who has played a similar innings. W
Bruce hit 18 off a Briggs over at Old Trafford (44244). This is the most
expensive over known in the 19th century. The shorter overs and lack of sixes
back then made it harder to do this. Alec
Bannerman scored some runs in this series (his last). There is now enough
balls faced data to clearly calculate is his scoring speed: 22.4 runs per 100
balls, the slowest (by some margin) for anyone who made over 1000 Test runs. The
ball-by ball records of this series have been added to the
online database. The first Test score in the scorebook lacks bowling details,
so cannot be re-scored into ball-by-ball form. ******** Brothers in Australian first-class
cricket, some quick notes. In
a couple of matches in 1953-54, two pairs of brothers played for Victoria
(Harvey and Maddocks) against the Archer brothers playing for Queensland. In
1909-10, The Waddy brothers of NSW played against three Hill brothers for
South Australia. In
a match in 1894-95, Victoria had the Trott brothers AND the McLeod brothers,
while South Australia had the Giffen brothers AND the Jarvis brothers. ******** I
have started adding a few more series to the database, from 1976-77. ******** |
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In
an ODI at Bridgetown in 1998, Carl Hooper and Stuart Williams, in the space
of 16 overs (from over #16 to 31), added 57 runs, comprising 53 singles and
two 2s. This was an extreme case of the mediocre and unadventurous batting
that was then commonplace in the middle overs, and had authorities scratching
their heads. Eventually, Power Plays and the like were introduced to try to
spice up the middle overs of ODIs. Ultimately it would lead to Twenty20
cricket. Williams
broke the monotony by hitting Robert Croft for 6 in the 32nd over.
West Indies won the game. ******** Mysteries
of Pakistani players’ names continued. In a List A match on 26 Jan 2011, two
players named Hasan Mahmood turned out for Faisalabad Wolves. Both were out
for 53. ******** Another
curious coincidence. Greg Chappell played just one innings his first calendar
year in Test cricket (1970): he scored 108. At the end of his career,
Chappell played just one innings in his last calendar year (1984,) scoring
182. ******** |
28 March 2019 The 400-wicket bowlers Runs, balls and Tests on taking 400
wickets
These
are exact numbers for the bowlers on taking their 400th wicket.
The exception is Richard Hadlee – I don’t have the scorebook for the Test in
question, so his figures are estimates. However, the estimates should be
reasonably accurate, based on other information. ******** A
short article that I wrote last year on the pressure (of playing schedules)
faced by Steve Smith and players of earlier generations. http://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Pressure2018.pdf ******** A
small breakthrough in the search for old Test scores… I have
obtained copies of the original scores of the Tests of 1893; the original
tour scorebook turns out to be in the National Sports Museum here in
Melbourne. Some
years ago I visited the museum and copied what scores they had. The 1893 book
was purchased after that, and I was unaware of its existence until now. Overall,
the 1890s have been the most difficult decade of Test cricket to study
statistically, so this is a boon. Unfortunately the first Test in 1893 does
not have a full score (bowling analysis is missing) but the other two are
complete. I
believe that the museum paid over five thousand pounds for the scorebook at
an auction. I note this for the benefit for all those teams and grounds that
have thrown these things away considering them worthless (Kennington Oval
among many others, including almost every venue in India). ******** |
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In
an ODI at Edgbaston in 1991, England, set 174 to win in 55 overs, reached the
target in 49.4 overs to win by one wicket, with opener Mike Atherton still at
the crease on 69*. The West Indies, though, had been called for no less than
39 no balls and wides, and had thus bowled the equivalent of 55+ overs
anyway. Without all the extra runs, England would have been nowhere near
victory. ******** In
2015, New Zealand went 147 overs (513 runs) without losing a wicket in 2
consecutive partnerships, but in different series (v Sri Lanka and England).
The time, 630 minutes, was greater than the Turner/Jarvis partnership of 540
minutes, but shorter than the Jayasuriya/Mahanama partnership of 1997 (753
minutes). ******** At
the Oval in 1952, Len Hutton was the beneficiary of eight overthrows in the
space of two overs bowled by GS Ramchand on the first morning. There was a
‘six’ (two runs + four overthrows) in one over and a five in the next (1+4). Without
them, England would have scored only 48 runs off 42 overs before lunch. David
Sheppard was only 20 at lunch, and after lunch hit his first boundary after
facing 180 balls. ******** |
2 March 2019 I
am posting an article that I submitted to The
Cricket Statistician last year. They haven’t fit to publish it yet (these
things take time) but these days I no longer have the necessary patience to
wait. It is on the subject of Victor Trumper’s famous 335 at Redfern Oval in
1903. A ball-by-ball record of the innings is
here. I
hope that readers find it interesting. I think it is an interesting subject.
For those who would like more info there is a recent booklet on the innings
by Caitlin and Cardwell. Roger Page Cricket Books should have it. ******** In
the current Dunedin Test (NZ v Ban), there were 327 runs scored before the
first extra (sundry). The most runs before first extra that I know of is 400
at Joburg 1957-58 (4th Test) by Australia. That extra (a leg bye)
came after tea on the second day with the equivalent of 198 six-ball overs
having been bowled. However, there had been two no balls that were scored
from (did not count as extras in those days). The
most consecutive runs without an extra (where known) is
471 runs at Mumbai 2012-13: India's last 173 runs and England's first 298 in
the first innings. 157 overs. The second day was free of extras. This sort of
thing is a bit more likely recently than before, given the 'decline' in no
balls. ******** |
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Taking
wickets in the first over of a Test. Irfan Pathan (Karachi 2006) is the only
one with three. I know of five cases of two J
Srinath Ind v Aus (2), Kolkata 1997/98 J
Srinath Ind v NZ (2), Hamilton 1998/99 CL
Cairns NZ v Eng (1), Christchurch
2001/02 SCJ
Broad Eng v Aus (4), Nottingham (Trent
Bridge) 2015 ST
Gabriel WI v Pak (3), Sharjah 2016/17 There
were two wickets in the first over of the Adelaide Test of 2010-11 (Anderson
bowling) but one was a run out. Curious
that there do not seem to be any cases before 1997. ******** Two bowlers only in the first 20
overs of an ODI innings. There are gaps in the early data, so there
could be more. GD
McGrath/AC Dale Aus v SL, Adelaide Oval 24-Jan-1999 J
Srinath/BKV Prasad Ind v Aus, Sydney 14-Jan-2000 Waqar
Younis/Fazl-e-Akbar Pak v Eng, Leeds 17-Jun-2001 AR
Caddick/JM Anderson Eng v Aus, Adelaide Oval 19-Jan-2003 JN
Gillespie/MS Kasprowicz Aus v Zim, Harare 29-May-2004 KAD
Hurdle/S Mukuddem Ber v Ned, Benoni 2-Dec-2006 Seems
to have gone out of fashion. |
I
am busy with non-cricket related work at the moment, but here are a few items
presented briefly. Most
minutes batted in a series of 4 Tests (or fewer) : 1869
min CA Pujara (521 runs) in Aus 2018-19 1861
Min R Dravid (602 runs) in Eng 2002 1814
RB Richardson (619 runs) WI v Ind 1988-89 No
wonder I was getting a little tired of watching Mr Pujara. ******** Here
is an addendum to my list of five wickets in fewest balls in
Tests. These are the instances since 2016. 2018 Update
*Boult took six wickets in 15
balls. ******* It
occurred to me that it might be interesting to compile official batting
rankings of Test batsmen in terms of Median rather than Average ranking.
(Average can be unduly affected by low ranking early in a career). The
following list is based on a download of month-by-month ICC batting rankings
since 1955 (for completeness I included Sobers’ rankings for 1954 as well).
Players with substantial careers before 1955 are not included. I have added a
column to show how many competitive countries were active at the time of a
career. Sobers gets a 6.5 because although South Africa was active at the
time, it was playing only a limited number of Tests against just a few
countries. Richards gets a 6.5 because Sri Lanka were
only playing for part of Richards’ career; in fact West Indies did not play
Sri Lanka until 1993, after Richards retired. Sobers
median of 1.5 means that he was ranked #1 almost the same number of times as
all other rankings put together. Tendulkar’s figure of 7 means that he was
inside the top 7 about as many times as he was outside the top 7.
******** Jason
Gillespie’s double-century against Bangladesh in 2006 remains one of the
strangest ever played. It keeps cropping up unexpectedly when records are
calculated. Here is a list of notable records, related to this 201*… - Highest score by a
nightwatchman - Career average batting
position of 8.8, lowest position by a double-century scorer. - Only player to be dropped
from his team after winning a man of the match award and never play another
Test. (current active careers excluded) - Only batsman to bat on
four days of a Test in a single innings, for a winning side. - Averaged 231.0 in Tests
in calendar year 2006, highest for a calendar year since Bradman in 1932. - Series batting average of
231 and bowling average of 11.3 unsurpassed combination (minimum 8 wickets). - Only batsman to score a
double-century the only time he batted at #3. - Only Australian with a
top score more than 10 times his batting average. Wasim Akram the only one
from other countries. - Tallest batsman to score
a Test double-century (since broken). - Partnership of 320 with
Mike Hussey was the only time they batted in partnership. Highest since
Hutton/Leyland in 1938. - Gillespie is the only
player in history (at that time) whose only first-class century is a Test
double-century. - Gillespie made his first
Test century in his 92nd innings, the longest wait for any player (since
broken) I
have tried to focus on records that could theoretically be broken in any
Test. There would be many other records of more specific type (team/country/ground). |
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I
have reached a milestone in the re-scoring of ODI scores prior to the
‘Cricinfo era’, into ball-by-ball form. In 2016-2017, I rescored matches from
1985 to 1999; I then went back to the beginning and have now finished the
matches from 1971 to 1985. I have not actually finished, though, since I have
collected about 60 additional scores this year, and I will have to tackle
those before long. Overall, the project will produce ball-by-ball records of
about 750 of the first 1400 ODIs. There are prospects for obtaining a
significant number of additional scores; but there will still be hundreds of
matches for which complete records cannot be found. I
also have obtained about 15 scores that Cricinfo did not cover after 1999. In
the early years, Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverages was
somewhat incomplete. ******** |
The Greatest Umpiring Blunder? One
of the most exciting Tests of its era was the Bombay Test of 1948-49, which
ended with India eight down and needing another six runs, with the umpire
erroneously calling stumps early on the fifth ball of an over. I had
understood, based on newspapers reports at the time (Times of India, and
Calcutta Statesman) that this was the extent of the error, but when
discussing this, Ashru Mitra pointed out evidence that it was worse than
this, and that an additional over should also have been bowled. I
have now found some more evidence supporting Ashru on this one. It is from an article by Berry Sarbadhikary,
published in a book in 1975 (India v West Indies Tests) but probably written
much earlier. I borrowed this rather rare book from Roger Page's inestimable
collection. Sarbadhikary
was a radio commentator at the time and was well placed to know exactly what
was going on. He states that there was more than a minute remaining and the
extra over should have been bowled; he goes into some detail. The
only difficulty I have with this is understanding
how Sarbadhikary can quote his own spoken commentary verbatim in such detail.
