For sportstats
home page, and info in Test Cricket in
Australia 1877-2002, click here
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Z-score’s Cricket Stats Blog The
longest-running cricket stats blog on the Web For comments, or to
contact Charles Davis, zscore334 at iinet.net.au (no
spaces) |
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Charles Davis: Statistician of the Year (Association of Cricket
Statisticians and Historians)
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Who are the Fastest-Scoring
(and Most Tenacious) Batsmen in Test Cricket? Click Here. |
Longer articles by Charles Davis Click Here |
Unusual Records. For Cricket
Records you will not see anywhere else, Click Here |
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some remarkable first-class innings, re-scored. |
The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1990s have now been
posted. Almost three-quarters 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. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1877 to 1970. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1971 to 1999.
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13 July 2021 I
have updated the Hot 100 list – the fastest-scoring
Test batsmen – it’s been a couple of years since the last update. Most
batsmen tend to score at a characteristic rate which varies less, over time,
than batting average. The upshot is that the list changes only gradually, apart
from new players making an appearance, so it doesn’t matter too much if
updates are infrequent. It
is interesting though that David Warner, still very prominent in the list,
has been ‘calming down’ to some extent in recent years. He sometimes plays
defensively now (only sometimes). His career scoring rate as of 2019 was 74.5;
this has now dropped to 72.7. His scoring rate in the interim has been 62.5
runs per 100 balls, and that includes his triple-century against Pakistan. The
full lists are at the usual link. I have also
prepared the list below, restricted to fully-recognised batsmen, just to see
how the list looks without the lower-middle-order all-rounders and
wicketkeepers who are prominent on the full list. The list is filtered simply
by restricting to batsmen with an average batting position of less than 6.1. (All
innings for such batsmen were included, even below #6 position,
as long as the career average position was 6.1). The runs qualification has
been raised to 2000 career runs for modern batsmen, although it remains at
1000 runs for earlier times. Given
these qualifications, Virender Sehwag’s
lead becomes very striking indeed. Shahid Afridi
was faster still as a top-order player, but his Test record is rather patchy
and he never reached 2000 runs. Fastest-scoring Test batsmen: ‘recognised’
batsmen
A modified version of this list, with
adjustment for changes in runs-scoring standards over time, is
available at the link. This particular list has not been
updated since 2019. |
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During
a tour of Sri Lanka in 1996, Alistair Campbell and Henry Olonga
of Zimbabwe were swept out to sea while swimming, and had to be rescued by
lifeguards. The incident was reminiscent of a rescue during the rest day of
the Bridgetown Test of 1977, when Pakistan players Zaheer
Abbas and Wasim Bari were rescued from drowning
while attempting to swim back to their hotel from a raft that had drifted out
to sea. ******** |
21 June 2021 Well it’s been a while since anything
was posted. Put that down to other work coming in (non-cricket) and general
lassitude. It might not be a reasonable response, but the effect of all these
crushing lockdowns has been to discourage rather than encourage me. Nevertheless,
Test matches are still being posted in my database – well into 1996 now. I
have been making minor (but painstaking) corrections to some older data too,
mostly in the session-by-session and ball-by-ball files, which did not always
line up precisely, particularly for inter-War Tests. Thanks to Glenn Timmins
for pointing out the problems. Anyway.
Here are a few items… Players making the greatest number of
different scores,
from 0 to 100, in all Internationals combined. It is not surprising that
Tendulkar leads here, but he never made scores of 58 or 75. A pity then that
he was out for 74 in his last Test; he had already made that score three
times. He also made two 76s late in his career. Tendulkar
did make scores of 58 and 75 in first-class cricket, although he never made
99 or 102, and a few other scores below 90, including 87. He did make those
scores in List A. If my search is correct, the lowest score (f-c and List A
combined) that Tendulkar never made is 129, followed closely by 130.
******** Batsmen
who faced 100 balls in a Test innings – highest career percentages. H Sutcliffe 58.3% of
innings B Mitchell 52.5% WM Woodfull
51.9% DG Bradman 50.0% IR Redpath 50.0% L Hutton 50.0% KF Barrington 49.2% EAB Rowan 48.0% G Boycott 45.6% GM Turner 45.2% RS Dravid
45.1% (minimum 50 innings; some
estimates – a limited number – are necessary for older data) ******** Some stats on 20 (+) run overs in
Tests. There
have been 178 known instances of which 27 were in 8-ball overs. Of
the 178, 96 occurred in this century. Of
the 178, 118 included an individual batsman making 20 or more runs. In the
others the runs were shared or there were extras to make up the 20. Bowlers
conceding 20 in an over... four times for JR Thomson and MJ Hoggard. Two of Thomson's were 8-ball overs. Three times
by Swann, M Morkel, Boje,
Willis and Sobers (Willis and Sobers include 8-ball overs) Batsmen
hitting 20 runs in an over: Gilchrist 6 times, Lara and Botham 3. Thirteen
batsmen have done it twice. Botham and Lara were also in one additional over
each worth 20 or more runs, although they did not themselves score 20. David
Warner has batted in four 20+ overs, although he has scored 20 runs only once
himself. ******** Here
are some percentages for 'No Play' days in Tests, by country. Days can be
lost for a variety of reasons but mostly weather. Abandoned matches not
included, but all other Tests are. Ireland
20.0% (1 match only) Bangladesh
5.6% New
Zealand 4.8% England
4.2% India
3.2% Sri
Lanka 3.0% South
Africa 2.7% Zimbabwe
2.2% Australia
2.0% Pakistan
2.2% West
Indies 1.9% UAE
0.6% (1 day lost, following death of PJ Hughes) ******** |
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Although
he was selected as an opening batsman, Roger Twose
did not get to bat until the fifth day of his second Test match. His debut at
Chennai in 1995 was washed out with only 2 sessions of play, and New Zealand
did not bat. The following Test at Cuttack was similarly afflicted, and New
Zealand did not bat until the morning of the fifth day. ******** I
have mentioned before that when Garry Sobers hit the ******** |
28 April 2021 Musical Cricket I
had an unusual 'cricket' experience recently. I went to a concert by a
classical trio (piano, violin, cello) who call themselves the Benaud trio. They played a new piece by David Lang called
"The Tied Test". As a musical concept, it is possibly unique. It
was literally a Test match (the Brisbane Tied Test in 1960) set to music. It
had four movements, one for each innings, with each over of the match
corresponding to one bar of music. Moreover, each of the 22 players was
represented by a small motif which was played while they were bowling (piano)
or batting (violin, cello). The players explained a few of these motifs
before the performance; they were linked to the players’ names, so “Richie Benaud” had four notes and “Alan Davidson” five, with
rhythms similar to the spoken name. “Wes Hall” had just two notes, but played
heavily to suit a fast bowler. I could not make out all 22 motifs, of course,
but I am sure I heard “Norm O’Neill” frequently during the second movement.
O’Neill of course scored 181 in the corresponding innings. I
had made a small contribution to this. David Lang contacted me a few months
ago about his idea, and I supplied with all the statistical information I had
on the Tied Test. I
regarded the music as a great success. It had a calypso flavour, and was much
more accessible than typical modern music. It
was the first concert I have been to in 18 months, so was particularly
memorable. It was a small venue, perhaps 100 seats, but was sold out. There was
no social distancing. Masks were encouraged but not mandatory; about 20% of
patrons wore them. I
must find out how the Benaud Trio got its name. The
name is serious; the group has been around for 15 years and has won various
chamber music competitions and awards. There
is a clip of the composer explaining the music at the link (I get a mention) https://www.facebook.com/benaudtrio
******** I
did an interview last week with Jack Snape of the ABC, discussing aspects of
the history of cricket scoring. We covered a range of subjects and it was
quite enjoyable. It is a bit unfortunate, though, that they focussed on that
old Bradman four runs thing, an article that I wrote 13 years ago, and is old
news. https://www.abc.net.au/.../sir-don-donald.../100078546 For
the record, I still stand by the analysis of Bradman. However, moving the
mystery four runs (in the final Test of 1928-29) into the Bradman column is
only one of a number of possible resolutions for the anomaly in the surviving
scorebook, and I would concede it is not the most likely. It is still an open
question, though. ********* 333 with no 3s It’s
a rather large and fiddly table, but for anyone interested here is a complete
breakdown of scoring strokes for all Test triple (or should that be treble?)
centuries. It’s fair to say that all such innings benefit from benign batting
conditions, but how could it be any other way? If a batsman could score a
triple under difficult conditions, what should he be capable of when the
going is good? There
is quite a lot of variability in the composition of the strokes. This can
reflect the speed of the outfield or the batting style, or both. It can be
hard to unravel these factors. Undoubtedly, Chris Gayle benefited from a
small ground and fast outfield when he hit 333 at There
is a quite a remarkable difference between the triples by Edrich
and Cowper, made within months of one another. Edrich
hit 57 boundaries and 3 threes, while Cowper hit 20 boundaries and 26 threes.
