For sportstats home page, and info
in Test Cricket in Australia 1877-2002, click here
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Z-score’s Cricket Stats Blog The
longest-running cricket stats blog on the Web For comments, or to
contact Charles Davis, zscore334 at iinet.net.au (no
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Charles Davis: Statistician of the Year (Association of Cricket
Statisticians and Historians)
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Click
on the Date to go to that Blog Entry… |
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The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1970s have now been
posted. More than two-thirds of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage;
virtually all others offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything previously
made available online. The starting page is here. An information
page outlining this database is
here. A Bonus Page: some remarkable first-class
innings, re-scored. NEW: Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1877 to 1970. |
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In
an ODI at Edgbaston in 1991, England, set 174 to win in 55 overs, reached the
target in 49.4 overs to win by one wicket, with opener Mike Atherton still at
the crease on 69*. The West Indies, though, had been called for no less than
39 no balls and wides, and had thus bowled the equivalent of 55+ overs
anyway. Without all the extra runs, England would have been nowhere near
victory. ******** In
2015, New Zealand went 147 overs (513 runs) without losing a wicket in 2
consecutive partnerships, but in different series (v Sri Lanka and England).
The time, 630 minutes, was greater than the Turner/Jarvis partnership of 540
minutes, but shorter than the Jayasuriya/Mahanama partnership of 1997 (753 minutes). ******** At
the Oval in 1952, Len Hutton was the beneficiary of eight overthrows in the
space of two overs bowled by GS Ramchand on the
first morning. There was a ‘six’ (two runs + four overthrows) in one over and
a five in the next (1+4). Without
them, England would have scored only 48 runs off 42 overs before lunch. David
Sheppard was only 20 at lunch, and after lunch hit his first boundary after
facing 180 balls. ******** |
2 March 2019 I
am posting an article that I submitted to The
Cricket Statistician last year. They haven’t fit to publish it yet (these
things take time) but these days I no longer have the necessary patience to
wait. It is on the subject of Victor Trumper’s
famous 335 at Redfern Oval in 1903. A ball-by-ball
record of the innings is here. I
hope that readers find it interesting. I think it is an interesting subject.
For those who would like more info there is a recent booklet on the innings
by Caitlin and Cardwell. Roger Page Cricket Books should have it. ******** In
the current Dunedin Test (NZ v Ban), there were 327 runs scored before the
first extra (sundry). The most runs before first extra that I know of is 400
at Joburg 1957-58 (4th Test) by
Australia. That extra (a leg bye) came after tea on the second day with the
equivalent of 198 six-ball overs having been bowled. However, there had been
two no balls that were scored from (did not count as extras in those days). The
most consecutive runs without an extra (where known) is
471 runs at Mumbai 2012-13: India's last 173 runs and England's first 298 in
the first innings. 157 overs. The second day was free of extras. This sort of
thing is a bit more likely recently than before, given the 'decline' in no
balls. ******** |
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Taking
wickets in the first over of a Test. Irfan Pathan
(Karachi 2006) is the only one with three. I know of five cases of two J
Srinath Ind v Aus (2), Kolkata 1997/98 J
Srinath Ind v NZ (2), Hamilton 1998/99 CL
Cairns NZ v Eng
(1), Christchurch 2001/02 SCJ
Broad Eng v Aus (4), Nottingham (Trent Bridge) 2015 ST
Gabriel WI v Pak (3), Sharjah 2016/17 There
were two wickets in the first over of the Adelaide Test of 2010-11 (Anderson
bowling) but one was a run out. Curious
that there do not seem to be any cases before 1997. ******** Two bowlers only in the first 20
overs of an ODI innings. There are gaps in the early data, so there
could be more. GD
McGrath/AC Dale Aus v SL, Adelaide Oval 24-Jan-1999 J
Srinath/BKV Prasad Ind v Aus, Sydney 14-Jan-2000 Waqar
Younis/Fazl-e-Akbar Pak v
Eng, Leeds 17-Jun-2001 AR
Caddick/JM Anderson Eng v
Aus, Adelaide Oval 19-Jan-2003 JN
Gillespie/MS Kasprowicz Aus
v Zim, Harare 29-May-2004 KAD
Hurdle/S Mukuddem Ber v
Ned, Benoni 2-Dec-2006 Seems
to have gone out of fashion. |
29 January 2019 I
am busy with non-cricket related work at the moment, but here are a few items
presented briefly. Most
minutes batted in a series of 4 Tests (or fewer) : 1869
min CA Pujara (521 runs) in Aus
2018-19 1861
Min R Dravid (602 runs) in Eng
2002 1814
RB Richardson (619 runs) WI v Ind 1988-89 No
wonder I was getting a little tired of watching Mr Pujara. ******** Here
is an addendum to my list of five
wickets in fewest balls in Tests. These are the instances since 2016. 2018 Update
*Boult took six wickets in 15
balls. ******* It
occurred to me that it might be interesting to compile official batting rankings
of Test batsmen in terms of Median rather than Average ranking. (Average can
be unduly affected by low ranking early in a career). The following list is
based on a download of month-by-month ICC batting rankings since 1955 (for
completeness I included Sobers’ rankings for 1954 as well). Players with
substantial careers before 1955 are not included. I have added a column to
show how many competitive countries were active at the time of a career.
Sobers gets a 6.5 because although South Africa was active at the time, it
was playing only a limited number of Tests against just a few countries.
Richards gets a 6.5 because Sri Lanka were only
playing for part of Richards’ career; in fact West Indies did not play Sri
Lanka until 1993, after Richards retired. Sobers
median of 1.5 means that he was ranked #1 almost the same number of times as
all other rankings put together. Tendulkar’s figure of 7 means that he was
inside the top 7 about as many times as he was outside the top 7.