He does not explicitly say that he has a recording. Was Indian radio really
recording its broadcasts as early as 1949? One
inconsistency is that Phadkar is described as facing the last ball when other
sources say it was Ghulam Ahmed. It
even appears possible that the umpire (AR Joshi, in fact) may have been
tricked by Stollmeyer ‘swooping’ to seize the stumps as though the match was
over. Maybe this caused Joshi to panic and call stumps. In any case, this may
be the worst umpiring error in Test history. Although
two wickets were in hand, the last man, P Sen, had a broken arm. He was
reportedly ready to bat with his arm in a sling. I
have updated my online scores to reflect this new information. ******** Bowlers Taking 4 wickets for 0 run in
7, 8, or 9 balls This
is an addendum to a list from 24 October 2018, on the subject of bowlers who
took four wickets in very few balls.
Many
of these instances involve the bowler running through the tail. Cummins is
the first bowler in Tests to take the first four wickets of an innings for no
runs in the space of fewer than 10 balls. ******** Days where the only wicket was a run
out When
Sri Lanka recently batted through a day without loss of a wicket, various
lists appeared of such instances. Here is an addition: complete days’ play
where no wickets fell to bowlers, but a run out occurred.
In
the Colombo Test of 1985-86, India dropped seven catches during the day. ******** Most Time spent on Field in a Test
(Minutes) I
don’t think I have ever put up a list like this, combining batting and
fielding time. The list excludes Timeless Tests. If the Durban Timeless Test
of 1939 is included, it would take the top three positions, led by PGV van
der Bijl on 1936 minutes.
The
list assumes that the player fielded throughout the opposition’s innings. In
most cases, I have no way of confirming if this is true. The list is
dominated by recent performances because the addition of extra time at the
end of a day (due to slow over rates) has become quite standard. ******** |
|
The
English team that toured Australia in 1884-85 under the management of Alfred
Shaw went through the whole five-Test series unchanged. In fact, the team was
unchanged in every first-class match on tour. There
was a simple reason for this: there were only eleven players touring. As a
former Test player, Shaw was on hand to fill in, but he only played in minor
games, as did assistant manager James Lillywhite. Robert
Peel (reportedly) managed to take no fewer than 356 wickets on tour, thanks
in no small part to the number of games against odds
of teams up to 22. Peel took 18 for 7 in one innings against Moss Vale. For
comparison, bear in mind that the most wickets in a first-class Australian
season is 106 by CTB Turner (if my old record book is still correct). ******** |
Here
is a trend that will become a bit of a worry if it continues: the last 12
Tests have all been won by the team winning the toss and choosing to bat. Of
the last 22 Tests, only two have been won by the side batting second, or the
side losing the toss. There has been one draw, and 19 wins to the side
batting first. In
the last 38 Tests, the highest score by a team batting second is 427, with a
batting average of 22.2. ******** Updated
list of no ball ‘dismissals’ beginning in 2001 and including Adelaide Test.
Bear
in mind that this relies on Cricinfo ball-by-ball texts, and my ability to
search them. There are some cases of ‘lbw off no ball’ which require a
measure of judgement, including the most recent at Adelaide. It
appears that the % of no balls that are attached to ‘dismissals’ is increasing.
This is because umpires are ignoring a lot of no balls when a dismissal does
not occur. I think that this is a bad thing. One day a match will hinge on
this. It may well have at Abu Dhabi or even Adelaide – who knows? ******** I
wouldn't go so far as to call them unsung heroes, but in international
cricket, the scorers must be the most unsung officials. This came home to me
when I tried to google for information on Geoffrey Saulez, who scored a great
number of Tests all over the world from the 1970s to the 90s. Very little of
any substance turned up. A search of London Times from 1970 to 2009 turned up
one – single-line – mention. I
was interested in finding a list of Tests that Saulez (whose name I don't
even know how to pronounce) scored, but I doubt if there is one. My interest
was piqued when I found a note that Saulez had scored some of the 1971-72 New
Zealand tour of the West Indies. He scored India's tour of Sri Lanka in
1985-86 and many other 'exotic' Tests. Saulez
would go anywhere, at his own expense, to score Tests. The 'at his own
expense' bit was the key to his popularity with touring teams. He was
'official' scorer for England many times, but always had to pay his own way. John
Kobylecky is one of the very few who have collected old Test match scores. He
told me that he corresponded with Saulez before the latter's death in 2008,
and obtained a few scores. It appeared that Saulez had kept copies of many
others. When Saulez died, John heard about it and urgently called the family,
to make sure nothing was thrown out before statisticians could have a look at
Saulez's papers. However, when he was able to go visit, John found that all
the papers and old scores had been thrown away anyway. This
was a huge and irreplaceable loss to cricket statistics. There must have been
dozens of Test scores of his that are now on the 'lost forever' list. Anyway,
if anyone knows of other info on Saulez, (apart from his Wisden obituary),
let me know. I presume there is some stuff in various tour books. I
do wonder, though, if Saulez devalued the craft and importance of scoring by
doing it all for free (and at great personal expense). Mind you, I post all
this for free too so perhaps I am not one to talk. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played
first-class cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in 1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with
Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers: Even though this was
introduced in October 1983, the ODIs in New Zealand in February 1984 (the
Rothman’s series against England) used the old counting system. The runs
conceded by some bowlers in this series remain technically incorrect to this
day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before Gooch recovered. Morris then
flew home, apparently flying right around the world. It wasn’t much of a
‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of playing at the Bradman Oval in
Bowral. ******** |
Test Matches of the 1970s I
have begun posting detailed scores of Test matches in the 1970s as part of
the Test Match Database Project. Ball-by-ball
records for the 1970s are actually more limited than for the 1960s (67% vs
77%), largely because of increasing numbers of Tests outside the
‘England/Australia’ axis. Keeping of official records in India, Pakistan and
West Indies during this decade was practically non-existent. Another factor
was South Africa dropping out of Test cricket. On the other hand, scores
exist for all of England’s Tests home and away, and
all Tests in Australia bar one, plus some of Australia’s tours. However,
published scores began to show more detail in this decade. Balls faced for
some major innings can still be found even where original scorebooks are
lost. Overall, about 78% of innings in the 1970s (on a runs scored basis)
have balls faced figures, a figure comparable to the 1960s. ******** A Long-Time Record Examined The
partnership of 577 by Vijay Hazare and Gul Mahomed, for Baroda v Holkar in
1947, stood as the highest in first-class cricket for almost 60 years. It
remains the highest for the fourth wicket. However, apart from these bare
statistics, not much has ever been said about this stand. I have gleaned a
little more on this; however, information is limited – it was a long time
ago, in a non-international, and outside the major cricket centres. The
match was the final of the Ranji Trophy, and was played to a finish without a
rest day. Timeless cricket had been discontinued in Australia and elsewhere
by this time, so by 1947 such matches were unusual. The playing hours appear
to have been five hours per day (2+2+1, starting at 11 am) but even this is
not completely certain. Holkar
was bowled out just after tea on the first day for 202 in 248 minutes, and by
stumps Baroda was 16/0 off 11 overs. Next morning, Baroda scored slowly until
Adhikari was out at 91/3, 7 minutes before lunch. The fourth-wicket
partnership then extended until the first session of the fourth day. The
known intervals are as follows:-
Gul
Mahommad was the more aggressive and his 319 was scored entirely within the
one partnership. He reached 200 in 302 minutes, 300 in 505, and 319 in 533.
Hazare was more circumspect: he reached 100 in 268 minutes and was out at
746/8 for 288 in 628 minutes. All
these figures are from newspapers or other publications. They cannot be
regarded as ironclad. However, there is some internal consistency in the time
figures for Gul Mohammad. There
is a specific puzzle in the number of overs per day: 108 on Day 2 but only 86
on Day 3, while 85 overs were bowled before tea on Day 4. The Day 3 figure
seems too low to be explained by tiring bowling alone. No delays are
mentioned in the available sources. However, a delay, probably before lunch
on Day 3, is necessary to explain the low over count and Gul Mohammad’s
batting times. Mohammad was only 171 at lunch on Day 3, by which time he
should have been batting over 5 hours, in conflict with his reported 200 in
302 minutes. The reports describe Mohammad batting with great aggression
before lunch on Day 3, yet he scored only 57 runs. A shortened session seems
the best explanation. Estimated
number of overs for the partnership: 65 on Day 2, 86 on Day 3, and 25 on Day
4. At about 1050 balls, this makes the partnership shorter than the longest
stands in Test matches, led by 1152 balls of the Turner/ Jarvis stand at
Georgetown in 1972. The 577 may well be the longest stand outside Test
cricket, however. This
is an incomplete study. Any help from readers would be appreciated. ******** Highest Scores with no Boundaries in
ODIs The
record is attributed to Adam Parore in making 96 at Baroda in 1994-95. I have
no reason to doubt this, but I have a couple of corrections to other innings
high on this list.
