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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
2019 and Earlier Entries A Bonus Page: some remarkable first-class innings, re-scored. Link to Travels	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.

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.

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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.

SR Tendulkar	99
JH Kallis	97
RT Ponting	97
Inzamam-ul-Haq	96
KC Sangakkara	96
RS Dravid	96

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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)

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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.

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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.

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I have mentioned before that when Garry Sobers hit the record-breaking record-equalling run in his 365 not out at Kingston in 1958, Hanif Mohammad had switched from bowling right-handed to bowling left-handed. Also interesting to note is that Hanif bowled left-handed in the first Test of that series at Bridgetown, after his epic 337 as the match petered out into a draw. He was credited with bowling on a ‘good length’ but did not take a wicket.

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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

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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.

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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 St John’s Galle without hitting a three, but Gayle’s power hitting would also have played a part. Hayden hitting 380 with only one three was on a normal size ground, and this must be mostly a function of power hitting. Inzamam also hit a triple without any threes, but perhaps that was a sign of his disinclination towards quick running between wickets.

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.

Batsman	Runs	BF	Scoring strokes	6	5	4	3	2	1	Strokes/100 runs
BC Lara	400	584	214	4	1	43	4	25	137	54
ML Hayden	380	436	175	11	1	39	1	27	96	46
BC Lara	375	535	187	0	0	45	10	33	99	50
DPMD Jayawardene	374	573	208	1	0	43	4	24	136	56
GStA Sobers	365	579	205	0	1	38	6	30	130	56
L Hutton	364	855	211	0	0	35	15	18	143	58
ST Jayasuriya	340	577	195	2	0	36	2	23	132	57
Hanif Mohammad	337		187			26	16	40	105	55
WR Hammond	337†	401	157	10	0	34	3	22	88	47
DA Warner	335	417	168	2	0	39	7	26	94	50
MA Taylor	334	564	193	1	0	32	4	32	124	58
DG Bradman	334	445	158	0	0	46	6	26	80	47
CH Gayle	333	435	171	9	0	34	0	15	113	51
GA Gooch	333	483	170	3	0	43	2	15	107	51
MJ Clarke	329	468	165	1	0	39	8	26	91	50
Inzamam-ul-Haq	329	436	159	9	0	38	0	11	101	48
A Sandham	325	635	191	0	1	28	8	23	131	59
KC Sangakkara	319	478	165	8	0	32	1	16	108	52
V Sehwag	319	303	146	5	0	43	2	15	81	46
CH Gayle	317	484	170	3	0	37	2	17	111	54
Younis Khan	313	561	181	4	0	27	7	17	126	58
RB Simpson	311	740	193	1	0	23	8	28	133	62
HM Amla	311	528	172	0	0	35	5	24	108	55
JH Edrich	310	448	115	5	0	52	3	8	47	37
V Sehwag	309	374	140	6	0	39	3	16	76	45
RM Cowper	307	587	167	0	0	20	26	28	93	54
DG Bradman	304	462	145	2	0	44	1	15	83	48
KK Nair	303	381	164	4	0	32	2	19	107	54
Azhar Ali	302	469	177	3	0	23	3	35	113	59
BB McCullum	302	557	155	4	0	32	6	19	94	51
LG Rowe	302	428	154	1	0	36	4	27	86	51

†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…

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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.

All overs	4.43
Standard uninterrupted overs	4.16
Standard uninterrupted maidens	3.53
Overs with 10 or more runs	4.75
Over + Drinks	7.52
Overs with Review(s)	5.92
Injury	8.13
1 wicket falling	5.83
2 wickets falling	8.10
Standard pace	4.53
Standard spin	3.53

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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:

Nathan Astle in THAT 222 : 664166;

Adam Gilchrist 664616 during his famous Perth century;

Andy Blignaut 646661 at Cape Town in 2005.

Astle and Blignaut each hit sixes off their next ball.

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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.

In ODIs, high numbers of run outs tend to occur with middle order batsmen who often bat with the lower order in the later overs. In these circumstances, run outs are often less important than in earlier overs.

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From Arnold D’Souza:

I recall from my "against each other for longest" article a few years ago that there were 16 years between the first and last times Venkat played a Test against Clive Lloyd - and almost 37 between that first match and the only one in which Venkat umpired and Lloyd refereed. Without checking, I'm fairly sure that must be the longest joint Test career - there are a few other pairs who both played in the same Test and umpired in the same one, but I can't recall any which involved a time span close to Venkat and Lloyd.

