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20 April 2012 Martin’s Super Spells Chris Martin of New Zealand picked up three wickets in four balls in a
Test recently (at Dunedin). This is an exceptional though not especially rare
achievement: I count 63 instances in Tests. What was particularly noteworthy
about this was the calibre of the batsmen involved: Graeme Smith, Jacques
Kallis and AB de Villiers. Their combined batting averages come to 156. I
wondered how often such a threesome is dismissed like this. Not very often,
of course. I tallied up all the known cases and found only one where the combined
average of the victims was greater. Of course, anyone who nailed Don Bradman
in such a sequence would have an advantage, and indeed one bowler did so –
Bill Voce at the SCG in 1936/37. Voce also sank Leo O’Brien and Stan McCabe,
giving a combined average of 175. There are no other cases quite like it. A
fuller list is Three wickets in four balls:
Highest-Calibre Victims
Complete career averages were used in all cases except where careers
are ongoing. A few bowlers have taken 3 in 4 on two occasions, including Martin.
Martin actually did it twice in the space of seven overs that he bowled (but
in two different series). I haven’t checked but I am sure this must be
unique. When on song, Martin is one of the best bowlers in the world. He and
Dale Steyn are the only current bowlers who have taken five wickets before
lunch on the first day of a Test (see 25 Sep 2010). Clarke’s Gamble A reader, Stephen, pointed out that Australia had never declared its
first innings in deficit and gone on to win a Test until Michael Clarke did
so in the Barbados Test. Indeed as far as I can tell, Australia has only once
before declared when batting second and still behind on first innings, at the
WACA against the West Indies in 1988/89, and that was an unusual circumstance
when Geoff Lawson suffered a nasty injury and Allan Border decided to end the
innings with eight wickets down. There is only one direct precedent, when England
beat the West Indies by four wickets on a very dodgy surface in 1935.
Curiously, that was also at Bridgetown. Most cases of teams declaring in
deficit are in matches severely afflicted by bad weather, and most end in in
draws. One exception is Pakistan’s strange declaration at 4 for 272, chasing
331 against India in 1979/80. This match has been mentioned (by others) in
connection to match-fixing. It would certainly be a very early example if so. Clarke, I am sure, earned Ian Chappell’s approval. It was Chappell who
declared Australia’s first innings (batting first) at 5 for 441 at the MCG in
1972/73. Even though Pakistan replied with 574, there was enough time for
Australia to pile on more runs in the second innings and win the match. ********* I mentioned in the last entry that published balls faced figures for
some Tests do not tally with the number of balls bowled. Dave Barry has
produced a list (of remarkable length) of cases on
his blog and discusses some issues there. There are many cases from the
80s and 90s, and for many of these Tests there is only one published source
and no available original scorebook. The errors generally originate in these
sources and Cricket Archive and Cricinfo simply reproduce them. I have
corrected the problems myself for quite a number of Tests, but I have only
reached 1983 in my comprehensive survey and the results are not publicly
available yet – hopefully one day. Barry has commented on a few of the cases;
where I can check, his surmises of the problems are correct. The problems sometimes lie in the original scorebooks, which was the
case for the 1983/84 West Indies Tests. Problematic scores turn up as
recently as the late 1990s. I recently studied a couple of scores from Sri
Lanka (v Zimbabwe) in January 1998, and they were riddled with anomalies,
even though they superficially added up. In some innings the tallies for
specific scoring strokes (1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 6s)
differed between the batting and bowling sections of the score, and in others
re-scoring produced a muddle of scoring strokes that seemed in the wrong
place. One innings I could not re-score at all, even with a generous
application of fudging. Oddly enough, a couple of scoresheets from two months
later (Pakistan/Sri Lanka March 1998), using the same sheet structure, were
in good order and fitted together perfectly. (They were written in a
different hand). But problems arise again in Sri Lanka’s Tests against New
Zealand in May 1998, which have significant anomalies. Whether these
anomalies are a sign of errors in the accepted scores (and player career
stats) is an open question; there are no independent sources to check
against. |
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31 March 2012 Philander’s Great Start Vernon Philander took his 50th Test wicket against New Zealand in his
7th Test, an extremely rare achievement. It was sufficiently rare for the
Cricinfo statisticians to write an article about it, although they did not
address the most interesting question this raised
(this happens quite a lot). However, the question occurred to a reader of
this blog (Tom) who asked: which bowler was fastest to 50 wickets in terms of
balls bowled? Tom correctly deduced that Philander has taken out this particular
record, and by a considerable margin. I was able to help him out with a few
exact figures. Philander took
his 50th wicket with his 1240th ball – an incredible strike rate of 24.8. The
next best I can find is 1523 balls by Johnny Briggs (helped by those farcical
“Tests” of 1888/89, which unfortunately seem to keep coming up in the annals of
cricket statistics) and 1652 for George Lohmann. I don’t have an exact figure
for CTB Turner; I suspect that “The Terror” was similar to Lohmann. Next I get Brett Lee (1844) Frank Tyson (1881) followed by Spofforth
(1915) Not including no balls. It is quite remarkable to see a player beating one of those bowling
records set back in the 19th Century, when the game was rather different.
Those old bowling records often seem to be set in stone. Late Season Batting Blues In the last ten Sheffield Shield matches for the season, not one team
batting first scored over 300. The highest was 277 by Victoria at the WACA.
Five out of ten teams batting second scored over 300. WINNING RUNS: the list of batsmen who hit the winning run in Tests is
now complete, apart from one Test in 1936 (was it
Wally Hammond or Charles Barnett?). This finalises the summary list in the Unusual Records section. Ricky Ponting
leads with nine followed by Desmond Haynes with seven. Haynes was present at
the death on 18 occasions, more than any other batsman, but on most occasions
his partner or extras provided the final runs. Extras have finished 31 Tests. Balls Faced Blues I recently, belatedly, obtained copies of scores from Australia’s
blowtorch-to-the-belly tour of the West Indies in 1984. [I have mentioned
earlier that balls faced records for Allan Border’s career are complete
except for one Test (Barbados) from that series. Border was recently edged
out by Rahul Dravid as the batsmen who had faced most balls in Test cricket, but
exactly when that happened is unclear]. At last, I thought, we can find the
missing balls faced figures. Alas, the Bridgetown score that came back to
Australia is seriously incomplete (and this is an “official” score!). Many
balls faced figures are missing – there is nothing to add to the figures
posted on Cricket Archive – and there is no detail whatsoever in the bowling
sections of the score. The fourth Test score of the series is also incomplete
in the bowling section. There are other problems. Where they can be checked, there are
significant issues with balls faced figures in the second Test. This was the
match of Border’s epic rescue, scoring 98 not out and 100 not out against the
West Indies pace barrage at its peak, including a two-hour last-wicket stand
with Terry Alderman that saved the match. A full re-score confirms Border’s
runs and the sequence of strokes, yet the balls faced figures as
published seem to be quite wrong. Border is given 314 balls for his 98*
and 269 for the 100*. The figures I get are 283 and 285 balls, respectively.
Viv Richards’ figures for his 76 are also very doubtful: I get 130 balls not
188. There are other discrepancies. Using the revised figures, the balls
faced now reconcile with the bowling figures. Once again, solid evidence that balls faced figures published in the
pre-computer age can be questionable. Even if all figures are eventually
found, the total balls faced for Border’s career will be quite uncertain. The Border/Alderman stand, incidentally, lasted for 197 balls. The
first hour of the stand was the critical part; later on, Australia’s lead was
such that there was no time for the West Indies to win. Play was called off
13 overs into the final 20, when Border reached his century. A Lock on Scoring Speaking of late-order pressure partnerships, Sreeram recently asked
about the Georgetown
Test of 1968, when Tony Lock dominated a critical late-order stand with
Pat Pocock. I checked the scorebook. Lock scored 57 while Pocock remained on
0, and 59 including two runs he scored with Snow. There were about eight
sundries, not marked in the score. Lock did an amazing job of farming the strike in the early stages. At
one point Pocock faced only 4 balls in ten overs (half an hour) during which
Lock scored 39 off 56. Later on the strike was even. Pocock did not score
until his 62nd ball. The partnership lasted 258 balls. |
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19 March 2012 His Only Ball in First-Class Cricket Some recent correspondence alerted me to the unusual case of one JEP
(Emile) McMaster, who played his only Test and first-class cricket as part of
Major Wharton’s tour to South Africa in 1888/89, and was caught off the only
ball he faced in the series. Accepting, for the moment, the first-class and
(very dubious) Test status of these matches, McMaster is the only Test player
to be dismissed by the only ball he faced in first-class cricket. There are others who have been out to their only ball faced in Tests:
EJ Tyler, GE Bond, RL Park (a specialist batsman), WA Hunt, and M Ngam, who
played three Tests but only batted once. They may have been trumped by MA
Hanley of South Africa, who possibly made a diamond duck (run out without
facing a ball) in his only Test innings in 1949. It is not clear from the
scorebook whether Hanley faced the one ball bowled while he was at the
wicket, since the batsman preceding him (Begbie) was also run out on the
preceding ball. The Times says he “ran himself out like a schoolboy”, a hint
that he did in fact face the ball. The Other David Warner David Warner’s 100 off 140 balls for Australia, batting first at
Adelaide, was a puzzling innings. It was the slowest ODI century by an
Australian for 20 years, since David Boon made 100 off 147 balls in the days
before super bats and shortened boundaries. Boon was batting in 1991/92 at
the MCG against the mighty West Indians, and under difficult conditions
Australia won the match when West Indies was bowled out for 144. Since then,
some Australian players have batted slower than Warner without making a
century (Shane Watson once got 85* off 140 balls), but it is usually in a successful
chase of relatively low totals. An Impossible Partnership: Statistical
Notes on Atkinson and Depeiza. Dennis Atkinson and Clairmote Depeiza re-wrote the record book for
lower-order partnerships when they added 347 for the seventh wicket at
Bridgetown in 1955. The signs were not auspicious. The record seventh-wicket
stand for the West Indies stood at just 73. Depeiza was a wicketkeeper
whose top score in first-class cricket was 64, and who was playing only his
second Test. Atkinson was an all-rounder who was not a fixture in the team;
in 13 Tests since 1948 his highest score was 74. He had been dropped for the
second Test, but stepped into the captaincy at Bridgetown when Stollmeyer was
injured, a not uncontroversial appointment; at the time, pressure was
increasing to appoint a black captain. Unfortunately, an original score of the Test or series does not exist
as far as I know; the Australian team may not have even returned with one.
The following is from newspapers including Barbados Advocate. Australia had finally been dismissed for 668 on the third day of the
six-day Test. Depeiza (whose name is given as De Peiza in the newspaper, and
Depeiaza in Cricket Archive) came to the crease at 147/6* late in the day
when Miller dismissed Smith, about four minutes after Atkinson's innings had
begun. They added 41 in 29 minutes before stumps day 3, WI 187/6 off 55 overs
in 195 minutes, Depeiza 22, Atkinson 19. Lindwall 10-2-40-1, Miller 7-1-43-2.