Cowper’s 307 was scored on a large ground with
extremely slow outfield: his fours included several that were all-run. One
can speculate that Cowper’s innings might have been worth an extra 50 runs
under the conditions enjoyed by Edrich.
†Hammond’s
official score is, of course, 336 not out, but re-scoring the scorebook gives
him 337 not out. I have used the latter so that the strokes add up. Incidentally,
the highest innings for which I do not have a full stroke breakdown is the
next on the list – Bradman’s 299* at Adelaide in 1931-32. ******** |
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26 March 2021 A Lost Century? In
the previous post I mentioned the discovery of scores from the 1909-10 M.C.C.
tour of South Africa. I have now rescored these matches into ball-by-ball
form and they have been posted in my online database here. Robin
Isherwood has provided more information on the source. The scorebook was the
work of one Bernard de Rockstro Malraison
(1844-1930), a long-time scorer in Transvaal. He had stood as an umpire in a
match involving Major Warton’s team in 1888-89, but not in the Tests. He is
not to be confused with his son W. de R. Malraison
(1876-1916) who played for Transvaal a couple of times. The younger Malraison died fighting in the Great War, not in Europe
but in East Africa, where there was considerable conflict between British and
German colonials. In
the scorebook, the first three Tests are in the same hand, almost certainly Malraison himself. The scores are accurate and re-scoring
was straightforward. The fourth and fifth Test scores, played in Cape Town,
are in a different hand. The scorers are identified as W.W.A. Colson
(1884-1941) and T.H.G. Lancellas (1874-1934). These
later scores contain problems. They are almost certainly re-copies, and
errors have crept in, some of them significant. For instance, in South
Africa’s 103 in the final Test, there are 33 extras recorded. These extras,
however, apply to England’s first innings of 417. An
unusual feature of newspaper reports of the final Test include statements
that there was an error in the scoring of Aubrey Faulkner’s 99 in the second
innings, and that he actually scored 100; it was said that one run had been
mistakenly credited to Sinclair (37). And indeed, the re-score does give
Faulkner an exact 100 and Sinclair 36. Unfortunately, it is not clear-cut.
There are several anomalies that occur in the score during the innings; for
example, Faulkner’s scoring stroke order in the batting score does not match
the bowlers’ rescore analysis. So, uncertainty must remain; I would say,
though, that when I tried a few possible changes to the bowling (which itself
creates new anomalies), Faulkner still gets his 100. Robin
Isherwood also sent me a photo of Malraison with
his scorebook, taken when he was 84 years old. It is rather charming and I
will post it here…
******** A New Look at the ‘Slowest’ and ‘Quickest’ Bowlers I
have done a little exercise to look for the current bowlers who are fastest
and slowest in getting through their overs. I was able to do this thanks to
Benedict Bermange, who has over the years sent me quite a number of his
linear Test scores with clock times at the start of every over. I have
entered this data onto a spreadsheet for 22 recent Tests (since 2019, more
than 7000 overs). Benedict only scores Tests involving England, but the 22
Tests involve all the major Test countries. Bowlers who did not play against
England in this period are not covered. I
was inspired to do this by a comment from Benedict that Ishant
Sharma seems to take an inordinate time to get through his overs. And sure
enough, guess who tops the list of 67 'slowest' bowlers, and by a significant
margin? Bowler minutes per over I
Sharma 5.56 ST
Gabriel 5.07 MA
Starc 5.03 JL
Pattinson 4.98 JJ
Bumrah 4.90 AA
Nortje 4.85 MA
Wood 4.83 PJ
Cummins 4.80 JR
Hazlewood 4.69 Shaheen Shah Afridi
4.65 Times
are given in fractions of minutes, not minutes:seconds. The
calculation only considers what I call 'standard' overs, or complete overs
without interruptions. (Standard overs comprise about 82% of all overs.)
Overs with wickets, reviews, drinks break, injuries etc
are filtered out. Leaving them in doesn't affect the order much. The
bowlers who get through their over the quickest, based once again on
uninterrupted overs, are NM
Lyon 3.50 S
Nadeem 3.45 RL
Chase 3.41 Yasir Shah 3.39 RRS
Cornwall 3.34 JE
Root 3.34 KA
Maharaj 3.31 R
Ashwin 3.23 JL
Denly 3.21 AR
Patel 3.17 Although
Akshar Patel has the fastest standard over, he
ranks only about 10th on an 'every-over' basis. This reflects the very high
frequency of wickets that he has taken to date, which increase over times by
about 1.5 minutes each time there is an interruption. The
qualification is minimum 25 'standard' overs. Benedict's clock times only go
to the nearest minute, but when averaged out, more precision is possible. I
also looked at the effect of interruptions of various kinds on minutes taken to
bowl an over.
******** |
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Most
runs off 6 consecutive balls in Tests… The
record for a single over is 28, but three batsman have scored 29 off six
consecutive balls spread across multiple overs: Adam
Gilchrist 664616 during his famous Perth century; Andy
Blignaut 646661 at Cape Town in 2005. ******* The
player involved in run outs most times in ODIs is Mohammad Yousuf 79 times (run out 38 times, partners 41). Steve
Waugh is on 78 (27+51) and on 76 there is Inzamam
(40+36) and Sachin Tendulkar (34+42). Run out most times is Marvan Atapattu on 41 (+24
partners),while for partner run outs the record is
Waugh (51, above). There
is uncertainty in some of the above figures for partners. I suspect that
there are errors in fall-of-wicket batsman identifications in older matches.
I have never checked the 'official' identifications in ODIs but I believe
that some of them are guesswork. I have surveyed the equivalent data in Tests
and found more than 400 errors in the 'official' online scores. ******** From
Arnold D’Souza: ******** |
13 March 2021 Falling at the Last Here
is a list of batsmen who batted all day only to be out to the last ball of
the day. I prepared this when I noticed that this fate had recently befallen
two English batsmen in the space of only a few Tests. Almost 200 Tests had
passed since the previous instance in 2016. Batsman
(final score)...number of runs, day, Test H
Sutcliffe(161)…141, day 3, Eng v Aus (5), The Oval 1926 CA
Roach(209)…209, day 1, WI v Eng (3), Georgetown,
Guyana 1930 Pankaj
Roy(140)…140, day 1, Ind v Eng
(2), Mumbai (Brabourne) 1951/52 Pankaj
Roy(150)…120, day 5, Ind v WI (5), Kingston,
Jamaica 1953 Waqar Hassan(189)…154,
day 3, Pak v NZ (2), Lahore (Jinnah) 1955/56 Khalid Ibadulla(166)…166, day 1, Pak v Aus
(1), Karachi (National) 1964/65 ED Solkar(67)…67, day 3,
Ind v Eng (1), Lord's
1971 GM
Wood(126)…126, day 4, Aus v WI (3), Georgetown,
Guyana 1978 SM Gavaskar(115)…115, day 1, Ind v
Aus (4), Delhi (FSK) 1979/80 MD Crowe(137)…123, day 3, NZ v Aus
(2), Christchurch 1985/86 MH
Richardson(99)…99, day 1, NZ v Zim (2), Harare
2000/01 MP
Vaughan(177)…177, day 1, Eng v Aus
(2), Adelaide Oval 2002/03 AN Cook(105)…105,
day 1, Eng v WI (3), Bridgetown, Barbados 2015 TWM
Latham(136)…136, day 1, NZ v Zim (2), Bulawayo
(Queen's) 2016 JE
Root(186)…119, day 3, Eng v SL (2), Galle 2020/21 DP
Sibley(87)…87, day 1, Eng v Ind
(1), Chennai (Chepauk) 2020/21 Qualifications:
more than 50 overs in the day and the match had to continue next day after
the batsman was out. In
the Solkar and Crowe cases, the team was all out,
so it is very likely that the day’s play would have continued if the wicket
had not fallen. Of
the above, only Waqar, Ibadulla,
Gavaskar and Taslim were
out to the last ball of an over, so presumably these are the only ones who
knew they were facing the last ball of the day. This is not absolutely
certain, since there could have been another over if they hadn't been out.