******** Jason
Gillespie’s double-century against Bangladesh in 2006 remains one of the
strangest ever played. It keeps cropping up unexpectedly when records are
calculated. Here is a list of notable records, related to this 201*… - Highest score by a
nightwatchman - Career average batting
position of 8.8, lowest position by a double-century scorer. - Only player to be dropped
from his team after winning a man of the match award and never play another
Test. (current active careers excluded) - Only batsman to bat on
four days of a Test in a single innings, for a winning side. - Averaged 231.0 in Tests
in calendar year 2006, highest for a calendar year since Bradman in 1932. - Series batting average of
231 and bowling average of 11.3 unsurpassed combination (minimum 8 wickets). - Only batsman to score a
double-century the only time he batted at #3. - Only Australian with a
top score more than 10 times his batting average. Wasim
Akram the only one from other countries. - Tallest batsman to score
a Test double-century (since broken). - Partnership of 320 with
Mike Hussey was the only time they batted in partnership. Highest since
Hutton/Leyland in 1938. - Gillespie is the only
player in history (at that time) whose only first-class century is a Test
double-century. - Gillespie made his first
Test century in his 92nd innings, the longest wait for any player (since
broken) I
have tried to focus on records that could theoretically be broken in any
Test. There would be many other records of more specific type
(team/country/ground). |
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I
have reached a milestone in the re-scoring of ODI scores prior to the ‘Cricinfo era’, into ball-by-ball form. In 2016-2017, I
rescored matches from 1985 to 1999; I then went back to the beginning and
have now finished the matches from 1971 to 1985. I have not actually
finished, though, since I have collected about 60 additional scores this
year, and I will have to tackle those before long. Overall, the project will
produce ball-by-ball records of about 750 of the first 1400 ODIs. There are
prospects for obtaining a significant number of additional scores; but there
will still be hundreds of matches for which complete records cannot be found. I
also have obtained about 15 scores that Cricinfo
did not cover after 1999. In the early years, Cricinfo’s
ball-by-ball coverages was somewhat incomplete. ******** |
1 January 2019 The Greatest Umpiring Blunder? One
of the most exciting Tests of its era was the Bombay Test of 1948-49, which
ended with India eight down and needing another six runs, with the umpire
erroneously calling stumps early on the fifth ball of an over. I had
understood, based on newspapers reports at the time (Times of India, and
Calcutta Statesman) that this was the extent of the error, but when
discussing this, Ashru Mitra
pointed out evidence that it was worse than this, and that an additional over
should also have been bowled. I
have now found some more evidence supporting Ashru
on this one. It is from an article by
Berry Sarbadhikary, published in a book in
1975 (India v West Indies Tests) but probably written much earlier. I
borrowed this rather rare book from Roger Page's inestimable collection. Sarbadhikary was a radio
commentator at the time and was well placed to know exactly what was going
on. He states that there was more than a minute remaining and the extra over
should have been bowled; he goes into some detail. The
only difficulty I have with this is understanding
how Sarbadhikary can quote his own spoken
commentary verbatim in such detail. He does not explicitly say that he has a
recording. Was Indian radio really recording its broadcasts as early as 1949? One
inconsistency is that Phadkar is described as
facing the last ball when other sources say it was Ghulam Ahmed. It
even appears possible that the umpire (AR Joshi, in fact) may have been
tricked by Stollmeyer ‘swooping’ to seize the
stumps as though the match was over. Maybe this caused Joshi to panic and
call stumps. In any case, this may be the worst umpiring error in Test
history. Although
two wickets were in hand, the last man, P Sen, had a broken arm. He was
reportedly ready to bat with his arm in a sling. I
have updated my online scores to reflect this new information. ******** Bowlers Taking 4 wickets for 0 run in
7, 8, or 9 balls This
is an addendum to a list from 24 October 2018, on the subject of bowlers who
took four wickets in very few balls.
Many
of these instances involve the bowler running through the tail. Cummins is
the first bowler in Tests to take the first four wickets of an innings for no
runs in the space of fewer than 10 balls. ******** Days where the only wicket was a run
out When
Sri Lanka recently batted through a day without loss of a wicket, various
lists appeared of such instances. Here is an addition: complete days’ play
where no wickets fell to bowlers, but a run out occurred.
In
the Colombo Test of 1985-86, India dropped seven catches during the day. ******** Most Time spent on Field in a Test
(Minutes) I
don’t think I have ever put up a list like this, combining batting and
fielding time. The list excludes Timeless Tests. If the Durban Timeless Test
of 1939 is included, it would take the top three positions, led by PGV van
der Bijl on 1936 minutes.
The
list assumes that the player fielded throughout the opposition’s innings. In
most cases, I have no way of confirming if this is true. The list is
dominated by recent performances because the addition of extra time at the
end of a day (due to slow over rates) has become quite standard. ******** |
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The
English team that toured Australia in 1884-85 under the management of Alfred
Shaw went through the whole five-Test series unchanged. In fact, the team was
unchanged in every first-class match on tour. There
was a simple reason for this: there were only eleven players touring. As a
former Test player, Shaw was on hand to fill in, but he only played in minor
games, as did assistant manager James Lillywhite. Robert
Peel (reportedly) managed to take no fewer than 356 wickets on tour, thanks
in no small part to the number of games against odds
of teams up to 22. Peel took 18 for 7 in one innings against Moss Vale. For
comparison, bear in mind that the most wickets in a first-class Australian
season is 106 by CTB Turner (if my old record book is still correct). ******** |
15 December 2018 Here
is a trend that will become a bit of a worry if it continues: the last 12
Tests have all been won by the team winning the toss and choosing to bat. Of
the last 22 Tests, only two have been won by the side batting second, or the
side losing the toss. There has been one draw, and 19 wins to the side
batting first. In
the last 38 Tests, the highest score by a team batting second is 427, with a
batting average of 22.2. ******** Updated
list of no ball ‘dismissals’ beginning in 2001 and including Adelaide Test.
Bear
in mind that this relies on Cricinfo ball-by-ball
texts, and my ability to search them. There are some cases of ‘lbw off no ball’
which require a measure of judgement, including the most recent at Adelaide. It
appears that the % of no balls that are attached to ‘dismissals’ is
increasing. This is because umpires are ignoring a lot of no balls when a
dismissal does not occur. I think that this is a bad thing. One day a match
will hinge on this. It may well have at Abu Dhabi or even Adelaide – who
knows? ******** I
wouldn't go so far as to call them unsung heroes, but in international
cricket, the scorers must be the most unsung officials. This came home to me
when I tried to google for information on Geoffrey Saulez,
who scored a great number of Tests all over the world from the 1970s to the
90s. Very little of any substance turned up. A search of London Times from
1970 to 2009 turned up one – single-line – mention. I
was interested in finding a list of Tests that Saulez
(whose name I don't even know how to pronounce) scored, but I doubt if there
is one. My interest was piqued when I found a note that Saulez
had scored some of the 1971-72 New Zealand tour of the West Indies. He scored
India's tour of Sri Lanka in 1985-86 and many other 'exotic' Tests. Saulez would go
anywhere, at his own expense, to score Tests. The 'at his own expense' bit
