For sportstats home
page, and info in Test Cricket in Australia 1877-2002, click
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Z-score’s
Cricket Stats Blog The longest-running cricket stats blog on the Web
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Charles Davis: Statistician
of the Year (Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians)
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Who are the Fastest-Scoring (and Most Tenacious) Batsmen in Test
Cricket? Click Here. |
Longer articles
by Charles Davis Click Here |
A list of
“Unusual Dismissals” in Test matches |
Unusual Records. For Cricket Records you
will not see anywhere else, Click Here |
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FOUND:
a full score of the Madras Tied Test ! some
remarkable first-class innings, re-scored. |
The Davis Test Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the 2010s have now been
posted. Almost three-quarters of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage;
virtually all others offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything
previously made available online. The starting page
is here. An information page outlining
this database is here. Major Test
Partnerships (200+) 1877 to 1970. Major Test
Partnerships (200+) 1971 to 1999. |
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250 and 150 in a first-class match. Dhruv Shorey, 252* and 150* Delhi v Assam 2022-23 Shubman Gill 269 and 161, Edgbaston 2025 Warwick Armstrong came very close in 1920: 157*
and 245 in a Sheffield Shield match ******** At Hyderabad in 1983, Javed Miandad faced a
hat-trick ball from BS Sandhu and went on to score 280 not out in a
partnership of 451 with Mudassar. Gavaskar probably faced a hat-trick ball to start
his 236 but I don't have enough detail to be sure. None of the reports I have
specifically says so. I only have ball-by-ball data for about 80-85% of
hat-trick balls. If wickets are taken with the last two balls of an over,
then either bat could face the hat-trick ball. ****** |
11 July 2025 Here is a broad look at a ‘batting decay curve’, the
number of innings by recognised batsmen (those with median batting positions
1 to 6) at every level of scoring. I have taken the liberty of including not
outs by adding the batsman’s career average to the score (this can be
supported statistically, in a broad sense). So an innings of 100 not out by a
batsman who averages 50 registers as a score equivalent to 150. Above a score of 50, I have pooled results to smooth
the curve. So the point at 110 represents the average of scores 106 to 115.
The size of the pool is larger at very high (and rarer) scores.
The graph is log-linear because the results are
exponential, with quite a good fit to a simple exponential decay curve (the trendline
is based on data from 15 to 300). Put simply, a batsman’s chances of getting
out at a given score is about 2.6 per cent, and this applies, in a broad
sense, at all scores from about 20 all the way to 300 or beyond. Naturally,
individual batsmen can and do deviate from this trend, but the averages are
fairly consistent. There are some general deviations, though. That 2.6
per cent probability of getting out doesn’t settle down until a score of
about 15. In particular, There are more than 4200 ducks which represent about
15 per cent of all innings. Between 50 and 100, the chances of getting out
are slightly lower than the long-view average, while from 200 to 250, the
chances are a bit higher. |
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16 April 2025 More on 1957 I mentioned in February the
discovery of some Balls Faced figures for the 1957 England/West Indies
series, found in the Daily Express newspaper. Previously, I had
calculated balls faced figures by re-scoring surviving scorebooks. I have now
tabulated these and compared them to the Express
figures (where available – not all innings were covered) at the link. The comparison
was disconcerting in places, in that there were many differences between the
two data sets. In my original analysis, I had already flagged the fact that
anomalies, even provable errors, had cropped up in some of the scores. This
was not uncommon in scores from this era. Additional uncertainty was created
because byes and leg byes were not marked in the scores; I had to estimate
their position in a way that preserved the batsmen’s runs scored and sequence
of scoring strokes. As a result, balls faced for most large innings contained
uncertainties. If Cowdrey faced
613 balls, then his century came off 527 balls; I previously had 535. The 527
is still the slowest known Test century of all time, although Nazar Mohammad may have exceeded this at Lucknow in
1952-53 (no published figures for Balls faced, but Nazar batted 174 overs to
reach 100, to Cowdrey’s 166). An additional
problem with this innings is the difference in balls faced by the openers.
The rescore gives Peter Richardson 100 balls but the Express says 119,
a wide gap. Once again there are identifiable errors in the score, so maybe
we should accept the Express numbers. But note that the 119 balls
would require about 62 % of the strike to Brian Close’s 38 %, possible but
rather unusual for a 32-over partnership. ******** |
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I have been alerted to a problem with
ball-by-ball files that were posted recently in the online database, wherein
the over-by-over bowler figures could be seriously wrong with respect to runs
conceded. Other columns did not exhibit any problems, so the actual
ball-by-ball data were correct apart from those runs conceded. The problem
cropped up especially in Tests from October 2010 to November 2011. These have
all been fixed now. ******** I was watching the European Club championships,
for a laugh. One team need 65 off the last 17 balls and got them with a ball
to spare. One batsman reached 47 off 10 balls but was out next ball trying to
reach his 50. ******** At Bulawayo in January, Sean Williams was given
not out caught behind, but then walked (there was no DRS in that Test). I
wonder if there are any other examples in recent times. I recall that Ravi
Ashwin once walked when there was no appeal. ******** One thing that has become clear in the DRS era is
that batsmen frequently do not have a clue whether they are out or not, and
even if certain about being not out they can be wrong. There are more than
120 cases of batsmen going to DRS after being given out caught behind, when
in fact they had hit the ball. Many of them were probably hoping for some
glitch in the DRS, but there must also be many who were just kidding
themselves that they hadn't hit the ball. Likewise there must be cases of batsmen who think
they hit the ball but didn't. Lara may be one of them. Mitchell Marsh
appeared to walk before the umpire's decision, after missing the ball at
Adelaide in December. |
4 April 2025 Back pain is making life a bit of a misery at the
moment; I am slowing down. Anyway, here is some broader data on dropped
catches over the last eight years on a team basis, drawn from Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball texts. I won’t say much about it; make of it what you will.
There is a broad but slight improvement trend in this century, but results
for individuals years for particular countries can vary a lot. I am a bit
mystified by Pakistan’s good showing in some years. My general impression has
been that Pakistan is a weak catching team, but they seem to have spells of
very good results. I mentioned recently that I could not find any dropped
catches at all in a recent Test involving Pakistan at Multan. That Test was
in 2025 and is not included in the data here.
Using the Cricinfo bbb texts, I have analysed more
than one thousand Tests for dropped catches going back to 2001. (I started
this process around 2008 but went back and did some earlier Tests from 2001
on, and a few from 1999 and 2000). I have also obtained drop catch data for
almost 400 earlier Tests, the majority involving Australia or England. The
total represents drop catch data for about 55 per cent of all Tests. ******** |
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A small adjustment; at Bridgetown in 1983, West Indies
target of just one run was reached with a no ball bowled by Kirmani. While
Kirmani was (correctly) recorded as bowling 0.1 overs, it can be confirmed
that he bowled two deliveries to Greenidge (source, Barbados Advocate) including
the no ball from "a run up longer than Michael Holding's".
Greenidge did not hit either delivery. https://www.sportstats.com.au/zArchive/1980s/1982WI/1982WI4.pdf ******** |
12 March 2025 Four Wickets in Five Balls: a
Discovery Coming back from an Antarctic cruise, I found that the
ACS Journal has published a little article of mine, on the discovery of a
previously unknown case of four wickets in five balls in a Test match, taken
by Imran Khan in a Test match at Sialkot in 1985. The discovery was made by
my Pakistan contact Shahzad Khan, hence he is listed as lead author. I have rendered the score supplied by Shahzad into
ball-by-ball form, as best as I was able. Although the score, like many from
the subcontinent in the 1980s, contained anomalies and unexplained
inconsistencies, the section containing Imran’s feat was not in doubt. https://www.sportstats.com.au/zArchive/1980s/1985PL/1985PL2bbb1.pdf https://www.sportstats.com.au/zArchive/1980s/1985PL/1985PL2.pdf ******** |
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The England Women managed to drop seven catches in
one day on the way to being clobbered by an innings in the Test at the MCG. I
can find only one men’s Test team that can top that – Pakistan v England at
Faisalabad on 22nd Nov 2005, dropping eight catches and taking
only two on the third day of the Test. ******** |
2 February 2025 Early Reports of Balls Faced in
Tests
This was the
first year of such detailed reporting in the Express. In 1956, there
was a column for minutes batted but not Balls Faced. After 1957, the BF
reporting continued up to 1961 for home Tests. They gave up on it for the
1962 Tests, and it is a shame that it didn’t catch on elsewhere. It has created a
bit of a problem; the BF data found so far is sometimes difficult to reconcile fully with my own
re-scoring of the traditional scoresheets preserved from this series. I will
have to study this more at some stage. The Daily
Express has been a paper that has mostly been out of reach in Australia
in the past. The extended British Newspaper Archive (subscription required)
has been progressively adding more years of this most useful paper to its
online service. ******** Compiling some more dropped catch reports, I found
up to seven missed chances in a single innings of 234 by Rahmat Shah of
Afghanistan against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo last month. This would be a
modern-day record, comparable to the all-time high set by Bonnor in 1883.