However, in the Ibadulla and Gavaskar
cases, it is known that no further overs could have been bowled. ******** Here
are lists of the fastest and slowest Test partnerships, in terms of speed for
the first 100 runs. The data is drawn from the ball-by-ball database,
supplemented, where ball-by-ball data is absent, by research into original
reports. Overall, time or balls faced information was found for the first 100
runs for about 95 % of century partnerships. Generally speaking, where data
is absent, the partnerships were not remarkable in terms of speed (or lack of
it). In
some cases, conversions had to be made between minutes and ball bowled, using
over rates for the relevant innings. This creates a little uncertainty in the
exact rankings in the following tables, particularly the first table where
changes of only a couple of minutes could affect results. The
fastest times in minutes (and the slowest in balls bowled) are mostly from
older Tests, played in the days of high over rates. By contrast, when it
comes to fast partnerships in balls bowled, recent Tests dominate. Fastest Test Century partnerships (1st
100 runs, minutes)
Slowest Test Century partnerships (1st
100 runs, minutes)
Fastest Test Century partnerships (1st
100 runs, balls)
Slowest Test Century partnerships (1st
100 runs, balls)
None of the partnerships in the final
category would rival the partnership of 98 by Sardesai
and Manjrekar at Bridgetown in 1962, which occupied close to 590 balls and
248 minutes. I
may add these lists to the Unusual Records section. ******** Andrew
Samson has come up with some ‘new’ Test match scores, found at the
Johannesburg Wanderers ground. They are from a handwritten scorebook, by a
gentleman named Malraison, that has somehow survived the years. It contains, among
other things, full scores for all five Tests of the 1909-10 M.C.C. tour of
South Africa, Tests that were previously lost. Breakthroughs
like this have become rare, made even more difficult by the restrictions
related to the Covid virus. So this is a great
find, and Andrew has kindly already supplied me with copies. I will re-score
it into ball-by-ball form in due course. Credit
to Robin Isherwood, who alerted me to the existence of this book, and the
possibility of it containing Test match scores, 15 months ago. It took a
sustained effort by Andrew to get access to the book. ******** |
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The
responsibility for calling no balls in internationals has now been fully
handed over to the third umpire. The change was introduced when Test matches
re-commenced in England last July. In 18 Tests since then, there have been
199 no balls called. In the previous 18 Tests, when the calls were left to
on-field umpires or referrals, there were only 77 no balls. This
is quite a significant change! ******** Most
runs by a batsman off a single bowler in an ODI… at the SCG in the 2015 World
Cup, AB de Villiers (162*) scored 76 runs off JO Holder. Note: this was NOT
de Villiers' record-breaking 100 in 31 balls innings. ******** Carl
Hooper took 568 balls to progress from 99 Test wickets to 100, spanning three
Tests in 2001. ******** (As
of end of January) In the last 19 Tests, only one has been won by the team
winning the toss. Three draws and 15 losses. In the sole victory (NZ v Pak at
Christchurch) the team winning the toss (NZ) chose to bowl. It certainly does
fluctuate. In the previous 19 Tests, there were 11 wins to the team winning
the toss, and 5 losses. Back in 2018 there was a sequence of 13 consecutive
wins to teams winning the toss. ******** How
did underarm bowling really work?... Before
about 1750 cricket bowling was literally bowling, that is all along the
ground. Lumpy Stevens, it is said, invented ‘length’ bowling. I
don't really know about the specific actions, but according to Barclay's
World of Cricket A-Z, most bowling before 1800 was "medium to
fast". A bowler named Lamborn was the first
off-spinner. From 1777, a bowler named Noah Mann was "giving a curve to
the ball the whole way". About
50 years ago my club played a game against a team of blind cricketers
(legally blind, but most could see a bit). The ball was made of wicker with a
bell in it, and the bowlers bowled underarm. You had to pitch the ball in the
first half of the pitch, and the ball, ringing, would bounce several times.
The bowlers had a run up and sent the ball down surprisingly fast. The stumps
were bright orange (for those who could see a bit) and had a bell attached
which the keeper would ring to orient the bowler and assist returns from the
fielders. We did sometimes help fielders who couldn't find the ball when it
stopped moving. They
absolutely thrashed us, as I recall. Certainly the most memorable cricket match of my youth. ******** The
Australia/India series really went down to the wire, with the series result
very much in the balance going into the last hour of the last Test. I
couldn't find any precedents in series of 4 or more Tests, where the final
Test produced a result. It
has happened occasionally with 3-Test series. In 2013-14 in South Africa,
Australia won the final Test with 6.4 overs left, to take the series 2-1. In
West Indies in the same season, New Zealand won the final Test with 13.4
overs left, to take the series 2-1. ******** Highest
innings in Tests that were both unbeaten and completely chanceless… Lara's
400* contained 'technical', 'half-' or 'possible' chances only. Warner's
335* against Pakistan last year was chanceless but there was one DRS and he
was caught off a no ball on 236. In
the DRS era, Adam Voges 269* against West Indies
was chanceless and there were no reviews or run out attempts. Javed Miandad's
280* against India in 1982-83 was chanceless. All other unbeaten innings
higher than this prior to 2000 are known to have included chances of some
description. ******** Usman
Shinwari of Pakistan has played in 17 ODIs but has
faced only seven balls in his four innings. His one and only scoring shot was
a first-ball six off Marcus Stoinis in 2019. He was
out next ball.
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7 February 2021 Dropped Catches Report 2019-2020 I
have updated the survey of dropped catches in Test matches to include matches
up to the end of 2020. As I have reported in the past, the list is created by
searching Cricinfo’s (vast) ball-by-ball texts for
mentions of missed chances, searching for up to 40 terms (or euphemisms) that
are used to indicate chances. This usually whittles the texts down to about
100 ‘hits’ per Test, which I then read through to identify real chances. The
continuous survey goes back to late 2001, plus some Tests from the previous
12 months. The first two or three years have gaps, in that the texts
sometimes lacked the necessary detail. (I also have very patchy data on Tests
from the 1920s to 1990s from other sources, which I have reported on
elsewhere.) I
have combined the data from 2020 with 2019 since the number of matches in
2020 was so limited. Overall, 24.1% of chances were missed in this period, including missed stumpings
but not missed run outs (run outs are not searched). This represents 6.26
missed chances per Test. Since 2002, the average rate has been 25.6%, so
24.1% represents a better than average year from the fielders’ perspective;
However, the rate was higher than 2018’s 22.6%, which was the lowest
recorded. Overall
the rate from 2002 to 2010 was 26.0%; from 2011 to 2020 it was 24.9%. This
indicates a gradual, if slight, improvement in catching. This appears to be
an extension of a long-term trend; data from earlier decades, where
available, indicated rates of 27-30%. The
data breakdown for the various countries is shown in the table. Overall,
South Africa has had the best catching record, although there are signs of
decline in the most recent data. For some years, South Africa had Boucher
keeping wickets and Graeme Smith at slip; both of these players had
outstanding catching records, as did AB de Villiers. Recent
improvement in catching by Pakistan is quite striking and appears to be
sustained. Is it something to do with the UAE grounds?