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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.

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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 (1^st 100 runs, minutes)

	Wkt	Partn.	1st 100 (mins)
PGH Fender/GE Tyldesley	5	102*	38	Eng v Aus (4), Manchester (Old Trafford) 1921
AW Nourse/EA Halliwell	8	124	40	SAf v Aus (1), Johannesburg 1902/03
NJ Astle/CL Cairns	10	118	44	NZ v Eng (1), Christchurch 2001/02
DRA Gehrs/C Hill	3	144	46	Aus v SAf (1), Sydney (SCG) 1910/11
C Hill/W Bardsley	2	101	47	Aus v SAf (2), Melbourne (MCG) 1910/11
Misbah-ul-Haq/Azhar Ali	4	141*	47	Pak v Aus (2), Abu Dhabi 2014/15
M Morkel/AB de Villiers	10	107*	48	SAf v Pak (2), Abu Dhabi 2010/11
BB McCullum/CJ Anderson	5	179	48	NZ v Aus (2), Christchurch(Hagley) 2015/16
H Graham/AE Trott	8	112	49	Aus v Eng (4), Sydney (SCG) 1894/95
J Hardstaff jnr/CJ Barnett	3	104	49	Eng v NZ (1), Lord's 1937
EH Hendren/FE Woolley	3	121*	50	Eng v SAf (2), Lord's 1924
FR Brown/W Voce	7	108	50	Eng v NZ (1), Christchurch 1932/33
C de Grandhomme/HM Nicholls	5	124*	50	NZ v SL (1), Christchurch (Hagley) 2018/19

Slowest Test Century partnerships (1^st 100 runs, minutes)

		Partn.	1st 100 (mins)
Javed Omar/Nafees Iqbal	1	133	264	Ban v Zim (2), Dhaka 2004/05
JB Bolus/KF Barrington	4	119	237	Eng v Ind (1), Chennai (Nehru) 1963/64
AR Border/MJ Slater	4	104	234	Aus v SAf (2), Sydney (SCG) 1993/94
MS Atapattu/KC Sangakkara	2	109	231	SL v WI (1), Galle 2001/02
TR Gripper/A Flower	4	117	228	Zim v WI (1), Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 2000
Hanif Mohammad/Javed Burki	3	156	222	Pak v Eng (2), Dhaka 1961/62
JG Wright/KR Rutherford	2	100	222	NZ v Aus (3), Auckland 1985/86
MA Butcher/N Hussain	3	120	219	Eng v WI (2), Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 2004
Azhar Ali/Sami Aslam	1	131	219	Pak v NZ (2), Hamilton 2016/17
S Chanderpaul/DJ Bravo	5	100	218	WI v SAf (2), St Kitts 2010
BR Hartland/JG Wright	1	110	216	NZ v SL (1), Moratuwa 1992/93

Fastest Test Century partnerships (1^st 100 runs, balls)

		Partn.	1st 100 (balls)
NJ Astle/CL Cairns	10	118	55	NZ v Eng (1), Christchurch 2001/02
BB McCullum/CJ Anderson	5	179	58	NZ v Aus (2), Christchurch(Hagley) 2015/16
Misbah-ul-Haq/Azhar Ali	4	141*	64	Pak v Aus (2), Abu Dhabi 2014/15
C de Grandhomme/HM Nicholls	5	124*	66	NZ v SL (1), Christchurch (Hagley) 2018/19
AJ Stewart/AR Caddick	10	103	73	Eng v Aus (1), Birmingham (Edgbaston) 2001
M Morkel/AB de Villiers	10	107*	74	SAf v Pak (2), Abu Dhabi 2010/11
AW Nourse/EA Halliwell	8	124	76	SAf v Aus (1), Johannesburg 1902/03
SCJ Broad/GP Swann	8	108	77	Eng v Aus (4), Leeds (Headingley) 2009
BB McCullum/JDS Neesham	5	153	77	NZ v SL (1), Christchurch (Hagley) 2014/15
ML Hayden/A Symonds	5	124	80	Aus v SAf (2), Melbourne (MCG) 2005/06
GC Smith/HM Amla	2	178	80	SAf v Aus (3), Perth (WACA) 2012/13
F du Plessis/AB de Villiers	6	102	80	SAf v Aus (3), Perth (WACA) 2012/13