The
Barnett and Haynes innings are given as boundary-free by online scorecards, but
this is contradicted by surviving scores. It is conceivable, perhaps, that
the fours were all-run, but I very much doubt it. It
reminds me of the 84 by Bill Lawry in a Test match at Brisbane in 1970. For
years this was identified as the highest boundary-free innings in a Test
match, but it all went back to a typing error in a magazine scorecard,
carelessly repeated in a RS Whitington tour book. Lawry actually hit 9 fours. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played
first-class cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in 1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with
Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers:Even
though this was introduced in October 1983, the ODIs in New Zealand in
February 1984 (the Rothman’s series against England) used the old counting
system. The runs conceded by some bowlers in this series remain technically
incorrect to this day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before Gooch recovered. Morris then
flew home, apparently flying right around the world. It wasn’t much of a
‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of playing at the Bradman Oval in
Bowral. ******** |
Most balls bowled before conceding
first run in Tests
UPDATE:
Sreeram tells me that Wisden reports ‘Tufty’ Mann, at Trent Bridge in 1947,
starting his career with eight maidens. I don’t have this scorebook, and
don’t know the exact number of balls before the first run. The
available data covers only about 80% of Tests. Tony Dell was an England-born
fast-medium bowler who played only two Tests. I
only have data for about two-thirds of bowlers in ODIs, but I found that over
100 bowlers have bowled a maiden as their first over. More than 15 have
bowled two maidens to start. Not many famous names, the most recent being
Kane Richardson of Australia. I
found only two bowlers who started with three maidens. Asad Ali, who played
just four ODIs for Pakistan, did so against Ireland. The
other was none other than Garry Sobers, who played only one ODI (and made a
duck), in 1973, opening the bowling in West Indies’ first ever ODI. Sobers'
first 21 balls were scoreless, one more than Asad Ali. Who would have thought
that Sobers held an ODI record! ******** Here's
a strange one. There are two unrelated players in international cricket named
HMCM Bandara, one male and one female. It is strange enough, perhaps unique,
that two players would share a surname and all four initials, but I also
found (a week ago) that the woman (Chamika Bandara) was also listed as
playing in Mens’ List A matches. According to Cricket Archive, she played 5
matches for a team called "Neganahira and Uthura" in 2012/13. I
wondered whether this was the only case of a woman playing in Mens’ senior
cricket, but it turns out it was an error on Cricket Archive’s part, and this
has now been corrected. The player in those Mens’ matches is now identified
as Malinga Bandara. I
note that that this Neganahira and Uthura team has played no senior cricket
apart from those five List A games. Such is the strange state of Sri Lankan
domestic cricket. ******** Most
first-class wickets in a calendar year
Tich
Freeman took over 250 wickets in a season in England six times. These old
records will never be broken. The most in the last 20 years are…
******** |
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The
counting of no balls and wides against bowlers’ runs conceded commenced in
1983-84 (October). Curiously, official scoresheets of the 1983-84 season in Australia continued to use the old counting system.
Wisden, however, published the scores using the revised counting, as they
appear in current ‘official’ online scores. ******** Victor
Trumper scored 178 in his 178th first-class innings. ******** They
made hat-tricks with every hat-trick ball they bowled in Tests: TJ Matthews
(2), PJ Loader (1), PJ Petherick (1). Murali
bowled 17 hat-trick balls in Tests without success. ******** At
Windsor Park in 2017, Mohammad Abbas bowled a hat-trick ball (to AS Joseph) and
faced a hat-trick ball (bowled by JO Holder). Neither resulted in a
hat-trick. The
same happened to Brad Stokes at Lord’s later that year. Keiran Powell was the
batsman facing Stokes, and Jason Holder, once again, was the bowler. ******** |
One of the most freakish innings in the early years of ODIs came from
Lance Cairns. It was at the MCG in February 1983 where Cairns scored 52 off
25 balls against Australia. Cairns hit one 4 and six 6s; his 50 off 21 balls
was the fastest of its time (see entry for 19 May 2018). A re-score has now
been done and gives Cairns the following sequence 00146066602166000021311W The sixes were hit on the full-size MCG with no boundary ropes, long
before the age of ‘superbats’. Cairns reached 44 off 14 balls, which would
still rival the fastest first 14 balls in any ODI. I did find one (and only
one) innings that was faster out of the gate: Martin Guptill reached 46 off
12 balls against Sri Lanka at Christchurch on 28 Dec 2015. Cairn’s innings was in a very much lost cause. He came in when New
Zealand was 45/6 off 18.3 overs chasing 302 (regarded as a near-impossible
target in those days; in fact it was only the second time that a team had
scored 300+ in a 50-over ODI) and New Zealand was thrashed by 149 runs. ******** Scoring Test centuries in the same innings: a curious result
I might have expected to see Adam Gilchrist on this list. ******** Lyon joins a short list, four wickets in six balls Nathan Lyon tour four wickets before lunch on the first day in the Abu
Dhabi Test. The last time a spinner took four wickets before lunch on the
first day was also in the UAE for Australia v Pakistan, Shane Warne in 2002,
in the match where Pakistan scored 59 and 53.
* Probable Roach, like Lyon, took his sequence in the first session of the match.
He conceded 2 runs off the last ball of the over. Perhaps that was too
expensive, because he did not bowl again in the match, finishing with
5-1-8-5. Andy Caddick took four wickets in an over in 2000, but thanks to a no
ball it was four wickets in seven deliveries. ******** |
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The
‘explosion’ of List A cricket: 150 List A matches were played in England in
1969, more than all previous seasons in all countries combined (1963-1968). Numbers
continued to rise, towards 200 per English season in the late 1970s. ******** An
old ODI score (made by Irving Rosenwater, copy supplied by Andrew Samson) has
recently been obtained, from the MCG on 9 Dec 1979 – the one where Viv
Richards scored 153*. It records an all-run five, apparently without
overthrows. It is annotated as “all-run m/wkt”, referring to midwicket. It
was hit by Desmond Haynes off Dennis Lillee in the 7th over. I
haven’t come across any all-run fives without overthrows in an ODI before.
Midwicket/ square of the wicket at the MCG is one of
the few places where such a hit would be possible. UPDATE:
of course I was forgetting the five + run out at the MCG in the previous
season (DL Bairstow). It appears from descriptions that there were no
overthrows involved. ******** Twelve
players batted in Leicestershire’s first innings against Kent in August. One
batsman, ZJ Chappell, retired hurt, and apparently was given a full
substitute under a ‘concussion rule’. The substitute was Dieter Klein, who
was permitted to bat and bowl. Chappell took no further part in the match. Full
substitutes are not uncommon in modern f-c cricket, but allowing them to bat
in the same innings as the player they are replacing is, I am sure, quite
unusual. ******** For
decades praise has been heaped on the 1948 Australian touring team to
England, for going through the tour undefeated; they became “The
Invincibles”. Far
less well-known is the fact that in the following year, the touring New
Zealanders lost only once on an entire tour of England, out of 39 matches,
and were undefeated in both the Tests and all the county games. Perhaps this
speaks volumes of the strength of English bowling after the War. When New Zealand
toured England in 1958, things were dramatically different, disastrously so
for the New Zealanders. ******** Mohammad
Shahzad reached his century when Afghanistan had only 131 runs on the board
in an ODI against India on the 25th of September. This was
described as a record, but was actually one run shy of the 100 out of 130 by
Dennis Amiss in 1973, in only the 6th ODI ever played. Shahzad
did have 103 out of the 131 runs, so he had a higher percentage of the runs
than Amiss. |
29
September 2018
Following
up on earlier posts, a small compilation of the youngest official Test
scorers, where known Mark
Kerly (16), Auckland in 1977-78. Scott
Sinclair (16), Dunedin 1979-80. (Sinclair
was just 8 days older than Kerly had been when he scored his first Test.) Alison
Margaret Hall (19) Auckland 1930 Sydney
James Southerton (19), 1893 Tests H/T
to Sreeram for the Southerton info. Southerton was an Englishman and the son
of the James Southerton who had played in the first Test in 1877, aged 49. As
young man, Sydney worked on the ship that carried the 1893 Australia touring
team to Britain. He seems to have talked tour manager Victor Cohen into
appointing him as scorer/assistant for the team. It was the start of an
impressive career as journalist and writer: Southerton eventually became
editor of Wisden in 1933, but died
in 1935. Earlier
information that Ninion Batchelor was a scorer on the 1893 tour needs to be
corrected. That information was always tenuous. Batchelor did act as scorer
on the 1890 tour, though. For
Tests in Australia, there are no known scorers younger than age 26. E.C
Weller, who was a scorer in 1881-82, was 26 years and 3 months. ******** I
have recently been surveying List A matches as held by Cricket Archive,
trying to get the numbering straight in my system. One thing that has really
surprised me is the number of matches for which scores are very incomplete or
absent altogether. I haven’t been counting but there may be hundreds of such
matches. All the ones I have seen are from Pakistan or Sri Lanka in the 1980s
and (particularly) the 1990s. There are even matches where only one team name
is known, such as “Multan v not known” on 10 Mar 1985 (CA# a4340).