The
usual caveats apply to this data. Chances described as “half”, “technical”
and “academic” are included. Whether or not an incident counts as a missed
chance can be a matter of opinion; I do think, however, that up to 90 per
cent of chances would be agreed by nearly all observers. The data also
depends on the completeness of the Cricinfo texts
and the efficiency of the search. It would be nice if the Cricinfo
commentators would use a single indicator phrase to flag misses; they often
use DROPPED in upper case, but there are many exceptions that have to be
uncovered by deeper searching. As
for bowlers who have suffered the most, it is a two-horse race. Jimmy Anderson
is currently on 122 and Stuart Broad 120, well ahead of Harbhajan
Singh on 99. Note that Tests this year have not been covered. Spare a thought
for Pakistan spinners Danish Kaneria and Saeed Ajmal, who have suffered drop rates of 39 and 40 per cent
respectively off their bowling. Spinners often have higher rates because many
of their chances are caught and bowled or short leg,
or ‘reaction’ wicketkeeper catches. Alastair
Cook completed his career with 78 missed chances off his batting, a number
that will take some beating. Sangakkara and Sehwag are next on 67; Sehwag’s
miss rate as batsman of 37 per cent is the highest among major batsmen. Cook
is also the ‘leading’ fielder, missing 81 chances, or 32 per cent. He spent a
lot of time fielding at short leg, where catching is difficult and often a
matter of luck. A
more detailed article on this subject from 2016 is here. ******** Did Bradman know he needed just four runs in his last Test, to
average 100? Bradman
said he didn’t, in unambiguous terms: But
did anyone else know in advance? There is no apparent evidence. Looking
at Trove, I could not find any mention of Bradman needing four runs to
average 100 in any of the match previews just before the Test. Some previews
mention him needing 83 runs to reach 2000 for the English season, and 674 (on
the rest of the tour) to reach 10,000 career f-c runs in England. Bradman's
6996 runs, and his average as it stood of 101.39, can be found in isolated
reviews of the fourth Test in the Newcastle Morning Herald and in the
Melbourne Herald. Even this doesn't seem to have been widely noticed, and the
implications for the final Test were not discussed. It’s worth noting that
anyone pondering the question in advance would have presumed that The Don
would be batting twice at The Oval, in which case he would have needed 104
runs (if he was out twice). https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140342748?searchTerm=bradman%206996# https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247298602?searchTerm=bradman%20average By
the end of the fifth Test, Bradman’s shortfall had been noticed in multiple
publications. Even before the final day, an article in the Brisbane
Courier-Mail remarked that Bradman was four runs short. It was evident at
that point that Bradman was not going to bat again, as England was going to
lose by an innings and plenty. It
is interesting that some sources at the time were reporting Bradman's career
average as 89.7. That was his average against England. There was still
widespread opinion in those days that the only 'real' Tests were Ashes Tests. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49918364?searchTerm=bradman%20average ******** |
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Here
is some data concerning the percentage of batsmen out ‘clean’ bowled versus
'played on'. I have conducted a little survey of the last 100 Tests, to come
up with some figures. (Caveats:
this depends on the accuracy of the Cricinfo texts
and my ability to interpret them.) Total
out bowled: 554 Hit
bat first: 121 Hit
pad/body first : 24 Some
(not quantified) hit both the bat and the pad. Bonus
stat... Batsmen
bowled offering no stroke = 26. This includes some cases where the batsmen
tried to withdraw the stroke but the ball hit the bat anyway. It
would also be interesting to know how many batsmen are playing on to balls
that would not have hit the stumps, but that is not feasible with text data. ******** Bowlers
on debut whose first two balls were hit for four, a very short list… Roy
Gilchrist 1957 Dinusha Fernando 2003-04 Navdeep Saini, SCG 2021 I
was surprised that I couldn’t find any more cases than this in the database. ******* |
9 January 2021 A few notes on the origins of ‘hat-trick’… I
was looking at various sources that discuss the origin of the term. They have
a tendency to either repeat one another, or sometimes contradict one another
without explanation. I decided to look to see if there are some truly
original sources to be found. The
concept of a hat-trick is said to have its origins when HH Stephenson took
three wickets in three balls in a match in 1858, and was presented with a new
hat for his troubles. However, the term ‘hat-trick’ (or ‘hat trick’) doesn’t
seem to appear in print in newspapers until 1865, in the Chelmsford Chronicle
in Essex.
This
reference is mentioned in Wikipedia. I did my own search of the British
Newspaper Archive, and found this independently; it was earliest reference
that I found. The
Stephenson 1858 link to hat-tricks has been reported many times. I was
curious about sources, and tracked down the actual origin match, an Eleven of
All England v Twenty-Two of Hallam and Staveley at Hyde-park, Sheffield on 6,
7 and 8 September 1858. The Eleven was a team of professionals touring around
England; the inimitable Julius Caesar was in the team. Stephenson’s triple
hit occurred on the last day, as recorded in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
There
are a couple of interesting elements to this original report. Firstly, that
the presentation of a hat was already a “custom” in this team, as long as the
three wickets occurred in the same (four-ball) over, and secondly, that
Stephenson was not actually presented with a hat after all! His trick was
spread over two overs, and so did not qualify for a hat, but it was
sufficiently noteworthy for the team to present him with a guinea (21
shillings) presumably after a whip-round. It is not clear how many, if any,
hats had previously been awarded through this ‘custom’. Hat-tricks were
uncommon even then, and we are talking about just one team. But
as we have seen, the actual term ‘hat-trick’ was not yet in use. We can see
where the ‘hat’ comes from, but why ‘trick’? Searches show that the term was
already in use in reference to magicians and magic shows, and this may have
rubbed off on cricket. A
search of Trove in Australia turns up quite a few occurrences of the term in
the early to mid 1870s, but always in relation to
magic. The first Australian cricketing reference is found in December 1877.
The hat-trickster was Harry Boyle, and he was indeed presented with a new
hat! This took place during an early match on the epic 1877-1878 tour by the
Australian XI, playing against 22 of Newcastle in New South Wales.
Perhaps
the term, and the custom of presenting a hat, was brought to Australia by
Shaw’s team earlier that year. However, it doesn’t seem to have been applied
during Shaw’s matches: perhaps there were no actual hat-tricks. There are a
few occurrences in 1876-77 for phrases like “three wickets in three balls”,
but all are in minor matches not involving the tourists, with no mention of
hats. ******** Note
the UPDATE below on the subject of international cricket broadcasts. |
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A
further note on the use of air transport: the 1938 Australian touring team to
England actually had a clause in their contracts that air transport would not
be used. The first use of air transport for a cricket tour came in 1946, when
the Australian team flew to New Zealand. Australian tours to England
continued to travel by ship up to 1964 (which went part of the way by air);
the 1968 team travelled entirely by air to Britain. ******** At
Port-of-Spain in 1960, Frank Worrell was caught on the boundary (one-handed)
by Fred Trueman, but umpire Jordan signalled six.
It is not clear what the umpire thought had happened, but Worrell ‘walked’
and averted any controversy. ******** It
is unusual to come across ‘significant’ errors in the standard online Test
data sources (Cricinfo /Cricket Archive), but here
are a couple from 1993… At
Moratuwa (Sri Lanka) Jonty Rhodes in the second innings
scored 101* off 204 balls, not 107 balls. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket
says 193 balls, but that applies to Rhodes reaching the century, not his
final BF. At
the Gabba later that year, Richard de Groen’s innings of 3 is given as 3 balls and 5 minutes,
even though his last-wicket partnership with Tony Blain was worth 40 runs. De
Groen actually faced 30 balls and batted 55
minutes. ******** In
the third Test of 1993-94 against Sri Lanka at Ahmedabad, Sachin Tendulkar,
at age 20, was the Indian vice-captain. Tendulkar took on the on-field
captaincy duties on the fourth day when Mohammad Azharuddin
was indisposed. Has any player younger than this (20.79 years to be exact)
ever taken on captaincy duties, even in an acting capacity? The
youngest confirmed named captain was Tatenda Taibu, who was 21 when he captained Zimbabwe in a couple
of Tests. (Rashid Khan was supposedly younger, but I do not regard dates of
birth from Pakistan and Afghanistan to be reliable.) ******** |
17 December 2020 About
four years ago I posted a list of the best
head-to-head bowling averages for bowlers, specifically when bowling to the
best batsmen – those with batting average over 45. A reader, Arjun, suggested
that I try a similar exercise for batsmen against the best bowlers. To do
this I had to decide on some criteria for deciding who the best bowlers were.