was the key to his popularity with touring teams. He was 'official' scorer
for England many times, but always had to pay his own way. John
Kobylecky is one of the very few who have collected old Test match scores. He
told me that he corresponded with Saulez before the
latter's death in 2008, and obtained a few scores. It appeared that Saulez had kept copies of many others. When Saulez died, John heard about it and urgently called the
family, to make sure nothing was thrown out before statisticians could have a
look at Saulez's papers. However, when he was able
to go visit, John found that all the papers and old scores had been thrown
away anyway. This
was a huge and irreplaceable loss to cricket statistics. There must have been
dozens of Test scores of his that are now on the 'lost forever' list. Anyway,
if anyone knows of other info on Saulez, (apart
from his Wisden obituary), let me know. I presume there is some stuff in
various tour books. I
do wonder, though, if Saulez devalued the craft and
importance of scoring by doing it all for free (and at great personal
expense). Mind you, I post all this for free too so perhaps I am not one to
talk. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played first-class
cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in 1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers: Even though this was
introduced in October 1983, the ODIs in New Zealand in February 1984 (the
Rothman’s series against England) used the old counting system. The runs
conceded by some bowlers in this series remain technically incorrect to this
day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before
Gooch recovered. Morris then flew home, apparently flying right around the
world. It wasn’t much of a ‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of
playing at the Bradman Oval in Bowral. ******** |
29 November 2018 Test Matches of the 1970s I
have begun posting detailed scores of Test matches in the 1970s as part of
the Test Match Database Project. Ball-by-ball
records for the 1970s are actually more limited than for the 1960s (67% vs
77%), largely because of increasing numbers of Tests outside the
‘England/Australia’ axis. Keeping of official records in India, Pakistan and
West Indies during this decade was practically non-existent. Another factor
was South Africa dropping out of Test cricket. On the other hand, scores
exist for all of England’s Tests home and away, and
all Tests in Australia bar one, plus some of Australia’s tours. However,
published scores began to show more detail in this decade. Balls faced for
some major innings can still be found even where original scorebooks are
lost. Overall, about 78% of innings in the 1970s (on a runs scored basis)
have balls faced figures, a figure comparable to the 1960s. ******** A Long-Time Record Examined The
partnership of 577 by Vijay Hazare and Gul Mahomed,
for Baroda v Holkar in 1947, stood as the highest
in first-class cricket for almost 60 years. It remains the highest for the
fourth wicket. However, apart from these bare statistics, not much has ever
been said about this stand. I have gleaned a little more on this; however,
information is limited – it was a long time ago, in a non-international, and
outside the major cricket centres. The
match was the final of the Ranji Trophy, and was
played to a finish without a rest day. Timeless cricket had been discontinued
in Australia and elsewhere by this time, so by 1947 such matches were
unusual. The playing hours appear to have been five hours per day (2+2+1,
starting at 11 am) but even this is not completely certain. Holkar was bowled
out just after tea on the first day for 202 in 248 minutes, and by stumps
Baroda was 16/0 off 11 overs. Next morning, Baroda scored slowly until Adhikari was out at 91/3, 7 minutes before lunch. The
fourth-wicket partnership then extended until the first session of the fourth
day. The known intervals are as follows:-
Gul
Mahommad was the more aggressive and his 319 was
scored entirely within the one partnership. He reached 200 in 302 minutes,
300 in 505, and 319 in 533. Hazare was more
circumspect: he reached 100 in 268 minutes and was out at 746/8 for 288 in
628 minutes. All
these figures are from newspapers or other publications. They cannot be
regarded as ironclad. However, there is some internal consistency in the time
figures for Gul Mohammad. There
is a specific puzzle in the number of overs per day: 108 on Day 2 but only 86
on Day 3, while 85 overs were bowled before tea on Day 4. The Day 3 figure
seems too low to be explained by tiring bowling alone. No delays are
mentioned in the available sources. However, a delay, probably before lunch
on Day 3, is necessary to explain the low over count and Gul Mohammad’s
batting times. Mohammad was only 171 at lunch on Day 3, by which time he
should have been batting over 5 hours, in conflict
with his reported 200 in 302 minutes. The reports describe Mohammad batting
with great aggression before lunch on Day 3, yet he scored only 57 runs. A
shortened session seems the best explanation. Estimated
number of overs for the partnership: 65 on Day 2, 86 on Day 3, and 25 on Day
4. At about 1050 balls, this makes the partnership shorter than the longest
stands in Test matches, led by 1152 balls of the Turner/ Jarvis stand at
Georgetown in 1972. The 577 may well be the longest stand outside Test
cricket, however. This
is an incomplete study. Any help from readers would be appreciated. ******** Highest Scores with no Boundaries in ODIs The
record is attributed to Adam Parore in making 96 at Baroda in 1994-95. I have
no reason to doubt this, but I have a couple of corrections to other innings
high on this list.
The
Barnett and Haynes innings are given as boundary-free by online scorecards,
but this is contradicted by surviving scores. It is conceivable, perhaps,
that the fours were all-run, but I very much doubt
it. It
reminds me of the 84 by Bill Lawry in a Test match at Brisbane in 1970. For
years this was identified as the highest boundary-free innings in a Test
match, but it all went back to a typing error in a magazine scorecard,
carelessly repeated in a RS Whitington tour book.
Lawry actually hit 9 fours. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played
first-class cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in
1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers:Even though this was introduced in October 1983,
the ODIs in New Zealand in February 1984 (the Rothman’s series against
England) used the old counting system. The runs conceded by some bowlers in
this series remain technically incorrect to this day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before
Gooch recovered. Morris then flew home, apparently flying right around the
world. It wasn’t much of a ‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of
playing at the Bradman Oval in Bowral. ******** |
14 November 2018 Most balls bowled before conceding
first run in Tests
UPDATE:
Sreeram tells me that Wisden reports ‘Tufty’ Mann,
at Trent Bridge in 1947, starting his career with eight maidens. I don’t have
this scorebook, and don’t know the exact number of balls before the first
run. The
available data covers only about 80% of Tests. Tony Dell was an England-born
fast-medium bowler who played only two Tests. I
only have data for about two-thirds of bowlers in ODIs, but I found that over
100 bowlers have bowled a maiden as their first over. More than 15 have
bowled two maidens to start. Not many famous names, the most recent being
Kane Richardson of Australia. I
found only two bowlers who started with three maidens. Asad
Ali, who played just four ODIs for Pakistan, did so against Ireland. The
other was none other than Garry Sobers, who played only one ODI (and made a
duck), in 1973, opening the bowling in West Indies’ first ever ODI. Sobers'
first 21 balls were scoreless, one more than Asad
Ali. Who would have thought that Sobers held an ODI record! ******** Here's
a strange one. There are two unrelated players in international cricket named
HMCM Bandara, one male and one female. It is
strange enough, perhaps unique, that two players would share a surname and
all four initials, but I also found (a week ago) that the woman (Chamika Bandara) was also
listed as playing in Mens’ List A matches.