Miller, who had taken two wickets in an over, was immediately taken off by
Johnson, a decision resented by Miller and sparking criticism in the press.
Lindwall and Benaud were mentioned as bowlers in that 29 minutes; there may
have been others. Lindwall opened the bowling on the fourth day with Miller. Both came under
attack from Atkinson, and the new ball was taken at 207. Archer was brought
on for Miller at 229, with Atkinson on 53 and Depeiza 31. Lindwall was taken
off after bowling six overs for 25 runs. Atkinson reached 50 in 63 minutes,
the 50 partnership came in 39 minutes, 100 partnership
in 84 minutes, 61 added in first hour of the day. There were 26 overs in the
90-minute session, WI now 282/6, Depeiza 37, Atkinson 95. At one stage there
were six consecutive maidens (Hill and Johnson). Depeiza had adopted a fully
defensive supporting role; at one stage he added 2 runs while Atkinson added
50. Miller bowled after lunch and Atkinson hit him for four to reach his
first Test century in 130 minutes, 14x4, 1x6.
Depeiza suddenly came out of his shell to hit two fours and reach 50 in 138
minutes, 5x4. West Indies 300 had come up in 295 minutes. Miller came off and
spinners bowled most of the session, both batsmen scoring easily. Atkinson
reached 150 with a four off Hill, in 198 minutes, 19x4, 1x6, 1x5, and was severe
on Benaud before tea. Tea score (120-minute session) was 417/6, Atkinson 185, Depeiza 78. Another new ball was taken at 427, Lindwall and Miller. Depeiza
reached 100 (which would remain his only century in first-class cricket) with
a four off Miller, in 261 minutes, 12x4, which also brought up 300 stand. Scoring slowed considerably,
a catch was dropped, Lindwall bowling accurately. After some difficulties, a
single off Lindwall gave Atkinson 200 in 310 minutes, 26x4, 1x6. Stumps called at 494/6 off 146 overs, 495 minutes (90-minute session),
Atkinson 215 in 333 minutes and Depeiza 122 in 329 minutes. Lindwall
25-3-97-1, Miller 22-2-112-2. Depeiza was bowled by Benaud off the third ball of the fifth day
without addition to the score. He batted 330 minutes, 16x4. Atkinson was next
out at 504 for 219 in 351 minutes, 29x4, 1x6. The number of balls bowled in the partnership is not known, but is
quite close to 600. I once heard Colin McDonald say that he dropped a catch very early in
the partnership. There is no mention of this, but there is mention of
McDonald juggling and dropping an easy chance off Atkinson on 195, at cover
point off Lindwall. Perhaps McDonald misremembered which day it was! It is
the only dropped catch mentioned, although a clear run out chance had been
missed when Atkinson was on 147. Atkinson and Depeiza were only the second pair to bat unbeaten through
a complete day’s play, after Hobbs and Sutcliffe in 1924. No other
partnership for the sixth wicket or later has done it since. Only three such
partnerships have faced more than Atkinson and Depeiza’s 91 overs in a day.
The record is equivalent to 110 six-ball overs, by Hobbs and Sutcliffe. Mark
Taylor and Geoff Marsh faced 102 overs at Trent Bridge in 1989. Even after all this, West Indies failed to save the follow-on
(Australia 668, WI 510), but Johnson did not enforce it. Understandable
perhaps. *Curiously, newspaper
reports in both West Indies and Australia give the fall of wicket as 146/6
rather than 147;146 would be consistent with the
fact that the batsmen changed ends between the dismissals of Weekes and
Smith. By the next day, the fall of wicket had been revised to 147; the best
explanation is a no ball that initially had been overlooked. Here is the scorecard as it stood at the fall of the seventh wicket.
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29 February 2012 Defenders Wanted Azhar Ali took 319 balls to reach a century at Dubai a few weeks ago,
slowest century in a winning cause since TT Samaraweera against England in
2003. There have been only three 300-ball centuries in the last 230+ Test
matches. Compare that to thirty in the space of 200 Tests in the early 1960s.
Australians, in particular, have abandoned the stone wall: the last Aussie to
take over 300 balls to reach 100 was Graham Wood at the MCG in 1981/82. Yet the number of situations where such innings would be invaluable
has not decreased. No one seems to want to tough it out any more. It was once
said that attack was the best form of defence; now it seems to be the only
form. Those of us who saw the likes of Tavare batting (see next item) won’t be
mourning the passing of the stonewaller too much, but it does sometimes feel
that some of the variety of Test cricket has gone out of the game. A Tavare Special I have identified previously Chris Tavare’s record as the slowest
specialist batsman of all time (in runs per hour, see 9 Nov 2011). I recently
came across an innings where Tavare was instructed to “bat as long as
possible” by his captain. The result, at Chennai in 1982, was 35 runs in
three full sessions (5.5 hours batting time). India had declared at 481/3 at
lunch on the third day, after which Tavare opened the innings and scored 17
in the lunch/tea session. Graham Gooch reached 81 in the same session. Tavare
added just nine runs in the 90 minute final session (Gooch reached 117), and
another nine in a full two hours before lunch. I don’t know the record here,
but 18 runs in two full sessions would be hard to beat. Tavare was out to the
third ball after lunch, 35 off 238 balls in 332 minutes. He scored only 26
runs in the first 50 overs, but even then his scoring slowed even further. Slower innings of this size are hard to find. Robin Russell scored 29*
off 235 balls at Joburg in 1995/96, and Geoff Rabone scored a 29 of similar
ilk in Auckland in 1953 (but balls faced are not known). The only similar
innings that was clearly slower was WH Scotton’s 34 off about Tavare was outscored 127 to 26 by Gooch in the opening stand of 155.
This is the most one-sided large opening stand in all Tests. A Scoresheet Unlike Any Other Here is an unusual
one - an image of the scoresheet for AEJ Collins’ all-time record score
in 11-a-side cricket in 1899, 628 not out no less. Or as the scorer
supposedly put it “628 not plus or minus 20 shall we say” (a remark not found
on the actual sheet). The ground and circumstances had some strange features;
check out the entry in
Wikipedia. These included boundaries as short as 16 metres! (where boundaries only counted as two runs). In addition,
it was unusual to play to a finish at any level in England at the time. The image is a photograph of a museum exhibit in Wellington New
Zealand. |
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6 February 2012 Sudden Demise England, in the Abu Dhabi Test, lost their last five wickets off eleven balls. I’m told that there is a claim out there that this is the fastest such collapse in all Tests, and a couple of people asked me to check this. Not so easy, as such detailed data is still unavailable for many Tests. However, combining scorebook data with original match reports does produce an interesting list. Fewest balls for last five wickets
The scorebook for Leeds 1957 happens to be still missing, but the report in The Times is explicit, and adds that four wickets fell in consecutive balls, perhaps the only such case in Test cricket. There are a number of other candidates for the list where exact data is lacking (e.g Auckland 1963/64), but very few of them are likely to be under 20 balls. One Test for which I have no relevant information at all is Dhaka 1959. There is also Lord’s 1888, which was just like Abu Dhabi; England lost by the same number of runs as they scored, and the last five fell in a flash (but more than 20 balls, it appears). |
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29 January 2012 Rich Day for Bowlers Reader Mark pointed out to me that 42 wickets fell in Test matches on Saturday 28 January, spread across three matches. He asks is this the highest for any calendar day, and indeed it is. The list is
Corrected 30 Jan Actually, it is intriguing that so few additions to this list have been made in the last seven years, given that cricketers’ workloads are allegedly increasing. Partly, it can be put down to recent domination of bat over ball. The previous record, in 2006, included a 20-wicket day at Johannesburg between South Africa and India (10 wickets each). ******** Second Helping It is very unusual for players involved in a giant partnership to produce another substantial partnership in the second innings; for one thing there are not a lot of opportunities to do so, since one giant innings is often sufficient. Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke managed it at Adelaide, becoming only the second pair to add more than 70 runs in the second innings after a triple-century first innings. The most combination runs for partners in a Test are as follows Most Runs in Partnership (batting together twice)
The Oval Test of 1934 was a Timeless match, so Ponting and Clarke have secured the record for this little category for time-limited Test matches. Dravid and Laxman added 303 and 51 at Adelaide in 2003/04 – the good old days, it would seem. ******** David Warner’s hectic century against India at Perth, 100 off 69 balls, set a number of records, as well attested elsewhere. I don’t have much to add, except that the century was also very fast in time batted, thanks to Warner grabbing a majority of the strike. It used to be that minutes batted dominated reporting of fast innings, with balls faced only gradually being accepted as the superior measure, over a period of decades. Now it has turned 180 degrees, and it is hard to find mention of minutes batted for milestones. I figure that Warner reached 100 in 96 minutes, faster even than Gilchrist’s 57-ball, 100-minute century five years ago. This would equal the time for Brian Lara at St John’s in 1999, and be the fastest by anyone since Viv Richard’s record-breaker in 81 minutes (56 balls) in 1986. There is a case for giving ongoing attention to time batted. While balls faced is the better measure of innings quality, time batted can give a better measure of an innings’ impact and its memorability. Warner scored a century on the first day, even though his team batted second. I figure this only the eighth time it has been done (Graeme Smith has done it twice, once against Zimbabwe), or five times if you exclude Bangladesh and Zimbabwe Tests. The most runs in such a situation is 151 by Marcus Trescothick, against Bangladesh; the record for more authentic Tests is 123 by Everton Weekes in Dunedin back 1955/56. The only other Australian to do it (Bradman came close) was Jack Fingleton at Johannesburg in 1935/36. Warner may be the first batsman to do this who started his innings after tea: Wally Hammond probably did so at Old Trafford in 1936, but the tea break for that day is a little uncertain. Warner played a great innings by any measure, though I was pleased that Roy Fredericks’ fastest to 150, off 113 balls at the WACA in 1975/76, still stands. I have vivid memories of Fredericks’ 169. Memory may have to suffice. I have heard that most of the video of the 1975/76 series has been lost, destroyed in a flood of some kind. There was no home video back then, so no other copies apparently exist. |