However, some are ambiguous and opinions may vary on which if any should be
excluded. Here are the Cricinfo descriptions... 10.4^2&Nyamhuri to Rahmat, 2 runs,dropped
by Myers at the gully region! Short of a length ball angling away with extra bounce,
slices it straight to the gully fielder,
tires to reverse cup it and goes through the hands of Myers!,, 18.4^•&Muzarabani to Rahmat, no run,Back
of a length ball on the fifth stump line, punches off the back foot, thick outside edge to the
gully fielder, dives to his left-side
and grassed it! Myers is the fielder there, dropped his second today, both chances were extremely
difficult though.,, 28.5^4&Williams to Rahmat, FOUR runs,dropped
again! Quicker length ball cuts it square and thick outside edge past the first slip
fielder, similar to the one Ervine
dropped earlier, shoulder height and slow reaction from the
fielder,, 37.2^3&Williams to Rahmat, 3 runs,chance!
Full ball just outside off. Turning away and Rahmat attempts a drive. Takes the outside edge
and goes past the diving first slip
fielder. Down to deep third for three runs with Mavuta's
slide stopping the boundary,, 79.6^1&Williams to Rahmat, 1 run,dropped!
Last ball before the second new ball gets
available! Full ball on middle, Rahmat comes down the track, lifts it
down the V, and Nyamhuri
at long-on has misjudged it! He runs in, then tries to backtrack, and all he can get is a
fingertip! Williams looks disappointed and
Shahidi survives,, 92.5^•&Muzarabani to Rahmat, no run,Muzarabani
dropped a sitter! Back of a length ball on the leg stump, plays the leg glance shot early
and finds the leading edge, hits it
straight back to the bowler, easy pickings for the bowler and Muzarabani
fumbles it!,, 116.4^•&Williams to Rahmat, no run,Another
dropped catch? Back of a length ball turning away on the off stump, plays the square cut
late, extra bounce and might have
outside edged back to the keeper, Gumbie failed to grab the ball.
The reaction from Ervine at the first
slip position explains everything.,, AND here are the
Cricbuzz descriptions. There are certainly some
differences... 10.4 Newman Nyamhuri to Rahmat, 2 runs,
dropped! Back of a length outside off,
Rahmat cuts and doesn't bother to keep it down. Goes quickly to gully
and Dion Myers fails to hold onto it.
Tries to reverse-cup and the ball bursts
through his palms 18.4 Muzarabani to Rahmat, no run, back of
length and wide, Rahmat pushes at it
away from the body and the ball takes a thick edge. Dies down onto the
gully fielder who was leaping
forward. Just short 28.5 Williams to Rahmat, FOUR, dropped! short
on length onto off, Rahmat tries to
cut and gets an edge that flies to the left of first slip. Whizzes past him before he could react and runs away
for four 37.2 Williams to Rahmat, 3 runs, slower
through the air, Rahmat goes for the
drive and the outside edge beats a diving Ervine to his right at first
slip 79.6 Williams to Rahmat, 1 run, dropped! A
miscued lofted drive from Rahmat
after he shimmies down the track. Nyamhuri
backpedals from deep-ish mid-on and fails to hold onto it as he tries to
catch it overhead. Another reprieve
for Rahmat! Williams won't be happy with that 92.5 Muzarabani to Rahmat, no run, dropped!
Back of length and gets some extra
bounce onto off stump, Rahmat tried to clip it leg side but gets a
leading edge that lobs back to the
bowler. A simple return catch put down by the bowler. Rahmat Shah gets two lives in this
over! 116.4 Williams to Rahmat, no run, short and
extra bounce outside off, goes over
the attempted cut I concluded that the 37.2 “3 runs,chance!”
incident was not really a dropped catch. (Some reporters don’t use ‘chance’
to mean a dropped catch.) That leaves
us with six dropped catches in Rahmat’s innings. A couple of little extras on dropped catches... -
When Harry Brook scored 171 at Christchurch, he was missed five times.
This equals an England 'record' (again, very much a 'where known' record) of
WG Grace (170) in 1886. As often happens, there is some ambiguity about
Brooks' tally: one of the misses was called leg bye by the umpire, but was
clearly off the bat on replay. If the keeper had made the catch, a review
would have overturned the leg bye call, so it should stand as a dropped
catch. -
I could not find a single dropped catch in the first Test between West
Indies and Pakistan at Multan a few weeks ago. A contact of mine who also
follows these things (Garry Morgan) concurs. In the last 20-odd years I think
that there are only a couple of other completed Tests where I could not find
any misses. I have updated a list of the most fumble-favoured
innings in Tests. Naturally, there could be others yet to be recognised… Batsmen dropped most times in a Test
innings (where known)
UPDATE: Trevor Bailey was reportedly dropped five
times in making 82 against West Indies at Lord’s in 1957. ******** |
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At the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy
series, Virat Kohli needed 49 runs of Nathan Lyon's bowling to set a new
head-to-head record. However, he managed only 44 runs off Lyon in 5
Tests, taking him to 573 runs, short of the 577 by Steve Smith off Broad.
Kohli did manage to top Pujara's take off Lyon of 571 runs. Most would have backed Kohli to take this record,
but a combination of Kohli's indifferent form, and Lyon hardly being given a
proper bowl, denied him. It is conceivable that they will play one another
again. ******** A few little notes from a day at the cricket... There was a 'double overthrow', although only 3 runs
were scored. I know Allan Knott once got a seven this way, but does anyone
know of other instances? There were no advertising logos painted on the
(hallowed) turf, just one word "Melbourne" at the east end. I
wonder if this was a change of policy, or not enough sponsorship. I saw Mike Walsh's name as one of the official
scorers. Mike first scored a Test match at the MCG in 1980-81. Eden Gardens’ record for biggest whole-Test crowd
still stands, although this match was the biggest accurately-counted match. ******** As far as long-serving scorers go, Dr Murray
Power has been scoring for Ireland since 1976, although full Test matches
only started for Ireland much more recently. Apparently the MCG Test was Mike Walsh’s 101st
Test as scorer. Amazingly he is only halfway to Bill Ferguson’s tally. I saw
an inaccurate number given online for Fergie and took a closer look. Fergie
himself claimed that he scored 204 Tests. However, this includes the final
test of 1930-31, whereas the surviving score for this Test includes a note
that Fergie was ill and there was a stand-in scorer. ******** In the 1982-83 Ashes, Ian Botham either batted or
bowled on all 25 days of the five-Test series. Wally Hammond batted or bowled on 30 days of the
1928-29 series, but there were 33 days play in that series (Timeless Tests). There were only 21 days in the 2009 Ashes, but
Stuart Broad batted or bowled on all of them. Also on 21, VS Hazare in Aus in
1947-48, KR Miller in 1950-51 Ashes, and NAT Adcock SA v Eng 1960. Haven't checked these numbers thoroughly. Data is
from bbb files only. ******** |
13 January 2025 Sobers – Separating his Bowling
Styles I have been asked a few times over the years about
Garry Sobers’ variety of bowling styles and what contribution each style made
to his statistics – has anyone compiled any data on this question? I haven’t
seen any, so I took a little time and did some research on this. Unfortunately the surviving scorebooks provide
almost no relevant information, with no specification of bowling styles at
different times. So I turned to detailed newspaper reports and/or film
highlights where available – ten series in all. The selected series extended
from 1959-60 to 1973, covering 44 Tests in all, more than half of Sobers’
Tests in this period. In a few of the Tests, Sobers took no wickets. In
the Tests where he took wickets, I was able to distinguish between pace and
spin for all his wickets, almost 150 of his 235 career wickets. Results look
like so… Garfield
Sobers – Wickets by Bowling Type (Selected Series)
(Unfortunately, in most cases I wasn’t always able
to glean enough info to distinguish between Sobers’ finger-spin and
wrist-spin styles. Sobers said in his autobiography that he stopped bowling
wrist spin after 1966 due to shoulder problems.) While this is not necessarily a random sampling of
Sobers’ Tests in this period, it is quite a large sample. There were about 15 Tests out of the 44 in which he
took wickets with both pace and spin within the same match. There is definitely a historical pattern. While I
didn’t do detailed research prior to 1960, what I did see suggested that all
Sobers’ early wickets were taken with spin bowling – finger-spin I think
(although some reports talk of him bowling “leg breaks” which I take to mean
left arm orthodox). Sobers had been selected initially as a spin bowler, but
within a few years he was setting world records as a batsman, while his
bowling efforts were moderate at best. In 1960-61, he introduced his pace
bowling style, probably because the team touring Australia was already
stronger in spin than pace. In 1961-62 at home, wickets were more spin
friendly and he took most of his wickets accordingly. For a number of years,
he mixed his bowling styles with considerable success. In later Tests, after 1968-69 in Australia, the
table shows that Sobers bowled less and less spin. This was also evident in
detailed film highlights of the World XI matches in 1971-72, where all the
bowling that I could see was pace bowling. Here is a second table summarising all of Sobers’
Test wickets. Some estimates are necessary but I think the final result would
be reasonably robust.