Practically no other details are recorded for that match. A
good deal of the missing Sri Lanka data seems to come from the time of civil
War in that country. It does mean that career data for players from that time
is very incomplete. The assessment of what was, and what was not, a List A
match in those days seems to be rather haphazard. ******** Some
recent progress in finding old scores for internationals and other matches: · I was able to get permission to copy Bill
Frindall's ODI scores kept at Lord's. (Researchers could access the scores
but could not copy them for copyright reasons.) Getting permission involved a
chain of four contacts passing on my request to Debbie Frindall (who held
copyright), but once I finally was able to get in contact, Mrs Frindall
kindly gave permission. By good fortune, Andrew Samson was just about to
visit Lord’s, and he was able to copy about 30 ODI scores. · In his younger days, Lawrie Colliver in South
Australia scored the 1987 World Cup Final from a TV broadcast, and he has sent
me a copy of his score. Apparently South Australia was the only state to
broadcast the entire match. I now have all World Cup finals ball-by-ball. No
official score for that 1987 match has been found in Australian, English or
Indian archives. · Lawrie also has sent me scores of various other
ODIs and Tests that he scored off TV in the 80s and 90s. A true enthusiast! · Ronald Cardwell has sent me a copy of an original
score of Victor Trumper’s famous 335 in Sydney in 1903. Although the score is
difficult to decipher, I have managed to re-score the innings. I will report
on this later. · Jamie Bell in New Zealand sent me scores from
some ODIs in New Zealand in 2000 that had no online ball-by-ball coverage.
Cricinfo was doing bbb by then, but their coverage was patchy in the early
days and they missed a number of early ODIs in New Zealand (and one Test).
They also missed a few ODIs in Australia, which I have also obtained
elsewhere. · I have now obtained scores or ball-by-ball
records of all bar five of the 617 ODIs played in Australia since 1971. |
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Keith Stackpole made a pair of ducks
in his last Test match in 1974 (Eden Park). He was out to the first ball of
the match, to a waist-high full toss from Richard Hadlee, (a height that
might be called a no ball today). Stackpole ‘had a go’ at it but edged it to
John Parker at slip, who surprised many onlookers by taking a good catch. I
am told by Francis Payne that Parker dropped as many catches as he took at
slip. Francis also tells me that the crowd
on the final day in this Test was 34,000, which remains the highest in any
New Zealand Test. ******** Possibly (probably?) the last pre-War
player to play List A cricket was Bill Edrich. Edrich’s last innings, at age
54, was at Lord’s (in a Gillette Cup match) in 1970, 36 years after his
first-class debut. He scored 36, and his innings finished with 22 runs off
six balls (2,4,6,0,4,6,W). (H/T Sreeram) ******** It has been noted by others, but
worth noting again: Eric Tindall of New Zealand, who died in 2010, just
months before his 100th birthday, was a dual international in
Rugby and cricket both as a player and as a referee/umpire. ******** |
5 September 2018
Bowlers taking wickets with the
last ball of a session and the first ball of the next. This
list, drawn from the ball-by-ball database, is probably not complete. The
data includes wickets with the last ball of the day and first ball of the
next day.
The
shortness of this list highlights the astonishing coincidence of Mohammed
Shami doing it twice in one match. Rabada is the only other bowler to do it
more than once in a career. It
has become more common. I get the impression that umpires are more inclined
to call a halt when a wicket falls in the last over of a session than they
used to, although when tried to look at this statistically, the data was
inconclusive. There has been a change in the rule in recent years; when a
wicket falls within three minutes of an interval, there is no more play. The
limit used to be less than that. In
200 Tests from 1998 to 2002, there were 211 sessions (out of 2200) that ended
with a wicket on the last ball. In the last 200 Tests, there have been 265
such sessions out of 2400. ******** I
have been fortunate to receive a complete set of copies of Bill Ferguson’s
scores of the Ashes Tests of 1926. For a long time, the whereabouts of this scorebook
was unknown. Other scores from this series were known, but they were
sometimes in poor condition, with many errors (particularly the historic
final Test). The new material has allowed me to make greatly improved
ball-by-ball records of this series. The updated series link is here. This
means that all of Fergie’s Ashes scores (1905-1953) have been located, with
the exception of 1912. Fergie scored all of the Ashes Test in this period,
with the exception of the 1907-08 series. ******** |
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At the first-ever Limited Overs
match, between Lancashire and Leicestershire in 1963, the ‘Man of the Match’ was
a brand new innovation; nevertheless it was an old-timer, Frank Woolley, who
presented the award to Peter Marner. Woolley was then 76 years old, and his
first-class career had begun 57 years earlier. Brian J Booth faced the first ball
from Terry Spencer. Booth hit one six in his 50, which was almost certainly
the first six hit in One-Dayers. Later, Marner (121) hit four sixes. Early in England’s first innings at
Leeds in 1971, an over by Salim Altaf was left
unfinished. Nothing to do with injury: the bowler split his trousers and left
the field for repairs. Under regulations at that time, incomplete overs did
not need to be completed by another bowler. ******** I have notes on 16 instances of 5
all-run without overthrows in Tests, but I don't know of any since the Craig
McDermott at Adelaide Oval in 1996. They have happened at only four
grounds: The Oval, MCG, Adelaide and Perth. Neil Harvey went from 95 to 100 to
reach his first Test century with one such shot, in 1948. ******** |
26 August 2018
I
am slowly working through my collection of One-Day International scores, analysing
each one fully to create ball-by-ball records. Most analysis confirms, or is
reasonably consistent with, ‘official’ figures, but sometimes there are
departures. Here is an example: the 1st ODI of 1981-82 between
India and England, the first ODI played in India. When I completed the
ball-by-ball analysis, the core stats were confirmed, but the balls faced
stats for the batsmen showed some significant differences in comparison to
‘official’ online sources.
One
peculiarity is that the balls faced figures are not explicitly given in the
score; they have to be derived, rather painstakingly, by re-scoring into
ball-by-ball form. I am confident in the figures, however: the score is by
Geoffrey Saulez and is rock solid. Apart from balls faced, every stat checks
out 100%. I
should add that the other two matches of this series have the same problem.
One other curious thing about these first ODIs in India: the innings were cut
short if the 50 overs were not completed in time. One of the matches was
shortened by bad weather, but in the other two the Indian bowlers, bowling
first, got through only 46 overs in 210 minutes, at which point the innings
was stopped. India were then allowed a 46-over chase, but as we know from
Duckworth and Lewis, chopping off the last four overs of an innings is a
bigger penalty than losing the first four overs, and India thus enjoyed a
considerable advantage by failing to get through its overs! ******** A
question from Sreeram: In the recent test, England lost
16/20 wickets to a catch to keeper / slip cordon. Is that a record? At
Perth in 1983, Pakistan lost 17 wickets to catches in the cordon from keeper
to gully. There was one batsman bowled, one lbw and one run out. 16
is the most I know of for England. England lost 15
this way at Leeds in 2008, and also at Trent Bridge against India in 2011
(curiously) ******** It
occurred to me that, in my Test Match Database, major partnerships are not
presented with detail in a convenient format. In light of that, I have
prepared a table listing all partnership of 200 or
more, from 1877 to 1970. The table includes breakdown, where known,
of the relative scoring of the two partners, and partnership milestones.
Milestones are expressed as balls bowled where available; where absent,
minutes have been substituted. Speeds of the partnerships in runs per 100
balls have been estimated even in the absence of ball-by-ball records; it is
reasonable to estimate these from times and prevailing over rates, especially
as the complication of strike-sharing does not apply to partnerships. The
Database is now complete to 1970. I will continue posting Tests after a
pause. ******** |
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A while back I reported that Shakib
Al Hasan of Bangladesh was the only batsman in Tests to score 50 or more
consecutive runs entirely in boundaries within a single innings (Hamilton
2009/10). Now I have found a rather similar case and it is Shakib Al Hasan
again. At Mirpur in 2015, Shakib scored his last 46 runs in boundaries in making 89 not
out against Pakistan. He then started his second innings with a boundary
giving him 50 runs in a row. ******* For the first few days of the Lord’s
Test of 1948, a significant number of spectators, leaving at the end of the
day’s play, went straight to the entrance gates and began queuing for the
next day’s play. ******** A century stand lost: the online
scores of the ODI at the SCG on 15 Jan 1981 (Australia v India) have
Australia losing its 4th wicket at 155 after a partnership of 100
between Allan Border and Kim Hughes. The ball-by-ball scoresheet by Irving Rosenwater
tells a different story. The wicket fell at 135, not 155; the partnership was
only worth 80 runs. ******** At the MCG in 1931-32, South African
Ken Viljoen hit a shot for six runs – all run. The shot started with an
all-run four where Viljoen was almost run out by a ‘relay’ throw; the return
from Ponsford ricocheted off the stumps and two more were run. Wicketkeeper
Oldfield attempted another run out at the other end, but Quintin McMillan was
home for the 6th run. Overall, four fielders plus the keeper
handled the ball and both wickets were put down, while Bert Ironmonger was
the unfortunate bowler. I have notes on only two other
all-run sixes in Tests. Both also involved overthrows. Hugh Massie scored the
first six in Tests in 1881-82, with a three plus three overthrows. (Hits
clearing the boundary scored only four or five at the time.) Mike Atherton
hit a similar shot off Aqib Javed in 1992. There was also, of course, an all-run
seven hit by Majid Khan off Dennis Lillee, at the MCG in 1981-82, four
all-run plus three overthrows. I know of no all-run sixes without
overthrows in Tests, although they were not unknown in the past in
first-class cricket. Sixes with boundary overthrows still occur from time to
time. ******** Towards the end of the second day of
that Delhi Test against Pakistan in 1979-80, Dilip Doshi was given run out by
umpire Mohammad Ghouse, after Doshi left his crease thinking that the ball
was dead. Ghouse was technically correct, but with a major disturbance
brewing, the acting captain, Majid Khan (deputising for Asif Iqbal) showed
admirable discretion and withdrew the appeal – against the advice of some
more hot-headed team mates. Considering that Pakistan was playing its first
series in India for almost 20 years after years of hostility between the
countries, Majid avoided what could have been an escalating diplomatic
incident. ******** |
6 August 2018
Please note the new contact email
address in the header to this blog. The old address will be checked and
remain open for a time, but will be shut down before long. ******** In
March I reported the discovery of earliest known female scorer in a Test
match, a Miss A. Hall at Auckland in 1930. Initially it was hard to get more
detail about Miss Hall, but Steven Lynch, and others in the ToSH group, ran
with this one and identified Alison Margaret Hall (1910-2004). Steven has now
published an article on the subject here. I
won’t add much to Steven’s article, except that Alison married New Zealand
Test player Paul Whitelaw in 1948. Also, it has been established that Alison
Hall is not Miss A.W Hall, who was chair of the New Zealand Women's Cricket
Council in 1937-38. Here
is a short list of early female Test scorers… A.M.