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09 January 2012 I must admit sometimes to a moment of regret when a long-standing cricket record falls. Another little bit of cricket history edges towards obscurity. So it was when Michael Clarke took out Reg Foster’s ground record score of 287 at the SCG, which had stood since 1903. Still, Test cricket is a living game, and one of the reassuring things about the game is that the old records are difficult but by no means impossible to beat. And Foster (who only made two scores over 50 in Test cricket) still has that highest score on debut, a record unapproached and formidable. For a guy who scored only 602 Test runs, Foster certainly made his mark on the record books. The SCG was overdue for a triple century, in a way. Triples occur about once in every 80 Tests, so with the SCG registering its 100th Test, it is not surprising that someone knocked one up eventually. One reader (David) wrote in with a few interesting observations that highlight the occasional capriciousness of the game. In Australia’s innings, David Warner was out to the first false shot he played. Clarke on the other hand, played and missed perhaps eight times in his first 40 runs, and went on to 329 not out. This is not to be too critical of Clarke: we have all seen big innings that contained more false strokes. But spare a thought for Warner, who sat there watching the scoreboard ratchet up to 659 for 4, with his eight runs at the top. False strokes might be an interesting area of study, and a new statistic. It would not be possible to extend this far back in history, although Bill Frindall’s scores (I have about 150 of these) might provide some historical basis. Vignettes On the first day of a Test between Sri Lanka and India in 1985 (Colombo PSS Stadium), Sri Lanka scored 168 runs for one wicket (off 89 overs), and the Indian bowlers took no wickets at all, S Wettimuny (19 off 155 balls!) having been run out. It wasn’t for lack of effort from the bowlers, since SEVEN catches were dropped during the day’s play. The partnership of 288 between Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting at the SCG is the highest ever between a serving captain and his predecessor. The feat of scoring a century before lunch in a Test match is well chronicled. But who has scored the fewest runs in the first session of a match? At Kanpur in 1979, opener Chetan Chauhan batted right through the two-hour pre-lunch session for eight runs, surprising given that India scored 69 runs overall in the session. Other candidates may well turn up. Reader Mark mentioned that the partnership of 207 between Jacques Kallis and Alviro Petersen in the recent Cape Town Test contained no sundries at all. I don’t know of a larger such partnership. There are partnerships with more runs between extras, but not complete ones. The most I found was a period of 241 runs between extras by Nurse and Kanhai at Port-of-Spain in 1967/68. Barrington and Dexter, in their epic at Old Trafford in 1964, put on 237 before the first extra. Comments on First India
Test The MCG Test was the fourteenth consecutive Test at the ground to give a positive result. Apart from one washout, there has been only one Test at the ground in the last 23 years that has gone the distance and been drawn: South Africa in 1997/98. The victory ended Australia’s (equal) longest streak without a win over India: eight matches. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar became the first pair of batsmen to score twenty century partnerships in Tests. They are now well ahead of Greenidge/Haynes and Hayden/Ponting, each with 16 century partnerships. The Dravid/Tendulkar firm has produced 6884 runs in partnership at an average of 51.0. Those waiting impatiently for the elusive 100th hundred from Tendulkar might like to know that he has been involved in 158 century partnerships in Tests and ODIs. Boxing Day saw for the first time two Tasmanian top-order batsmen batting together in a Test. The stand of 113 between Ricky Ponting and Ed Cowan was only the fifth century partnership between a debutant and a 100-Test veteran. The record here was set in 2010 by Tendulkar with Suresh Raina, 256 at Colombo. Eighteen batsmen batted on the third day; only three of them (Ashwin, Ponting, Hussey) scored more than eleven runs. 2011 has been a year where bowlers have made a comeback. Test matches worldwide have seen 32.7 runs per wicket this year, more than ten per cent down on the figures for 2010 and 2009, and the lowest since high-tech superbats came into widespread use around 2002. There has been only one team score over 350 in Australia’s last five Tests. The attendance of 70,027 on Boxing Day is the highest for India in Australia in a Test match, and the second day of 52,000 was likewise a second-day record. Test cricket is said to be in decline, but it still has its strongholds. Eleven batsmen were out bowled in the match (more than half via the edge of the bat). This equals the most in any Test since 2005, and the most in Australia since 1979. |
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22 December 2011 Comments on Second New
Zealand Test New Zealand’s seven-run victory is the narrowest margin in a Test in Australia since South Africa won by five runs at the SCG in 1993/94. It was New Zealand’s first win in Australia since 1985. The match ends a 22-match streak without a win (since Auckland 1993) for New Zealand against Australia. It was the longest streak involving any two teams since England went winless for 29 Tests against West Indies from 1979 to 1988. Batting first, the New Zealanders were out for 150. No visiting team has beaten Australia after such a poor start since 1894 (when England won after scoring 75 at the MCG). At the Adelaide Oval in 1951/52, the West Indies beat Australia after a first innings of 105, but they were batting second. At the Gabba, the missed run out of Ponting, Clarke’s belated no ball escape off Bracewell, and the dropped catch off Mitchel Starc, cost New Zealand 226 runs. At Bellerive, New Zealand missed no clear chances at all; the misses by Australia would have been more than enough to reverse the result. James Pattinson took 5 for 51 at Hobart to follow his 5 for 27 on debut. He is the first Australian to nail five-fors in both his first and second Test matches since Rodney Hogg in 1978/79. Clarrie Grimmett is the only other Australian to do it in the last 100 years. Brad Haddin’s stumping off a medium pacer (Mike Hussey) is actually a very rare dismissal. It hadn’t happened in any Test for 20 years, and the last Australian keeper to make a stumping off a non-spinner was Barry Jarman off Alan Connolly against India in 1967/68. It was also a rare highlight for Hussey, who has suffered a sudden form reversal. After batting averaging in the 90s with the bat in Sri Lanka, he has averaged less than 12 in fours Tests since then. David Warner was the first Australian opener to carry his bat in his second Test match; the only comparable Australian was Dr John Barrett, on debut way back in 1890. Another batsman to carry his bat on debut was another Warner, ‘Plum’ Warner of England, in 1899. David Warner was the first batsman to carry his bat in the fourth innings of a Test since Mark Dekker of Zimbabwe in 1993. Since 1980, Australia has lost nine Tests by fewer than 20 runs, and won only one. Australia has lost more Tests by fewer than 20 runs than all other countries put together. A Wicket with Two
Consecutive Balls Yes, it has been done countless times in Test matches, but never a case quite like Nazmul Hossain of Bangladesh. In 2004, Nazmul finished off an innings by dismissing Harbhajan Singh. Dropped from the team, he did not return until the latest Test against Pakistan at Mirpur, and after seven years on the outer dismissed Mohammad Hafeez with his first ball. Thanks to reader Mark for the info. |
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12 December 2011 The Leanest Sessions I came across another case of extreme slow scoring from the 1950s. Pakistan hosted India for the first time in 1954/55. Both teams were desperate to avoid defeat, and all Tests were dull draws in spite of low scoring, but not helped by the match limits of four days of 5.5 hours each. At Peshawar, defensiveness climaxed on the last day when Pakistan added just 26 runs before lunch in a full two-hour session. Hanif Mohammad was out late in the session for 21 in 195 minutes, having added eight runs in 105 minutes during the morning. The 26 runs equals the smallest return I have come across in a full two-hour session, equalling the output an unusual session at the Gabba in 1931/32, which comprised all the play on that day. It was the session that Bruce Mitchell was unable to score for 95 balls. The list as it currently stands is Fewest Runs in a Full Two-Hour Session
Does not include interrupted sessions, including
those with change of innings. Many low-scoring sessions prior to the
mid-1980s ran less than 120 minutes. Apart from the Pakistan case, all the above batting teams were playing away from home. The Chennai 1963 case was discussed in the entry for 6 April 2010. This is probably an incomplete list. Suggestions welcome. The table will be posted in the Unusual Records Section, along with some new tables of the fastest team 50s, 100s, and 200s. There is a peculiar postscript to Pakistan’s 26-run session. A wicket (Wazir Mohammad) had fallen on the stroke of lunch. Next in was Imtiaz Ahmed, who, it appears, was of a different mindset to most of his colleagues. Imtiaz thrashed 28 runs (maybe more) in the first 12 minutes after lunch, personally scoring at more than 10 times the team’s pre-lunch rate. Maqsood Ahmed, who had batted over an hour and a half, was overtaken by Imtiaz inside ten minutes. Note a correction to the ‘official’ scorecard: Wazir Mohammad batted at #5, Maqsood Ahmed at #4. An Over of No Balls The longest over in Test cricket is believed to be 15 deliveries, including nine no balls, by Curtley Ambrose at Perth in 1996/97. I haven’t seen a list of other contenders, but I do know of two 13-delivery overs, one by ‘Gubby’ Allen in 1934, and one by Joel Garner at the MCG in 1984/85. The Garner effort is unique, it appears, in that there were no ‘legals’ in the first six deliveries (two of them were scored from); in effect, a complete “over” of no balls. The over reads 2n, n, n, n, n, 3n, 3, 0, n, 0, 0, 0, 0. Incidentally, I recently obtained copies of three official scores for Tests at the Gabba in the 1990s. This has allowed me to “complete the set” of Tests involving Australia in the last 20 years. The most recent Test for Australia that now does not have ball-by-ball record is St. Johns 1991, so there is now a full ball-by-ball record of players such as Warne, McGrath and Ponting. The most recent missing Test in Australia is the Gabba Test of 1989/90 (Sri Lanka). A few off-the -cuff
comments on the first Australia/New Zealand test. Australia has now won 17 Tests at the Gabba since our last defeat there in 1988/89. This equals the most victories between defeats at any ground, set by Pakistan at the Karachi National Stadium (with some help from local umpires) prior to 2000. Australia was now beaten New Zealand 16 times since the Kiwis last tasted success at Auckland in 1993. New Zealand has beaten every other Test team since then. During the second innings, James Pattinson took five wickets in the space of 21 balls. No bowler has done this on Test debut before. While more than 100 bowlers have taken a five-for on debut before, only a handful have conceded fewer runs than Pattinson’s 5 for 27. The only Australian was Charles Turner with six for 15 on debut way back in 1887. Captaincy seems to have boosted Michael Clarke’s batting. He has scored 563 runs at 47.0 in seven Tests since his promotion, after scoring just 263 at 20.2 in his previous seven Tests. In spite of three centuries since he became Test captain, Michael Clarke has still not mastered the art of making huge scores. In 17 Test centuries his top score is only 168. Only Mark Waugh has scored more centuries with a lower top score (20 centuries, HS of 153*). Debutants have taken almost one-quarter of Australia’s wickets since the start of the Sri Lanka series in August (22 out of 95). This is quite a change from the heyday of Warne and McGrath, when Australia needed few new bowlers, and debutants took less than 3 per cent of Australia’s wickets. The missed run out of Ponting, Clarke’s belated no ball escape off Bracewell, and the dropped catch off Mitchel Starc, cost New Zealand 226 runs. Phillip Hughes has now been caught 26 times in his 28 dismissals by bowlers. He has been caught twenty times in the arc between keeper and point. |