I would stress that I have no information on the
number of overs or runs conceded using the different styles in the above
tables. Note that Sobers’ bowling average in his spin-only stage up to 1960
was a rather indifferent 45.0 (32 Tests, 40 wickets). His bowling average in
his later pace-only Tests from 1969 was 30.9 (20 Tests, 53 wickets). I note that some reporters describe his pace bowling
as “medium pace” and others say “fast-medium”. I don’t know if the
distinctions are meaningful; others may know more about this. ********* Sam Konstas, in the MCG Test against India, scored
his first 50 runs in Test cricket just 66 minutes into his first Test match,
facing 52 balls. Probably the fastest for any player: PP Shaw took about 75
minutes for India in 2018, although that time is only an estimate. Shaw
scored 75 before lunch, the most (in a strictly 2-hour session) by any
debutant on the first day. LJ Tancred scored 87 before lunch on debut in
1902, in a slightly extended session. Konstas’s 60
runs was also just shy of Rick Darling’s 61 before lunch on debut in 1978. ******** Fewest Balls Faced for an Innings over
60, All Tests
Complete innings only. Others have reached 60 in
fewer balls, but they continued batting. ******** |
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I have mentioned players with the most run out
credits in the past (still led by Jack Hobbs with 19). But what of the
players with fewest credits? The only players with more than 100 Tests and no
run out credits at all are Ross Taylor (112 Tests) and Matthew Hayden (103) Mark Waugh (128), VVS Laxman (134) and
Inzamam-ul-Haq (120) had only one run out credit each. Joe Root in 150 Tests has 3 run out credits.
However, two of them are ‘secondary’ in that he is the second fielder listed.
Shane Warne in his 145 Tests had the same run out stats as Root (1 primary 2
secondary) It is apparent that run outs by slip fielders are
rare. ******** Something a little different. After some controversy
over Mohammad Siraj’s penchant for the ‘celebrappeal’
(wildly celebrating an lbw or caught behind without actually consulting the
umpire) I searched some Cricinfo ball-by-ball texts for that word. This was a very quick search not using any other
terms, so it probably misses some. Results... In 170 recent Tests, there were 38 references to
"celebrappeal". 17 of the 38 went to
review. Stuart Broad was the bowler 11 times, Siraj 5. No
one else more than 2. One by Bangladesh was described as "Broad-esque", another "a Broad-level celebrappeal" Of Siraj's five, none were out. Two were reviewed
but not out, one would have been out but India decided not to review. Of Broad's 11, only two were given out by the
umpire, one of which was overturned on review. One other was given not out, but overturned on a bowling
review. In another of Broad's celebrappeals a run
out occurred while Broad was doing his dance. I should add that 18 of the 38 were actually out,
so Broad's and Siraj's success rates with their celebrappeals
were particularly low. Later: when I extended the search to look at some
earlier Tests and found another 12 references to Broad's celebrappeals
(6 of them were OUT). The first occurrence of the word seems to be 2015 -
Broad again (Durban 2015). That reference says "Broad's celebrappeal was justified this time" suggesting
that it was well-known behaviour before that. The word may well have been
invented in Broad’s honour. ******** Another rarity: In the Adelaide Test against
India, Scott Boland took a wicket with his first ball in the second innings,
after having a catch taken off a no ball with his first delivery of the first
innings. I can only find two cases of a bowler taking a
wicket with his first ball in both innings - Akshar Patel at Ahmedababd 2021 and Zaheer Khan at Mirpur 2007.
Suggestions welcome. In Zaheer’s case, it was the very first ball of both
innings. ******** |
21 December 2024 The online database is now complete up to and
including the 2010-11 season. I don’t know how much further I will take it:
certainly up to 2012, but beyond that, sources independent of
Cricinfo/Cricket Archive become progressively harder to find, and so for many
Tests I am not adding much to sources already available. I would like to stress that I am happy to supply
ball-by-ball Test data to amateur researchers (in line-per-ball Excel
format), within reason but free of charge. ‘Reason’ being single series or
season, usually, but ask if you would like more. I am also happy to share series from my ODI
ball-by-ball data, which is not online. I don’t know if or when any of this
will make it to the web. I currently have bbb records for about 800 ODIs from
the 20th Century. These data are not evenly distributed;
Australian coverage is extensive, matches from the subcontinent far less so.
I am hopeful of obtaining more in the future. ******* Stuck in the 90s Following up an enquiry, I dipped into the data to
find out which individual innings involved the most balls faced in the 90s.
The data that I have features the following Most Balls Faced in the 90s
Note Washbrook turning up 1st and 3rd,
and from consecutive Tests! Washbrook’s 114 off 455
balls is one of the strangest centuries; he also spent 67 balls stuck on his
final score of 114, before being dismissed by Ramadhin
in his 10th consecutive maiden over. Batting like that seems
simply weird today. There seems to have been be a ‘culture’ among many
batsmen in the 1950s and 60s that accurate finger-spin bowling could not be
hit. Note also that for Washbrook (and for a number of the other innings in
the table) the number of balls is plus or minus 2 or 3 due to unmarked leg
byes in the scores. Most Balls Faced on 99
Most balls faced on 99 by a batsman who was out for
99 is 17 balls by JG Wright v Eng Christchurch 1991-92. In actual time in the 90s, the most may be ~98
minutes by Saqlain Mushtaq (above). Michael Vaughan’s effort took 87 minutes. There are probably some cases to be found in Tests
that haven’t made it into the ball-by-ball database. ‘Slow-scoring’ records
like this tend to be more common in the past, when more Tests are missing. At the other end of the scale, I had thought for a
long time that no centurion had ever spent only one ball in the 90s. However,
last year Ben Stokes managed it at Lord’s against Australia, going from 88 to
100 with sixes off consecutive balls. He went from 78 to 100 off four legal
balls plus a wide. If anyone can think of other possibilities not
covered, let me know. I checked Jaisimha’s 99 in 504 minutes but I don’t
think it would feature. When Nazar Mohammad took almost nine hours to reach
100 in 1952, he actually sped up a bit in the 90s. ******** There is no precedent for a #10 and #11 (Jasprit and
Akash at the ’Gabba) batsmen needing 33 or more runs to save the follow-on,
and actually getting them. The most by any team needing to save the follow-on
with the 10th wicket is 40 by Bangladesh v Sri Lanka in 2009. The batsmen
were #9 and #11. (I only looked at Tests with 200-run follow-on.) ******** |
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In the Test Match Database, quite a few
discrepancies have been found in secondary stats (such as minutes batted)
between the main scorecards on the one hand and the table of half-centuries
on the other. Most of these problems have come from revisions to the main
scorecards that I have neglected to transfer through to the 50+ files. For
early Tests especially, these problems often derive from uncertainties and
conflicts in the reports that match scorecards are based on. I have now been through all the anomalies and I
have corrected as many of the conflicts as possible. For example, in the very
first Test, I have settled on 210 minutes for an innings of 63 by H Jupp, as
per the main scorecard, previously given as 191 minutes in the 50+ file. Most
corrections are smaller than this. ******** My blog has now passed the 20-year mark. The
first entry was on 6 November 2004. The early entries
are mostly copies of the short columns I wrote for The Age newspaper at the
time. I haven't changed the format of the blog much in 20 years, due to lack
of computer skills. Now very old-fashioned. So be it. ******** In the India A match in Melbourne the other day,
the first four balls of Australia A second innings were faced by four
different batsmen. It went 1,W,W,0 ******** |
29 November 2024 Nathan McSweeney, making his Test debut against
India in the Perth Test, took a catch after just 13 balls were bowled in the
match. Sounds rare, but it turns out to be a bit more common than I thought.