According to Cricket Archive, she played 5 matches for a team called "Neganahira and Uthura" in
2012/13. I
wondered whether this was the only case of a woman playing in Mens’ senior cricket, but it turns out it was an error on
Cricket Archive’s part, and this has now been corrected. The player in those Mens’ matches is now identified as Malinga
Bandara. I
note that that this Neganahira and Uthura team has played no senior cricket apart from those
five List A games. Such is the strange state of Sri Lankan domestic cricket. ******** Most
first-class wickets in a calendar year
Tich Freeman took
over 250 wickets in a season in England six times. These old records will
never be broken. The most in the last 20 years are…
******** |
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The
counting of no balls and wides against bowlers’ runs conceded commenced in
1983-84 (October). Curiously, official scoresheets of the 1983-84 season in Australia continued to use the old counting
system. Wisden, however, published the scores using the revised counting, as
they appear in current ‘official’ online scores. ******** Victor
Trumper scored 178 in his 178th first-class
innings. ******** They
made hat-tricks with every hat-trick ball they bowled in Tests: TJ Matthews
(2), PJ Loader (1), PJ Petherick (1). Murali bowled 17 hat-trick balls in Tests
without success. ******** At
Windsor Park in 2017, Mohammad Abbas bowled a hat-trick ball (to AS Joseph)
and faced a hat-trick ball (bowled by JO Holder). Neither resulted in a
hat-trick. The
same happened to Brad Stokes at Lord’s later that year. Keiran
Powell was the batsman facing Stokes, and Jason Holder, once again, was the
bowler. ******** |
One of the most freakish innings in the early years of ODIs came from
Lance Cairns. It was at the MCG in February 1983 where Cairns scored 52 off
25 balls against Australia. Cairns hit one 4 and six 6s; his 50 off 21 balls
was the fastest of its time (see entry for 19 May 2018). A re-score has now
been done and gives Cairns the following sequence 00146066602166000021311W The sixes were hit on the full-size MCG with no boundary ropes, long
before the age of ‘superbats’. Cairns reached 44
off 14 balls, which would still rival the fastest first 14 balls in any ODI.
I did find one (and only one) innings that was faster out of the gate: Martin
Guptill reached 46 off 12 balls against Sri Lanka
at Christchurch on 28 Dec 2015. Cairn’s innings was in a very much lost cause. He came in when New
Zealand was 45/6 off 18.3 overs chasing 302 (regarded as a near-impossible
target in those days; in fact it was only the second time that a team had
scored 300+ in a 50-over ODI) and New Zealand was thrashed by 149 runs. ******** Scoring Test centuries in the same innings: a curious result
I might have expected to see Adam Gilchrist on this list. ******** Lyon joins a short list, four wickets in six balls Nathan Lyon tour four wickets before lunch on the first day in the Abu
Dhabi Test. The last time a spinner took four wickets before lunch on the
first day was also in the UAE for Australia v Pakistan, Shane Warne in 2002,
in the match where Pakistan scored 59 and 53.
* Probable Roach, like Lyon, took his sequence in the first session of the match.
He conceded 2 runs off the last ball of the over. Perhaps that was too
expensive, because he did not bowl again in the match, finishing with
5-1-8-5. Andy Caddick took four wickets in an over in
2000, but thanks to a no ball it was four wickets in seven deliveries. ******** |
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The
‘explosion’ of List A cricket: 150 List A matches were played in England in
1969, more than all previous seasons in all countries combined (1963-1968). Numbers
continued to rise, towards 200 per English season in the late 1970s. ******** An
old ODI score (made by Irving Rosenwater, copy
supplied by Andrew Samson) has recently been obtained, from the MCG on 9 Dec
1979 – the one where Viv Richards scored 153*. It records an all-run five,
apparently without overthrows. It is annotated as “all-run m/wkt”, referring to midwicket. It was hit by Desmond
Haynes off Dennis Lillee in the 7th
over. I
haven’t come across any all-run fives without overthrows in an ODI before.
Midwicket/ square of the wicket at the MCG is one of
the few places where such a hit would be possible. UPDATE:
of course I was forgetting the five + run out at the MCG in the previous
season (DL Bairstow). It appears from descriptions
that there were no overthrows involved. ******** Twelve
players batted in Leicestershire’s first innings against Kent in August. One
batsman, ZJ Chappell, retired hurt, and apparently was given a full
substitute under a ‘concussion rule’. The substitute was Dieter Klein, who
was permitted to bat and bowl. Chappell took no further part in the match. Full
substitutes are not uncommon in modern f-c cricket, but allowing them to bat
in the same innings as the player they are replacing is, I am sure, quite
unusual. ******** For
decades praise has been heaped on the 1948 Australian touring team to
England, for going through the tour undefeated; they became “The Invincibles”. Far
less well-known is the fact that in the following year, the touring New
Zealanders lost only once on an entire tour of England, out of 39 matches,
and were undefeated in both the Tests and all the county games. Perhaps this
speaks volumes of the strength of English bowling after the War. When New
Zealand toured England in 1958, things were dramatically different,
disastrously so for the New Zealanders. ******** Mohammad
Shahzad reached his century when Afghanistan had
only 131 runs on the board in an ODI against India on the 25th of
September. This was described as a record, but was actually one run shy of
the 100 out of 130 by Dennis Amiss in 1973, in only the 6th ODI
ever played. Shahzad did have 103 out of the 131 runs, so he had a
higher percentage of the runs than Amiss. |
29
September 2018
Following
up on earlier posts, a small compilation of the youngest official Test
scorers, where known Mark
Kerly (16), Auckland in 1977-78. Scott
Sinclair (16), Dunedin 1979-80. (Sinclair
was just 8 days older than Kerly had been when he
scored his first Test.) Alison
Margaret Hall (19) Auckland 1930 Sydney
James Southerton (19), 1893 Tests H/T
to Sreeram for the Southerton
info. Southerton was an Englishman and the son of
the James Southerton who had played in the first
Test in 1877, aged 49. As young man, Sydney worked on the ship that carried
the 1893 Australia touring team to Britain. He seems to have talked tour
manager Victor Cohen into appointing him as scorer/assistant for the team. It
was the start of an impressive career as journalist and writer: Southerton eventually became editor of Wisden in 1933, but died in 1935. Earlier
information that Ninion Batchelor was a scorer on
the 1893 tour needs to be corrected. That information was always tenuous.
Batchelor did act as scorer on the 1890 tour, though. For
Tests in Australia, there are no known scorers younger than age 26. E.C
Weller, who was a scorer in 1881-82, was 26 years and 3 months. ******** I
have recently been surveying List A matches as held by Cricket Archive,
trying to get the numbering straight in my system. One thing that has really
surprised me is the number of matches for which scores are very incomplete or
absent altogether. I haven’t been counting but there may be hundreds of such
matches. All the ones I have seen are from Pakistan or Sri Lanka in the 1980s
and (particularly) the 1990s. There are even matches where only one team name
is known, such as “Multan v not known” on 10 Mar 1985 (CA# a4340).