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9 November 2011 Fast and Slow Update The HOT 100 list has been updated. I only do this about once a year now since most players’ career scoring rates change only slowly. Virender Sehwag’s march up the leader board has paused. He is still just behind Gilchrist in third place, and has slipped marginally in the last 12 months. Tillekeratne Dilshan, also struggling for from, has slipped out of the Top 10, but Umar Akmal has made his debut in the Top 10. With just 1003 runs he qualifies only marginally for the list. Kallis (#21) has passed Dravid (#24) as the most tenacious active batsman, although both have improved on last year. A new feature is the Fastest and Slowest lists measured in runs per hour. The Fastest list heavily favours old-time batsmen in the days when over rates were much higher. Nevertheless, the domination of the Golden Age batsmen gives us a hint of how entertaining cricket must have been for spectators at the time, and why the likes of Victor Trumper were so fondly remembered. I hope I never have to read again that ‘statistics cannot capture the genius of Trumper’. He is revealed as the fastest-scoring specialist batsman of all time (40 runs per hour); enough said. The Slowest list also has some interest, dominated by some who played in the 1970s and 80s, after over rates dropped but before the modern resurgence in scoring. The bottom of the list is Bob Taylor, a fine wicketkeeper, but who would be unlikely to be selected today. Just above Taylor is Chris Tavare at 13.5 runs per hour; anyone who saw him bat would be sure to consider him worthy of his place on the list. Tavare, oddly enough, played plenty of One-Day cricket. Mike Brearley (14.4 rph) is revealed as being considerably slower than his partner in crime Geoff Boycott (18.0). Boycott is not among the 70 slowest batsmen; however, he benefits from playing so many Tests in the 1960s, before over rates plummeted. |
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23 October 2011 The One Millionth Test
Run It is almost exactly 25 years since Test cricket saw its one millionth run. I don’t know if many people, or anyone at all, noticed at the time – I only recall discussion of it some years later. Nowadays it is quite straightforward to track down the millionth run to a particular match and a particular partnership, but identifying the specific batsman is not so easy. Batting at the time were Dean Jones and Allan Border, during the final overs of the drawn Test at Wankede stadium in October 1986. Beyond this, conventional published scores do not reveal enough detail. A bit of Googling of the question turns up some references to the partnership, and some of these specify Border as the man. The source for this is unclear: one forum comment dates from 2001. Nor is it clear how the information was obtained. The claim that Border hit the run is in error. It was in fact Dean Jones. The source is a surviving official scorebook (kindly supplied by Rajneesh), which I re-scored to tease out the necessary info. The one millionth run came in the 83rd over of the innings, the fifth ball of Raju Kulkarni’s fifth over, when a single from Jones took Australia’s score to 201. Border hit the next ball for four. The match had reached a pointless state by that time, and was abandoned as a draw five overs later with Australia 216/3 in their second innings. The identification does of course depend on complete accuracy in counting the previous 999,999 runs. Confidence is boosted by the fact that my database is aligned exactly with the Cricinfo/Cricket Archive ‘received version’ (confirmed by an Ask Steven column by Steven Lynch at Cricinfo in July, reporting 1,958,692 runs in Tests up to that point). On the other hand, there is next to zero chance that every run has been counted perfectly since 1877, but that really does not matter. We can never know the exact “real” total, so we might as well go with the official version. Two million runs is now approaching, and is about 25-30 Tests away. The second million will come up in somewhat fewer Tests than the first, which took 1,054 matches. The last 100 Tests have produced 1,125 runs per match, up from the 980 runs per match for all Tests. UPDATE: ALL
WRONG!!! Groan. There has been a change in the “official” scores. An innings
by South Africa in a Johannesburg
Test of 1906 has been changed from 34/1 to 33/1. The 34/1 is in the Wisden Book of Test Cricket but the 33/1
is supported by a surviving scorebook, which also give as different total for
Extras. This means that the frame is shifted by one run, making Allan Border
the scorer of the one millionth run. Of course, there could be other errors
of this type unrecorded, but there you go. Boundary Droughts I recently came across a century by Graham Wood at the MCG against Pakistan in 1981/82, where at one stage he hit no fours for 221 balls spanning four and a half hours. I wondered how many batsmen had faced more balls between boundaries, so I consulted the database. I was surprised at how many there were. Most Balls Faced Between Fours (during a single
innings)
*Approximate FLH Mooney (New Zealand) hit no fours off his last
430 balls faced in Test cricket, spread over six innings. In 1978/79, Geoff Boycott faced 569 balls between
boundaries, spanning six innings (including one innings of 337 balls). There
was one four, which included two overthrows. So Wood is not even in the top 12. One report does note that one of Wood’s three fours was all-run, so there is a possibility that he faced up to 264 balls without a shot to the boundary, but I don’t know which of his fours it was. Also note that most sources do not distinguish between boundaries and all-run fours, so the table is based entirely on shots for four, not boundaries. Mitchell was making his Test debut. His boundary drought spanned five and a half hours batting. Rowan’s 250 balls was his entire innings. Boycott’s sequence is one of the most extraordinary statistics in Test cricket. How on Earth anyone could bat for twelve hours without hitting a boundary, not even by accident, defies understanding. When he did finally break the drought, with a single boundary in the second innings of the 1978/79 MCG Test, he then did not hit another four for a further 215 balls, spanning four innings. Wood, incidentally, took 302 balls to reach his century. No Australian in the 30 years since then has taken more than 300 balls to reach 100, itself a remarkable stat, given how common slow centuries were in the decades prior. More than 40 batsmen from other countries have done so since 1981. The table is based almost entirely on a computer search, and there was little other research involved. Other cases may well have gone undetected. There may not be many others, however, because low boundary counts tend to cluster on a few large grounds such as the MCG, and as it happens these grounds are well covered in the database. |
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4 October 2011 That’s Gotta Hurt When Virender Sehwag recently bagged a “king pair” at Edgbaston, he also bagged the batting equivalent of a hat trick; having been dismissed in his previous innings, Sehwag had been out three balls in a row. How often has this happened? About half or more of king pairs involve batting hat tricks, while (surprisingly, perhaps) most batting hat tricks do not involve a king pair. Batting hat tricks perforce cover multiple matches. Sehwag is the first batsman since Adam Gilchrist to record both a king pair and a batting hat trick. Here is a list of the batting hat tricks that I know about Batsmen out three times in three balls in Tests
*Harbhajan and Asif were out
three times while facing three balls, but included ‘diamond ducks’. The Kotze and Gopal Sharma cases (in italics) are
uncertain. Gary Troup was out five times in the space of seven balls, spread over several matches. Kotze’s innings were five years apart; he may have faced as few as ten or twelve balls in his whole career, while being dismissed five times and scoring just two runs. But they all must tip their hats to Ajit Agarkar who was out to five consecutive balls he faced against Australia in 1999/2000. Troup and Kapil Dev completed their respective batting hat tricks in the same match, at Wellington in 1981. Technically, a few of these cases include run outs, in which the batsman may not actually have faced the ball he was out. Asif Masood’s three balls stretched over three matches and two years. The only batsmen to twice record batting hat tricks are Mutiah Muralitharan, and (believe it or not) David Boon. Also surprising is the fact that David Boon was the first Australian to suffer a batting hat trick. I will post this table in the Unusual Records sections. Fall of Wicket
Adjustments In the Fall of Wicket sections of online Test match scores (Cricinfo, Cricket Archive), the names of all batsmen out are identified at each fall of wicket. Traditionally, this data has usually been absent from published scores; for example, Wisden did not include such data before 1988. So for many Tests, the identifications would have been culled from match reports. There is a suspicion that some guesswork has been involved. I say this because I did a bit of a survey of the identified names, comparing them against the scorebooks and other data that I have collected. The survey covered perhaps two-thirds of Tests played between 1945-1978. I found over one hundred cases where the identity of the batsman out required correction. This is not as bad as it sounds. In the great majority of cases, the problem occurred when clusters of wickets fell, and adjustments were needed to the exact sequence of batsmen falling. Such issues are generally minor. Errors always come in multiples: one batsman misidentified means another batsman misidentified elsewhere in the same innings. But even so, it flags that secondary data like this should not be regarded as rock solid. |
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12 September 2011 Missed by That Much Sean Marsh missed out on the highest partnership by an Australian on Test debut – by one run. His stand of 258 with Mike Hussey at Pallekele is shaded by the 259 by Wayne Phillips with Graham Yallop at the WACA in 1983. You can also file this one under the “I bet he didn’t know he was close to a record” category. Marsh (141) is the sixth Australian to come within 25 runs of that most venerable Australian record, the 165* by Charles Bannerman on debut in 1877, without beating Bannerman’s mark. The others are Archie Jackson (164), Kepler Wessels (162), Phillips (159), Doug Walters (155), and Michael Clarke (151). Here is a list of the largest partnerships involving at least one player on Test debut.