I came up with the following: - Bowlers with 200 Test
wickets, or 150 before 1970, or 100 before 1940. - All other bowlers with 25
or more wickets and a bowling average under 30. Bowlers
meeting these criteria have taken about 35,000 wickets, representing about
half of all wickets taken by bowlers. This divides the bowlers neatly into
two similar-sized sets. Not
surprisingly, most batsmen’s averages against the ‘top bowlers’ are lower
than their career averages. It is not always the case, however. Typically,
the top bowler average is about 87% of career average. I would say this is a
smaller effect than I would have expected. Anyway,
here are the batsmen with the best averages against top bowlers…
Minimum 1000 runs against top bowlers So
Bradman’s 99.94 comes down to 75.5 when facing the
best bowlers of his time. This is thanks to the efforts of bowlers like
Hedley Verity and Alec Bedser, who did well against
The Don. Next come a few West Indians, whose averages were little affected by
facing top bowlers: I can’t really explain this except to note that Tests in
the West Indies in the 1950s were a graveyard for many top bowlers. Prominent
batsmen who did not meet the 1000 run threshold but did very well against top
bowlers include Graeme Pollock (68.4) and George Headley (55.7). A curious
case is Andrew Jones of New Zealand, whose top bowler average is 56.4, which
is 127% of his career average of 44.27, the highest (and most counterintuitive)
percentage for any batsman. Wasim Raja had a
similar percentage (career average 36.16, top bowler average 46.0). I’m
not sure what more to make of this. Why some batsmen do better against good
bowling than bad bowling is puzzling. Perhaps others can make more of this
than I can. ******** The One-Year Wonder Some
notes I made years ago on fast bowler Ted McDonald. I thought I might as well
post them… Warwick
Armstrong certainly seemed to prefer his fast men bowling from the same end
taking turns, rather than bowling in partnership. Sometimes McDonald had to
shoulder a bigger burden: if Gregory had scored runs, Armstrong would cut
back his bowling duties for a few hours thereafter. While
they usually opened together, it appears that Gregory and McDonald, as a
pair, never took the second new ball together (available after 200 runs in
those days). Generally, Gregory would take the new ball, with someone like Kelleway or Hendry at the other end. McDonald's
entire Test career fitted into one calendar year (1921), in which he took 43
wickets. No other bowler with such a short (single-year) career ever took so
many wickets; in fact no one is even close. When
Armstrong bowled his famous two overs in a row after an abortive declaration
by England at Old Trafford, McDonald probably should have bowled the
intervening over. It was reported that the umpires ignored calls from the
crowd that the wrong bowler was preparing to bowl. The score presents a
puzzle here: I am pretty sure that McDonald bowled only 30 overs, not 31
given in official scores, in that innings. McDonald
twice dismissed batsmen by breaking their bats. At Leeds, McDonald broke A
Ducat's bat. The splinter hit the stumps while the ball was caught by
Gregory, and the batsman was given out caught. At Johannesburg, McDonald
broke the bat of JW Zulch, the splinter hitting the
stumps and he was given out hit wicket. I know of no other case of a batsman
being out in this way. Batting
at The Oval, McDonald thought he was out bowled (by Parkin)
and left the crease, but was recalled by the England captain Lionel Tennyson,
who felt that the wicketkeeper had dislodged the bail. There
is a picture of Tennyson batting one-handed against either Gregory or
McDonald at Leeds (the other bowlers he faced would have had the keeper at
the stumps). Tennyson hit a five off McDonald in this innings, and
(amazingly) two fours off Gregory and a six over square leg off Mailey.
********** The first ever international cricket broadcast? I
came across this snippet from the 1931 England/New Zealand series. It is not
100% clear to me what form this broadcast took…
UPDATE:
Peter Huxford in the UK has sent me some links to New Zealand reports of
these broadcasts, found on the Papers
Past website. It appears that the broadcasts were after-play match
reports, and they began with the first Test of the 1931 series. The
broadcasts, some of which were relayed through Sydney, were sometimes
unsuccessful. It seems that they were attempting shortwave broadcasting; very
ambitious in those days considering the distances involved. It
is also evident (from newspaper radio guides) that receivers in New Zealand
were able to pick up conventional Medium Wave broadcasts from Sydney and
Melbourne at that time. They must have had good aerials, but it was quite
feasible, especially if there was ‘clean air’, where frequencies were
uncluttered by competing stations. Radio reports of the 1930-31
Australia/West Indies series were received in New Zealand. It
is curious that shortwave broadcasting to Australia was not attempted for the
1934 Ashes series; the ‘synthetic’ broadcasts using telegraphed information
were preferred. In 1938 the synthetic broadcasts were still being used;
shortwave technology was improving but reportedly still unreliable. (The ABC,
incidentally, did not invent synthetic broadcasts – they had been used in
1930 by Australian commercial radio stations.)
******** |
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******** Sreeram asked: John Reid hit four sixes
before lunch on Day 1 at Calcutta, 1964-65. Has anyone else done that ? 5
Gayle at Basseterre v India 2006 4
Blackwood at Kingston v India 2016 4
Hayden at Chennai v India 2001 Blackwood
was batting at #5 ! The
Reid one is not in the database and was a surprise to me; so there could be
others, although it seems very unlikely in older Tests. The
most in any single session is 9 by Hammond and Astle.
You can guess in which Tests. UPDATE:
Gayle’s 5 sixes were actually hit in the second session of the match, the
first having been rained off. ******** Update on the 1961 video. (see 18
October) John
Leather writes to say that the BBC did have video machines from 1958 onwards.
However, the Ampex machines cost $70,000 each and
the tapes were so expensive and few in number that they were used only for
short-term storage. Editing these tapes was not practical. Long-term
recording of footage was primarily done with kinetoscopes (also known as
telerecording), which converted the image as displayed on a monitor onto
conventional film. The 1961 Ashes footage was archived and stored in this
way. Telerecording
continued through the 1960s even as videotape technology
improved. Tapes were wiped and reused even for important shows like Doctor Who
and At Last the 1948 Show, a 1968
precursor to Monty Python. It is fortunate, perhaps, that permanent copies of
Monty Python were kept. ******** |
21 November 2020 Timeline of
India’s Famous Win, 3rd Test Port of Spain 1976 This
was an important match historically. Not only a great win for India, but a
turning point for the West Indies, who, after this humiliation, always played
for keeps, with the fast bowlers offering no quarter. In the following Test
at Kingston, the short-pitched bowling was given free rein, and India
eventually crumbled. It was the start of a dominant era for the West Indies.
A Question from Arjun Nathan
Hauritz dismissed Andrew Strauss in all the 6
innings he bowled to him in ODIs. Is it true? …. A:
This is very well spotted. Not only is it true, but it is possibly unique.