Practically no other details are recorded for that match. A
good deal of the missing Sri Lanka data seems to come from the time of civil
War in that country. It does mean that career data for players from that time
is very incomplete. The assessment of what was, and what was not, a List A
match in those days seems to be rather haphazard. ******** Some
recent progress in finding old scores for internationals and other matches: · I was able to get permission to copy Bill Frindall's ODI scores kept at Lord's. (Researchers could
access the scores but could not copy them for copyright reasons.) Getting
permission involved a chain of four contacts passing on my request to Debbie Frindall (who held copyright), but once I finally was
able to get in contact, Mrs Frindall kindly gave
permission. By good fortune, Andrew Samson was just about to visit Lord’s,
and he was able to copy about 30 ODI scores. · In his younger days, Lawrie Colliver in South
Australia scored the 1987 World Cup Final from a TV broadcast, and he has
sent me a copy of his score. Apparently South Australia was the only state to
broadcast the entire match. I now have all World Cup finals ball-by-ball. No
official score for that 1987 match has been found in Australian, English or
Indian archives. · Lawrie also has sent me scores of various other
ODIs and Tests that he scored off TV in the 80s and 90s. A true enthusiast! · Ronald Cardwell has sent me a copy of an original
score of Victor Trumper’s famous 335 in Sydney in
1903. Although the score is difficult to decipher, I have managed to re-score
the innings. I will report on this later. · Jamie Bell in New Zealand sent me scores from
some ODIs in New Zealand in 2000 that had no online ball-by-ball coverage. Cricinfo was doing bbb by then,
but their coverage was patchy in the early days and they missed a number of
early ODIs in New Zealand (and one Test). They also missed a few ODIs in
Australia, which I have also obtained elsewhere. · I have now obtained scores or ball-by-ball
records of all bar five of the 617 ODIs played in Australia since 1971. |
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Keith Stackpole
made a pair of ducks in his last Test match in 1974 (Eden Park). He was out
to the first ball of the match, to a waist-high full toss from Richard Hadlee, (a height that might be called a no ball today). Stackpole ‘had a go’ at it but edged it to John Parker at
slip, who surprised many onlookers by taking a good catch. I am told by
Francis Payne that Parker dropped as many catches as he took at slip. Francis also tells me that the crowd
on the final day in this Test was 34,000, which remains the highest in any
New Zealand Test. ******** Possibly (probably?) the last pre-War
player to play List A cricket was Bill Edrich. Edrich’s last innings, at age 54, was at Lord’s (in a
Gillette Cup match) in 1970, 36 years after his first-class debut. He scored
36, and his innings finished with 22 runs off six balls (2,4,6,0,4,6,W).
(H/T Sreeram) ******** It has been noted by others, but
worth noting again: Eric Tindall of New Zealand, who died in 2010, just
months before his 100th birthday, was a dual international in
Rugby and cricket both as a player and as a referee/umpire. ******** |
5 September 2018
Bowlers taking wickets with the
last ball of a session and the first ball of the next. This
list, drawn from the ball-by-ball database, is probably not complete. The
data includes wickets with the last ball of the day and first ball of the
next day.
The
shortness of this list highlights the astonishing coincidence of Mohammed Shami doing it twice in one match. Rabada
is the only other bowler to do it more than once in a career. It
has become more common. I get the impression that umpires are more inclined
to call a halt when a wicket falls in the last over of a session than they
used to, although when tried to look at this statistically, the data was
inconclusive. There has been a change in the rule in recent years; when a
wicket falls within three minutes of an interval, there is no more play. The
limit used to be less than that. In
200 Tests from 1998 to 2002, there were 211 sessions (out of 2200) that ended
with a wicket on the last ball. In the last 200 Tests, there have been 265
such sessions out of 2400. ******** I
have been fortunate to receive a complete set of copies of Bill Ferguson’s
scores of the Ashes Tests of 1926. For a long time, the whereabouts of this
scorebook was unknown. Other scores from this series were known, but they
were sometimes in poor condition, with many errors (particularly the historic
final Test). The new material has allowed me to make greatly improved
ball-by-ball records of this series. The
updated series link is here. This
means that all of Fergie’s Ashes scores (1905-1953) have been located, with
the exception of 1912. Fergie scored all of the Ashes Test in this period,
with the exception of the 1907-08 series. ******** |
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At the first-ever Limited Overs
match, between Lancashire and Leicestershire in 1963, the ‘Man of the Match’
was a brand new innovation; nevertheless it was an old-timer, Frank Woolley,
who presented the award to Peter Marner. Woolley
was then 76 years old, and his first-class career had begun 57 years earlier.
Brian J Booth faced the first ball
from Terry Spencer. Booth hit one six in his 50, which was almost certainly
the first six hit in One-Dayers. Later, Marner (121) hit four sixes. Early in England’s first innings at
Leeds in 1971, an over by Salim Altaf was left unfinished. Nothing to do with injury: the bowler
split his trousers and left the field for repairs. Under regulations at that
time, incomplete overs did not need to be completed by another bowler. ******** I have notes on 16 instances of 5
all-run without overthrows in Tests, but I don't know of any since the Craig
McDermott at Adelaide Oval in 1996. They have happened at only four
grounds: The Oval, MCG, Adelaide and Perth. Neil Harvey went from 95 to 100 to
reach his first Test century with one such shot, in 1948. ******** |
26 August 2018
I
am slowly working through my collection of One-Day International scores,
analysing each one fully to create ball-by-ball records. Most analysis
confirms, or is reasonably consistent with, ‘official’ figures, but sometimes
there are departures. Here is an example: the 1st ODI of 1981-82
between India and England, the first ODI played in India. When I completed
the ball-by-ball analysis, the core stats were confirmed, but the balls faced
stats for the batsmen showed some significant differences in comparison to
‘official’ online sources.
One
peculiarity is that the balls faced figures are not explicitly given in the score;
they have to be derived, rather painstakingly, by re-scoring into
ball-by-ball form. I am confident in the figures, however: the score is by
Geoffrey Saulez and is rock solid. Apart from balls
faced, every stat checks out 100%. I
should add that the other two matches of this series have the same problem.