(Alison) Hall, Auckland 1930 S.H.
(Shirley) Crouch, Brisbane from 1960-61. Miss
P. Williams, Johannesburg from 1964-65 Miss
S.R. Hall, Johannesburg from 1966-67. Alison
Hall at age 19 also seemed a good candidate for the youngest official scorer
of a Test match, but Steven found someone younger (identified by Francis
Payne): Mark Kerly at the age of 16 in Auckland in 1977-78. Remarkably, it
transpires that another New Zealand scorer, Scott Sinclair, was also an
official scorer at age 16 (Dunedin 1979-80). Sinclair was just 8 days older
than Kerly had been when he scored his first Test. …… This
reminded me of a school friend, Malcolm Gorham; we went through high school together
in Sydney. Malcolm was a cricket tragic from a very young age and used to
keep meticulous ledger books in the days before computers, with all the
scores of every active player in Australia. Malcolm had a roller and kept a
cricket pitch mowed and rolled in his backyard; unfortunately his skill at
the game was no greater than mine. However, by the time he was 15 or 16,
Malcolm was the official scorer for Western Suburbs 1st Grade
(next level below Sheffield Shield) every weekend. I remember going to a game
at Pratten Park circa 1971 and seeing his linear scores. It was the
first time I had seen linear scoring: I think my initial reaction was that it
looked like a waste of paper. (I have very much changed my view!) Unlike
the New Zealand teenagers, Malcolm took a while to graduate to more senior
scoring – it is normally the preserve of older gents – but he did eventually
become official scorer for some Test matches and ODIs at the SCG. Very sadly,
however, he was stricken by a neurological disorder and died in his mid 40s.
I very much regret that I never kept in touch with him after we left school. I
have copies of some of Malcolm’s Test scores. I think they are the neatest,
clearest scores that I have ever seen. ******** The Unchangeables
I
count 86 innings in Tests where one bowler (but not two) remained unchanged
through an all out innings (136 including cases where two bowlers were
unchanged). It was common in the early days of Tests, but there have been
only 14 cases since 1993. A
few curious cases... Fred
Spofforth bowled 36.3 out of 71.3 overs in an innings at the Oval in 1882. He
did so by 'changing ends' which meant bowling two consecutive overs, which
was permitted (once per innings) in those days. At
Delhi in 1979, Sikander Bakht bowled more than half the overs even though he
bowled second; this happened because Imran Khan was unable to complete one of
his overs due to injury (reports that Sikhander completed Imran's unfinished
over are incorrect; the over was left unfinished). Six bowlers bowled in this
innings, the most in an innings where one bowler was unchanged. At
Lahore 1987 v England, Abdul Qadir, across both innings, bowled his 73 overs
in the space of 148 team overs, missing only one possible over, plus one
change of end. The
most overs by an unchanged bowler in an innings in the last 100 years is 30.3 by Kapil Dev at Ahmedabad in 1983, taking 9 for
83. Incredibly, Kapil, who was captain, was criticised for his effort and did
not win the Man of the Match Award. Bowling unchanged in most Test
innings
Bowlers
on 3 include Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram. ******** Bowlers with 10 wickets in a day
in Tests
********* It
may be that the explosive increase in six-hitting that began about 15 years ago
is reaching a plateau. In the list of batsmen with most sixes in Tests, there
are no currently-active Test players in the Top 25. (I am treating players
like Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers as non-active here.) Brendon McCullum
leads with 107 sixes followed by Adam Gilchrist on 100, but the most for any
active player is 55 by David Warner, in 28th position. Warner, of
course, can be expected to advance up the rankings. However,
it’s a different story with the bowlers. Both Rangana Herath and Nathan Lyon
have conceded 192 sixes, just two short of the number recorded off Murali.
The exact number conceded by Murali is uncertain, but is in the range
194-198. ******** The
most minutes batted for a winning side in a Test match is 835 by Rahul Dravid
(233 & 72*) at Adelaide in 2003-04. He batted on four days, and nine
sessions in total. Geoff
Boycott (99 & 112) batted for 799 minutes spanning 10 sessions on 5 days
for the winning side at Port of Spain 1974. It was a 6-day Test match, with
some sessions rain-shortened. Boycott lasted only one ball in one of the
sessions. The
most minutes batted in a drawn Test is of course Hanif Mohammad. Hanif batted
1018 minutes at Bridgetown in 1958 if my sources are correct. Although Hanif
lost the record for a single innings in first-class cricket, to RR Nayar, his
match total appears to just shade Nayar’s 1015 minutes. Andy Flower batted
879 minutes for a losing side against South Africa at Harare in 2001. A
questioner on Ask Steven asked if anyone had batted on four days of a Test,
in a single innings, and for a winning side. My initial reaction was that
this could not possibly have happened in a five-day Test, and any Test with
an individual innings spanning four days would surely have to be a
rain-affected draw, but to my surprise it turns out there is one case. It was
one of the most unexpected innings in Test history, an innings that crops up
from time to time in records: Jason Gillespie, who at Chittagong in 2006 made
201* as a nightwatchman, batted on each of the first four days (with rain
interruptions). Australia won the match by an innings. ******** |
|
Some early female cricket
commentators … o Chandra Nayudu,
daughter of CK Nayudu, commentated for radio in India in the 1970s. o Kate Fitzpatrick commentated
for Channel Nine in the 1983-84 series in Australia.
Fitzpatrick was a well-known actress who
was keen on cricket, but she was not a good commentator (my opinion; I
remember listening to her) and her contract was not renewed. o Sreerupa Bose, a
former international, commentated on radio and Indian TV from the mid-1980s
to the late 1990s. o Donna Symonds of Barbados commentated Test
matches from 1988 (radio only?) and appeared on the BBC’s Test Match Special
in 1998. Alison Mitchell, recently signed as a leading commentator
for Channel Seven’s upcoming cricket coverage, has been operating as a
commentator since 2005 and commentated for ABC radio in 2014. |
18 July 2018
On
the first day of the recent West Indies/Bangladesh Test at Kingston,
Bangladesh bowled 35 overs before lunch on the first day, a number so great
that it had the Cricinfo commentator checking his notes to see if it was
right. Bangladesh bowled a similar number in a Test in 2013, but apart from
that you have to go back to 1987 to find more overs bowled before lunch on
the first day. (I’m looking at 2-hour sessions here: there have several more
extreme cases in Pakistan, but always when sessions were 2.5 or 3 hours). The
1987 Test was at Edgbaston, where England bowled 38 overs before lunch on the
first day.
******** It's
as though Test cricket and ODI cricket are being played on different planets
at the moment. Some stats... Last
10 Tests runs per wicket = 23.25 with 17 teams bowled out for less than 200. Last
10 ODIs runs per wicket = 35.5 with 2 teams bowled out for less than 200. There
have been 64 Test innings since the last team score over 500. The
23.25 average for the last 10 Tests is the lowest for 10 consecutive Tests
since 1969, and before that, 1956, and before that, 1914. What is going on? What
we are also seeing is ever-increasing numbers of 'off-season' Tests, as other
formats crowd out the traditional game. The traditional seasons were chosen
for a reason. The wickets for the off-season Tests can be difficult for
batsmen, it seems. It
used to be that the only Tests in June and July were in England. Now they
crop up in all sorts of places, with the exception of England I am sorry to
say. I thought for many years that Test cricket was holding its own in
England, but now it has been shunted into the season fringes, in favour of
ever more meaningless ODI and T20 series. (Stats
calculated on 17 July 2018)
In
addition to uploading series from 1965 to 1970 Into the Davis Test Match
Database, I am re-uploading series from 1945 to 1960 (one at a time). Some of
these were originally uploaded as long ago as 2012, and more information has
come to light since then. I have also expanded the scope of the data a bit
since then, and this will bring the Tests of the 1940s to the same level of
detail, where possible, as later Tests. ******** |
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On Test debut at Kingston
in 1976, Wayne Daniel bowled 20 no balls in India’s first innings (reported
in the Georgetown Chronicle). It is not clear how many actual no ball calls
there were. There could have been some multiple-run no balls, which would
have reduced the number, and/or no balls that were scored from, increasing
the number. The latter is actually quite likely. Challenging Daniel for
most no balls on debut is AL ‘Froggy’ Thomson at Brisbane in 1970. Thomson
recorded 17 no balls in the first innings, but also bowled three other no
balls that were scored from. On a match basis,
Patterson Thompson bowled 22 no balls, plus 9 scored from, at Bridgetown in
1996. In the same year, Mohammad Zahid registered 21 no balls on debut.
However, there were only 18 no ball calls off him; there was one ‘four no
balls’ and no other no balls were scored from. ******** |
8 July 2018
I
am back home now after a long holiday. I managed to visit Lord's again and I
got copies of most of their ODI scores that I had not obtained previously,
except for some of Frindall's scores that they won't allow me to copy.
Overall I obtained about 60 scores. I
visited The Oval as well. I was disappointed to find that some of their
international original scores have gone missing, with almost nothing before
1995. Ironically, I now have a collection of Test scores from The Oval that far
exceeds theirs. I have scores for all Oval Tests since 1952 and many earlier
Tests. This
is largely thanks to John Kobylecky, who almost 20 years ago visited The Oval
and photocopied all the Test scores that he could find. In 2002, John kindly let
allowed me to make copies of these, including the 1880 Test, the oldest
existing Test score. Sometime
after that, The Oval lost track of all the pre-1995 originals. The current
archivist (who was not responsible for the loss) and I searched a small storeroom
full of documents (in disarray) without success. The
1880 scorebook alone would have been worth a lot of money to collectors.