The Rudolph record, being against Bangladesh, should be accepted only reluctantly. Then again, the 276 by Mills and Dempster was also against a non-Test strength team. The 249 by Abdul Kadir and Billy Ibadulla was also discussed in the entry of 20 July 2010. Yet More on Scorelessness
The area of longest scoreless sequences by bowlers has been covered by record books and other sources. Keith Walmsley in Most Withouts in Test Cricket p233 waxes lyrical on the subject. It is a subject that is unavoidably incomplete, but for now I will record the instances that turn up in the database, or have otherwise some to light. The list has been extended to allow comparison with the longest modern spells. Thank you to reader Mark for the enquiry and suggestions. Most Consecutive
Balls Bowled Without Conceding a Run
“Runs scored” refers to runs scored at the other end
during the sequence. The recent serendipitous discovery of the Collie Smith spell suggest that there are almost certainly other cases out there to be found. Nothing has been found between 1976 and 2004, a period requiring further research (although 1998 to 2004 has been checked and has no cases). Many of the above cases were recorded in multiple spells. The longest sequences in continuous spells are 108 balls by Nadkarni (while 30 runs were scored at the other end) and 104 by Tayfield (33 runs). It seems unlikely that these records will ever be exceeded. Tayfield at Durban had, as partner in crime, one of the most usual of ‘usual suspects’. Trevor Bailey, at one stage, failed to score off 114 consecutive balls he faced from Tayfield. My reading of other reports suggest that Nadkarni at Kanpur in 1960/61, where he bowled 24 maidens in the space of 29 overs in multiple spells (a couple of days after the Brisbane Tied Test), does not qualify, nor does Lance Gibbs final 14 maidens in 16.3 overs at Bridgetown the following year. An able assist to Collie Smith at Auckland in 1956 was provided by Tony MacGibbon, who was out for 9 off 121 balls. This is one of the longest innings ever played by a batsman who failed to reach double figures (the record, 8 off 135 by Trevor Bailey at Leeds in 1955). MacGibbon’s first scoring shot was an edge for four after 58 balls. His first “honest” scoring shot was a single after 96 balls, and his tally of 3 scoring shots in a complete innings of 121 balls has no known parallel in Test cricket. The West Indies that (first) day bowled 99 overs before tea, including 52 overs between lunch and tea. Hasn’t the game changed! |
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2 September 2011 Those First-Ball
Wicket-Takers The remarkable coincidence of two Australians taking wickets in their first over in Test cricket, on the same day at Galle, attracted plenty of comment. Nathan Lyon, it is said, is only the second Australian to take a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket, after Arthur Coningham at the MCG in 1894, who was the first player to achieve the feat in Tests. But this is one of those records that is difficult to research; since these things are not recorded on standard scorecards, historians have relied on their predecessors noticing when these things happen, and writing about them anecdotally. It should not be surprising that sometimes these things get overlooked. So it is with Coningham. Here is one earlier case. At the SCG in 1882/83, Irish-born Tom Horan, who was playing in his tenth Test but who had not previously bowled, bowled WW Read in the second innings, with the first ball of an eventful over. The Sydney Morning Herald remarked “Horan’s first over was sensational. He bowled W.W. Read with the first ball, and nearly lamed Barlow with the last.” The exact meaning of “lamed” was left to the imagination. It is not surprising that the import of this was missed, given that Horan was not a regular bowler. (I have reconstructed the innings over by over and can confirm that Horan had not previously bowled in the innings.) We can still say, though, that Coningham is the first bowler do it on Test debut. One could add that the concept of a “Test career” or even “Test cricket” did not really exist in 1883. There is even a precedent of sorts for the Copeland/Lyon coincidence. In a Johannesburg Test in 1905/06, both AEE Vogler (South Africa) and JN Crawford (England) took wickets with their respective first balls in Test cricket. These cases are confirmed by a surviving scorebook. These are the only “new” cases of the feat in my database. There might well be other cases unfound, in the many Tests for which complete records are still not available. |
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28 August 2011 A “Last Ball” Test
Victory Discovered? There have been many close Test matches over the years, including a number of matches won with very little time to spare. The two Tied Tests both finished with only one ball left to play. However, there has still been only one Test won on the absolute last ball of the last possible over: Port Elizabeth 1949, when England hustled a leg bye off the last ball to win by three wickets. Some evidence that there may have been another has now turned up. New Zealand played three Tests in Pakistan in 1955/56; apart from the standard scores, there is not much in the published record about these matches. The second Test in Lahore was a remarkable match that included an innings of 209 by Imtiaz Ahmed batting at Number 8. (Imtiaz, incidentally batted 380 minutes, not the 680 minutes given in Wisden Book of Test Cricket.) The standard account says Pakistan won by four wickets with 18 minutes to spare. So I was surprised to come across a rather different on-the-spot newspaper account (Dominion, Wellington) that spells out in some detail how the match went down to the wire, with the winning run hit off the very last ball. It is quite specific, and self-consistent, about the final overs. The last over was bowled by Johnny Hayes. The account is supported by a similar account, less detailed but independent, in the Otago Daily Times, which adds that the scores were level for about three overs. These accounts conflict with the Pakistan newspaper Dawn, which gives the 18 minute figure. It is still possible, though, that Dawn has it right. Tea had been called when New Zealand was out. Post-tea sessions in that series were normally 90 minutes, and the Pakistan innings time of 92 minutes is consistent with the last-ball scenario. However, the session would have been extended if an early tea had been called for the change of innings. In that case, the N.Z. reporters may have simply been under a misapprehension, and were assuming that stumps would be called after 90 minutes. It also seems hard to believe that a team, even in the funereal ’Fifties, would sit with scores level for three overs before hitting a run off the last possible ball. On the other hand, calling tea 20 minutes early seems a little strange and out of order, especially when the time factor was so critical. The New Zealand Cricket Almanack for that year supports the 18 minute figure, and this very probably was, in turn, the source for a statement to the same effect in Frindall’s Wisden Book of Test Cricket. Wisden in 1957 is ambiguous on the matter. However, looking at NZCA carefully, I suspect that the match report was not eyewitness, and was based mostly on Dawn. Teams in those days sometimes brought back collections of press clipping from tours. [NZCA reports from this time and later, written usually by Arthur Carman, are normally rich in statistical information that must have been obtained from scorebooks, but the reports from this series contain little or nothing that is not found in Dawn.] It may be that no scorebook was brought back from that tour. It wouldn’t be the last time that a touring team on the subcontinent did not come back with a scorebook (Tied Test in Madras a notorious case). The final-day report in Dawn is a bit odd: it is far less detailed than the reports from the first three days of the Test, and it becomes rather brief and sketchy when describing what was, either way, an exciting and important final session. Can it be resolved? There is supposition in either scenario. I don’t think that either account can be ruled out, but there is no clear resolution. [Researching such obscure Tests can be a challenge. Some of the materials for this item were obtained from as far afield as the Library of Congress in Washington, and the National Library in Wellington.] UPDATE: The
Christchurch Press has an
independent report that supports the last-ball scenario, although not
conclusively (“what might well have been the final over of the match”), while
New Zealand Herald supports the Dawn account, although like Dawn it is brief and vague. The First Batting Helmet? Helmets for batsmen have been around for a long time now. The first batsman to use one in a Test match was Graham Yallop in an innings of 47 at Bridgetown in 1978. Earlier, helmets were used by Barry Richards and others during the first ‘World Series’ season in Australia in 1977/78. Turns out it was an old idea, if this report in the Times of India is any guide. Under the byline of respected cricket author Ray Robinson, it shows a prototype batting helmet in Australia in March 1965. At the time, the Australian team was under severe pressure in the West Indies, where Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith were threatening life and limb. The report says that the helmets were about to be sent to the West Indies. It is not known if this was done; if so, they certainly were not used. I haven’t seen any similar reports in Australian papers at the time, but I haven’t checked widely. UPDATE: Ken
Williams at the Melbourne CC Library confirms this story, and says he recalls
when it happened. He recalls that the helmets were in fact dispatched to the
West Indies, but were never collected. Perhaps they are still sitting in an
old warehouse somewhere in Trinidad. |
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8 August 2011 Lloyd and Richards Amok Continuing the theme of extreme batting sessions, I came across one from 1974/75. India was hosting the west Indies in a most interesting series. The series was 2-2 going into the final Test, but India was then blown away by Clive Lloyd’s 242 not out, off less than 300 balls (probably – his 200 came up off 240 balls, but the final total is not known). India saved the follow-on, but the West Indies second innings, after a slow start, climaxed in some heavy hitting by Lloyd and then Viv Richards, just prior to a declaration. They were just cameo innings, but unusual ones. Lloyd scored 37 off 17 balls, and Richards 39 not out off 23 (figures found, oddly enough, in The Times, rather than Indian sources). Both innings have few if any parallels among innings of this size. I have gathered together what data there is on the fastest innings of a given size. Each innings in the following list has a characteristic in common: there are no innings that are both larger while being made off fewer balls. For example, for Lloyd’s 37, there is no innings known of greater than 37 that was made off fewer than 17 balls. Starting with Adam Gilchrist’s 24 off 9 balls (the fewest balls faced for any innings greater than 20), the list is complete from then on. Fastest Innings of
Their Size
UPDATE: no sooner was
this written than Abdur Razzak of Bangladesh played an innings of 43 off 17
balls against Zimbabwe, displacing the innings of Lloyd and Richards from the
list. We are looking at complete innings here. Innings that started very fast, but continued at a lesser pace, are not included. For example, “Foffie” Williams of the West Indies once reached 30 off only 8 balls against England in 1948 (66440442), but his whole innings of 72 off 56 balls was not fast enough to qualify for the list. The most impressive innings on the list are those that are significantly larger than the preceding entries, or off far fewer balls than subsequent entries. Mann’s 49*, Southee’s 77*, Richards’ 110*, and Sehwag’s 319 stand out, although the most remarkable must be Nathan Astle’s 222. Richards and Sehwag are the only players to appear three times; Sehwag certainly has rewritten the records when it comes to extremely large innings scored at extreme speed. Naturally, the data here is incomplete, and there are other possible entries for this list where balls faced is not yet known. One interesting one is Farook Engineer’s 45 against New Zealand in 1964/65, which sources give as made in either 25 minutes (probable) or 21 minutes (less likely). A balls faced tally as low as 20 is possible, although something like 25 seems more likely. Back to the subject of fast sessions. Thanks to Lloyd and Richards, the West Indies scored 163 runs between lunch and tea on the 5th day at Wankede stadium (it was a six-day Test). India, trying to limit the damage, bowled only 26 overs in the session. This appears to be the first time that a complete session was scored at significantly more than more than a run a ball (6.27 runs per over in this case). There are many precedents of more runs in a session, but all of them involved much faster over rates. The only sessions identified so far with faster scoring rates have all been since 2000. (There are probably others in the period 1975-1998, but that will take further research.) For the time being the list of fastest-scoring sessions looks like this