Strauss and Hauritz played in 11 ODIs together, but
Hauritz bowled to Strauss in only six of those and
dismissed him each time. I
have look at ODIs since 2001 (about 58% of all ODIs)
and this is the only case of 6 that I found. Other cases of 5: Shane Watson
to Chris Gayle, Murali to Chigimbura,
and UT Yadav to D Ramdin. It
may also have happened earlier than 2001, but I think that the data is too
patchy to make a judgement. In
Tests, Hugh Tayfield bowled to JH Wardle in eight
innings and dismissed him each time. This is the most that I have in the Test
database. Next is Patrick Patterson to Craig McDermott with 7 dismissals. Head to Head without dismissal We
are looking here at the number of games where the bowler actually bowled to
the batsman. Given that Wasim Akram
took far more ODI wickets than anyone else, it is remarkable that he never
dismissed David Boon in the 18 innings that he bowled to him… Wasim Akram bowling to David Boon… 18 games J
Srinath to W Cronje… very uncertain but no more
than 18. JH
Kallis to Michael Bevan… 17 games Chaminda Vaas to Bevan… 15 or 16 games. S
Pollock to Shoaib Malik… 14 games Mohammad
Nabi to Sikander Raza… 14
games Murali to AD Jadeja… up to 14 games The
uncertainty is due to lack of data for some games. Without ball-by-ball data,
it is often not possible to be certain whether a batsman faced a particular
bowler. In
Tests, John Gleeson bowled to John Edrich in 19
innings without ever dismissing him. Also on 19: Carl Hooper bowling to Steve
Waugh. With
data being incomplete, there could be other pairings exceeding this. However,
it is very unlikely. For example, Mudassar Nazar bowled in 25 innings that Sunil Gavaskar
batted in, without ever taking his wicket. Ball-by-ball records are missing
for most of these Tests. However, available data plus a close look at
scorecards suggests that in at least 9 of these innings, Mudassar
could not have actually bowled to Gavaskar. ******** Counting No
Balls. The
counting of no balls in bowling analyses (runs conceded) started in 1983-84, but
for some reason New Zealand and England did not adhere to it until later. The
1983-84 Test series between New Zealand and England, 1983-84 Sri Lanka and
New Zealand, and 1984 Tests in England did not adhere to it. My bbb database for the 1984 Tests was in error in this
respect and I have fixed that now. The
adding of a run for every no ball (even when scored from) was much later,
starting with Australia v Pakistan in 1998-99. I am pretty certain that all
countries changed from that point on. Note that this was a more important
change than the earlier one, because it actually changed team totals; it is
probably the only such change since sixes were introduced. I have noted
earlier that Australia would have won the 1992-93 Adelaide
Test under the later protocol, because they scored off more no balls
than West Indies. England would also have beaten Zimbabwe in a drawn Test in
1996 for the same reason. As
for multiple no balls being separated into 1 no ball plus byes/leg byes, I
have notes of cases occurring from mid-2018. A couple of multi-no balls in
mid-2017 were simply described as ‘5 no balls’ and ‘2 no balls’ respectively
in the Cricinfo texts, and it appears that they
ended up as multiple no balls in the scores. So 2018 seems to be the starting
point. The
accounting of no balls and wides against bowlers has a rather complex
history. Wherever possible I think that, in scores, the no ball/wides columns
against bowlers should count only the actual number of deliveries called by
umpires. This is currently the protocol; however, varying protocols have been
used in the past. I may at some stage change my online scores to reflect the
modern standard (wherever possible but a big job). However, there will be a
significant number of other older Tests (about 300) where this cannot be done
(bowlers’ no balls and wides were published, but bbb
is not available). There are also about 240 further Tests where no
information on bowlers’ no balls and wides is available at all. ******** |
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The Earliest Broadcasts The
first full ball-by-ball broadcast of a cricket match was for the 3rd Test of
the 1924-25 Ashes series in Adelaide, from 16-23 Jan 1925. Bill Smallacombe of radio station 5CL was the sole
commentator, and he did the whole 7-day match without help. 5CL
had only commenced broadcasts a few weeks earlier. There cannot have been
many home radio receivers in Adelaide at the time, but large crowds gathered around
shops and other places that had radios. There
had been earlier live radio reporting of cricket matches, including the first
two Tests of that series (Sydney and Melbourne) but they were in the form of
regular updates rather than ball-by-ball descriptions. Credit
to Bernard Whimpress who researched the 1925
Adelaide broadcast. ******** Last Use of Boundary Fences in
Australia In
Australia, some of the Tests of 2000-01 retained the fence boundaries, but
(from video evidence) all the Tests of 2001-02 had boundary ropes inside the
fences. The ropes in 2001-02 were closer to the fence than they are today. I
recall that ropes were used in early day-night ODIs at the SCG, because the
lights did not illuminate the outfield completely. There
was a boundary rope for the Adelaide Test in 2002-03, but it was only about a
foot inside the fence. It
can be seen in video of Glenn McGrath’s famous catch. ******** Unfortunately
the excellent "test-cricket-tours" website has gone down:
"Suspended" it says. In the past I have linked to this extensively
from my own database. Those links no longer work. The
fellow who created this (Michael Ronayne) died a
few years ago without completing it. Most of the 20th Century
series were complete, but there were gaps: Pakistan tours were missing, among
other things. Even so it was an extremely useful source. I placed links to it
on each series cover page on my database website, and saved copies for most
series (up to 1991) on my own computer. Test
series up to 2015 had been posted, although some 21st Century series were
missing or incomplete. I don't know if it will come back, but in case it
doesn't I have started a scrape of the old copies of the website pages found
on the Wayback Machine. There are hundreds of pages to download. I will post
these on my database and change the links but this will take some time. It
is a lesson about ‘free’ data on the internet. It can disappear overnight
without warning and never return. I
understand that there are some published booklets by the same author that
cover the same territory. I must find them and see if they fill any of the
gaps. ******** Two
little snippets...I was watching a ODI from 1980,
and Richard Hadlee, as a fielder, did a 'slide
pickup' of a ball that was nearing the boundary. It is the norm nowadays, but
I don't remember seeing it very often that far back. Some
film I saw of a Test in 1961 included a 'tag team' return from near the
boundary, one fielder scooping the ball up to a nearby teammate who completed
the throw. Again, something that is routine now. When
Farook Engineer (on 18) was struck on the head by
Andy Roberts at Delhi in 1974, the ball landed about 2 yards inside the
boundary. Engineer retired hurt and lunch was called; he returned to the
crease later and made 75. ******** |
18 October 2020 So, who
bowled the most no balls? Identifying
the bowler who bowled the most no balls in Tests is not quite
straightforward. Information from the major websites is very patchy. There is
also the issue of how to count no balls; the protocol has varied over the
years. Nowadays,
the number of no balls counted against the bowler is the same as the number
of actual no ball calls by the umpires. This was not the case before 1998;
before then no balls with runs off the bat were not counted as such, while
multiple no balls (with added byes/leg byes) counted as more than one. For
comparison of bowlers, I much prefer the modern counting, and this is
possible with ball-by-ball records. As
it happens, no balls have become less common for various reasons (mainly
umpires who don’t bother to check for them anymore). The greatest numbers
come from previous generations of bowlers, after the front-foot rule was
introduced around 1964. There are two contenders who are well ahead of anyone
else – Bob Willis and Wasim Akram. I
have Willis’ career (17,357 balls) complete in ball-by-ball form. In this
database, Willis was called for 932 no balls. In ‘classic’ counting it would
be only 763 (no balls with runs off the bat excluded). The 932 is an extraordinary
number and sets the bar quite high. The
case of Wasim Akram is
more complicated. He bowled 22,627 balls, but I have only about 81% of his
career ball-by-ball. There were 768 no balls calls in that data. I also have
another 10% of his career with published no ball counts, but no ball-by-ball
data. This adds 72 no balls, but these would be classically counted: the
figure translates to 81 no ball calls, based on his typical pattern. There
is an additional 9% or so of Wasim’s career with no
available data, so some estimating is required. Based on the patterns for the
other 91%, the estimate comes to 936 no ball calls for his whole Test career.
I am not sure how wide the put error bars should be, but Willis’s 932 would
certainly be within the margin of error. So
for now, I cannot distinguish between the two bowlers. Wasim
may ease clear if you include his wides – more than 40 to Willis’s 19. The
next bowler on the list appears to be Malcolm Marshall. Once again there is no
exact number and some estimating is required; this produces an overall figure
of 810 no ball calls. ******** I
was watching some footage of the 1961 Ashes a couple of weeks ago. It
occurred to me that this was the earliest footage of such quality that I have
seen. By ‘quality’ I mean that the coverage actually captured most incidents
of importance, and the viewpoint, in line with the pitch, made appreciation
much easier. Just
about all other film that I have seen from around this time or earlier is of
indifferent quality. Prior to TV, the cameramen sent to the grounds obviously
had very limited amount of film; this meant that they either missed most
important events or only caught the aftermath of dismissals. The newsreels
used various editing tricks to try and paste together a narrative. I
don’t know how the 1961 footage, which originated with the TV broadcast, was
recorded. Videotape existed in those days but I don’t know if it was being
used in Britain at that time. The footage that I have seen looks like it was
recorded by putting a film camera in front of a TV monitor. There are
fragments of earlier such footage: some of Laker’s 19 wickets at Old
Trafford, and England winning the Ashes in 1953 can be found online. They
look like TV material. The 1961 material is much more extensive. I
have the ABC coverage of Tests in Australia from 1958 to 1963, about an hour
per Test. This was taken by a single film camera; it misses a great deal in
terms of highlights but is still most interesting. For some of these Tests,
the film was processed and edited in a great rush each day and flown by
special courier to other capital cities, where it was shown as highlights
about 10pm on local TV. It was not possible to transmit TV from one city to
another in Australia (using coaxial cables) until the early-to-mid 60s.
[UPDATED see 21 November.]