Here are some other names for catches on Test debut in the first over of the
match… HJ Tayfield 0.2 RG Hart 0.3 IM Chappell 0.3 PJP Burge 0.4 MRJ Veletta 0.4 IG Butler 0.5 While ball-by-ball data is incomplete for many
Tests, I have reason to believe that the above list is complete. I had a memory of Chris Sabburg,
who never played first-class cricket, taking a catch (off Kevin Pietersen) on
his first ball as fielding substitute at the ’Gabba in 2013. However,
according to an interview with Sabburg on YouTube,
he had been a sub for a couple of overs earlier in the day, so that
disqualifies him; he came on a second time and took the catch second ball. In innings two of a Test, Allen Lissette in 1955 and
Pragyan Ojha in 2009 took a catch off their first ball when fielding on
debut. Both had batted earlier in the match. ******** Here is an example of the pitfalls of producing a
table of records based on very incomplete information. When Marnus
Labuschagne was out for 2 off 52 balls in Perth, the Fox Sports website (but
not the TV coverage) put up a supposed list of slowest Test innings by
Australian batsmen…
Unfortunately this list is based on dodgy
information. When I generated a list from my own database, using the same
qualification of 50 balls minimum, I got the following…
So there are significant additions. There is also an
error in the TV list – Peter Taylor never scored 4 off 66 balls. The online
scorecards do show this for St John’s in 1991, but Taylor actually
scored 4 off 41 balls, not 66. One reason for this error is that slow-scoring
records were often set long ago, and Cricinfo/Cricket Archive lack the needed
detail for early Tests. By contrast, fast-scoring records are often quite
recent so they do better with that category. ******** |
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It was a long wait, but the 100th score
of 250 or more in Tests has finally arrived thanks to Joe Root. Root’s 262
came 106 Tests after the previous score of 250 (252 by Tom Latham at
Christchurch in 2022). This was equal to the longest pause, in terms of Tests
played, between 250s in history: there was also a gap of 106 Tests in the
1980s. Root clocked up the 100th in Multan
just half an hour in playing time – 9
overs – ahead of Harry Brook, who went on to 317, which I supposed was
the shortest gap between 250s except that the case of Jayawardene and
Sangakkara reaching 250 against South Africa in 2006 was extremely similar. Prior to the 106-Test gap, there had been a
53-Test gap going back to Kane Williamson’s 251 in 2020. This represents
quite a dearth of giant scores in this decade, maybe an effect of ‘Bazball’. Modern batsmen are so prone to hitting the ball
in the air nowadays that it is perhaps not surprising that giant scores have
become so rare. Having said that, it is interesting that Root and Brook hit
only 3 sixes in their combined 579 runs. There were six 250s in the space of 25 Tests in
1957-58. ********* At Chittagong in March, Prabath Jayasuriya was
dropped by three Bangladeshi slips fielders off the same ball. Jayauriya was on 6 when he edged a ball off Khaled Ahmed;
Shanto at 1st slip missed the chance but
it then deflected to Dipu at 2nd
and on to Zakir at 3rd, but none of them could hang on. ******** |
4 November 2024 Why Eleven? There was an interesting question on a ACS chat site
a little while back: what is the origin of having eleven players in a cricket
team? In truth the answer is lost in the mists of time.
The earliest surviving scorecards, from 1744, have teams of eleven, but
earlier descriptions of the game generally lack the detail to help with the
question of origins. The 1727 ‘Goodwood’ rules for a cricket match in Sussex
describes teams of twelve, which complicates things, but it is understood
(not sure how) that eleven was the standard. Someone asked the much-vaunted AI, which came up
with a completely useless answer. The most satisfying answer offered was from Eric
Parker’s History of Cricket, published around 1950. He pointed out how
the numbers 11 and 22 crop up (so to speak) regularly in traditional farming
practices in England. There are 22 yards in one chain, a common farm
measurement; farms possessed a literal chain created for the purpose. Easy to
measure out a cricket pitch. There were 10 chains to a furlong (a “long
furrow” = 220 yards) and eight furlongs to a mile. An area one chain by one
furlong was an acre, being the area that one worker could plough in one day
with a team of oxen. The original stumps (two of them in underarm days)
were 22 inches high placed five and a half inches apart; the ball was five
and a half ounces. I like the connection with the number 22. Beyond
that we don’t have a terribly clear idea when the idea of applying it to
cricket matches arose. ******** It appears that the protocol for measuring minutes
batted has changed, at least as far as online scores go. Drinks breaks are no
longer included in batting times. This represents a break with traditional
practice. While the change has some logic, that break makes historical
comparisons a little harder. Here is a comparison of a recent innings from
Pakistan. The CA/CI (Cricket Archive/Cricinfo) times are on the left and
exclude drinks breaks. Source BB is a score that includes drinks breaks, and
Source C is similar.
There is potential for confusion if the protocols
get mixed, such as when one protocol is used for the whole innings but
another for milestones (50s, 100s etc) from different source. The differences
in the above data, while sometimes small,
appear to go beyond exclusion of drinks breaks. ******** The Draw Drought One effect of the escalation of big hitting and high
strike rates in Tests has been the near-disappearance of drawn Tests. The
trend has been particularly strong in the last year. In the last 50-odd
Tests, there has been only one Test that was drawn after play on Day 5 (and
one other where Day 5 was rained out). That Test, West Indies v South Africa
at Port-of Spain in August, had four full sessions lost to bad weather, and
other sessions shortened. This was brought home when draws seemed to be a
foregone conclusion in two recent Tests; there seemed to be no chance of results
after Day 3 at Kanpur (India v Bangladesh, where almost 3 days were lost to
weather) and Multan (Pakistan v England, with first innings of 566 and 823),
yet both Tests were completed with time to spare. The lack of dull draws is surely welcome, yet with
that comes the disappearance of exciting draws. In the last 100 Tests, there
has been only one that I would class as a draw with a close finish: at
Karachi in 2023 Pakistan (449 & 277/5) v New Zealand (408 & 304/9).
Close Tests haven’t disappeared entirely – there was New Zealand winning off
the last ball at Christchurch in 2023 against Sri Lanka – but hopes for
forcing a draw against the odds are rare now. Nevertheless the preponderance
of result Tests means that such Tests that have close finishes still occur
fairly regularly. ******** |
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Lawrie Colliver has provided a re-score of an ODI
that Australia played in Pakistan in 1988, scored from a newly-discovered
video. It was the only ODI that Australia played on that tour, the others
being cancelled due to floods and rioting in the aftermath of the
assassination of President Zia. apiece – but
Pakistan was declared the winner on account of losing fewer wickets (7
to 8). As far as I know, it is one of only two tied ODIs decided by this
method. It appeared especially odd because, with the scores tied, Pakistan
made no attempt to score from the last five balls, bowled by Dodemaide . Presumably they knew that they were ‘ahead’,
but it almost came unstuck when a wicket fell off the second last ball. Abdul
Qadir faced the last ball and padded it away. A wicket here would have tied
the game in wickets as well as runs. Lawrie’s notes describe it as “plumb”
but it was given not out, and so Pakistan won. ******** India had a remarkable win in the recent Kanpur
Test, coming after more than two days were washed out. It was the first time
that a team has started its first innings on the fourth day and won, with the
peculiar exception of the Cronje 'Leather Jacket' Test. The fourth day also featured the most wickets on
a day with over 400 runs. 437 runs, 18 wickets (85 overs), previously 447/17
(91.4 overs) at The Oval 2013, and 414/17 at Lord's 1931. ******** |
October 2024 A Brief History of Rest Days A recent Test in Sri Lanka had a ‘Rest’ day – actually
a pause for a national election. Like the handful of Tests in this Century
that had such pauses, there were special circumstance involved. The ToSh group had a
little discussion about this, and it got me looking into the history of Rest
Days. I was surprised by some of the observations. The insertion of days off into Test matches,
specifically as rest days, dates only from the 1950s. Prior to that all ‘rest
days’ were literal days of rest, i.e., Sundays, with the occasional pause
also on Christmas Day. For a long time, playing cricket on a Sunday was
severely frowned upon, or even illegal, in Christian countries. Some of the
earliest written records of cricket in the 17th Century are court
records of people fined for playing cricket on the Sabbath. In England, there were no rest days of any kind
prior to 1920. All Tests were three days, commencing early- or mid-week,
aligned with County matches. In Australia, Tests were longer and often
encompassed the weekend, but days off were always on a Sunday, even if the
match started on a Saturday. There is one Test that shows that the idea of
simply granting players a day off did not apply in those days: the first Test
of 1897-98 at the SCG started on a Monday and went for five days without a
break. In 1921, some Tests in England started to straddle
the weekend and the Sunday prohibition applied. It was similar in South
Africa, where a Test in 1922-23 actually had two consecutive days off, a
Sunday and Christmas Day on the Monday. The epic Durban Test of 1939 had two
Sundays in addition to the ten scheduled days. The first Tests with Sunday play occurred during
England’s first tour of India in 1933-34. When West Indies toured India in
1948-49, there was play on Sundays and the five-day Tests had no rest days.
