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Cricket in Australia 1877-2002, click here
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contact Charles Davis, zscore334 at iinet.net.au (no
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Charles Davis: Statistician of the Year (Association of Cricket
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Who are the Fastest-Scoring
(and Most Tenacious) Batsmen in Test Cricket? Click Here. |
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Unusual Records. For Cricket
Records you will not see anywhere else, Click Here |
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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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21 March 2020 Highest
Innings Starting and Finishing in Same Session
Nearly
all of these were post-tea sessions. You will see from the batting times that
at least four of these innings benefited from extended session times. In the
old days, this could happen due to the flexibility of the tea break, which
could be called very early if there was a change of innings. More recently,
post-tea sessions are often extended to meet minimum over requirements. ******** I
have done a reconstruction of Shahid Afridi’s
famous century in Nairobi in 1996 (102 off 40 balls), and posted it here. The reconstruction uses the
ball-by-ball record in the Cricinfo Archive, supported by other
sources. Cricinfo lists every ball faced by Afridi,
but does not include his partner Saeed Anwar, and it
does not have the first wicket partnership of Anwar and Saleem
Elahi. There is some quite good video on YouTube
that allows most of these gaps to be filled, resulting in a reconstruction
that covers the first 20 overs of the innings. While a few of the overs
remain speculative, the reconstruction reproduces all known stats for the
first 186 runs, including Anwar reaching 50 off 47 balls with 8 fours. ******** |
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14 March 2020 What
is the most common number of runs conceded by bowlers? A bowler taking, say,
four wickets in an innings will rarely concede less than 15 runs or more than
150, but somewhere in between the frequency will peak. It is quite
interesting to look at the data that emerges from many Tests… Most Common
Runs Conceded by Bowlers
Data for
Test innings since 1907. For 3 wicket data, bowlers bowling fewer than 10
overs excluded. More than 10,000 bowling returns were used in the
calculation. The
most striking thing is that, by and large, the typical runs conceded hardly
changes with the number of wickets taken. Nor does the spread of results,
expressed as Standard Deviation. The data for nine wickets is the exception,
for reasons unclear; note that the only bowlers taking 10 wickets conceded 53
and 74 runs respectively (average 63.5), rather similar to the data for 3 to
8 wickets. For
wicket counts lower than 3, the medians are lower, but the results tend to be
muddied by a large number of ‘small’ analyses from single short spells. This
data is not shown. Graphing
the data for each level produces something akin to a set of Bell Curves,
although somewhat skewed by the fact that the data is bounded at zero but
unbounded at the high end, giving each curve a ‘long tail’.
I
said ‘akin to’ a Bell Curve but there is something else at play here. It
appears that the data does not smoothly fit a Normal Distribution. The
upslope seems more linear than bell-like. Better statisticians than I might
be able to work it out. ******** |
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1 February 2020 I
have done some work on tidying up my session-by-session database, and fixing
a few anomalies. In doing so, I came across an individual century in a
session that I believe was previously unrecognised. At Leeds in 1924, England
was 122 for 1 at lunch on the first day against South Africa. Patsy Hendren came in shortly after lunch and was 104 not out
at tea, out of a score of 303 for 6. Even
though I have a scorebook copy for this Test, I had missed this one, mainly
because the scorebook is in a mess and contains so many anomalies that my
analysis has remained incomplete. Nevertheless, the century in a session is
clear from newspaper reports that are now available on the British Newspaper
Archive online. Hendren finished with 132 off about
160 balls. I
was also able to compile a list of batsmen making 99 runs in a session, which
I think should be complete. 99 Runs in a Test Match Session
BB
refers to total balls bowled in the session. In
some of these cases, the batsman benefited from considerable extensions to
the session, but I have included them anyway. That first day of Test cricket
way back in 1877, featuring Charles Bannerman, was effectively just two
sessions. Play did not start until 1:00 pm, and ended at about 5:00 pm,
possibly because the batsmen were looking into the late afternoon sun (in
mid-March) on the east-west pitch (the pitch orientation was changed to
north-south a few years later). A lot of balls were bowled in that second
session, but it is nice to put Bannerman on the list. Trumper, in his
famous 214* at Adelaide, made 98 between lunch and tea and then 99 between
tea and stumps. Both sessions were only about 90 minutes long. Kapil
Dev made his 99 in the final session of a dull draw. He had been one not out
at tea, and was allowed to complete his century, but not his session century,
before the match was called off prior to the scheduled close. Some
adjustments and addition have been made to session data in the database. Most
changes are minor, although there has also been some data added. Affected
series are: 1907
Eng SAf 1912
Eng Aus 1924
Eng SAf 1953
WI Ind 1955
WI Aus 1958
Ind WI 1959
Pak Aus 1976
WI Ind 1978
Ind WI 1984
Pak Ind ******** Another
block of Tests, from 1982 to 1986, has now been
completed and added to the database. Most of this period is based on surviving
scorebooks, but there are still gaps. The last series in this block, Pakistan in Sri Lanka in 1986, is
particularly short on extended data, perhaps as much as in any other series
in Test history. If anyone has any detailed info on this series, by all means
contact me! ******** |
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10 January 2020 From
time to time I hear of teams that choose not to use the DRS (Decision Review)
when doing so would have resulted in the reversal of a decision. I haven’t
seen any stats on this, so I set out to acquire some, by sorting through Cricinfo texts for the last couple of years. I
looked through the texts for 90 recent Tests, searching for occurrences of
the word “review” or similar on balls where no review occurred, and phrases
that indicated that the bowling team should have reviewed a “not out” or a
batsmen should have reviewed an “OUT”. This is not an exact process; it is
probable that instances were missed. We should also recognise that any
checking of decisions in the absence of an official review is informal, so we
cannot be absolutely certain that the 3rd umpire would have upheld
the review (overturned the decision). All
‘hits’ from the search process were checked, and confirmed or rejected, by
careful reading. There were also a number of instances where recognition of
the failure to review was only noted several balls later, when the DRS data
became available. Nevertheless, I would think that I identified a large
majority of cases, enough to compare teams. Overall,
there were 67 definite or probable cases of ‘failure to review’ – where a
review would have been successful – in 90 Tests. In 13 of these cases, the
failure was that the team had no reviews left; they had failed in too many
reviews earlier in the innings. In the other 54, the team had an opportunity
to use the DRS but declined to use it. Overall, 55 failures involved lbw
decisions – the rest were catches. The
breakdown by team is as follows…
The figures mean that Australia (for
example) had 14 ‘failures’. Two of these were due to running out of reviews,
so Australia chose not to review on 12 occasions when decisions would have
been reversed in its favour. If
you were under the impression that Australia has tended to blow its reviews,
there is good support for that. The above figures include the 2019 Ashes,
during which Australia failed to review six times when a review would have
gone in their favour; they also had one case of running out of reviews. This
was exacerbated by Australia having 13 consecutive bowling reviews go against
them in the Ashes. Australia’s only successful bowling review in the series
came against a tailender, and that was just a few overs before the end of the
series. Australia
did a little better in batting reviews in the Ashes, getting three decisions
out of 18 overturned. That is still a very unimpressive success rate. I
have posted a list of review failures here. If anyone can add to it (for Tests in
the last 2 years) please let me know. ******** |
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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. ******** |
*****