One other curious thing about these first ODIs in India: the innings were cut
short if the 50 overs were not completed in time. One of the matches was
shortened by bad weather, but in the other two the Indian bowlers, bowling
first, got through only 46 overs in 210 minutes, at which point the innings
was stopped. India were then allowed a 46-over chase, but as we know from
Duckworth and Lewis, chopping off the last four overs of an innings is a
bigger penalty than losing the first four overs, and India thus enjoyed a
considerable advantage by failing to get through its overs! ******** A
question from Sreeram: In the recent test, England lost
16/20 wickets to a catch to keeper / slip cordon. Is that a record? At
Perth in 1983, Pakistan lost 17 wickets to catches in the cordon from keeper
to gully. There was one batsman bowled, one lbw and one run out. 16
is the most I know of for England. England lost 15
this way at Leeds in 2008, and also at Trent Bridge against India in 2011
(curiously) ******** It
occurred to me that, in my Test Match Database, major partnerships are not
presented with detail in a convenient format. In light of that, I have
prepared a table
listing all partnership of 200 or more, from 1877 to 1970. The table
includes breakdown, where known, of the relative scoring of the two partners,
and partnership milestones. Milestones are expressed as balls bowled where
available; where absent, minutes have been substituted. Speeds of the
partnerships in runs per 100 balls have been estimated even in the absence of
ball-by-ball records; it is reasonable to estimate these from times and prevailing
over rates, especially as the complication of strike-sharing does not apply
to partnerships. The
Database is now complete to 1970. I will continue posting Tests after a
pause. ******** |
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A while back I reported that Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh was the only batsman in
Tests to score 50 or more consecutive runs entirely in boundaries within a
single innings (Hamilton 2009/10). Now I have found a rather similar case and
it is Shakib Al Hasan again. At Mirpur in 2015, Shakib scored his last 46 runs in boundaries in making 89 not
out against Pakistan. He then started his second innings with a boundary
giving him 50 runs in a row. ******* For the first few days of the Lord’s
Test of 1948, a significant number of spectators, leaving at the end of the
day’s play, went straight to the entrance gates and began queuing for the
next day’s play. ******** A century stand lost: the online
scores of the ODI at the SCG on 15 Jan 1981 (Australia v India) have
Australia losing its 4th wicket at 155 after a partnership of 100
between Allan Border and Kim Hughes. The ball-by-ball scoresheet by Irving Rosenwater tells a different story. The wicket fell at
135, not 155; the partnership was only worth 80 runs. ******** At the MCG in 1931-32, South African
Ken Viljoen hit a shot for six runs – all run. The
shot started with an all-run four where Viljoen was
almost run out by a ‘relay’ throw; the return from Ponsford
ricocheted off the stumps and two more were run. Wicketkeeper Oldfield
attempted another run out at the other end, but Quintin McMillan was home for
the 6th run. Overall, four fielders plus the keeper handled the
ball and both wickets were put down, while Bert Ironmonger was the
unfortunate bowler. I have notes on only two other all-run
sixes in Tests. Both also involved overthrows. Hugh Massie scored the first
six in Tests in 1881-82, with a three plus three overthrows. (Hits clearing
the boundary scored only four or five at the time.) Mike Atherton hit a
similar shot off Aqib Javed in 1992. There was also, of course, an all-run
seven hit by Majid Khan off Dennis Lillee, at the
MCG in 1981-82, four all-run plus three overthrows. I know of no all-run sixes without
overthrows in Tests, although they were not unknown in the past in
first-class cricket. Sixes with boundary overthrows still occur from time to
time. ******** Towards the end of the second day of
that Delhi Test against Pakistan in 1979-80, Dilip Doshi was given run out by umpire Mohammad Ghouse, after Doshi left his crease
thinking that the ball was dead. Ghouse was
technically correct, but with a major disturbance brewing, the acting
captain, Majid Khan (deputising for Asif Iqbal) showed admirable discretion
and withdrew the appeal – against the advice of some more hot-headed team
mates. Considering that Pakistan was playing its first series in India for
almost 20 years after years of hostility between the countries, Majid avoided
what could have been an escalating diplomatic incident. ******** |
6 August 2018
Please note the new contact email
address in the header to this blog. The old address will be checked and
remain open for a time, but will be shut down before long. ******** In
March I reported the discovery of earliest known female scorer in a Test match,
a Miss A. Hall at Auckland in 1930. Initially it was hard to get more detail
about Miss Hall, but Steven Lynch, and others in the ToSH
group, ran with this one and identified Alison Margaret Hall (1910-2004).
Steven has now published an
article on the subject here. I
won’t add much to Steven’s article, except that Alison married New Zealand
Test player Paul Whitelaw in 1948. Also, it has been established that Alison
Hall is not Miss A.W Hall, who was chair of the New Zealand Women's Cricket
Council in 1937-38. Here
is a short list of early female Test scorers… A.M.
(Alison) Hall, Auckland 1930 S.H.
(Shirley) Crouch, Brisbane from 1960-61. Miss
P. Williams, Johannesburg from 1964-65 Miss
S.R. Hall, Johannesburg from 1966-67. Alison
Hall at age 19 also seemed a good candidate for the youngest official scorer
of a Test match, but Steven found someone younger (identified by Francis
Payne): Mark Kerly at the age of 16 in Auckland in
1977-78. Remarkably, it transpires that another New Zealand scorer, Scott
Sinclair, was also an official scorer at age 16 (Dunedin 1979-80). Sinclair
was just 8 days older than Kerly had been when he
scored his first Test. …… This
reminded me of a school friend, Malcolm Gorham; we went through high school
together in Sydney. Malcolm was a cricket tragic from a very young age and
used to keep meticulous ledger books in the days before computers, with all
the scores of every active player in Australia. Malcolm had a roller and kept
a cricket pitch mowed and rolled in his backyard; unfortunately his skill at
the game was no greater than mine. However, by the time he was 15 or 16,
Malcolm was the official scorer for Western Suburbs 1st Grade
(next level below Sheffield Shield) every weekend. I remember going to a game
at Pratten Park circa 1971 and seeing his
linear scores. It was the first time I had seen linear scoring: I think my
initial reaction was that it looked like a waste of paper. (I have very much
changed my view!) Unlike
the New Zealand teenagers, Malcolm took a while to graduate to more senior
scoring – it is normally the preserve of older gents – but he did eventually
become official scorer for some Test matches and ODIs at the SCG. Very sadly,
however, he was stricken by a neurological disorder and died in his mid 40s. I very much regret that I never kept in touch
with him after we left school. I
have copies of some of Malcolm’s Test scores. I think they are the neatest,
clearest scores that I have ever seen. ******** The Unchangeables
I
count 86 innings in Tests where one bowler (but not two) remained unchanged
through an all out innings (136 including cases
where two bowlers were unchanged). It was common in the early days of Tests,
but there have been only 14 cases since 1993. A
few curious cases... Fred
Spofforth bowled 36.3 out of 71.3 overs in an
innings at the Oval in 1882. He did so by 'changing ends' which meant bowling
two consecutive overs, which was permitted (once per innings) in those days. At
Delhi in 1979, Sikander Bakht
bowled more than half the overs even though he bowled second; this happened
because Imran Khan was unable to complete one of his overs due to injury
(reports that Sikhander completed Imran's
unfinished over are incorrect; the over was left unfinished). Six bowlers
bowled in this innings, the most in an innings where one bowler was
unchanged. At
Lahore 1987 v England, Abdul Qadir, across both
innings, bowled his 73 overs in the space of 148 team overs, missing only one
possible over, plus one change of end. The
most overs by an unchanged bowler in an innings in the last 100 years is 30.3 by Kapil Dev at Ahmedabad in 1983, taking 9 for
83. Incredibly, Kapil, who was captain, was criticised for his effort and did
not win the Man of the Match Award. Bowling unchanged in most Test
innings
Bowlers
on 3 include Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram. ******** Bowlers with 10 wickets in a day
in Tests
********* It
may be that the explosive increase in six-hitting that began about 15 years
ago is reaching a plateau. In the list of batsmen with most sixes in Tests,
there are no currently-active Test players in the Top 25. (I am treating
players like Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers as non-active here.) Brendon
McCullum leads with 107 sixes followed by Adam Gilchrist on 100, but the most
for any active player is 55 by David Warner, in 28th position.
Warner, of course, can be expected to advance up the rankings. However,
it’s a different story with the bowlers. Both Rangana
Herath and Nathan Lyon have conceded 192 sixes,
just two short of the number recorded off Murali.