Let’s hope it is found come day. ********* In
2016 (see blog entry for 1 Feb)
I speculated that during the first World Cup, on 7 June 1975, Dennis Amiss
may have retaken the ODI innings scoring record for a few minutes, before
being overtaken in turn by Glenn Turner. (itwas an
answer I offered to the question “Who held an important record for the
shortest period of time?”) Amiss
had scored the first ODI century in 1972, but by 1975 David Lloyd held the
record with a score of 116. On the 7th of June, Amiss scored
137 and Turner 171 not out, in separate matches that started simultaneously.
I now have some more information; although he reached his century first, it
appears that at no stage did Amiss re-take the record. From
separate scorebooks, I determined that Amiss reached his century at 1:46 and
Turner reached his at 2:00. From this, one might expect that Amiss would have
reached the 116 record first, but it is probably not the case. Amiss lost the
strike for a bit and did not reach 116 until 2:15. Turner, meanwhile, scored
at a furious pace and reached 146 by 2:23. I don’t have an exact score for
Turner eight minutes earlier at 2:15, but it almost certainly would have been
greater than 116. ******** I
have re-started the uploading of Test series in the Davis Online Database.
The next stage of the project will tackle series from 1965 to 1970. The
starting page for this section is here. ******** |
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Recently I mentioned the case
of Bob Crisp, the South African bowler who fell over in the delivery stride
of his first ball in Test cricket. Ashru informs me that the same fate befell
Bharat Arun at Kanpur in 1986-87, and also Mike Gatting at Auckland in
1977-78. Gatting was bowling his first ball but was not making his Test
debut, having not bowled in his first two Tests. ******* Mahela Jayawardene hit the
winning run off the first ball he ever faced in a One-Day International, in
making 1* at Colombo Premadasa against Zimbabwe on 24 Jan 1998. He would go
on to play 448 ODIs. Overall, there are about
30 batsmen who have hit the winning run in their debut ODI, starting with Rod
Marsh in ODI#1. Notable names include Michael Clarke, Mohammad Yousuf, and
Kevin Pietersen. There have been a few surprises, like Bob Willis in 1973. ******** |
19 May 2018
ODIs:
Hot and Cold
Long-time
correspondent Sreeram (I recently came across emails from him from 2004, on
an old laptop) has sent me a copy of a score he made from a TV broadcast of
Sanath Jayasuriya’s record-breaking half-century in an ODI in 1996 (50 off 17
balls), against Pakistan at Singapore. I have lined up the balls faced by
Jayasuriya against the previous record-holder, Simon O’Donnell in 1990 (50
off 18 at Sharjah). Note that these innings were played before “superbats”
came into vogue or the grounds were shrunk down.
O’Donnell’s
innings was notable for the lack of dot balls – none at all after he reached
20. It was freakish at the time; there had been very few other innings
anything like it until Jayasuriya came along. The previous record for fastest
50 was probably held by Lance Cairns with 50 off 21 at Melbourne in 1982-83.
Cairns was out for 52 and his overall
strike rate was 208 to O’Donnell’s 255. Thanks
again to Sreeram for providing this, and
much other interesting material over the years. ******** Slowest
Centuries in One-Day Internationals
†More than 50 overs The
balls faced for Boon and Greenidge differ slightly from online versions. In
Boon’s case, this is because early sources included wides in balls faced,
whereas the above figures, obtained by re-scoring original scores, use the
modern protocol of ignoring wides. Boon faced 166 deliveries including wides.
Greenidge faced no wides. ‡
UPDATE: I have added a figure found for Glenn
Turner’s 171* against East Africa in 1975. The balls
faced probably includes any wides (up to five, probably two or
three). I don’t have this innings ball-by-ball. The
majority of these innings were played for winning sides carefully chasing
down modest targets. The slowest for a team batting first is the 157 balls by
Ramiz Raja. ******** “Wider
Still and Wider Shall Thy Bounds Be Set” Those
who have followed One-Day Internationals from the beginning may remember a
time when wides were called far less often; at some point a directive must
have gone out for umpires to be much stricter on one-day wides than in
multi-day cricket. To examine this, I made a table of the historical
incidence of wides, and found that the calling of wides tripled, more or
less, between 1980 and 1982, and remained high thereafter. Historical
Incidence of wides in ODIs (wides/100 balls)
My
memory was that the calling of wides in the early days was along the same
lines as Tests, but looking at the figures, this was not so. Wides in ODIs
were always much more common that in Tests. Test
wides… 1960s:
0.04 wd/100b 1970s:
0.10 wd/100b 1980s:
0.16 wd/100b The
first table also shows that the incidence of wides, after the sudden rise in
the early 1980s, remained fairly steady until 1990 and then began to rise
again, over the next 10 years. It seems to have plateaued at a new level in
this century. At some stage of this process there was the introduction of the
(somewhat draconian) ‘wide line’ just outside the leg stump, which penalises
bowlers for even small departures. I don’t know when these lines were
introduced, although I suspect they had something to do with that post-1995
increase in wides. Readers might help me here if they know about this. I
doubt that the actual accuracy of bowlers has changed much over the years.
Most of the changes in the incidence of wides probably come down to changing
fashions in umpiring. [Having
said that, there is an anecdote about George Giffen, who at some point late
in his career made a bet that he could hit a single stump at least 18 times
out of 24 from 22 yards. He won the bet. I certainly can’t vouch for the
truth of this, but I doubt if there are many bowlers today who would take on
such a bet.] ******** |
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The Changing Game: the
Test at the Oval in 1965 was drawn after rain interrupted England on
308/4 and in sight of their
target. “South Africa’s slow over rate hinders progress” said the headline in
the Guardian. What was that over rate then? It was 98 balls per hour (or 98
overs per six hours) a rate higher than almost anything seen in the modern
game. ******** With war looming, the 1939
tour of West Indies to England was curtailed in late August and seven matches
cancelled. The West Indians took the first available ship across the
Atlantic, which travelled under naval escort. ******** |
26 April
2018
ODIs:
The Early Days
I
have been pursuing original scoresheets of ODIs in the 1970s and 80s, with some
surprising success. It turns out to be easier to find scores from the 70s
than it is from the 90s. In fact, I now have 17 out of the 18 ODIs that were
played before the 1975 World Cup, and 68% from the 1970s as a whole, with
possibly more to come. The main reason that these scores can still be found
is that most of the matches were played in England or Australia, where such
things are better preserved. The
first ODI was organised in a hurry during the 1970-71 Ashes tour, when a
Melbourne Test was cancelled due to poor weather. Although it was a success
(attendance 46,000) authorities did not quite know what to make of it. In
1971-72, two one-dayers were played against a World XI (filling in for a
cancelled South Africa tour; there was also a virtual T20 match of 15 8-ball
overs each), but there were only two more ODIs in Australia over the next
seven seasons. Although a domestic competition was held every year, Australia
did not really begin to embrace one-day cricket until Packer’s World Series
Cricket pioneered day/night games in 1977-78. While Wisden had
practically ignored the original ODI in its tour report, England was more
proactive than Australia and began the regular scheduling of ODIs during the
Ashes tour of 1972. Looking
through the scoresheets of those early matches, the two ODIs played in New
Zealand in 1973-74 stood out. Most previous ODIs had been rather dreary,
producing less than 190 runs per innings even though most were played over 55
overs. The New Zealand/Australia matches were limited to 35 eight-ball overs,
and included cricket that was of a different quality. One imagines also that
the matches were not taken too seriously – a ‘picnic’ atmosphere. Press
reporting of the matches was limited, and Wisden offered
only potted scores. New
Zealand’s 194 in the first match in far-off Dunedin looked much like earlier
ODIs, but Australia broke the mould by chasing the runs down in only 24.3
overs. Ian Chappell’s 83 off 68 balls was something of a pioneering innings;
the first ODI innings that looks impressive by modern standards, and bear in
mind that there were no fielding restrictions, and
‘wide’ bowling was allowed. The
Australian innings included what was almost certainly the first ODI over to
produce more than 20 runs: 22 by Chappell and Stackpole (44441401) off Bevan
Congdon. It was an 8-ball over, but there were 21 off the first 6 balls. (The
first known 6-ball over with 22 runs was in 1978.) The
Australians continued in this fashion in the second match in Christchurch,
with Ian Chappell this time scoring 86 off 67 and Australia reaching 265 in
their 35 overs (164 minutes). This was scoring rarely, if ever, seen in Test
cricket history up to that point. Congdon was clobbered again, conceding 11
runs per over. Not to be outdone, New Zealand gave it a good shot, reaching
234. Ken Wadsworth scored the first run-a-ball century, reaching 100 off 96
balls and out for 104 off 98. The real potential of limited-overs cricket was
being explored. Progressive
Fastest Centuries in Early ODIs
A
thank you to Colin Clowes at Cricket NSW, who found the New Zealand scores. ******** Statistics
of Test fours since 2009
In
India, there have been over 5000 fours since 2009; only two of them were
all-run without overthrows. Both were at Nagpur in 2010; there have been none
since. (I am rather relying on reliability of the Cricinfo texts here.) Since
2009 there have been 20 all-run fours without overthrows at the Gabba and 19
at the MCG, 17 at Lord's and 9 at Adelaide. The very long square boundaries
in Brisbane and Melbourne are more conducive to this than the straight
boundaries in Adelaide, where fieldsmen are more likely to be lurking. Brisbane
and Melbourne were both originally classic ovals, longer than they were wide.
However, the pitches faced east-west. When this was altered to the more
normal north-south (many many years ago) the boundary points were not
changed, so the straight boundaries became rather short and the square
boundaries very long. ******** A
couple of milestones have been reached in posting the Davis Test data online.