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Watching
some old films of the 1962-63 Ashes, an odd observation: at Adelaide, there
was a boundary rope maybe 10 metres in at the River
end of the ground. Very unusual for those days. There
have been no recorded instances anywhere since 1996; such strokes are much
more unlikely now that grounds have been shrunk down. Incidentally,
there was only one hit for six in the whole 1958-59 series. That was by Fred Trueman off Richie Benaud at
the SCG, and he was out next ball. ******** At Brisbane in 1970-71, Rod Marsh was
caught off Colin Cowdrey, but a no ball was called
because three fielders were behind square leg. Lou Rowan was the square leg
umpire. ******** Wisden
1984 says that the first use in a cricket match of a full electronic
scoreboard that could show replays was at the Victoria v England XI match in
December 1982. ******** At
Lord’s in 1956, Richie Benaud was struck on the
pads by Brian Statham. There was a loud appeal, and umpire Lee immediately
give Benaud out lbw. However, the ball, still in
motion, rolled onto the stumps and the bails fell. Benaud
was recorded as out bowled, as the Laws allow for the ‘bowled’ dismissal to
take primacy here. ******** Also
from 1956, spinner Tony Lock actually opened the bowling on the final
afternoon at The Oval “…rubbing the ball first into the ground to remove the
shine.” (Belfast News-Letter). Australia only had to bat 2 hours to
save the match, but were in such a state of confusion against Laker and Lock
that they almost lost, finishing on 27 for 5 off 38.1 overs when bad light
stopped play. ******** The great double-century drought: when Greg
Chappell scored 204 at the SCG against India in 1981, it was the first Test
double-century in Australia for more than ten years, since Keith Stackpole had made
207 against England at the ’Gabba in 1970. There had
been more than 1,950 innings played in Australia in the meantime. Moreover,
there had been more than 560 innings since anyone had passed 150, the score
made by Derek Randall at the SCG in 1978-79. I
remember noticing the dearth of big scores at the time, and wondered where
they had all gone. It just seems to have been one of those things.
******** The
practice of altering playing hours and extending lunchbreaks in Pakistan, to
accommodate Friday prayers, appears to have started in the series against
India in 1978-79. I have notes that in two of the Tests (1 & 3), the
first session of the Friday was “extended”, and it may well be that this
applied to the other Test too. I don’t know how long the lunch breaks were. It
probably did not apply in the previous series against England in 1977-78. In
the Karachi Test in
that year, the first Friday session was 10:00 to 12:00. Lunch was in fact
extended that day, but this appears to be due to the teams being presented to
General Zia. Play restarted at 1:05. ******** |
20 September 2020 The Old
Stump Scramble I
remarked a little while ago on the old, odd, practice of players
‘souveniring’ stumps, bails and balls at the end of a Test match, usually
after an unseemly scramble. In 1946 Keith Miller even grabbed a stump while
the ball was still in play, and ran the winning run with stump in hand. At
Trent Bridge in 1948 Sid Barnes, thinking the match won after he hit a
boundary, seized a stump and bolted for the Pavilion. He, and the stump, had
to be hauled back out of the dressing room because Australia still needed one
run to win. It took some time to restore order and complete the match. I
wondered when this practice ended, and found a reference in Trove. In
September 1952, the Australian Board of Control ‘asked’ that captains
instruct players not to do it anymore. For the upcoming South Africa series,
umpires were instructed to collect the stumps and bails and return them to
ground authorities. The authorities were then permitted to distribute the
stumps and bails to the players, equally to each team. So
the on-field scramble had ended (in Australia) with the last Test of 1951-52
against the West Indies. A report from the final Test of that series says the
souveniring had only been half-hearted anyway, perhaps because the series had
long been decided. The
Board’s action followed the lead of the M.C.C., which had stopped the
practice in England that year. I
am not so certain when the habit started. I couldn’t find and mention of it
for the 1920-21 and 1924-25 Ashes series, but some souveniring went on when England
won the Ashes at The Oval in 1926. Arthur Mailey,
last out, stuck the ball in his pocket, while Herbert Strudwick
grabbed the “last” stump. There are references to players taking stump
souvenirs in the 1928-29 series. Other
countries also took part. There was the “usual scramble for souvenirs” at the
end of the Bombay Test of 1948-49 (India v West Indies). In that case, the
scramble may have tricked the umpire into calling stumps early, with India
needing six runs to win. The scramble was reported in the 1951-52 Tests
between New Zealand and West Indies, but I found no mention of it in
newspapers reporting the 1952-53 New Zealand v South Africa Tests. [UPDATE:
Ashru has sent me a photo of a stump scramble when
New Zealand won its first ever Test, against West Indies in 1955-56. It would
have been quite unusual by that time, but it was a very special occasion as
far as New Zealanders were concerned. On (special) occasion, stumps have been
souvenired since then. I think Botham grabbed a stump when England won the
Ashes in 1981, and there is that famous footage of Shane Warne ‘dancing’ with
a stump in 1993.] ******** Largest
innings without facing a maiden over (where known)
Warner’s
innings is the highest for a team batting first. The Walters and Paynter
innings involved 8-ball overs, so maiden overs were harder to bowl. Walters
faced one over where he did not score off the first six balls, as did
Paynter. The highest score with just one maiden is Ben Stokes’ 258 at Cape
Town in 2015-16. The
most maiden overs found in a single innings is 36 by
Dudley Nourse (208) at Trent Bridge in 1951. The number
is a little uncertain because of a high number of unmarked byes and leg byes
in the score. Bob Simpson faced 33 maidens and Ken Barrington faced 31, in
the same Test at Old Trafford in 1964. The
number of maidens faced by Hanif Mohammad in his
337 is not known, but would probably well exceed the above figures. ******** The
Lord’s Test of 1963 is famous for its finish, a draw with England nine
wickets down, six runs to win, and with Colin Cowdrey
at the non-striker’s end with his arm in plaster. The match would have had a
much different finish, however, but for an oddity in the scheduling of Tests
in England in those days. The standard hours were 11:30 to 6:30, but on the
last day hours were shortened to a 6:00 pm finish, apparently to make it easier
for touring teams to reach their next location. And so it was at Lord’s – the
fifth day was shortened by half an hour and play finished at 6:00.
[Correction: the final day playing hours were 11:00 to 6:00.] ******** I
have been gathering more information on bowling ends and umpires’ ends for
Tests before 1972, this time for Tests in England. Much of the data has come
from scouring the online (subscription) British Newspaper Archive.
Information is now virtually complete for all Ashes Tests since 1948. (For
1948, Barry Valentine’s analysis was very useful.) I have also gathered the
necessary info for series involving West Indies in 1963, 1966 and 1969, and a
few other Tests (including Edgbaston 1957 and Lord’s 1960). From 1971
onwards, the information is substantially complete, thanks largely to Bill Frindall, who started recording these things in his
scoresheets from about that time. The
information is incorporated into ball-by-ball files and is being uploaded
progressively. For Tests in Australia, the upload is complete for Tests
(those that have bbb) since 1911-12. I have bowling
end and umpire info on more than 60% of all Tests; this will end up online
eventually I hope. I
hadn’t realised this before, but Lord’s is one of very few grounds to have an
east-west pitch (Pavilion to Nursery end). The standard north-south is
probably not possible at Lord’s, because the famous slope would play havoc
with bowlers. Old Trafford used to have an east-west pitch too (Stretford to
Warwick Road) with the Pavilion off to the north, but it was reoriented after
2010. The ends are now called the Anderson end (Pavilion) and the Statham
end. The
MCG was originally an east-west ground. It was used as such in the Tests of
1877, but stumps had to be called at 5 pm (in March, very late in the season)
because the batsmen were looking into the sun. Shortly after that, the pitch
was realigned to north-south, and we ended up with a ground with huge square
boundaries and much shorter straight boundaries. Football is still played on
a (roughly) east-west axis on the MCG. Eden
Park at Auckland has a pitch running southeast to northwest. ******** |
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When
illness struck the team during the Bangalore Test of 1988, New Zealand took
to the field with five fielding substitutes, including Jeremy Coney – retired
from Tests but reporting for Radio New Zealand – and TV commentator Ken
Nicholson. Only three bowlers were fit to bowl in India’s second innings. ******** We’ve
all seen the old films of players rushing to souvenir stumps when a Test
match finished. In the 5th Test of 1946-47, Keith Miller went one
better. Three runs were needed to win when Colin McCool drove a ball from
Dennis Compton. They ran two, and with an easy third run on offer, Miller
seized one of the stumps at the bowler’s end. With the ball still in play,
Miller ran the winning run with stump in hand. Miller handed the stump to
Compton as they left the field. ******** When
Ernie Toshack took 5 for 2 off 19 balls against
India on a drying ’Gabba pitch in 1947-48, the only
runs he conceded were off a thin edge that all but bowled Sohoni.