Slowest Test Century partnerships (1^st 100 runs, balls)

		Partn.	1st 100 (balls)
RH Catterall/B Mitchell	1	119	465	SAf v Eng (1), Birmingham (Edgbaston) 1929
Alim-ud-Din/Hanif Mohammad	1	122	457	Pak v Eng (2), Dhaka 1961/62
JB Bolus/KF Barrington	4	119	455	Eng v Ind (1), Chennai (Nehru) 1963/64
Hanif Mohammad/Javed Burki	3	156	449	Pak v Eng (2), Dhaka 1961/62
KWR Fletcher/G Boycott	3	101	402	Eng v WI (5), Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 1974
Waqar Hassan/Hanif Mohammad	2	165	400	Pak v Ind (3), Mumbai (Brabourne) 1952/53
B Mitchell/IJ Siedle	1	127	392	SAf v Eng (5), Durban (Kingsmead) 1930/31
DCS Compton/L Hutton	3	150	391	Eng v WI (3), Georgetown, Guyana 1954

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.

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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!

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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.

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Carl Hooper took 568 balls to progress from 99 Test wickets to 100, spanning three Tests in 2001.

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(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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

	All (2002-2020)	2018	2019 + 2020
South Africa	21.4%	20%	25%
New Zealand	21.7%	19%	23%
Australia	22.4%	20%	22%
England	25.5%	24%	24%
India	26.0%	20%	26%
Sri Lanka	26.0%	24%	22%
West Indies	28.3%	24%	27%
Zimbabwe	28.9%
Pakistan	29.0%	21%	20%
Bangladesh	33.3%	34%	31%

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.

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Did Bradman know he needed just four runs in his last Test, to average 100?

Bradman said he didn’t, in unambiguous terms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r51s7Sgt1SY&fbclid=IwAR3bp64y3rNEEVKKEKnYWUxFXUrgesg6Rg1Fv1ieckyAl3KShKLoFLOufjU

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.

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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.

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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.

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Note the UPDATE below on the subject of international cricket broadcasts.

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.

Earlier comments

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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…

Top Bowler Avge		Runs off Top Bowlers	Career Runs	Career Bat Av
75.5	DG Bradman	2115	6996	99.94
58.0	CL Walcott	2030	3798	56.69
57.7	EdeC Weekes	1845	4455	58.62
54.4	GStA Sobers	3099	8032	57.78
54.1	WM Lawry	2650	5234	47.15
52.1	IVA Richards	3440	8540	50.24
50.8	Inzamam-ul-Haq	3505	8830	50.17
49.8	KC Sangakkara	4727	12400	57.40
49.5	MJ Clarke	5103	8643	49.10
49.5	BC Lara	6139	11953	52.88
49.3	L Hutton	2270	6971	56.67
49.3	SPD Smith	3202	7227	62.84
48.3	MEK Hussey	2946	6235	51.52
48.0	JL Langer	3747	7696	45.27
47.9	SR Tendulkar	6656	15921	53.78
47.6	Javed Miandad	2668	8832	52.57
47.4	AI Kallicharran	1754	4399	44.43

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.

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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.

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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.)

In 1939, shortwave broadcasts of the Tests in England were being received in the West Indies. The Jamaica Daily Gleaner even turned some of this into (extensive) published text.

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In the climactic Oval Test of 1926, play was interrupted by “the moving shadows on the wicket from advertising kites.” This worried the English batsmen, apparently.

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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 ?

A:Most sixes before lunch on the first day…

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.

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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.

In Australia, telerecording was widely used well into the 1970s. Surviving footage of the 1971-72 ‘World XI’ series, some of which has made its way to YouTube, was undoubtedly made using this method.

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21 November 2020

Timeline of India’s Famous Win, 3^rd 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.

	Mins	Ov	Runs in 1 hr
58-0	55	15		Tea

69-1

73

Gaekwad out 28

101-0	120	35.4	43
134-1	177	50	33	Stumps day 4
169-1	225			100 partnership in 151'
175-1	237	69	41	Drinks
177-2	247			Gavaskar out 102
197-2	297	87	22	Lunch
223-2	357	104	26	Drinks, New ball
289-2	417	118	66	Tea
336-3	470	133rd		Viswanath run out 112
345-3	477	134	56	Drinks, 20 overs left
392-4	520	145th		Amarnath run out 85
406-4	530	147		India win (Patel cutting Imtiaz for four), 7 overs to spare

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.