I have completed the 1960-65
section, and I have also updated all interwar Tests (1920-39)
with new information including locations of catches and names of scorers
where known. I will start posting Tests from 1965 onward before long, and
begin updating existing scorecards from 1946 to 1960. ******* |
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Fergie’s Monopoly:
Legendary Australian scorer Bill Ferguson was an official scorer of every Test
played in the world from mid-1935 to 1939 – 33 consecutive Tests. Nineteen of
these Tests did not actually involve Australia. After the War, Ferguson
missed one Test (NZ v Aus in 1946, which was only accorded Test status in
1948) but then scored the next 17 Tests, giving him 50 out of 51 Tests.
Ferguson travelled by ship to England seven times in this period, and twice
to South Africa. Fergie toured England with
the 1935 South African team, then South Africa with the 1935-36 Australians.
He went back to England to score for the 1936 Indian team, then Australia and
New Zealand with the England team in 1936-37. He accompanied the team back to
England, where he served as scorer for the 1937 New Zealand tourists. His
wife accompanied him on some of these tours; perhaps it was the only way of
getting to see him. ******** The New
Zealand Herald reported that in the Lahore Test of 1965 between
Pakistan and New Zealand, there were at least 17 catches dropped in the
match, and only 13 taken. In my surveys of almost
700 21st Century Tests, I have found only one Test with more
dropped catches than this. At Mumbai in 2005-06 (India v England), 19 catches
were dropped, although 28 were taken. ********
|
17 April 2018
At
the Last Gasp
Here
is a list of Test matches completed with very little time left (up to 3 overs
or 10 minutes remaining). This is actually tricky to research. Readers might
let me know of omissions or errors.
* One day lost. ** 3 days lost. Contrived
result; match fixing (Cronje) Two
drawn Tests have finished with scores tied: Bulawayo
1996 (Zim v Eng) Mumbai
2011 (Ind v WI) There
was also a Test in Pakistan in 1955-56 (Lahore) that some sources say
Pakistan won on the last possible ball. This is probably in error; other
sources say there were 18 minutes to go. The
lack of matches before 1934 is partly because Tests in Australia were played
to a finish. There was never a “last possible over”. It is a little
surprising, however, that no early Tests in England went ‘down to the wire’. ***UPDATE:
Alastair Lynch has alerted me to the following additions:
I
had flagged these as tight finishes, but in my notes I had incorrectly added one
over to each, and so they missed the cut. ******** Sustained
Impact
100
runs in a match: most consecutive Tests
Faulkner
and Nourse are the only players to score 100 runs or more in every Test of a
five-Test series. ******** Here
is Garry Sobers’ entire
ODI batting career, as recorded by scorer Irving Rosenwater. A
six-ball duck at Leeds in 1973. ******* An
article of mine has appeared in Cricket Monthly online, on the subject of the
trends in scoring speeds, and the fastest scorers of all time. It can
be found here.
I will post it on this website in due course. |
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In the Auckland Test, England was out for 58 in the first session,
and in reply Kane Williamson reached 59 at the end of the second session
(dinner, not tea, this being a day/night match). He was the first batsman,
batting second, to outscore his opponents before the end of the second
session of a Test match. At Cape Town in 2013, Alviro Peterson of South Africa was 45 at
tea after New Zealand was bowled out for 45. At Lord’s in 1912, South Africa
was bowled out before tea for 58 after there was no play before lunch. RT
Spooner was not out 67 at stumps. The most runs before tea by a batsman batting second is 67 by
Sanath Jayasuriya at Colombo SSC against Bangladesh in 2001. Bangladesh was
out for 90. ******** At Trent Bridge in 1935, South African bowler Bob Crisp came in to
bowl the first ball of the series, and the first of Crisp’s Test career, only
to fall over. He was not injured, but ended up on his backside, with ball
still in hand, next to the stumps. ******** |
28 March 2018
Statistician
of the Year 2017
I
have just returned from a flying visit to Britain that included receiving an
award: the “Statistician of
the Year 2017” from the Association of Cricket Statisticians
and Historians. The award was made at the AGM of the Association, held in
Derby. I was treated as an honoured guest. It was also terrific to meet up in
person with various contacts who have helped me with my work in the past. Only
one Australian has previously won the award, which has been awarded annually
for over 30 years. That was Ray Webster. ******** |
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At Johannesburg in 1994-95, Aamir Nazir was called for as a
Pakistan replacement but had to fly in from Pakistan. He arrived at the
ground 36 minutes after the match had started. The South African captain had
permitted a substitute while Pakistan fielded. Nazir broke down and was
unable to finish an over twice on this first day. It is the only case I have
on record (up to 2015) of a bowler breaking down and not finishing an over
twice in one Test match. CORRECTION: Boyd Rankin was unable to complete an over twice in
one innings at the SCG in 2013-14. It was his only Test match (UPDATE, until
Ireland’s first Test). ******** GC ‘Jackie’ Grant was appointed captain of the West Indies team
to Australia in 1930-31 without ever having played first-class cricket in the
West Indies. His cricket had been in England, mostly in university matches.
Nevertheless, he was a considerable success as captain. He did not return to
the Caribbean with the team, but sailed to Rhodesia to work as a missionary.
Grant did not play f-c cricket in the West Indies until1934-35, when he
captained the team again, against the touring England side. ******** A little statistic finally confirmed... There were 60 Tests played on matting wickets. I can confirm
this after correspondence with cricket historian Rollins Howard in the West
Indies. Previously I was unsure of some Tests there. The only Tests in West Indies played on matting were at Port of
Spain. The last was in 1954 (v England). There were 42 such Tests in South Africa (the last in 1931), 10
in Pakistan (including some in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh), 6 in West
Indies and 2 in India. The last Test played on matting was at Karachi in 1959
(Pakistan v Australia). ******** |
8 March 2018
Here's
a funny little discovery... For
the 4th Test of England's tour of New Zealand in 1929-30, one of the official
scorers was a "Miss A
Hall". Hall scored the match with Bill Ferguson
("WF"), the Australian who was doing duty as the tour scorer for
the English team. As
far as I know, this would be the earliest case of a woman being official
scorer of a Test, previously thought to be Shirley Crouch at the Brisbane
Tied Test in 1960-61. Jamie
Bell of NZ Cricket Museum tells me that a Miss A.W. Hall was chair of the New
Zealand Women's Cricket Council in 1937-38. Almost certainly the same person, and they may be able to come up with more
information. That
4th Test in Auckland had been organised in a rush, after the
3rd Test a few days earlier had been ruined by rain. The 3rd Test
had been scored by someone else (TSC Haig, with Ferguson). Perhaps Haig was
not available at short notice, and Hall filled in. Sreeram
reports that a young woman named Margaret Platts was the scorer in the Essex
v Worcestershire match in 1939 under unfortunate circumstances (a car
accident involving multiple players). It was discussed in the ACS list in
2014 as the first fc match involving a woman scorer. So this discovery has
precedence. It may well be that Miss Hall had already scored first-class
cricket in Auckland. Grace
Morgan scored in the first four women's Tests and is named in Cricket Archive
scorecards. ******** There
are 30 or more bowlers who have taken wickets with both their first ball and
their last ball in a Test match. I haven't checked them all. Possibly the
first was RO Schwarz in 1905, and the most recent was Mitchell Starc at Galle
in 2016. Two
bowlers have done it twice, Maurice Tate and (amazingly) JP Duminy. Duminy
did it at Dubai in 2103, and at Johannesburg in 2010, where he bowled only
1.5 overs in the match and took just two wickets. ******** |
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In 1962, Subhash Gupte was excluded from the Indian team on
disciplinary grounds. His ‘offense’ was being the room-mate of AG Kripal
Singh, who had had the temerity to ask a woman (a hotel receptionist) out on
a date during a Test match. “Gupte was accused of failing to control his room
mate's behaviour.”(!) Gupte was the best bowler in the Indian side, but was
not selected for the tour of the West Indies. India lost the series in the West Indies 5-0, having also lost
the previous tour abroad 5-0 (in England). The team did not tour abroad again
for more than five years. ******** |
25 February 2018
More
Test match Database!
I
have begun to extend the Test Match
Database into the 1960s, and I have reached 1962 so far.
Series will be added progressively. At the same time I am progressively
upgrading scorecards from 1920 to 1960 to include a little more information
including the fielding locations of catches. The official scorers of Tests
are being identified wherever possible. ******** Eight
Wickets in Fewest Balls (individual bowlers, where known)
The
records for five wickets, six wickets and eight wickets in fewest balls (by
an individual bowler in a single Test) have all been set against Bangladesh.
Bangladesh does occasionally have some good matches, but their capacity for
ridiculous collapses is tiresome. ******** Sole
Run out credits in ODI
There are another three
run outs where Rhodes was fielding but no run out credit is recorded. Sole
Run out Credits in Tests (where known)
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An odd coincidence: long delay before first boundary in an ODI
(teams). In an ODI at Perth 6 Dec 1991, India (all out 126 with two
fours) hit the first boundary off the LAST ball of the 26th over against West
Indies. The score was 53. One year later – to the day – Australia (160) hit the first
boundary off the FIFTH ball of the 26th over, on the same ground against the
same team, with the score on 52. There is an unconfirmed report of no boundaries in the first 38
overs of an India/SriLanka ODI in 1986 (Austral-Asia Cup). UPDATE: Steve Pittard records the following cases… In the 1975 World Cup qualifier,West Indies
v Australia, the first boundary was hit in the 27th over
(Clive Lloyd). At Lord’s in 1988, there were no boundaries until the 31st over
(Graham Gooch). ******** Last time ODIs were played in the middle of a Test series
(between the same teams). Looks like the 2002-03 Ashes tour, where ODIs were played
between the 3rd and 4th Tests. ODIs were played in India between Tests in 2017, but they did
not involve the Indian team (Afghanistan v Ireland). In 1992-93 an ODI in Zimbabwe was actually played in the middle
of a Test, in a never-repeated experiment. The Test in Harare was on Dec 7,
9, 10, 11, 12 with the ODI on the 8th. ******** Origin of Abdominal Protectors.