The exact number conceded by Murali is uncertain,
but is in the range 194-198. ******** The
most minutes batted for a winning side in a Test match is 835 by Rahul Dravid (233 & 72*) at Adelaide in 2003-04. He batted
on four days, and nine sessions in total. Geoff
Boycott (99 & 112) batted for 799 minutes spanning 10 sessions on 5 days
for the winning side at Port of Spain 1974. It was a 6-day Test match, with
some sessions rain-shortened. Boycott lasted only one ball in one of the
sessions. The
most minutes batted in a drawn Test is of course Hanif
Mohammad. Hanif batted 1018 minutes at Bridgetown
in 1958 if my sources are correct. Although Hanif
lost the record for a single innings in first-class cricket, to RR Nayar, his match total appears to just shade Nayar’s 1015 minutes. Andy Flower batted 879 minutes for
a losing side against South Africa at Harare in 2001. A
questioner on Ask Steven asked if anyone had batted on four days of a Test,
in a single innings, and for a winning side. My initial reaction was that
this could not possibly have happened in a five-day Test, and any Test with
an individual innings spanning four days would surely have to be a
rain-affected draw, but to my surprise it turns out there is one case. It was
one of the most unexpected innings in Test history, an innings that crops up
from time to time in records: Jason Gillespie, who at Chittagong in 2006 made
201* as a nightwatchman, batted on each of the first four days (with rain
interruptions). Australia won the match by an innings. ******** |
|
Some early female cricket
commentators … o Chandra Nayudu, daughter of CK Nayudu,
commentated for radio in India in the 1970s. o Kate Fitzpatrick
commentated for Channel Nine in the 1983-84 series in
Australia. Fitzpatrick was a well-known actress who
was keen on cricket, but she was not a good commentator (my opinion; I
remember listening to her) and her contract was not renewed. o Sreerupa
Bose, a former international, commentated on radio and Indian TV from the
mid-1980s to the late 1990s. o Donna Symonds of Barbados commentated Test
matches from 1988 (radio only?) and appeared on the BBC’s Test Match Special
in 1998. Alison Mitchell, recently signed as a leading commentator
for Channel Seven’s upcoming cricket coverage, has been operating as a
commentator since 2005 and commentated for ABC radio in 2014. |
18 July 2018
On
the first day of the recent West Indies/Bangladesh Test at Kingston, Bangladesh
bowled 35 overs before lunch on the first day, a number so great that it had
the Cricinfo commentator checking his notes to see
if it was right. Bangladesh bowled a similar number in a Test in 2013, but
apart from that you have to go back to 1987 to find more overs bowled before
lunch on the first day. (I’m looking at 2-hour sessions here: there have
several more extreme cases in Pakistan, but always when sessions were 2.5 or
3 hours). The 1987 Test was at Edgbaston, where England bowled 38 overs
before lunch on the first day.
******** It's
as though Test cricket and ODI cricket are being played on different planets
at the moment. Some stats... Last
10 Tests runs per wicket = 23.25 with 17 teams bowled out for less than 200. Last
10 ODIs runs per wicket = 35.5 with 2 teams bowled out for less than 200. There
have been 64 Test innings since the last team score over 500. The
23.25 average for the last 10 Tests is the lowest for 10 consecutive Tests
since 1969, and before that, 1956, and before that, 1914. What is going on? What
we are also seeing is ever-increasing numbers of 'off-season' Tests, as other
formats crowd out the traditional game. The traditional seasons were chosen
for a reason. The wickets for the off-season Tests can be difficult for
batsmen, it seems. It
used to be that the only Tests in June and July were in England. Now they
crop up in all sorts of places, with the exception of England I am sorry to
say. I thought for many years that Test cricket was holding its own in
England, but now it has been shunted into the season fringes, in favour of
ever more meaningless ODI and T20 series. (Stats
calculated on 17 July 2018)
In
addition to uploading series from 1965 to 1970 Into the Davis Test Match
Database, I am re-uploading series from 1945 to 1960 (one at a time). Some of
these were originally uploaded as long ago as 2012, and more information has
come to light since then. I have also expanded the scope of the data a bit
since then, and this will bring the Tests of the 1940s to the same level of
detail, where possible, as later Tests. ******** |
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On Test debut at Kingston
in 1976, Wayne Daniel bowled 20 no balls in India’s first innings (reported
in the Georgetown Chronicle). It is not clear how many actual no ball calls there
were. There could have been some multiple-run no balls, which would have
reduced the number, and/or no balls that were scored from, increasing the
number. The latter is actually quite likely. Challenging Daniel for
most no balls on debut is AL ‘Froggy’ Thomson at Brisbane in 1970. Thomson
recorded 17 no balls in the first innings, but also bowled three other no
balls that were scored from. On a match basis,
Patterson Thompson bowled 22 no balls, plus 9 scored from, at Bridgetown in
1996. In the same year, Mohammad Zahid registered 21 no balls on debut.
However, there were only 18 no ball calls off him; there was one ‘four no
balls’ and no other no balls were scored from. ******** |
8 July 2018
I
am back home now after a long holiday. I managed to visit Lord's again and I
got copies of most of their ODI scores that I had not obtained previously,
except for some of Frindall's scores that they
won't allow me to copy. Overall I obtained about 60 scores. I
visited The Oval as well. I was disappointed to find that some of their
international original scores have gone missing, with almost nothing before
1995. Ironically, I now have a collection of Test scores from The Oval that
far exceeds theirs. I have scores for all Oval Tests since 1952 and many earlier
Tests. This
is largely thanks to John Kobylecky, who almost 20 years ago visited The Oval
and photocopied all the Test scores that he could find. In 2002, John kindly
let allowed me to make copies of these, including the 1880 Test, the oldest existing
Test score. Sometime
after that, The Oval lost track of all the pre-1995 originals. The current
archivist (who was not responsible for the loss) and I searched a small
storeroom full of documents (in disarray) without success. The
1880 scorebook alone would have been worth a lot of money to collectors.
Let’s hope it is found come day. ********* In
2016 (see blog entry for 1 Feb) I speculated that during the first
World Cup, on 7 June 1975, Dennis Amiss may have retaken the ODI innings
scoring record for a few minutes, before being overtaken in turn by Glenn
Turner. (itwas an answer I
offered to the question “Who held an important record for the shortest period
of time?”) Amiss
had scored the first ODI century in 1972, but by 1975 David Lloyd held the
record with a score of 116. On the 7th of June, Amiss scored
137 and Turner 171 not out, in separate matches that started simultaneously.
I now have some more information; although he reached his century first, it
appears that at no stage did Amiss re-take the record. From
separate scorebooks, I determined that Amiss reached his century at 1:46 and
Turner reached his at 2:00. From this, one might expect that Amiss would have
reached the 116 record first, but it is probably not the case. Amiss lost the
strike for a bit and did not reach 116 until 2:15. Turner, meanwhile, scored
at a furious pace and reached 146 by 2:23. I don’t have an exact score for
Turner eight minutes earlier at 2:15, but it almost certainly would have been
greater than 116. ******** I
have re-started the uploading of Test series in the Davis Online Database.