The idea of regular rest days seems to have emerged in the 1951-52 England
tour of India, where there was play on Sundays but a day off after Day 3 of
each Test. Rest days soon became the norm in the five-day and
six-day Tests in Australia and England, but invariably these remained on a
Sunday for many years. The West Indies had the same approach; there were also
a couple of Tests which had two rest days because they occurred over Easter,
pausing for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The last of these was in 1965
(Georgetown). One of the oddest cases was Karachi 1956. There was
a rest after Day 3 (Sunday); then on Monday (Day 4) Pakistan dominated and
were set 69 to win. Incredibly they scored only 63 for 1 in 46 overs before
stumps, and so had to come back. The next day was another rest day (a day of
mourning for a political figure) and so they waited till Wednesday to score
the needed six runs. Sunday play in Australia was finally introduced in
1968-69 (although not in all Tests). Those Tests with Sunday play had rest
days after Day 2 or 3. England did not have Sunday play until 1981, and even
then it was irregular with most rest days coinciding with Sunday. After 1986-87, rest days in Australia fade from
view, only occurring under special circumstances. New Zealand followed suit.
(The special circumstances were sometimes very odd: the Brisbane Test of
1995-96 was paused for a day so that the broadcaster could show the
Australian Grand Prix.) Rest days in England remained, when scheduled, on
Sundays, before disappearing in the early 1990s. Rest days were dispensed
with in South Africa when that country returned to Test cricket in 1992, but
they continued to be regularly used in the hotter climes of the subcontinent
and West Indies. In a unique occurrence, a Zimbabwe/New Zealand Test in
November 1992 was paused for a day so that an ODI could be played. Not
exactly a rest day! The pressure of tighter schedules was making its
mark, and the last series with normal rest days appears to be New Zealand in
West Indies in 1996. There was a rest day in India’s first Test there the
following year (on Good Friday), but the other two Tests of the series were
so heavily rain-affected that the idea of rest days did not apply. As said earlier, scheduled pauses in Tests since
then have only occurred under special circumstances. A day was taken in a
Test at Sharjah in 2014 following the shocking death of Philip Hughes, but
extra play was added at the scheduled end of the match. Frequency of rest days (Day Prior,
Number of Tests) 1 138 2 269 3 510 4 34 5 3 For the record, here are what can be described as
Rest or Pause Days in Tests from the last 30 years.
******** Most Runs added after the fall of each
wicket (Test innings)
******** |
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Most runs added after a top-scorer was out… At Kingston in 1955 top scorer Neil Harvey (204)
was out at 373 and Australia made 758, so that is 385 runs added. ******** Half of all Test series have been played in the
21st Century, even if one-off Tests are not considered. The proliferation of
two- and three-Test series at the expense of fours- and fives- is part of the
reason. ******** The England v Australia T20 at Southampton, won
by Australia 179 to 151, was the equal highest scoring T20 international
where both teams were bowled out in less than their allotted 20 overs.( There
was a match between Bangladesh and West Indies in 2018 that also produced 330
runs.) In a 348-run match between Australia and Pakistan
on 2 May 2010, both teams were bowled out, but they both played the full 20
overs. ******** At Dhaka in 2004, Irfan Pathan bowled two
hat-trick balls to Mohammad Ashraful in the same innings. The first came
after Pathan had dismissed Rajin Saleh first ball and Ashraful came to the
wicket. The second came when Pathan dismissed Mushfiqur Rahman first ball at
the end of an over. Ashraful was still batting and faced Pathan when he
started his next over, hitting him for 3. Late in the innings there was another hat-trick
ball, bowled by Kumble while Ashraful was still batting, but this time he was
at the non-strikers end. ******** |
15 September 2024 The Slowest Starters In his sixth innings extending over almost 2 years,
Mohammad Ali of Pakistan finally scored his first run in Test matches. The
stroke for two came off his 52nd ball faced. I decided to make a
list to see who had made a slower start… Most balls faced before scoring first
career run in Tests.
Giffen’s number is uncertain because the analysis is
based on (very detailed) newspaper reports. It should be reasonably accurate
because most of it comprised maiden overs. Zahir Khan of Afghanistan did not score until his
eighth innings, but faced only 29 balls in doing so. Most of the above is extracted from the ball-by-ball
database, covering 80 per cent of Tests. Some of the figures are surprising,
and probably could not be guessed from the whole innings data; Hamish
Marshall is an example – his first Test innings was 40 off 121 balls, from
which one would not expect 38 balls to get off the mark. So it is likely that
there would be other cases not identified. One would be Sajeewa
de Silva (KSC de Silva) in the 1990s, whose possible range is 38 to 52 balls,
probably at the lower end of that range. Terry Jarvis of New Zealand scored 9 in 123 minutes
in his first Test innings in 1964-65, but no other detail is available. ******** The Great LBW Drought The 1970-71 series was a watershed in Ashes history,
ending Australia’s hold over the urn in the 1960s and ushering in a more
evenly contested decade. England won that six-Test series 2–0; apart from
Bodyline (1932-33), it is the only time in the past century that England has
regained the Ashes in Australia. There were some statistical oddities. Chief among
them: not one Australian batsman was given out lbw in the entire series. This
remains a sore point among England fans with long memories, although there
was also a low count of English victims, just five. There were mitigating
factors. Most important was an odd change in the lbw Law (as
an “experimental rule”) that was tested out from the Australian domestic
season in 1969-70, to 1971. The intent was to discourage pad play by making
it easier to be given out doing playing “no genuine stroke”, but the specific
wording of the rule had a strange side effect. It reverted ‘standard’ lbws
(where a stroke was played) to the pre-1935 Law, making it mandatory for a
ball to pitch in line with the stumps, so excluding balls pitching outside
off stump. (By 1972, the wording had been modified to restore the pre-1969
criteria for standard lbws, while retaining the new no stroke provisions.
This was permanently written into the Laws in 1980.) There had been a dramatic effect, with the incidence
of lbw in Australian domestic cricket dropping from 8-9 per cent of
dismissals (1967 to 1969) to 4-5 per cent after the rule change, returning to
9 per cent in 1972-73. In the 70-71 Tests, it was only 2.7 per cent. Umpire
Tom Brooks may have amplified the effect; he umpired five Tests (plus the
abandoned Melbourne Test) but gave only two batsmen out lbw, both English.
Incidentally, my father was a 1st Grade umpire in Sydney in those
years and knew Brooks, and I remember Dad remarking that Brooks’ instructions
were that lbw conditions were always extremely difficult to satisfy. In that climactic final Test of 70-71 at the SCG,
Rowan gave Ray Illingworth out lbw to Dennis Lillee. Surviving video
highlights show Illingworth playing no stroke – probably the first batsmen
given out under the experimental rule. (Batsmen had been out lbw playing no
stroke before often enough, but under standard rules.) The other lbw in the series was given at the MCG, by
Max O’Connell, who officiated in two Tests. The table shows the fluctuations in lbws in Test
matches brought on by the changes. Incidence of LBWs in Test matches.
All Test matches, calendar years. “1970”
includes some matches before the experimental rule. The experimental rule was followed in England in 1971,
in Tests versus Pakistan and India. In six Tests, there were only five lbws,
a similar tally to the 70-71 Ashes. Just two of them were against England
batsmen. Only one of the five was a ‘no stroke’ lbw (Snow to Gavaskar). The
only lbw in the three Pakistan Tests was very last wicket of the series. When normality was restored in 1972, there were 27
lbws in five Ashes Tests in England. Curiously, none of them were of the ‘no
stroke’ variety. Today about five per cent of lbws involve the batsman
playing no stroke. Incidence of LBW in Australian
First-Class Cricket 1966-74
******** Understanding the Law Change The 1971 L.B.W. Law is illustrated from Wisden
of that year. It took me a while to understand it. The Section 39 in bold
type is the Law as it had stood for over 35 years. It includes a provision
for lbw to balls “pitched on the off-side of the striker’s wicket”. However,
in 1971 this paragraph was no longer in force and had been completely
superseded by the “experimental rule” in italics. Part (a) of the rule
requires the ball to have pitched in line with the stumps, contrary to the
provision of Law 39. Though not stated explicitly, it applies to standard
lbws. Part (b) – and only Part (b) – allows for balls pitching outside off
stump, but applies only to batsmen making no genuine effort to play the ball.