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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.

There are claims online that a Charles Bannerman Benefit match (non first-class) was broadcast on radio in Sydney in early November (4^th and 11^th) 1922. Broadcast radio was in its infancy at that time – the first full broadcast license was not issued in Sydney until December that year – and I have been unable to confirm the claim through Trove or anything published at the time. Ray Webster tells me that it is mentioned in a Bannerman biography, but that this uses words like “it is claimed” and “supposedly” to describe it. In any case, it is unlikely to have been a long-form broadcast.

Credit to Bernard Whimpress who researched the 1925 Adelaide broadcast.

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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.

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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 20^th 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Barry Valentine tells me that an example of that is the Pathe News coverage of Bradman bowled for a duck by Hollies at the Oval in 1948. They spliced together a separate take of Hollies bowling to Bradman batting. People think that Hollies was bowling round the wicket. In fact that splice of bowling round the wicket was probably of him bowling to left-handed Arthur Morris.

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.

In the equivalent Test of 1958-59, there was no boundary rope. Jim Burke hit a ball to that same part of the ground and ran five, without overthrows. I now have notes on 23 such hits, all of them at just five grounds: Adelaide Oval, MCG, Perth WACA, The Oval, and Lord’s with just one. Adelaide Oval, with seven instances on those huge straight boundaries, now leads the count.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

By contrast, there have been 13 double-centuries in the last 1,950 Test innings in Australia.

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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.

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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.]

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Largest innings without facing a maiden over (where known)

V Sehwag	293	Ind v SL (3), Mumbai (Brabourne) 2009/10
V Sehwag	254	Ind v Pak (1), Lahore (Gaddafi) 2005/06
DA Warner	253	Aus v NZ (2), Perth (WACA) 2015/16
KD Walters	250	Aus v NZ (1), Christchurch 1976/77
E Paynter	243	Eng v SAf (3), Durban (Kingsmead) 1938/39
GS Chappell	201	Aus v Pak (2), Brisbane ('Gabba') 1981/82
V Sehwag	201*	Ind v SL (2), Galle 2008

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.

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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.]

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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.

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We’ve all seen the old films of players rushing to souvenir stumps when a Test match finished. In the 5^th 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Greg Matthews was the bowler. A case could be made for crediting bowlers in such incidents. The ball would almost certainly have bowled Amarnath.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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Fewest Scoring Strokes to Reach Test 100.

Scoring Strokes (1st 100)	Batsman	Final Score
29	BB McCullum	145	NZ v Aus (2), Christchurch(Hagley) 2015/16
31	RC Fredericks	169	Aus v WI (2), Perth (WACA) 1975/76
31	NJ Astle	125	WI v NZ (1), Bridgetown, Barbados 1996
31	AC Gilchrist	122	Ind v Aus (1), Mumbai (Wankhede) 2000/01
31	S Dhawan	107	Ind v Afg (1), Bangalore 2018

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

These are batting averages as they stood at the time, not overall career averages.

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Another way of looking at bowlers’ ‘bunnies’…

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.

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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 and 227.

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On Australian TV, they have been showing some ODIs from the 1980s. An observation: displaying players' names on their cricket shirts started in 1988-89 (Australia/West Indies/Pakistan tri-series).

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Most runs in the 50^th over of ODI innings: MS Dhoni 315, (data complete), CZ Harris at least 243 (data missing for five matches)

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In Tests, Decision Review outcomes are close to 60:40 in favour of batting teams, partly because bowlers are more likely to initiate reviews, and most reviews are unsuccessful.

Where umpires' decisions are overturned, it is a bit tighter; the outcomes favour the batting side 55:45. This means that wickets are slightly more harder to get than in the days before DRS.

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29 July 2020

The First Test umpire

A couple of snippets of information missing from the very first Test in 1877 are the bio dates of one of the umpires, known as Richard Benjamin Terry. My wife Ann, a skilled hand at genealogy, has tracked him down and found that he was born Benjamin Terry in Bulwell; then a village, now a suburb of Nottingham. He was born on 25 Nov 1852 and was baptised was on 5 Dec 1852. Known as Ben, he spent a few years in Australia from 1876 and played three first-class matches. He returned home and moved to Scotland, played some more (non f-c) cricket and became a bookmaker. He died aged 57 on 10 July 1910 in Edinburgh.