Minimum 160 runs 25 overs New Zealand scored at 8.17 runs per over in a ‘session’ during Astle’s 222, but there were less than 23 overs. I haven’t yet taken the time to thoroughly check all of these entries. If readers have comments, or suggested additions, please let me know. Footnote: Times of India mentions a hit by Richards that it calls an “off-side sweep” off Ghavri, a fast-medium bowler. Presumably this is a reverse sweep, now common, but rare in 1975. The reporter notes this rarity, and admires Richards’ improvisation and adaptable technique. There are occasional mentions of this shot going back to the 1920s, and I’m sure I read of such a shot in the 1909/10 MCC series in South Africa, (although I can’t find it now). Many inventions are made independently by different people, and I daresay the reverse sweep is one such. |
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28 July 2011 Another Underwood Blitz I commented a while back (13 Nov 2010) on a little-known but extraordinary spell of bowling by Derek Underwood in 1969. Now another example, even more extreme, has come to light. At Lord’s in 1974, some cruelly-timed showers “queered” the pitch during both of Pakistan’s innings. On the first day, Pakistan were cruising at 68/0; after rain cost four hours’ play, they were all out for 130. On the third day, Pakistan were travelling well in their second innings, at 173/3, when rain delayed the fourth day until 5:15. When play started, water had got under the covers, and the lively wicket that resulted was fully exploited by Derek Underwood, who quickly bowled the Pakistanis out for 226. Justice eventually evened out when the fifth day was washed out and the match was left drawn. On close examination, Underwood’s second-innings spell becomes quite remarkable. Underwood took his six wickets that day while conceding only two runs, including a sequence of five for 0. This makes him the sixth known bowler to nab five wickets without conceding a run (the fourth chronologically), and one of the first to take 6 for 2. Only one bowler has taken 6 for 0, and that was Jermaine Lawson in a Test of dubious status against Bangladesh. The only bowler to take six or more wickets for fewer runs than Underwood in an authentic Test was Curtley Ambrose in his famous 7 for 1 blitz against Australia at Perth in 1992/93 (Sarfraz Nawaz also once took 7 for 1, but he also bowled some no balls). It is interesting that neither Wisden nor The Times identified Underwood’s sequence; they credited him with 6 for 9, which was his return for the afternoon as a whole. This may be why the rarity of Underwood’s figures was little-noticed even though it was achieved at cricket’s ‘headquarters’. It was not completely unknown, however: for example, there is mention of it here. Pitches were not always covered in England in 1974. Once removed at the start of play, covers would stay off until the scheduled stumps regardless of rain. This is what tripped up Pakistan on the first day, but the fourth day disaster was due to faulty covers, exacerbated by the famed Lord’s slope. This and other controversies eventually led to the full covering of pitches in Test matches in England, but this does not appear to have come about until 1979. The relevant entry in Best bowling Spells in the Unusual Records section has been updated. More on the most
Productive Sessions As mentioned earlier, I have been able to flesh out some more cases of extreme scoring in a single session of play. New or modified entries in the list are highlighted. Some of the biggest scores came in long extensions to final sessions in the early 2000s. Such sessions have now been curtailed, and fewer extremes are occurring. Thanks to Shahzad for some of the information. Most Runs in a Two-Hour (maximum) Session – Test
matches 240
(~115 minutes) Eng v Ind, lunch-tea day 2, Manchester 1936 (two teams)
236 (43 overs) Aus v SA, Lunch-Tea day 1, Joburg 1921 (119 off 85 balls by Jack Gregory) 235 (45 overs) Eng v NZ, Lunch-tea
day 3, Leeds 1949 (both teams batted) 233 (41 overs) Eng v Pak, Lunch-Tea
day 2, Nottingham 1954 (Denis Compton 173) 223 (43 overs) Eng v SA, Lunch-Tea Day 2, Lord’s 1924 220 (47 overs) Eng v NZ, Lunch-Tea
day 2, Auckland 1933 (Wally Hammond 150) 216
(28 overs) Pak v Ind, lunch-tea day 2, Lahore 2006 (two teams) 209
(32 overs, 100 minutes) Aus v SA, lunch-tea day 1, Sydney 1910/11 208 (34 eight-ball overs) lunch-tea
day 2, WI v Eng, The Oval 1939 (KH Weekes 113) 207 (29 overs) Aus v Zimbabwe
Lunch-Tea day 2, Perth 2003 (both Matt Hayden and Adam Gilchrist scored
centuries in the session) 206
(44 Overs) Eng v NZ, lunch-tea day 3, Auckland 1930 201 (38 overs) Aus v SA, before lunch
day 3, Johannesburg 1902 (1st Test), (Clem Hill 116 runs) Most
Runs in a Longer Session 249 (33 overs) SA v Zim, post-tea day 1, Cape Town 2005 244 (58 overs, 165 minutes), Eng v
Aus, post-tea day 3, Oval 1921 239
(45 overs, 140 minutes), Eng v NZ, pre-lunch day 3, Lord’s 1937 (two teams) 236
(35 overs, 150 minutes) Eng v Aus, post-tea day 1, Edgbaston 2001 (two teams) 227 (150 minutes) Eng v India,
pre-Lunch day 2, Manchester 1936 225
(150 minutes, 36 overs) SA v Ind, pre-lunch day 3, Centurion 2010 (AB de
Villiers 119) 223 (35 overs, 150 minutes) Eng v Ban, post-tea day 1, Chester-le-Street 2005 (ME Trescothick 127) 221 (150 minutes) Eng v SA, pre-Lunch
day 3, Oval 1935 (Les Ames 123) 3rd day 219 (35 overs, 150 minutes) NZ v Zimbabwe day 1, post-Tea, Harare 2005 (Daniel Vettori 127) 219 (44 overs, 150 minutes) Aus v NZ
(2 teams) tea-stumps day 5, Brisbane 2001 216
(42 overs, 150+ minutes) tea-stumps, NZ v Eng day 4, Auckland 2002 209 (150 minutes) SAf v Eng,
pre-lunch day 3, Oval 1929 208 (47 overs, 154 minutes) Aus v SA, post-tea day 3, Melbourne 1910/11 (Victor Trumper 133) 208 (150 minutes) Aus v SA, pre-Lunch
day 2, Lord’s 1912 (Warren Bardsley 118) 204
(40 overs, 150+ minutes) tea-stumps day 4, SA v Pak, Cape Town 2003 203 (150 minutes) Eng v SA, pre-Lunch
day 2, Oval 1935 (two teams, 2nd day) 202
(42 overs, 140 minutes) lunch-tea day 2,
Eng v WI, Lord’s 1957 202
(41 overs, 150+ minutes) tea-stumps day 1,
Aus v Eng, Leeds 2001 200 (57 overs, 150 minutes) Eng v SA,
pre-Lunch day 2, Lord’s 1924 [Note that prior to 1940, tea break
timings, and lengths of afternoon sessions, were rather variable. Prior to 1915, tea breaks often did
not take place if there was a change of innings after lunch; tea was
incorporated into the change of innings. Sometimes this resulted in a long
extension of one session
and shortening of another. Prior to 1900, tea breaks often did not take place
at all. In most series in England from 1899 to 1949,
pre-lunch sessions were normally 150 minutes, except on the first
day.] The Thousand-Ball
All-Rounders A mention in Cricinfo of Vinoo Mankad’s extraordinary all-round effort at Lord’s in 1952 (72 & 184 and 5/231) got me wondering, who has been involved directly in the most balls in a Test match? That is either as batsman or bowler. The problem here is that balls faced is not always available, but I have put together a list that should be largely complete, thanks to some estimating. I doubt if a list like this has been published before. Most Balls Faced + Balls Bowled in a Test match
Figures in italics include some estimates based on
batting times and prevailing over rates. The most interesting entries are those who did both a lot of batting and a lot of bowling. Only Giffen, Mankad, Sobers, Atkinson and Simpson have both batted for 300 or more balls and bowled 300 or more balls in the same match. Perhaps the most surprising entry is Congdon, a little-known performance. It is also noteworthy that only one performance since 1972 has made the list. The most by a South African is 841 by Jacques Kallis at Cape Town in 1999. |
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19 July 2011 A clip I saw on an upcoming documentary on the dominant West Indies team of the 1980s got me taking a quick look at statistics for retiring hurt. It shows that batsmen facing those Caribbean quicks in the 1980s certainly had something to fear. Some 78 batsmen retired hurt in all Tests between mid-1976 and mid-1990 (about 360 Tests), including batsmen who later returned to the crease. This rate of 6.2 per 100 team innings is almost exactly double the rate of 3.0 per 100 innings seen in the last 10 years. It also seems that the injuries were more serious in the earlier time. About 70% of the retiring batsmen returned to the crease in 1976-90, but nowadays it is about 80%. Of the 78 batsmen, some 34 were facing the West Indies. The West Indies played in 109 Tests in that period, giving a retirement rate of about 17 per 100 team innings, more than five times the standard rate in modern matches. About 40% of batsmen retiring hurt against the West Indies did not return to the crease; even this high figure does not include cases like Paul Terry, who had his arm broken by Winston Davis at Old Trafford in 1984, but returned with his arm in a sling and batting one-handed. Figures for other countries from 1976 to 1990 are also illuminating. (Looking at bowling teams here) figures include England 11, Australia 7, New Zealand 9, Pakistan 9, India 6. De Villiers High Point? When AB de Villiers reached a century in 75 balls against India at Centurion last December, it was described, with a reasonable probability, as the fastest by a South African. No other South African had officially recorded a century faster than 95 balls. There is one other contender, however. At Newlands way back in 1902, Johnny Sinclair reached a century in about 80 minutes (some sources say 60 minutes, but this seems to be an error). Using the very detailed newspaper accounts of the day, I have pieced this innings together over by over, and came up with an estimate, as it happens, of 75 balls. Although it is possible to discern every scoring shot during Sinclair’s innings, the batsmen facing dot balls in some overs are not clearly identified. The 75 balls for Sinclair includes what I consider a reasonable distribution of dot balls, but, naturally, uncertainty remains. Most of de Villiers innings came in one session, which was extended by 30 minutes due to time lost earlier in the Test. AB hit 119 runs pre-lunch, the most by any batsman before lunch since Les Ames hit 123, in a similarly extended session, against South Africa at the Oval in 1935. The most runs hit in a pre-lunch session of standard two-hour length appears to be 116 by Clem Hill at Johannesburg in 1902, in the same series as Sinclair’s record. The 1902 session, however, included 38 overs, whereas India bowled only 36 overs in 2.5 hours at Centurion, and de Villiers’ runs came in less than 31 overs. It is interesting that these fast-scoring records of 1902 were recorded in Tests with the shortest scheduled hours of any Tests: matches were three days of five hours each. South Africa’s 225 runs in the session are also the most by one team before lunch in a Test match, with the exception of 227 by England against India at Manchester in 1936, which once again was a 150-minute session. I will update the Unusual Records section accordingly. |
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31 May 2011 There is a new cricket fantasy competition site called cricketpredictions.com. I know this because they contacted me and asked for my opinion. Now I am not into these cricket fantasy league things much, but since they asked nicely, I will post a link to them here, and those who are interested take a look. The new wrinkle seems to be that your chosen players don’t have to succeed for you to win, all you do is predict their performance (succeed or fail). This is not a paid ad. One-Sided Partnerships Here are some stats on the most one-sided major
partnerships in Test history, taken as a ratio of the runs contributed by the
major partner vs the minor partner. Runs not accounted for are sundries.
I have defined a major partnership here as 150 runs. If the cut-off is reduced to 100 runs the analysis becomes more difficult. However, there is no doubt as to the identity of the most one-sided century partnership. At Faisalabad in 2004, when Sanath Jayasuriya and Dilhara Fernando added 102 for the ninth wicket, Jayasuriya outscored his partner 88 runs to one. I don’t normally post large tables, but for what it’s worth, here is a set of data on the runs Sachin Tendulkar has scored off bowlers in my database. It includes everyone who has bowled more than 100 balls at the Little Master, or taken his wicket. However, it is ONLY COMPLETE FOR TESTS SINCE EARLY 1998. By “complete”, I mean from January 1998 onwards, except for one Test v Zimbabwe in 1998, and fragments of two other Tests in 1999, one v Pakistan and one v Sri Lanka. The data also covers Tests from 1990-97 v Australia, with one exception (Brisbane 1991/92), and v South Africa (two missing). So for Tendulkar v Warne all is complete, but for Tendulkar v Murali, incomplete. I haven’t studied it in detail, but a few interesting points: · Tendulkar
averaged 107 off Shane Warne’s bowling, but only 14.7 off Glenn McGrath. · Australian
spinners Warne, MacGill, Hogg and Hauritz have a combined average against
Tendulkar of greater than 150. · Ironically,
an Australian spinner, Peter McIntyre, dismissed Tendulkar without ever
conceding a run. The only other known bowler to do this is Mushtaq Ahmed.