I cannot be certain that this reversion to the pre-1935
Law was the intention of the new wording, but it certainly was the effect. It
is hard to understand how making standard lbws more restrictive could reduce
the amount of pad play, if that was the goal. ******** |
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I have endeavoured to update my list of unusual dismissals in Test matches. If anyone
can think of cases that I have missed that should be considered, particularly
in recent years, let me know. Test matches only. The list now includes the Bairstow brain fade at
Lord’s last year. ******** |
31 August 2024 Stroke or no stroke? As a follow-up to my last post, here is some data on
batsmen dismissed (bowled or lbw) without playing a stroke. Data is since
Cricinfo began archiving text description in 1999. The data for 1999 to 2001
is probably rather patchy. I have noted 247 cases of no stroke bowled
dismissals since 1999 (4.2 % of all bowled dismissals) and 301 LBW (5.1 %)
*Innings after April 1999 TWM Latham has four no stroke BWDs but no LBW, and
Brian Lara has four no stroke LBWs but no BWDs. Interesting that neither Lara
nor Tendulkar are known to have been bowled this way, but they have 12 LBWs
(note Chanderpaul also). However, there is no data
for them before 1999. Tendulkar’s lbws include the controversial incident
when he was hit on the arm/shoulder trying to duck a McGrath delivery that
did not get up. Most innings played without a ‘no stroke’ bowled or
LBW: Angelo Mathews of Sri Lanka on 195 and Mark Boucher of South Africa on
183. ******** No shot lbw in both innings: KD Mackay, Kanpur 1959-60 (pair of ducks) BC Lara, Leeds 2000. ******** |
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In the Wellington Test of 2023 (New Zealand v Sri
Lanka) not a single batsman was out bowled or lbw. New Zealand won by an
innings. Only one lbw decision was reviewed, the umpire’s not out decision
being upheld. ******** In the Nottingham Test England reached 50 faster
than any team before them, on the second ball of the fifth over. Even more
notable was the fact that it was done on the first morning of the Test; most
previous record-breaking 50s have happened in teams’ second innings when
quick runs were required. The relevant section of the Unusual Records has been updated. ******** |
5 August 2024 Clean Bowled or Played On? For the last twenty years or more, I have
periodically been going through descriptions of ‘BOWLED’ dismissals in Tests
to distinguish between ‘clean bowled’ and ‘played on’ dismissals, with ‘no
stroke’ dismissals thrown in for good measure. Here is a little statistical
study of some of the data for recent years. This does rely on the Cricinfo
commentators noticing edges – and this sometimes requires extensive replays –
but the descriptions are now so detailed that I would expect that a great
majority of cases are noticed. I looked at 668 batsmen out bowled, in 115 Tests.
[Bowled dismissals in total account for 18 per cent of all dismissals (more
like 25 per cent for tailenders)]. Of the 668, I noted 155 cases of the ball
hitting bat first, and a further 35 coming off the pad or other body part.
That is 23 per cent off the bat and 5.2 per cent off the pad, giving a total
of 28.4 per cent, In another 34 cases (5.1 per cent), the batsmen was
recorded as playing no stroke; nearly all of these were clean bowled. There
were also a (very) few cases where no stroke was offered, but the ball hit
the bat anyway and went onto the stumps. Left-handed batsmen are more likely than
right-handed to play on: 34 per cent to 26 percent (total edge or pad). It
might be that the line required for a right-handed bowler to bowl a
left-hander is more difficult than with a right-handed batsman. There is less difference between left- and
right-handed bowlers: 25 per cent (left) and 30 per cent (right). Pace bowlers get 32 per cent of their bowled wickets
via edge or pad, whereas spin bowlers get only 19 per cent. The incidence of
‘playing on’ varies between countries, and appears to be associated with the
dominance of pace or spin bowling across various countries.
Perhaps of more interest is a strong relationship
between batting position and a propensity to play on. There is a major
difference between top-order and bottom-order bats, presumably linked to much
tighter techniques among better batsmen. It is quite hard to get a ball on
the stumps through a top batsman’s defence without hitting something on the
way.
One interesting question that is hard to answer is:
How many bowled dismissals occur to balls that are not directed at the stumps?
The available descriptions often don’t distinguish between playing on with a
fine edge (when the ball would probably have hit the stumps anyway) and
playing on to a ball that would have missed the stumps. My impression is that
the latter is in the majority, but beyond that I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
Perhaps the massive CricViz database could offer some clues. ******* |
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11 July 2024 A Revised List The “Hot 100”, the lists of fastest- and slowest-scoring
Test batsmen has been updated, rather belatedly. I have made a few
modifications. For the fast scorers, the bar has been raised to a 2,500
career run minimum (and averages over 20), to try to weed out secondary
players, in a batting sense, with limited careers. But those guys have not
been ignored; there is now a second table for
those in the 500 to 2,500 run category, and this
allows Gilbert Jessop to step into pride of place, after all these years. https://www.sportstats.com.au/hotscore2024.html I noticed that in the “Balls Between Dismissals”
category (longest average innings length), Herbert Sutcliffe has edged ahead
of Don Bradman in the latest calculation. I think this due to some improved
calculations for the 1926 and other series. Sutcliffe is now on 163.9 balls
per dismissal to Bradman’s 163.7. However, neither player’s data is complete,
and various estimates have been used to fill the gaps. There is no way to
distinguish these figures statistically; they are effectively tied. ******** Tit for Tat. Players who have
dismissed each other for golden ducks in the same Test.
******** |
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Another data point for historical dropped
chances. Barry Valentine has very kindly provided me with
another monumental ball-by-ball analysis of an Ashes series, this time the 1962-63
series in Australia. I have been through it looking for mention of dropped or
missed chances and found about 48 (depending on definitions) to go with the
111 catches and stumpings. This implies a miss rate of just over 30 per cent. It is hard to say whether the instances represent
everything that could ever be found. However, I would say that Valentine’s
analysis, which runs to 236 pages and is drawn from a wide variety of
sources, is about as exhaustive as we will ever see. ******** When Maninder Singh was caught by Graham Gooch
off Dilley at Lord’s in 1986, Gooch initially dropped the catch. It deflected
to wicketkeeper French, who dropped it in turn, but managed to deflect the
ball back toward Gooch. Gooch flicked the ball up with his boot and finally
caught the ball. ******** A Nepal cricket anecdote, after their near
miracle victory. I spent almost a month in Nepal in 1984 including
a 26-day trek in the Himalayas. Can't say I encountered much evidence of
cricket. When we had a rest day in the trek in Muktinath
the Australians and Poms in the group thought we would teach the Sherpas how
to play cricket. Not a great success; at 3800 metres up, even the Sherpas
were reluctant to run between wickets. However, later I did encounter a guy in a remote
village who came up to me and asked if I knew the score in the Test match. He
must have been asking about a West Indies/Australia match. It was quite
unusual to meet someone who spoke English; turned out he was from India. I could not help him. We had no contact with the
outside world for the whole 26 days, and none of the villages we went to had
electricity. Nowadays I would suffer if I had to go without internet for 2
days. An account of trekking 40 years ago is in my
travel memoirs. https://sportstats.com.au/Travel/1984TrekkinginNepal.pdf |
16 June 2024 The Best Umpire, by DRS Data A couple of curiosities that I noticed after
updating my DRS (Decision Review System) file: ·
Most regular Test umpires have a DRS overturn rate between 24 and 27
per cent when reviews are called, but there is one current umpire who is way
ahead of anyone. Michael Gough’s overturn rate is just 16.8 per cent; nearest
to that is the retired Asad Rauf on 22.8 per cent (only part of Rauf’s career
was during the DRS era), followed by still-active Kumar Dharmasena on 23.4.
Gough has now umpired 34 Tests where DRS was used, and has been subject to
208 reviews, a fair number for assessment. ·
Joe Root has been the batsman in far more reviews than any other, 111
reviews in all. Jonny Bairstow and Steve Smith are next on 69 reviews each.
74 of Root’s reviews were from bowlers, with only 14 per cent successful. For
all batsmen, 19 per cent of bowlers’ reviews are successful (umpire’s
decision overturned). This suggests that Root is such a prized wicket that
bowlers tend to waste speculative reviews in the hope of getting lucky. An historical note: prior to the general adoption of
DRS, there were at least two series where the system was trialled. I had been
aware that it was tested in a Sri Lanka/India series in 2008, but I hadn’t
known until recently that it was also used in a New Zealand/West Indies
series a few months later. ******** Some stats concerning my Test match
score collection. My Test match score collection has been accumulating
for more than 20 years now. Of the first 2500 Tests, about 1650 are now
represented. Most are (copies of) handwritten scores as recorded by scorers
at the matches. Some 79 of them are digital records from sources other than
online sources. Ball by ball records from Cricinfo or other online sources
are not included in these figures, but number an additional 472. Cricinfo began archiving Test match ball-by-ball
texts in April 1999. Of 1441 Tests prior to this, I have ball-by-ball records
for about 1100, thanks to the score collection. About 30 of these are
incomplete, and 30 more (all early matches) were reconstructed from detailed
press reports. ******** Ideas I like for improving T20 cricket
(but we will probably never see) Alas I find myself unmoved by these 400- and even
500-run slogfests in 40 overs. Most of the sixes I saw in the IPL were off
three-quarter-strength strokes or mishits. Too easy. In spite of hundreds and
hundreds of sixes, no hit went more than 110m in the IPL. Ten or fifteen
years ago hits longer than 110m were regular occurrences. Some suggestions to
give bowlers a fighting chance… ·
Forget about Power Plays. Allow five men on the boundary throughout. ·
To score six, a shot must land in the crowd, not just over the rope. A
proper hit should be required. ·
To score four, the ball must cross the boundary – the only criterion.