Indications are that Terry, aged only 24, was umpiring at the bowler’s end for the first ball of that first Test in 1877 (unconfirmed). The pitch was oriented east-west in those days, and the first ball was from the east end. Terry remains one of the youngest ever Test umpires, although George Coulthard in a Test in the following year was younger still.

Ray Webster provides another snippet about umpire Terry…

“Terry was standing at square leg for the opening over of the England first innings in the inaugural Test in March 1877. The Melbourne Argus reported that Hodges’ final delivery [from the west end] was turned to leg and, as the batsmen set off for a run, it was noticed that a bail had been dislodged. On appeal, Terry claimed that he had not seen how that had occurred, nor did Reid at the bowler’s end, with the result that Hodges was denied a wicket. It was further reported that the batsman later confirmed he had made contact with the stumps.”

Online and later published sources give Terry’s given names as Richard Benjamin. However, no original sources, including birth or death certificates, include the name Richard. That name should be deleted.

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After the sudden flurry of activity, there have now been 72 Tests at Old Trafford since five-day Tests were introduced to England in 1948 (the three-day Test of 1949 being the only exception). Most have been affected by weather to a greater or lesser extent. I have made a list of Manchester Tests that lasted into the fifth day and experienced no apparent weather interruptions. It is quite short…

1955	South Africa
1964	Australia
1977	Australia
1993	Australia
1998	South Africa
2007	West Indies

Special mention should go to the 1995 Test against the West Indies, which lasted only four days. It had no weather interruptions apart from a short suspension of play due to “sun glare” from a row of greenhouses adjacent to the ground. Tea was taken 21 minutes early, but no net time was lost.

The 1955 Test finished with South Africa winning with nine balls to spare. The 1964 Test, a famous (perhaps notorious) marathon draw, went the distance with 551 overs bowled. Modern Tests almost never go beyond 450 overs. Bob Simpson was on the field for 548 of those 551 overs.

Although it was a four-day Test, 1934 is also deserving of a mention: "From first to last, the sun blazed down, the heat being at times almost unbearable" (Wisden). The next Ashes Test at Old Trafford (1938) was rained out without a ball being bowled.

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Q. Shannon Gabriel's highest FC score is 20 not out. Does he have the lowest high score of all the players with minimum 100 First class matches?

A. Jim Griffiths played 177 matches for Northamptonshire from 1974 to 1986 with a highest score of 16.

Also Eddie Row, 103 matches, HS 16 and James Shaw (long ago), 115 matches, HS 18*. More recently, Ethy Mbhalata, 129 matches, HS 19 from 2002 to 2016.

None of these players played Tests.

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I just came across a note from the Lord's Test of 1979. John Lever batted left-handed for one ball of his innings of 6 not out off 8 balls, facing Bedi, the second ball of 4 that he faced in that over (0001). A strange incident, but recorded clearly in Bill Frindall's score. The only other known cases of batsmen batting both left- and right-handed in the same innings are Salim Malik v West Indies in 1986, and Talat Ali at Adelaide in 1972-73. In both cases the batsmen were suffering from broken bones. Colin Cowdrey, with a broken arm, was prepared to bat left-handed at Lord's in 1963, but he did not have to face a ball.

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Royal Presentations…

George V was the first British Monarch to attend a Test match, Australia v South Africa at Lord's in 1912. The King arrived just before tea, and play halted while he was being seated. The players were 'presented' to the King, off the field, when tea was called a few minutes later. It was a Wednesday.

George V also attended Saturday play of Ashes Tests in 1921 and 1926. Players were presented to the King, off-field apparently. George V attended the 1924 Test v South Africa at Lord's but apparently not the 1929 Test or the 1928 Test v West Indies.

When the King attended the Lord's Test of 1930, play was interrupted for 10 minutes and the King met the players on the field. Ponsford was out 2 minutes after play resumed.

Players have been presented to Elizabeth II in quite a number of Tests. One of these, in 1977, was at Trent Bridge rather than Lord’s.

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Reaching ODI 100 with a four most times...

V Kohli 12

S Dhawan 10

LRPL Taylor 9

HH Gibbs 8

KC Sangakkara 8

One other century by Gibbs is not recorded.

Sixes...

AB de Villiers 7

EJG Morgan 6

HH Gibbs 4

RH Sharma 4

Combined... de Villiers, Kohli on 14.