(Peter Taylor has an average of 0.0 against Tendulkar, but he also bowled in
the missing Test at Brisbane in 1991/92). · Tendulkar
had an odd weakness against the bowling of Hansie Cronje, although data is
not quite complete here. · The
actual number of different bowlers Tendulkar has faced, which may eventually
exceed 300, is amazing. Bradman faced about 60 bowlers in his career. Tendulkar Head to Head
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17 Apr 2011 Referral Stats I haven’t seen any detailed studies of the umpire decision
referral system yet. There was something on the Cricinfo It Figures blog
regarding the World Cup, but it looked at dismissal modes rather than outcomes
of referred decisions. Anyhow, here are some basic stats on the referrals in
the World Cup. There were 182 referrals mentioned by Cricinfo. All but
Batsmen were a little more measured in their requests for referrals. They challenged less a bit often than bowlers did, and enjoyed a slightly higher success rate. Overall, one decision in five was overturned, suggesting that umpires are better judges of lbws than players after all. There were only 16 referrals for caught behind decisions; five decisions were overturned. Remarkably, only one came from a batsman (JP Duminy) and that challenge was successful. The near absence of batting referrals is (to me) is very surprising given how many batsmen historically have complained about being given out caught behind. The situation may have been influenced by the lack of ‘Hot Spot’ and ‘Snicko’ technology, without which it is very difficult to overturn caught behind decisions. For lbws, there were 16 decisions overturned in the batsman’s favour and exactly the same number overturned in the bowler’s favour. This is a remarkable balance, and suggests that umpiring errors were random rather than systematic. There seems to be little or no benefit of the doubt one way or another. One other conclusion could be that the UDRS had no effect at all on the total number of lbws being given; they were just distributed among different players! On the other hand, given the record high proportion of lbws (16.3% of all dismissals)it may be that umpires are now more confident of giving batsmen out, now that there is opportunity to reverse errors. I found 17 cases where the referral itself was uncertain, and the original decision was upheld for that reason. There may have been more. There were differences between countries in the success rate for referrals. Readers can draw their own conclusions
On an individual level, four batsmen led the way with five referrals each: Ponting, Surkari, Taib, Bagai. Ponting was the only one of these to be given out twice thanks to a challenge. The bowlers who had the most referrals were Shahid Afridi with eight, and Murali with seven. Eighteen umpires had decisions challenged. Although he was challenged fourteen times, not one of Aleem Dar’s decisions was overturned. Steve Davis, (0/8), Billy Bowden (0/6), and BNJ Oxenford (0/6) also had no decisions overturned. RA Kettleborough and EAR de Silva had overturn rates of 50% (each 4 out of 8). |
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3 Apr 2011 Dropped Catches – 2010
Report Missed chances by fieldsmen is an area in cricket often discussed, but largely free from statistical analysis. However, I have extended an earlier survey of Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball texts (see March 30 2009 etc) to include Tests played since early 2010. A few findings: · The
percentage of catches dropped has been remarkably consistent since 2008 at
27.5%. This is slightly higher than earlier figures (2001-2007) of around
26%, but not significantly so; texts for earlier Tests were not as detailed
as more recent ones, and some misses may have been missed in the search. · The
Australian team had the lowest rate of drops (23%) in 2010, the previous leader
being South Africa (from 2005 to 2009). The West Indies’ rate has soared to
36%, worse now than Pakistan and Bangladesh. · England
has improved markedly from 28% in 2008-09 to 23.5% in 2010. · Hashim
Amla was dropped five times in his 253 against India, equalling the recent
high by Andy Blignaut in 2005. Ironically, Amla as fieldsman missed more
chances (12) during the year than any other non-keeper. This might be a
little unfair, since miss rates for short leg fieldsmen are very high, and
some of their “misses” might be stretching the definition. · Virender
Sehwag was dropped most times (12), and maintains his lead of the last decade
(now 54 times). · Harbhajan
Singh suffered more often than any other bowler, with 20 drops and only 30 caught.
(Once again the definition of a dropped catch at short leg may have
contributed to this). Chris Martin was luckier, with only one dropped catch
off his bowling (and 15 successful catches). · MS
Dhoni missed 15 chances, including missed stumpings. · Most
expensive drop of the year: Ricky Ponting on 1 dropped by Mohammad Aamer, on
the way to 209 at Hobart against Pakistan. · Spare
a thought for Mitchell Johnson, caught 10 times during the year, but not
dropped once. A Few Stats on Powerplays
at the World Cup. Do winning teams do better? Written before the
final. Overs 1 to 10 The winning team has scored more runs in 33 out of 47 cases, and lost fewer wickets 27 times (with 10 ties). Overs 11 to 15 The winning team has scored more runs in 28 out of 43 cases, and lost fewer wickets 18 times (with 15 ties). Third Power play. Surprisingly, in a large majority of matches we do not see complete power plays from both teams. There have only been 15 out of 48 games so far where the third power plays are directly comparable. In all the others, one or both teams have not completed their third powerplay, often because the match finished during the powerplay. Quite frequently the third powerplay does not even start. In the 15 cases where third powerplays were completed, the winning team scored more runs 10 times, and lost fewer wickets 7 times with 4 ties. One of the games was tied. In those 15 cases, the winning team “won” all three powerplays on 3 occasions, 2 powerplays on eight occasions, only one powerplay three times. The other game was tied, with England getting the better of all three powerplays. |
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7 Mar 2011 Back to (Occasional)
Blogging The Fast Bowler’s Burden A friend asked me about stats for bowlers who have appeared to dismiss batsmen, only to hear the dreaded call of ‘NO BALL!’. This is very tricky one to research. Basically, there are no possible stats, apart from occasional anecdote, before 1999. It would be interesting to know how many wickets were foregone by no-ball-prone bowlers like Bob Willis and Malcolm Marshall, but I doubt if such data could ever be gathered or even estimated. Prior to about 1968 any data would have little meaning because the back-foot no ball rule gave batsmen the time to change their strokes. However, since 1999 Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball texts allow a stab at statistical analysis for modern players. I searched for as many cases as I could find and found 148 cases in 540-odd Test matches. (There were more than 12,000 no balls). There was a ‘dismissal’ once every 81 no balls, compared to dismissals (excluding run outs) about once every 66 balls. It is certain that some cases would have been missed in the search, but I doubt if it exceeded 10%. There were perhaps one thousand no balls for which the text description is minimal, but many of these would have been minimal because nothing notable happened. Some cases are probable lbws, but an umpire’s verdict was not given. With these caveats in mind, the ‘leading’ bowler was Brett Lee with 10, twice as many as any other bowler (Morne Morkel, Ishant Sharma, and Malinga with 5). Lee as also bowled a lot more no balls than anyone else in this period, 583, ahead of Shaun Pollock on 404, but Pollock had only three no ball dismissals. A few bowlers have experienced this on debut: Lasith Malinga, Michael Beer, and (probably) CB Mpofu of Zimbabwe all suffered before taking their first Test wicket. Beer and Ravi Bopara are the two bowlers on the list who have taken fewest Test wickets (one each). Ponting and Dravid led the batsmen with 5 each, no one else more than 3. Habibul Bashar was let off twice in the first seven overs of a Test against West Indies in 2004, both times off Pedro Collins. At Christchurch in 2006, Craig Cumming topped this by being reprieved three times against Sri Lanka, though not in the same innings, and off three different bowlers. Muralitharan, curiously, had no recorded no ball dismissals, even though he bowled 209 no balls in this period. Warne, also, never suffered this fate, although he bowled only 95 no balls. I haven’t done the stats, but the impression from the list is that it is overwhelmingly a fast bowler’s burden. UPDATE: MS Dhoni was twice caught off no balls (Roach) in the same innings at Eden Park (Test 2017). A Few Comments on ‘Diversity’ in the
Australian Team Basically, non-Anglo Australian international cricketers are few. I count 24 players who have played Tests or ODIs for Australia who were born overseas, but the large majority were born in the British Isles or New Zealand. More than half of the 24 played before World War II. In the early days, there were several Irishmen played for Australia, including one captain (Tom Horan), although one academic has calculated that Irishmen were under-represented in Australian cricket at the time. By the 1930s there were a number of players of Irish extraction in the Test team. It was a time of division in the team with Catholics like O’Reilly and Fingleton distrustful of Protestants like Bradman. Two Australian players have been born in “India”, Bransby Cooper (in modern-day Bangladesh) and Rex Sellers. Cooper, who played in the inaugural Test of 1877, was 100% Anglo as far as I know; Sellers was an “Anglo-Indian” who played only one Test, in 1964. Also of interest is Sam Morris, born in Hobart of black West Indian parents (from Barbados); he played just one Test, in the 1880s. Andrew Symonds, of course, has a West Indian connection. He was born in England and adopted, his biological father being from the West Indies. Dav Whatmore was born in Sri Lanka and played seven Tests. A couple of other Sri Lankan migrants (Francke, Goonasera) have played at state level. Even the children of non-Anglo migrants seem to be rare in Australian cricket. Perhaps the most prominent is Len Pascoe (14 Tests), born Len Durtanovich. Andrew Zesers had a Latvian-born father, but he never quite made the Australian team. Jason Krejza has a mother from Poland and his father was a footballer from Czechoslovakia. There are a number of other players from non-Anglo families who could be named. Typically, these players had grandparents rather than parents born overseas. Pre-War, there were a few Germans, Otto Nothling, AE Hartkopf, HC Nitschke, and Hans Ebeling, who became an important administrator. More recently, there has been Mike Veletta, Julien Wiener, Tim Zoehrer, Michael Di Venuto, Dirk Tazelaar, Michael Kasprowicz, and Carl Rackemann (German grandfather), Simon Katich (Croatian grandparents), among others. There are other ethnic names I don’t know much about. Graham Manou (a Belgian name), Phil Jaques (parents are English), Nathan Hauritz, Adam Voges, Ashley Noffke. Interesting recent additions to overseas-born cricketers have, of course, been Moises Henriques (Portugal) and Usman Khawaja (Pakistan). Here is a list of Australian players (Tests and ODIs) born overseas
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29 December 2010 Yes, it Was Australia’s
Worst Day Ever There was plenty of ‘gut feel’ to the first day of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and it pointed to the worst day anyone could remember for Australia. I wondered if this could be measured, so I looked at days where Australia had spent time both batting and bowling, and compared averages. Sure enough, there was nothing to really compare with a batting average of 9.8 (98 all out) and a bowling average of 157+ (157/0). There have been a couple of days where a big Australian collapse has been followed by opposing batsmen running amok (such as the second day of the Gabba Test of 1985/86, where Richard Hadlee finished Australia off), but in those cases most of the collapsing came with the tail, the top order having been out the previous day. The only comparisons I could find were the first day at the WACA in 1992/93 where Australia were out for 119 (including a spell of 7/1 by Curtley Ambrose), and the West Indies replied with 135/1. At Port-of-Spain in 1995, Australia were out for 105 and West Indies scored 98/1. Neither quite compares to the Boxing Day debacle. Indeed, even in the age of the minnow there are few comparisons. Looking at the first days of Tests, Bangladesh have had a few (in Colombo in 2001 they were out for 90 and Sri Lanka scored 246/1 on the first day), and Zimbabwe was once out for 54 while conceding 340/3 to South Africa, at Cape Town in 2005. But the only exact parallel to Australia’s plight, where no wickets were taken at all, was in Hamilton in 2001, where Pakistan were out for 104 and New Zealand scored 160/0. Australia’s MCG debacle was actually slightly worse than this. In taking no wickets and ending the day 59 runs behind, Australia arguably suffered the worst first day by any team in any Test match. Speaking of worsts, Mitchell Johnson came up with one in Brisbane. He scored a duck and took 0 for 170 in the match. These are the worst bowling figures by any Australian who also batted and made no runs; indeed, the bowling figures match Geoff Lawson (Perth 1986) as the worst match figures by an Australian in any Test (though Lawson managed 13 runs). Only Paul Adams of South Africa, with a duck and 0 for 173 against West Indies at Cape Town in 2004 has done worse than Johnson by this measure, although I think that Salim Altaf with a pair of ducks and 0 for 145 at Melbourne in 1976/77 still takes the cake for worst all-round performance in a Test. |
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14 December 2010 Looking at Speed In spite of having vast reserves of data on batting times, I have never calculated career batting speeds for most batsmen in terms of runs per hour. There are lists of fastest and slowest batsmen in the relevant section of this blog, but those tables use runs per 100 balls as the yardstick. Certainly balls faced is the better comparison from a statistician’s point of view, but there is something to be said for looking at speed in terms of time as well. From a spectator’s point of view, a century in two hours is usually more exciting than a century in three hours, even if the difference is due to slower over rates in the latter case. A comparison of scoring speeds in terms of time will give us an idea of the impact that specific batsmen had on those watching. So here, belatedly, is the list of the fastest batsmen in Test cricket.