Sohoni was out next ball. ******** Peter
Petherick of New Zealand scored a place in the records by taking his first
three Test wickets as a hat-trick, at Lahore in 1976. Petherick was also a “world
class” Number 11 batsman. In the following Test at Hyderabad, Petherick hit his
first ever boundary in first-class cricket, on the way to 12 not out. Prior
to that he had played in 13 first-class matches and had scored just 17 runs. ******** Most
‘handled the ball’ incidents are somewhat contentious, but when Mohinder Amarnath was the first
to be dismissed this way in an ODI, at the MCG in 1986, the batsman actually
walked before the umpire could give a decision. Amarnath
had blatantly used his hand to swat away a ball that he had played but was
heading for the stumps. He knew right away that he had done wrong, and when
the Australians appealed he turned and headed for the pavilion. ******** Cricketing Understatement of the
Century? As
Trevor Chappell prepared to bowl the notorious underarm ball against New
Zealand in 1981, TV commentator Bill Lawry, perhaps taken aback, commented “…possibly a little bit disappointing” Richie
Benaud was rather more forthright when presenting
the highlights that evening: “…a
disgraceful performance…should never be permitted to happen again”. “We keep
reading that the players are under a lot of pressure; perhaps they might
advance that as an excuse…not with me they don’t. It was a very poor
performance, one of the worst things I have ever seen on the cricket field.” ******** At
Perth in 2015-16, David Warner and Usman Khawaja put on 302 in 63.4 overs
without a maiden over being bowled. There were 91 consecutive non-maidens
including parts of the previous and subsequent partnerships. The first day of
90 overs included only one maiden, the first over of the day. Warner did not
face a maiden over in his innings of 253. ******** A
couple of snippets from India’s tour of New Zealand in 1989-90, courtesy the
“Test Cricket Tours” website: • When selected for the New Zealand
tour, pace bowler Vivek Razdan
had already toured Pakistan with India. Even though he was now going on his
second Test tour, he had played only one first-class match in India at that
time. He had played two Tests (in Pakistan), but was not selected for the
Tests in New Zealand. He faded from selectors’ favour and played for a few
years in Indian domestic cricket. • “Bedi’s
reign as India’s first ‘cricket manager’ or coach was brief. His
uncompromising approach became renowned after making furious threats to throw
members of the team out of the plane into the sea (!) after losing to New
Zealand, and after eight months he was replaced.” ******** |
23 August 2020 Shipperd Strikes Back When
Mark Greatbatch took 462 minutes (341 balls) to
reach 100 in the Perth Test of 1989-90, it was the slowest century in terms
of time in Australian first-class cricket history. As it happened, the
previous record had only been set three weeks earlier when Greg Shipperd took 449 minutes (343 balls) for Tasmania v
Western Australia on the same ground. I don’t know if Shipperd
regarded this as a challenge, but only six days after Greatbatch’s
marathon, Shipperd re-took the record with a
century in 481 minutes (412 balls) against Victoria at Launceston. This
remains the slowest century in Australia in terms of both time and balls
faced. Outside of Test cricket, only two batsmen are known to have faced more
than Shipperd’s 412 balls in reaching a century. Shipperd’s earlier
record came during an innings of 200 not out (in 708 minutes, 571 balls). I
wonder if anyone making a double-century has taken longer over the first 100.
In Tests, the slowest century to be turned into a double was by Grant Flower,
who took 437 minutes and 340 balls to reach his century on the way to 201,
against Pakistan at Harare in 1995, in a rather notorious match. ******** Here
is an apparent error in the official umpire listings. For the 5th Test of
1951-52 (Aus v WI) the umpires are named as HAR
Elphinstone and MJ McInnes. These names are given
online and in the Wisden Book of Test
Cricket. However, the official score from the SCG for this Test names HAR
Elphinstone and RJJ Wright (name given as R Wright). Searching
Trove for "umpire McInnes" for the dates
of the Test produced no hits, but Wright is named in newspapers from the
time. Cricinfo and Cricket
Archive have been informed. Another
correction: some sources say that Thomas Flynn, who umpired some Tests in the
1890s, was born in Kyneton, Victoria in 1869. This is not the case. The
actual year of birth appears to be 1849, and although he lived in Kyneton he
was born in Melbourne or in Tasmania. (There was a younger Thomas Flynn born
in Kyneton in 1869, but he was the nephew of the Test umpire.) As
such, Flynn cannot be counted among the youngest Test umpires. Flynn
died in Townsville in April 1931, aged 82. ******** Fewest
Scoring Strokes to Reach Test 100.
Not
surprising to see Astle and Gilchrist on such a
list, but note that their innings are not their most famous high-speed
centuries. McCullum’s record-breaking century off 54 balls heads the list,
though. Beyond the above list the field is quite crowded, with almost 40
innings coming in at fewer than 35 scoring strokes. Also, this is a ‘where
known’ record. ******** I
have been doing some work to identify bowling ends in Test matches in
Australia, and the umpires at those ends. (specifically,
the end used for the first over of each innings). This information is
generally not found in scorebooks prior to 1980, with the exception of Frindall’s scores (from 1968). Even Fergie’s scores lack
the information, with the odd exception of the 1911-12 Ashes. I
am only looking at Tests for which ball-by-ball scores are available. Once
that info is available, you only need to find a single incident in a
particular innings for which the end is known, and everything else falls into
place. Very often this can be gleaned from photographs. Prior to 1970, nearly
all Test match photos published in Australian newspapers were taken from the
northern (Pavilion) end of the grounds, and this can be confirmed by the
direction of shadows. Where
possible, I have added identification of umpires for the first over of each
innings. This is not always so easy for the old days, as umpires were not the
celebrities that they seem to be regarded as today, and were only
infrequently mentioned by name in connection to specific incidents. However,
with the power of Trove it can be done for some innings. Moreover, once you
have an umpire ID for one innings of a Test, the rest of the Test falls into
place, assuming that the umpires followed the protocol of standing at one end
for the first two innings of a match, and changing ends for the third and
fourth innings. I have checked data where possible, and I think that Australian
umpires have been sticklers for this protocol for a very long time. Ray
Webster tells me that the practice pre-dates Test cricket. I
have completed this work from 1911-12 onwards in terms of bowling end, and
from 1924-25 in terms of umpires, up to the late 1960s. The 1970s was already
done, but with gaps that I will try to fill. There are several Tests for
which I cannot find the umpire information, even with Trove. Trove also
largely ends in 1954, so other sources have to come into play. The Sydney Morning Herald is available up
to 1995 through the Victorian State Library, and Google
newspapers has a partial but substantial collection of The Age. Trove still has the Canberra
Times after 1954, and various foreign papers (The Times, Guardian, Times of India) are
available online. I have video copies of Test highlight films, made by the
ABC, for the 1958-59, 1960-61 and 1962-63 series, about 45 minutes per Test
and all very useful. For
Tests in England, end ID and umpire ID is substantially complete from 1968
onwards, thanks largely to Frindall’s scores. I may
be possible to push this back in time a little, but
it may be more difficult than the Australian work. Other countries will be
more difficult still, at least for years before 1980. The
updated ball-by-ball records will be posted progressively. I have done
1911-12, 1920-21 and 1924-25 so far. ******** I
have been making some cosmetic changes to the presentation of data for 50s
and centuries in my online database. It looks a little less cluttered. An example is here. I will post
these progressively. The original versions were posted (a frightening number
of) years ago and there may be some added information. I haven’t kept track
of changes. ********* |
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Batsmen
dropped most often in 21st Century Tests: 78 for Alastair Cook, 67 for Sehwag and Sangakkara. Sehwag is an interesting one since he played fewer
innings than the others. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he
hit the ball so hard. Ben
Stokes recently reached #3 in the ICC rankings even though his career batting
average was only 38.5.This is the lowest average for a #3 batsman even when
rankings are ‘backcast’ to 1954. (IMHO, the ranking
system does not work well before then, because Tests were too infrequent).
The previous low for a #3 was an average of 38.8 by Gundappa Viswanath in September
1972. Lowest
batting average as a #1 batsman… KR
Stackpole (1972) 39.96 IM
Chappell (1973) 40.90 GR
Viswanath (1975) 42.19 GA
Gooch (1993) 43.05 (since 1955). Gooch was also #1 in 1991 when his average
was 43.12 ********
HJ
Tayfield bowled to JH Wardle in 8 Test innings and
dismissed him each time. Next best is Craig McDermott bowling to Patrick
Patterson in 7 innings, dismissing him each time. ******** Charlie Macartney scored 231 and the Australians 330 runs in a two-hour session (lunch-tea) against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1921. Don't know if that is a record for first-class cricket, but it must be right up there for a two-hour session. When Australia scored 721 in a day against Essex in 1948, the session totals were 202, 292 a |