The position of the fielder is irrelevant. ·
A catch should count even if taken outside the boundary rope, as long
as the fielder first touches the ball before setting foot outside the
boundary. None of these silly juggling tricks. ·
Forget these pointless Impact Players. Why do teams need 12 players in
a 40-over match? ·
If a batter ‘reverses’ his stance, the wide law should not apply, at
all. ******** |
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Back from holiday. I will add more series to my
online scores soon. ******** Hitting a seven and a five in the same Test
innings: Andy Sandham hit a 7 and a 5 in his 325 at Kingston
in 1930. WA Young did the same at Christchurch in 2021-22 (v Bangladesh),
with the shots coming only a few balls apart. Young's 7 was signalled as an 8
by the umpires, but the scorers appear to have (correctly) decided that it
was a 7. The poor bowler Ebadot; a catch was
dropped, they ran 3, and the bowler had to chase the overthrow himself,
unsuccessfully, to the boundary. ******** |
30 May 2024 ‘Diverse’ Overs in Internationals. Apparently in scoring there is a thing called a
‘smudger’, where every ball in an over has a different outcome in terms of
runs scored. Ask Steven talks about this in a recent column: it has
something to do with Mike J Smith (not MJK Smith), who did some scoring after
his playing career and was known as “Smudger”. (According to the internet,
“smudge” is a nickname sometimes attached to people named Smith – Steve Smith
being one such.) In an ODI on 1 Apr 1999 (India v Pakistan, Mohali),
an over by Sehwag included a dot ball, three singles, a single off a no ball
(=2), a '3 wides' delivery, a four, a four off a no ball (=5), and a six. Not
in that order. At Guwahati on 10 Jan 2023, the last over of the
match went 2, 0, 1, 5, 4, 6. Sri Lanka batting against India (Mohammad
Shami). I haven't found any 6-delivery overs in Tests or
ODIs that contained 012345 or 123456, but there are a few with 012346 (not in
order). The following 6-ball overs had shots off the bat for
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 (in any order) West Indies (535) v England Kingston 1935, 117th
over. 046123 West Indies v England Antigua 1986, 37th over,
during Viv Richards record century. 136240 England (400) v West Indies, Chester-le-Street
2007, 75th over. 263410 Australia (401) v England Brisbane 2013/14, 53rd
over. 263401 Australia (369) v England Perth 2013/14, 83rd
over. 6, 2, 0, 4, 5 wides, 1, 0. Australia (370) v NZ, Christchurch 2016, 53rd
over: 6, 3, 1, 2, 0, 4. There are a couple of cases with 12346 (out of
order) but no 0s (two singles). Most remarkable was Mumbai 1951/52, when India hit
4, 0, 1, 2, 3, 8 in the 44th over, 1st innings. ******** |
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10 April 2024 Dropped Catches in Tests: 2023 Compiling of
dropped catch reports has continued into 2023. This dataset stretches back to
2001 for all Tests, and much further back for some selected Tests,
particularly in England. The percentage of chances missed has been decreasing
– i.e., catching is improving – gradually but slowly in this century. Does
the 2023 data add anything new? Overall, 22.3
per cent of chances (catches and stumpings) were missed in 2023, down from
24.4 per cent in 2022. This is the lowest annual miss rate recorded so far,
the previous low being 22.8 per cent in 2018. The most
surprising thing to me is seeing Australia with the worst drop rate of any
country. It’s the first year that this has happened. It seems strange, yet
the impression during the 2023 Ashes was that Australia was dropping a lot of
catches and England doing not much better. Missed Chances (catches and
stumpings) since 2010, by fielding team
Among
individuals, Alastair Cook retains his position as both the leading
beneficiary of dropped catches (78) in the 21st Century and, as a
fielder, the leading perpetrator (81). It must be noted that Cook spent a lot
of time in his early career fielding at short leg, the position with the
highest general drop rate. There has been
some movement in the stats of bowlers. Stuart Broad finished his career with
more dropped catches than anyone else (144). He moved ahead of Jimmy
Anderson, who had 135 at the cutoff date, and has probably registered a few
more so far in 2024. Also still in full stride is Nathan Lyon, also on 135,
and likely to pass Broad at some point. Lyon has seen 28 per cent of chances
missed off his bowling, as against 26
per cent for Broad and 23 per cent for Anderson. For other countries, Ravi
Ashwin on 102 (27%) is the only bowler with more than 100 chances missed. The usual
caveats apply, regarding what and what does not constitute a dropped catch.
On the other hand, the method for searching for instances has been consistent
for more than 20 years. A reminder of
the paper I wrote on the longer history of dropped catches… https://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/droppedcatcharticleACS.pdf Garry Morgan assisted
with the collection of recent data. “2023” Tests include New Year’s Tests in
2024, but exclude New Years Tests from 2023. ******** |
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At Adelaide
in 1968-69, Charlie Griffith (reportedly) had to run in to bowl 19 times to
complete a single over, on the first day. In addition to the eight-ball over,
there were seven calls of no ball, and four other run-ups where Griffith
baulked and did not deliver the ball. This was reported in the
Miller/Whitington tour book; however there is a problem with this report in
that only three no balls were recorded in the day’s scorecard. ******** Australian
players in the 1968-69 series were paid $190 per Test, equivalent to about
$1,500 in 2024 dollars. Current (2024) payments for Australian male players
are more like $20,000 per match; modern players also enjoy substantial
contract retainers and other sources of income (sponsorships etc). ******** |
21 March 2024 Following an enquiry
by a friend, I decided to dive into the Adelaide Test of 1968-69. This was
one of the most remarkable Tests of its time, with Australia falling 21 runs
short in a big run chase but holding on for a draw with 9 wickets down. At
1764 Runs, it is the second-highest-scoring time-limited Test in history,
edged out only by the Rawalpindi Test in 2022 (1768 runs). Australia managed
to score 872 runs in the match with only one century and no century stands.
There were no fewer than 17 scores of more than 50 in the match. That final run
chase was marked by an extraordinary set of run outs, four in all. Three of
them came in two overs, and this followed the “Mankad” of Ian Redpath by
Charlie Griffith earlier in the innings. I can remember
this one, listening to it on the radio as a child. I could hardly stand the
tension: I would walk away for a bit before rushing back to the radio. It
should have been on TV but there had been a cut in transmission to Sydney
after tea. I remember how it odd it was that the match continued so late
(must have been 6:54 in Sydney) because of the new ‘15 overs in the last
hour’ rule. I also remember Dad talking about the Mackay/Kline stand in 1961
but I had been too young to remember it. Adelaide
1968-69: Final Hour Timeline West indies 1st innings 276 Australia 1st innings 533 West indies 2nd innings 616. Australia was set a target of 360 in
a minimum of 344 minutes on the final day. The match was one of the first to
enforce a fixed minimum number of overs in the last hour (15 eight-ball
overs). As such, the final session extended to 6:24 pm local. Lunch score : Australia 106/1 (Lawry
37, Chappell 19) Tea score 217/3 (Chappell 56, Walters
0) (3:40-4:00) At 4:30, Australia was 250/3
(Chappell 75, Walters 14) Timeline of the Last Hour (from 5:00) The new ball had been available at 65
overs but not taken.
Australia still needed 21 runs with
one wicket remaining. The
Timeline is drawn from a variety of reports. It is a ‘best available’
rendering: some reports are not completely consistent. ******** |
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In the
current Test between England and India at Dharamsala, England managed to lose
three wickets AND burn through three reviews, all on the same score (175). In
particular, Brad Stokes' effort, utterly plumb lbw for a duck, will go into
highlight reels for the most blatantly ill-advised reviews. It was the third
time in his career that Stokes has been out for a duck after calling for a
review and failing. The only other recognised batsman with so many failures
of this type is…Jonny Bairstow! ******** |
8 March 2024 In posting
scores from the New Zealand/England series of 2007-08, I noticed how fast and
furious the innings of 77 not out by Tim Southee was. Played at Napier, it
was Southee’s first Test match. The 77, coming in 40 balls,
included a sequence of 15 balls faced where Southee advanced his score from 6
to 57. I had a look for extremes of this type (most runs off 15 balls faced)
and found it was rather dominated by New Zealanders playing at home… Most Runs in the
space of 15 balls faced in Tests
This list is
from the ball-by-ball database, so it may not be complete, but I doubt if
there would be many cases missed. It is a little surprising in the age of Bazball that all bar one of these instances are 10 or
more years old. Southee is now
playing his 100th Test, but has never played another innings
remotely like that debut. ******** More on Chelmsford 1983 Recently (13
Feb) I wrote of the wildly wrong published Balls Faced figures for some early
ODIs in the 70s and 80s. Perhaps the worst was the pivotal ODI between
Australia and India at Chelmsford in the 1983 World Cup, where the total
balls faced did not remotely resemble the total balls bowled. I thought that
there could be little additional information to be found, but Lawrie Colliver
has come up with a partial score for the Indian innings that he recorded off
the radio broadcast. (Lawrie was a teenager at the time, but his score looks
well-recorded.) I have appended
the figures from this score, which covers the first session only, to the
figures found elsewhere. There are columns for 1) the ‘official’ BF
originally published in Frindall 1997, 2) my own estimates based on the Over
numbers of the dismissals, and 3) the exact figures from the newly found
score.