Minimum 1000 runs. Lower
order batsmen in italics. The list is dominated by bats from earlier eras, because a lot more balls were bowled in each hour in those days. Still, a list like this shows why the likes of Victor Trumper, Frank Woolley and Stan McCabe achieved such enduring fame. The fastest modern batsman, Shahid Afridi, has to settle for 10th place. The list of slowest batsmen has a more modern look, although there are few very recent batsmen. The slowest batsmen of all come from the 1970s and 1980s, an era when over rates had already fallen, but before the evolution of modern heavy hitting, super bats and smaller grounds. It is notable that only one of the batsmen on the slow list scored more than 2000 runs in Tests.
Take it from someone who remembers, Chris Tavare’s claims to be the “dullest batsmen of all time” are quite convincing. |
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24 November 2010 Readers’ Notes At the suggestion of reader Arjun, I took a look at Chris Gayle’s recent triple century against Sri Lanka, and found that Gayle probably broke a long-standing world record. Gayle hit 143 of his 333 runs off one bowler, Suraj Randiv (known, confusingly, as HKSR Kaluhalamulla on Cricket Archive). This is the most runs (known) by one batsman off one bowler in a Test innings, beating the 136 by Len Hutton off Chuck Fleetwood-Smith at the Oval in 1938. The Gayle case is particularly remarkable in that Randiv only conceded 183 runs in the innings (Fleetwood-Smith conceded a record 298). Most runs by one Batsman off one Bowler, where known
The sources for this sort of record are, of course, incomplete. Two notable innings lacking data are Jayasuriya’s 340 in 1997/98 (Chauhan 1/276), and Javed Miandad’s 271 against New Zealand in 1988/89 (Boock 1/229). However, in both of these cases, it is unlikely that Gayle’s figure would be exceeded, because there were so many runs scored by other batsmen in those innings, and this would dilute the head-to-head bowling figures. But it is possible: one extraordinary case not quite on this list also involves Suraj Randiv. Just a couple of months ago, Sachin Tendulkar hit 105 runs off Randiv’s bowling in an innings of just 203. Almost every other known case of ‘head-to-head centuries’ involves batsmen making triple centuries. Randiv is the only known bowler to suffer two such centuries in separate innings, although Khan Mohammad conceded more than 100 to both Sobers and Conrad Hunte (260) in 1958. Another reader, Martin, noted that on 15th November this year, five batsmen reached Test centuries (Gayle, McCullum, Harbhajan Singh, Kallis and Amla) and asked if this was unique. I found just one precedent, 30 Aug 2001. Funnily enough it ranks only 94th for total runs in a calendar day at 692 runs (#1 is 1086 runs on 8 Dec 2001), but there were five centuries. Four of them came from a whacking Pakistan was inflicting on Bangladesh. There was almost a sixth century. Mahela Jayawardene finished the day on 95 not out. A Record Falls, But When? Sometime during the recent India/Australia Test series, Allan Border was surpassed as the batsman who faced the most balls during a Test career. But this time it wasn’t run-record holder Sachin Tendulkar who took the record, but Rahul Dravid. The existence of this record was noticed by a few people, but without noting that the Border total was incomplete, so the series when Dravid went past Border was misidentified. There are four innings by Border for which balls faced are unrecorded, at Chennai in 1979/80 and Bridgetown in 1984, worth 78 runs. Based on his batting times and the over rates for the missing innings, this equates to about 270 balls faced, about 1% of Border’s total, which comes to about 27,275 balls faced (plus or minus 50 shall we say). During the recent series against Australia, Dravid went from 27,135 to 27,357 balls faced. Tendulkar finished the series on about 26,185 balls faced. Beyond this, it should be noted that there are numerous examples of balls faced figures from the 1970s into the 1990s being incorrect. So while we can now be sure that Dravid now holds the record, exactly when he went past Border may never be known. Dravid has also batted longer than anyone else, more than 650 hours at the crease. UPDATE: Shahzad has kindly provided balls faced for the Kanpur Test of 1979/80. This raises Border’s known balls faced to 27,166, plus an estimate of about 124 balls for his one unknown Test. Border’s total is 27,290 balls plus or minus about 20. Unfortunately, the innings where Dravid surpassed this still cannot be pinned down, because Dravid played a couple of short innings (13 off 28 balls and 1 off 7, followed by 21 off 53) when he was just in this range. |
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13 November 2010 Of Spellings and
Pronunciations I had been a bit puzzled as to why Mutiah Muralitharan, after many years in international cricket, had expressed a wish to change the spelling of his name, to Muralidaran. Some authorities have gone along with this, although Cricinfo and Cricket Archive still use the old spelling. Apparently, Murali’s birth certificate and passport both (reportedly) use the latter spelling. So where did the ‘th’ spelling originate? Reader Mahendra has helped here, pointing me to an article in the Sri Lanka Daily News in 2007. It is by Dinesh Weerawansa, and I will quote at length in case the original disappears. In the late 80s I took particular interest in going to the Air Force
grounds at Katunayake to witness a school cricket match. Making use of my
Saturday off day, I peddled [sic] all
the way to Katunayake from my hometown of Negombo. It was a less important inter-school game between Maris Stella
College, Negombo and St.Anthony’s College, Katugastota. But I had a person to
meet, of course without an appointment. He was a young cricketer who was a
member of that St. Anthony’s side. Having joined the ‘Daily News’ as a cub reporter, I was in-charge of
school cricket since 1987. I occupied the entire inner back page of Tuesday’s
paper with my school cricket review, which was sub editored by my dear
friend, the late Marianne Decker. There was an Antonian cricketer who had been going great guns but
even the sports reporters did not know the exact way he spells his name. The
intention of my ride to Katunayake was to meet the emerging schoolboy
cricketer and find how he spells his name and pronounces it. His first name was spelt it different ways in different newspapers -
Some called him Muttiya, Muttiyah, Muttiah, Muttiyaa or Mutiaya. When it came
to his surname, it was still worse - Muralidharan, Muralidharam,
Murralitharan, Muralitharan or even Muralitharam. On that particular evening
after the match, I met this young schoolboy to find out the correct spelling.
Ever since, I used that correct spelling in all my school cricket
write-ups. It was this young schoolboy who has now become a household name in
Test cricket. e is the man who accounts for the world record for most number of Test
wickets - Muttiah Muralitharan. Muralitharan showed the makings of a world beater right from his
early days as a schoolboy cricket. On two successive inter-school seasons, he
aggregated over 100 wickets each. So the source of the original spelling was Murali himself. The confusion arises mainly because names in Sri Lanka are normally rendered in different alphabets, in Sinhalese or Tamil. As with Urdu in Pakistan, conversion to English/Latin can be an inexact matter. For one thing, ‘th’ in English has two distinct pronunciations, as in “thing” and “this”. Beyond the soft ‘th’ lies ‘d’, which is why “this and that” becomes “dis and dat” for some non-native English speakers. The ‘th’ or ‘d’ in Murali’s name is probably somewhere in between, and I suspect that a completely correct pronunciation would be difficult for English speakers. The vowels, also, would be tricky. Anyway, Murali#aran recently joined another exclusive club when, batting at #11, he hit the winning runs in an ODI against Australia. He had previously been involved in a one-wicket ODI win, but did not hit the winning run. Considering that there have now been more than 3,000 ODIs, it is rare thing. I recall Glenn McGrath once saying that one of his goals was to one day hit the winning run in an ODI, but he never quite managed it, at least not from #11. Number 11 batsmen
who have hit the winning run in an ODI
Mason and Gillespie, I think, are the only ones to do it off the last possible ball of the match. Some New Records Blogging is a great way to get to the bottom of some tricky records. I just have to be tolerant of accepting correction. Last week Sreeram found a new record session score. This week reader Shahzad has added to my lists in two categories. There are two additions to the list of most boundaries in a half century: GF Labrooy (60) 9 fours 2 sixes SL v NZ Auckland 1990-91 B Yardley (74) 9 Fours 2 Sixes A v WI Bridgetown 1977-78 Shahzad also has a new record for the most no ball calls in a Test innings (see 24 October) 53 Pak(435) v WI Georgetown 1987-88. Will post these lists in my “Unusual Records” section so that any future updates can be made. UPDATE: Allan Knott hit 12 fours in reaching 52 against Pakistan at Edgbaston in 1971. He is the first known player to do this. He reached 101 with 21 fours – also unique at the time – and was out for 116 with 22 fours. His 18 fours in his first 78 runs may be unique. Spellbinding Underwood Speaking of adding to existing lists, I came across an incredible bowling spell by Derek Underwood in the Lord’s Test of 1969 against New Zealand. Underwood took 7 for 32 in the final innings, but I also discovered that his seven wickets were clustered together for a cost of only eight runs, (although it spanned 113 balls). Underwood also took 6 for 4 and 5 for 2. All of these spells belong in the Best Bowling Spells section, and rank very highly. None of these figures, curiously, made their way into reports in Wisden or The Times. It would have been easy to miss, because no fewer than 80 runs were scored while Underwood was collecting his seven wickets. Underwood’s parsimony in that part of the innings only comes to light thanks to the surviving scorebook. In this innings, Glenn Turner carried his bat for 43 not out. Apparently he played Underwood with relative comfort, but he was criticised for not trying to protect the other batsmen, who were all at sea. Turner faced only 83 of the 186 balls that Underwood bowled. |
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