They were advertised as "Private Guards" as early as 1855. There
was an earlier cryptic 1851 reference to a "cross-bar india rubber
guard". It is said that Jack Gregory batted without one, even when
facing Larwood. The story seems to originate with Jack Fingleton writing in
1973. It is known that Gregory often batted without gloves, as did Herbie
Collins (both were WWI veterans, if that is relevant). Eric Rowan of South Africa also sometimes batted without one.
"Made me concentrate" he said. (Research by Gideon Haigh and David Studham, found in Haigh’s
book Silent Revolutions.) It would seem that abdominal protectors were introduced only a
few years after the first gloves and pads, which first appear in
illustrations in the late 1840s. ******** At Hamilton in 1996-97, Kumar Dharmasena was bowled by Daniel
Vettori, but the Pakistani umpire Mahboob Shah, confused by the wicketkeeper
Adam Parore taking off the other bail, ruled the batsman not out. Video
review, which showed the incident clearly, was not available to the umpires. On a related issue, I came across an English newspaper report of
a Test match in South Africa in 1999. It is a reminder of how obsessed
reports and commentary could be about umpiring, in the days when there was
abundant video but before DRS. http://www.sportstats.com.au/pe99.pdf I don't know how much of it is justified, but I would say that some
of the disputation in the report is really just the reporter's opinion. There
is substantial agreement in other reports, however, and it appears that the
players went out of their way to try to intimidate the umpires. I also came across a Test report in the Guardian in March 2001
with a headline “Bitterness Mars England’s Progress” followed by sub-headings
“Uproar over Jayasuriya dismissal” and “Umpiring falls to pieces under
pressure”. ********* |
2 February 2018
Bowlers
Taking Three Wickets in Four Balls: Some Issues.
Cricinfo
has a list of bowlers taking three wickets in four balls in Tests here.
The list starts as follows:
There
are some problems with this list. I would mention these: · Spofforth, The Oval 1882:
this is not correct; it is actually three wickets in eight balls. I think
this came from a misreading of the original score, which has an odd way of
presenting the bowling. · Gregory, Nottingham 1921:
the scorebook gives Gregory 3 in 5 balls WW[new
over]00W. · Mitchell, Johannesburg
1935-36: again the scorebook has 3 in 5 balls WW01W. I
would also add these confirmed instances to the list prior to 1997-98
The
Cricinfo list is also a bit misleading. It basically stops in 1997-98 but
adds a single instance in 2015. There are actually more than two dozen other
cases in the intervening period. ******** Here
is some info that might be worthy of further investigation. Some commentators
seem almost obsessed with the idea of ‘rotating the strike’. It occurred to
me that there is virtually no evidence on the effectiveness of this, one way
or the other. So I took a look at the incidence of singles in partnerships of
different sizes (in the last five years or so). I kind of expected to find no
effect, but there is something here. Per
Cent Singles in Test Partnerships
There
is some trend, and it is fairly consistent albeit rather weak. Higher
partnerships tend to have a higher incidence of singles. Since a higher
incidence of singles will tend to rotate the strike, maybe there is some
benefit after all. ******** Here
is something so arcane that I doubt if any list has been seen before… Fielders
taking catches off consecutive balls in different fielding positions.
I
know of about 20 cases of fielders taking catches off consecutive balls,
usually in the same position. Dilip Vengsarkar once took three catches in
four balls at short leg, in one over by Ravi Shastri at Wellington 1980-81. ******** |
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In the first Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 1997, Ijaz
Ahmed was given out, run out, on a score of 98 early on the second day. There
was initial confusion over which batsman was out (Ijaz or Salim Malik). The
decision against Ijaz was given by TV umpire KT Francis, who nevertheless
continued to review the video. The disconsolate Ijaz was back in the dressing
room by the time Francis decided to change his decision, and informed
on-field umpire David Shepherd that Ijaz was to be recalled and Salim Malik
was the one out (for 58). Ijaz went on to a score of 113. This echoes an incident from Don Bradman’s career when he was
run out and left the field, only to be recalled and Stan McCabe given out
instead. ******** Fewest runs conceded by a bowler in taking his first ten wickets
in Tests: 39 runs by Ernie Toshack. JK
Lever conceded 70 runs. Both bowlers bowled a few no balls, which weren't
counted against bowlers in those days. Charles Turner conceded 75 runs in
taking his first ten wickets in the 1880s, with no no balls. ******** Until this season the slowest century by an Australian, in
minutes batted, was by Justin Langer against Pakistan in 1999-2000, at 388
minutes. But now Steve Smith has exceeded this twice, with two centuries, at
Brisbane and Melbourne, weighing in at an identical 416 minutes. There are more than 40 centuries by batsmen from other countries
that are slower than Smith’s, and about 70 that are slower than Langer’s.
Smith’s ‘slowness’ is really an indication of slow over rates; at 259 and 261
balls faced, neither was a particularly slow scoring rate. Contrast the minutes vs ball rate with Bill Woodfull’s century in
1929, where he faced 372 balls but batted only 322 minutes. I think that the fact that Smith set records also reflects
Australia’s dominance during most of the era of slow over rates; Australian
batsmen since 1975 (the era of slow over rates) have played far fewer really
defensive centuries than batsmen from other countries. ******** Steve Smith missed two catches off Alastair Cook (244*) in the
MCG Ashes Test. As it happened, this deprived him of a record. Smith took no
catches in the match, having taken at least one catch in each of his 26
previous Tests. The record for catches in consecutive Tests
(non-wicketkeepers) is 27 by Bob Simpson in 1961-64. ******** On 21 December 1998, New Zealand and India played an unofficial One-Day
game in Dunedin. It was a day-night game, yet a red ball was used and the
players were in whites. Curious. ******** |
7 January 2018
A
Dull Session, a Mind Wanders
While
I was sitting (at the ground) watching Mitch Marsh score ten runs in a
complete session, on the last day of the drawn Boxing day Test, I resolved to
update my list of fewest runs in
a full session by an individual batsman. I restricted myself
to ten runs or fewer in a session, in the last 20 years. Fewest
runs in a 2-hour session (individuals) since 1998.
2-hour sessions with at least
24 overs. Among
Australians, Marsh’s 10 runs in a session is ‘unsurpassed’
going back decades. Mitch’s father Geoff, scored
just nine in the opening session of the MCG Test against Pakistan in 1989-90.
In 1988-89, Allan Border (75) scored nine in a full session – all in singles
– against the West Indies at the SCG. For Australians in Ashes Tests, Mitch’s
effort is at the extreme. Alec Bannerman scored eight in a session at the MCG
in 1891-92, but that may have been a bit short of two hours (there were 45
overs though). [In
some recent extreme defensive sessions, such as Peter Nevill and Steve
O’Keefe and others at Pallekele in 2016, no one actually batted through a
complete session.] There
are also the following cases from sessions with at least 24 overs but which
were interrupted or shortened…
The
Tendulkar and Misbah sessions were curtailed when matches were called off.
Wagner’s session had a 20-minute rain interruption. ******** Curious
goings on at the Faisalabad Test of 1997-98, Pakistan
v South Africa on the first day. The report is from Dawn (Karachi)
reproduced in the Cricinfo Archive. The
second session belonged to South Africa as the pitch eased and the ball softened. The
veteran Symcox attacked with relish, hitting two sixes, and outpaced his
senior partner. Symcox
must have realised the force was with him when, on 56, he played inside Mushtaq. The
ball went between off and middle stumps, nudging them on the way.
They parted, then came back into place without disturbing the
bail. A
grinning Symcox, a wistful Mushtaq and the rest gathered round the offending
set and it transpired that the bail was not properly cut, allowing it to stay in
place as the stumps moved. Both sets were later replaced. If that
was perplexing, Kirsten's extra run was in the classic mystery mould. Symcox was
eventually bowled for his Test highest score of 81, only his
second fifty, and Kirsten was left - so we thought - on 91 when last man Paul Adams
joined him. The
scoreboard registered his century, brought up with a single, and the player rightly
rejoiced in a quality innings. Adams was out next ball and then
it was discovered that two sets of scorers had the opener on 99. Kirsten
said: "I heard there were some doubts when I got back to the dressing room. It is
official, isn't it?" The
official scorer put his seal of approval on the innings, saying a leg bye had been missed
somewhere. There were some nods and winks, but it stands. I
would add that I have a score for this innings, a linear score kept for
Pakistan TV. In the 58th over with Kirsten on 85, it has
recorded a leg bye, but added a note “leg bye but official scorer given run”.
So the TV scorer knew this to be a leg bye, but has registered it this as a
run, perhaps to conform to the official score. The run, taking Kirsten to 86,
is necessary to give Kirsten his 100. It would appear almost certain that
Kirsten’s score was really 99 not out. A contact who has met the scorers
confirms this. He said that the scorers were quite open about fudging the
score to give Kirsten his 100. ******** Players
on the field throughout a Test These
are really the cases of openers who batted through their respective team’s
innings, usually by carrying their bats when their team batted only once. In most
cases it is uncertain whether or not the players were substituted in the
field at any stage. Alastair
Cook’s recent effort at the MCG is the longest Test (in time) featuring on
this list, at 1714 minutes. However, MC Atapattu’s Test at Galle in 2000-01
was longer in terms of balls bowled (2520 to Cook’s 2325).
*Haynes was last
out in both innings but did not field throughout Minimum: play occurred on four
days. In
addition to the above, there are 14 cases of a player on-field throughout in 3-day
Tests (including another one for Cook), and another 19 cases in one- or
two-day Tests (generally, severely weather-affected). Haynes,
Tharanga, and Brathwaite are the only batsmen on any of the lists who batted
twice in the match. ******** |
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