Sharma scored 21 off 45 balls before
lunch in Colliver’s score. * Kapil 29 balls is an exact number,
from newspaper reports The new figures
suggest that my estimates, while not particularly accurate, were reasonably
indicative of the real figures. While there is no precise figure for the
whole innings of Yashpal Sharma, the pre-lunch record shows that the official
figure must be way off. Sharma did not bat rapidly after lunch and was out
after Kapil, contrary to the published record. ******** |
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24 February 2024 On Historical Trends in Missed Chances in Tests As a matter of interest,
I have posted an article of mine recently published in The Statistician, on
the subject of historical trends in dropped catches in Tests. The conclusion
seems to be that catching standards have improved over generations, but
probably not as much as many modern commentators frequently claim. There has
been evolution not revolution. https://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/droppedcatcharticleACS.pdf I would like to
think that this study breaks new ground. ********
This lists the earliest in an innings that a batsman
reached 100, not the balls faced by the batsman. Warner at Perth reached his
century off the fourth ball of the 20th over. The list is
dominated by modern Tests with ‘soft’ six-hitting. Data is missing for many
early Tests, but there are no likely candidates among these. Joe Darling took
about 32 overs to reach 100 at the SCG in 1897-98. Gavaskar took 35 overs at
Delhi in 1983-84. Wides and no
balls are not included. Thanks to Shahzad for the data on Majid Khan. I have added
this list to the Unusual Records section. ******** |
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Thanks to
reader Ben who alerted me to a problem with umpire names in my Test
scorecards. Most Tests from mid-2006 to mid-2007 reported the wrong umpires,
due to a compiling error. I believe that they have all been corrected now.
Umpires’ names in the ball-by-ball files were correct. ******** |
13 February 2024 More questions on old ODI stats A contact (Michael)
has pointed out the poor state of the scorecard of the important India v
Australia ODI at Chelmsford on 20 June 1983 (ODI# 217 or 219). The 'official'
balls faced could only be described as nonsense, to the extent that Cricket
Archive has deleted this data from the scorecard and appended a note
explaining why (total balls faced in either innings fall way short of the
number of balls bowled). The data is still up on Cricinfo, however. https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/43/43649.html The match is
especially important because if India had lost, there would have been no 1983
World Cup victory and subsequent Indian cricket history would have rather
different! I have uploaded
a few notes on this match, and others, including my estimates of balls faced. https://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Unfortunately.pdf (UPDATE: see 8 March) ******** Jasprit Bumrah has now taken more than 150 Test wickets at an
average of 20.28. He joins a select bunch who have recorded such a combination. Bowlers whose Test
averages dropped below 20.30 mid-career (minimum 150 wickets)
The table shows bowlers
who, at least one point of their career, had more than 150 wickets and a
bowling average better than 20.30. None of these bowlers except Barnes
finished their career with such an average. Waqar Younis held on to this
average the longest: 11 matches and 45 wickets. Shaun Pollock averaged better
than 20.3 at three points of his 150+ career. But perhaps the most impressive
is Malcolm Marshall, who at one point had 286 wickets at 20.29. ******** When one partnership
outscored the entire opposition (in a completed Test)
(Another
qualification: everyone in the losing team batted.) ******** |
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There was quite
the controversy at The Oval in the final Ashes Test in 2023 when a ball was
changed after 36 overs, and the replacement ball had completely different
bounce and swing properties to the old one. In fact, this ball was so helpful
to bowlers that no new ball was taken after 80 overs. The innings lasted 94.4
overs without the fielding side requesting a new ball, the longest such
innings in the last 200 Test matches (since Afghanistan took no new ball in
104.5 overs at Bangalore in 2018). Nowadays
almost all teams take a new ball within a couple of overs of it becoming
available. There were only three cases of a second new ball taken later than
95 overs in 2023. ******** The
record-rich stats of the South Africa v India Test at Cape Town have been
reported in detail at various websites. I was pleased to see, though, that
Charles Bannerman’s 1877 records still hold, although given a good shake by
Aiden Markram’s 106 out of 176 in South Africa’s second innings. Next highest score was Dean
Elgar’s 12. Markram's ratio of 8.83 (106/12) between top score and second-top
score is second all-time to Bannerman's ratio of 9.17 (165/18). I would add
that the six wicket in eleven balls collapse by India was by far the fastest
such collapse in Tests, as reported elsewhere. It was also reported that the
previous record was six wickets in 27 balls, but this overlooked the six
wickets in 23 balls way back in the original 1882 Ashes Test (England’s
second innings). ******** Shamar
Joseph’s dismissal of Steve Smith with his first ball in Test cricket got me
looking at the batsmen who have been dismissed in such circumstances. Nearly
all such batsmen have made low scores – this because a bowler’s first ball
will likely be early in an innings – with the highest being 26 by Marvan
Atapattu when he was dismissed by Nilesh Kulkarni in 1997 (Sri Lanka went on
to make 952 with Kulkarni finishing with 1 for 175.) The batsman
with the highest average on the list is Eddie Paynter on 59.2. He was
dismissed by HD Smith’s first ball in 1933 in New Zealand. However, Paynter’s
average was only 43 at the time. Steve Smith’s average of 58 at Adelaide is
the highest ‘active’ average of batsmen falling in this way. Note that
Kumar Sangakkara is on the list; he was memorably dismissed by Nathan Lyon’s
first ball. Sangakkara finished with an average of 57.5 and was averaging
over 55 at the time. Steve Smith’s average is at some risk of dropping below
Sangakkara’s 57.5 before long. ******** |
22 January 2024 Warner bows out David Warner it
seems had two parallel careers in Tests, a brilliant career at home and a
much inferior career elsewhere. His great home record, it seems, repeatedly
came to the aid of Warner being selected for tour after tour where he
underperformed. I don't know of any non-captain who was so coddled and
protected by selectors for so long. His supporters in Australia are probably
little aware of how bad his stats away from home have been. In his last 12
Test tours from 2015, Warner scored exactly two centuries, and both of those
were in Bangladesh more than six years ago. On those 12 tours he batted 74
times and averaged 28. After the Bangladesh centuries he averaged 22.7 with a
highest score of 68 in 41 innings. In the 2019 Ashes he scored 95 runs in ten
innings, but it was Usman Khawaja who was dropped. Warner’s 2019 stats are
the worst ever by an opener in a five-Test series. By contrast,
Khawaja since his return in 2022 has scored four centuries and a couple of
90s on tour, and averaged 59, with nine scores higher than Warner's 68. Here are the
most extreme contrasts between home and away performance for batsmen with
more than 5000 Test runs.
The bar of 5000
runs is quite high, but there are now more than 100 batsmen who qualify.
Among other current batsmen, Rohit Sharma (3737 runs) has a ratio of 2.00,
but he will have future opportunities to correct that imbalance. ********** Where Chances
are Missed; Comparing Formats Here is some
data comparing the distribution of dropped catches between formats. The raw
data for this chart was supplied by a third party; I don’t record missed
chances in ODIs or T20 myself. The chart
compares dropped chances by fielding position; not surprisingly, there are
significant difference between Test and the shorter formats.
The percentages
are relative to the total dropped catches in that format, so the bars in each
colour will add up to 100 per cent. Attacking
fielding position like slips and short leg see a lot more misses in Test than
limited overs, as one would expect. By contrast, the ‘permanent’ positions of
bowler and keeper are quite similar across the formats. It is curious to
see far more chances going to third man and fine leg in T20 than in ODI; I
suppose that ramp shots must be used much more in the former. The difference
between misses at mid-on and midwicket in T20 is a bit of a mystery; it
should be remembered that this data depends on the accuracy of ball-by-ball
descriptions. If I have
calculated correctly, the percentage of chances dropped are similar in Tests
and ODIs, about 23 per cent and 22 per cent respectively. The T20 data used
in the above chart is rather patchy and I haven’t attempted to calculate an
overall percentage for that format. Shortly, I will
be preparing a report of missed catches in Tests in 2023, from my own data. ******** |
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