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In Tests, Wasim Akram bowled at least 20 unsuccessful hat-trick balls, and two successful ones. Murali, who never took a Test hat-trick, bowled at least 17 unsuccessful hat-trick balls.

These figures do not include taking of the last two available wickets with consecutive balls, precluding any hat-trick.

The figures are uncertain because there could be some unidentified instances from the 1990s. These would be few in number.

In the Tests that I have ball-by-ball up to 2019, there are 1195 hat-trick balls and 38 hat-tricks, or one hat-trick in every 31 attempts.

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Damien Fleming’s hat-trick in 1994-95 must one of the most unusual in first-class cricket. His third victim was Salim Malik, whose 237 is far and away the highest score by the 3rd wicket of a Test hat-trick; the next highest is 1. I suspect that it would be a record for first-class cricket also.

Only four century-makers have been involved in a Test hat-trick. Apart from Malik, the others were all the first victim, the highest being Javed Miandad with 163.

The highest score by the second victim of a hat-trick is 52 by PM Walker, in Geoff Griffin's hat-trick in 1960.

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26 June 2020

Barry Valentine has produced a ball-by-ball record of the 1945 "Victory" Tests, which is available on the ACS website for those who are interested.

https://archive.acscricket.com/research/The_Victory_Tests_1945.pdf

I get a rather fulsome mention.

The series has some interesting aspects. It began only a couple of weeks after the German surrender, while the Pacific War was still raging. One of the matches started on the day the Atomic Bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.

It is interesting that Bill Ferguson was around to score the series. I can only presume that he was in Britain for the duration of the War (he had scored the Tests of 1939, on a West Indies tour of England that was cut short by the outbreak of war). Fergie accompanied the 1945 Australian Services team to India for some matches and the team then toured Australia before disbanding. I have read that the players did not much enjoy all this touring, since they were keen on getting home to their families, but they were aware of the importance of this tour in re-starting first-class cricket.

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I have completed the task of making notes on all cases of batsmen retiring hurt in Tests, recording the cause of each. There are 342 cases in my list, a handful of which are absent from online sources. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket was useful for descriptions of many cases, but many others required deeper reading.

The data probably justifies a longer article, but I will just summarise here some data on the bowlers responsible for ‘retiring’ batsmen. This is something I have touched on some years ago, but the data now is more certain.

Batsmen retire not out for a variety of reasons, many of which do not directly involve a bowler: pulled muscles, illness, cramp, collisions, or previous injuries are among them. The majority, however, retire after being struck by a bowled ball – 269 out of the 342. The bowlers involved are nearly all pace bowlers (the cases off spinners generally involve batsmen edging balls onto the face/head).

The bowlers inflicting retirement on the most batsmen are listed. I have taken care to identify the bowler responsible for the injury, which is not always the bowler active when the batsman actually retires. There are some cases where the batsman retired some time after being struck.

Bowlers Causing Most Retired Hurts in Tests

Bowler	RH	Tests	per 100 Tests
CA Walsh	10	132	8
RJ Hadlee	8	86	9
WW Hall	7	48	15
FS Trueman	7	67	10
MD Marshall	7	81	9
CEH Croft	6	27	22
J Srinath	6	67	9
DK Lillee	6	70	9
CJ McDermott	6	71	8
RGD Willis	6	90	7
AME Roberts	5	47	11
RR Lindwall	5	61	8
MG Johnson	5	73	7
VA Holder	4	40	10
JA Snow	4	49	8
JR Thomson	4	51	8
JN Gillespie	4	71	6
B Lee	4	76	5

While Courtney Walsh leads in this category, Colin Croft stands out with six retirements in just 27 Tests. It is also fair to say that Croft was regarded as the most feared and dangerous bowler of his time.

Other bowlers with high ‘strike rates’ include Silvester Clarke (27 per 100 Tests), Azeem Hafeez (17), Harold Larwood (14), and Neil Adcock (12). However, these bowlers only caused three retirements each during their careers.

The absence of active bowlers from the list is a sign of the decline in batsmen retiring hurt, which in the past decade has been less than half the rate of the peak years 1975-85; this is attributed to improvements in protective equipment. There has, however, been a recent increase in cases due to the increased concern about concussion and its long-term effects. The availability of full substitutes is a corollary.

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Which century partnership has one partner contributing highest percentage of the runs in Tests?

Sanath Jayasuriya (253) scored 89 out of a partnership of 101 in 2004; there were 11 extras, and his partner Dilhara Fernando made 1. You would expect that (at 87.1%) this would be the record, but Mike Hussey scored 88.8% of a stand of 107 with Glenn McGrath in 2005-06 at the MCG.

Dennis Lindsay scored 71.0% (157 runs) of a 221 stand with PL van der Merwe in 1966-67. For 300+ stands, Wasim Akram is unchallenged with 70.3% of the 313 with Saqlain Mushtaq at Sheikhupura in 1996 (220 out of 313)

Honourable mention: Dennis Compton 164 in a stand of 192 with Trevor Bailey at Trent Bridge in 1954 (85.4%).

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Here is a rare reference to the first 1877 international as a 'test match'. This was in a New Zealand newspaper; I haven't seen the term 'test match' used in relation to this match in Australian sources, although it was used occasionally in reference to other matches or other sports around that time. This reference was found by Peter Huxford. Peter has also found the phrase ‘test match’ in Australian newspapers in the early 1880s; while they sometimes refer to actual Test matches (as per the modern canon) the references are rather scattered and irregular.

In my recent searches, I have seen the use of the term 'test matches' randomly in the NZ papers for even provincial matches.

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What is the highest score by a batsman off his first 100 balls in a Test innings?

An interesting question with a strange answer: Brendon McCullum - twice.

For exactly 100 balls, McCullum reached 145 off 100 balls against Sri Lanka at Christchurch in 2014 on the way to 195. For less than 100 balls, it is 145 by McCullum once again, this time off 78 balls at the same ground, against Australia in 2016. He was out next ball.

Ross Taylor (138) was on 137 off 100 balls at Hamilton in 2010 against Australia, and Roy Fredericks reached 134 off 97 also against Australia, Perth 1975-76, on the way to 169.

In ODIs, Shane Watson scored 185* off 96 balls against Bangladesh in 2011. For a batsman facing his 100^th ball, AB de Villiers had 172 against Bangladesh in 2017.

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Highest Test partnerships without extras:

Two Test partnerships of 222, both for the 4th wicket:

Hazare (89)/Manjrekar (133) Leeds 1952 v England

Rahane (82)/Kohli (140) Hyderabad 2017 v Bangladesh.

At the MCG in 2014, Rahane and Kohli added 255 out of a partnership of 262 before the first extra.

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In the Pakistan v New Zealand series in 2018-19, Pakistan had five 5WIs to New Zealand's one, and four centuries to New Zealand's two, but New Zealand won the series 2-1.

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First use of StumpCam:

Stump Cam was an innovation of Kerry Packer's Channel Nine network. Allan Annual 1989-90 (Allan Miller) records the first use in the 1989-90 SCG Test v Pakistan. (My own memory was that it was older than that, but I think I was confusing it with the Stump Microphone which goes back to the early 80s.)

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The first overseas cricket televised live in Australia was part of the final Test of 1972. I watched it, and remember Rod Marsh swinging his arms round and round as he ran the winning run. In retrospect it is strange that they didn't televise more of that series, given that the technology existed.

I was so keen in those days that many times I sat up late into the night listening to the radio broadcast.

1975 was the first overseas series shown in full. Colour TV had just started in Australia.

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The first use of the term "test match" was for some matches of the Stephenson tour of 1861-62. The term was coined by Tom Wills. Those matches were against odds and certainly not regarded as Tests today.

A quick look through Trove for "Test match" gave no hits for 1881-82, but a number of hits for 1882-83 including the first Test. It still was not a common term. There were mentions for 1884-85, but few and far between. The Shaw/Shrewsbury tour book uses the term test match (once) in relation to the 3rd Test, but not the first two Tests. In fact, the touring team did not regards the first two Tests as authentic.

The term became more common from 1886-87 onwards, particularly from 1891-92.

A quick search of The Times and the Guardian produced no hits for 1890 or 1893, but a number of hits for 1896. The surviving scorebook for the 1890 tour does not seem to use the term Test match, but the 1893 scorebook does so.

Australian newspapers were using the term regularly when reporting Tests in England from 1884 onwards, but not in 1882.

See update above.

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22 May 2020

Here is a list of players who played Test cricket with a notable disability or chronic condition, for all or most of their careers. Sporting injuries are excluded.

Credit to Michael Jones for initiating the list; others have contributed. Readers are invited to suggest additions.

(I am not sure about Murali, who rather benefited from his condition)