The next stage of the project will tackle series from 1965 to 1970. The starting
page for this section is here. ******** |
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Recently I mentioned the
case of Bob Crisp, the South African bowler who fell over in the delivery
stride of his first ball in Test cricket. Ashru
informs me that the same fate befell Bharat Arun at
Kanpur in 1986-87, and also Mike Gatting at
Auckland in 1977-78. Gatting was bowling his first
ball but was not making his Test debut, having not bowled in his first two
Tests. ******* Mahela Jayawardene hit the winning run off the first ball he
ever faced in a One-Day International, in making 1* at Colombo Premadasa against Zimbabwe on 24 Jan 1998. He would go on
to play 448 ODIs. Overall, there are about 30
batsmen who have hit the winning run in their debut ODI, starting with Rod
Marsh in ODI#1. Notable names include Michael Clarke, Mohammad Yousuf, and Kevin Pietersen.
There have been a few surprises, like Bob Willis in 1973. ******** |
19 May 2018
ODIs:
Hot and Cold
Long-time
correspondent Sreeram (I recently came across
emails from him from 2004, on an old laptop) has sent me a copy of a score he
made from a TV broadcast of Sanath Jayasuriya’s record-breaking half-century in an ODI in
1996 (50 off 17 balls), against Pakistan at Singapore. I have lined up the
balls faced by Jayasuriya against the previous
record-holder, Simon O’Donnell in 1990 (50 off 18 at Sharjah). Note that
these innings were played before “superbats” came
into vogue or the grounds were shrunk down.
O’Donnell’s
innings was notable for the lack of dot balls – none at all after he reached 20.
It was freakish at the time; there had been very few other innings anything
like it until Jayasuriya came along. The previous
record for fastest 50 was probably held by Lance Cairns with 50 off 21 at
Melbourne in 1982-83. Cairns was out for
52 and his overall strike rate was 208 to O’Donnell’s 255. Thanks
again to Sreeram for providing this, and much other interesting material over the
years. ******** Slowest
Centuries in One-Day Internationals
†More than 50 overs The
balls faced for Boon and Greenidge differ slightly
from online versions. In Boon’s case, this is because early sources included
wides in balls faced, whereas the above figures, obtained by re-scoring
original scores, use the modern protocol of ignoring wides. Boon faced 166
deliveries including wides. Greenidge faced no
wides. ‡
UPDATE: I have added a figure found for Glenn
Turner’s 171* against East Africa in 1975. The balls
faced probably includes any wides (up to five, probably two or
three). I don’t have this innings ball-by-ball. The
majority of these innings were played for winning sides carefully chasing
down modest targets. The slowest for a team batting first is the 157 balls by
Ramiz Raja. ******** “Wider
Still and Wider Shall Thy Bounds Be Set” Those
who have followed One-Day Internationals from the beginning may remember a
time when wides were called far less often; at some point a directive must have
gone out for umpires to be much stricter on one-day wides than in multi-day
cricket. To examine this, I made a table of the historical incidence of
wides, and found that the calling of wides tripled, more or less, between
1980 and 1982, and remained high thereafter. Historical
Incidence of wides in ODIs (wides/100 balls)
My
memory was that the calling of wides in the early days was along the same
lines as Tests, but looking at the figures, this was not so. Wides in ODIs
were always much more common that in Tests. Test
wides… 1960s:
0.04 wd/100b 1970s:
0.10 wd/100b 1980s:
0.16 wd/100b The
first table also shows that the incidence of wides, after the sudden rise in
the early 1980s, remained fairly steady until 1990 and then began to rise
again, over the next 10 years. It seems to have plateaued at a new level in
this century. At some stage of this process there was the introduction of the
(somewhat draconian) ‘wide line’ just outside the leg stump, which penalises
bowlers for even small departures. I don’t know when these lines were
introduced, although I suspect they had something to do with that post-1995
increase in wides. Readers might help me here if they know about this. I
doubt that the actual accuracy of bowlers has changed much over the years.
Most of the changes in the incidence of wides probably come down to changing
fashions in umpiring. [Having
said that, there is an anecdote about George Giffen,
who at some point late in his career made a bet that he could hit a single
stump at least 18 times out of 24 from 22 yards. He won the bet. I certainly can’t
vouch for the truth of this, but I doubt if there are many bowlers today who
would take on such a bet.] ******** |
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The Changing Game: the
Test at the Oval in 1965 was drawn after rain interrupted England on
308/4 and in sight of their
target. “South Africa’s slow over rate hinders progress” said the headline in
the Guardian. What was that over rate then? It was 98 balls per hour (or 98
overs per six hours) a rate higher than almost anything seen in the modern
game. ******** With war looming, the 1939
tour of West Indies to England was curtailed in late August and seven matches
cancelled. The West Indians took the first available ship across the
Atlantic, which travelled under naval escort. ******** |
26 April
2018
ODIs:
The Early Days
I
have been pursuing original scoresheets of ODIs in the 1970s and 80s, with
some surprising success. It turns out to be easier to find scores from the
70s than it is from the 90s. In fact, I now have 17 out of the 18 ODIs that
were played before the 1975 World Cup, and 68% from the 1970s as a whole,
with possibly more to come. The main reason that these scores can still be
found is that most of the matches were played in England or Australia, where
such things are better preserved. The
first ODI was organised in a hurry during the 1970-71 Ashes tour, when a
Melbourne Test was cancelled due to poor weather. Although it was a success
(attendance 46,000) authorities did not quite know what to make of it. In
1971-72, two one-dayers were played against a World
XI (filling in for a cancelled South Africa tour; there was also a virtual
T20 match of 15 8-ball overs each), but there were only two more ODIs in
Australia over the next seven seasons. Although a domestic competition was
held every year, Australia did not really begin to embrace one-day cricket
until Packer’s World Series Cricket pioneered day/night games in 1977-78. While Wisden had
practically ignored the original ODI in its tour report, England was more proactive
than Australia and began the regular scheduling of ODIs during the Ashes tour
of 1972. Looking
through the scoresheets of those early matches, the two ODIs played in New
Zealand in 1973-74 stood out. Most previous ODIs had been rather dreary, producing
less than 190 runs per innings even though most were played over 55 overs.
The New Zealand/Australia matches were limited to 35 eight-ball overs, and
included cricket that was of a different quality. One imagines also that the
matches were not taken too seriously – a ‘picnic’ atmosphere. Press reporting
of the matches was limited, and Wisden offered only potted
scores. New
Zealand’s 194 in the first match in far-off Dunedin looked much like earlier
ODIs, but Australia broke the mould by chasing the runs down in only 24.3
overs. Ian Chappell’s 83 off 68 balls was something of a pioneering innings;
the first ODI innings that looks impressive by modern standards, and bear in
mind that there were no fielding restrictions, and
‘wide’ bowling was allowed. The
Australian innings included what was almost certainly the first ODI over to
produce more than 20 runs: 22 by Chappell and Stackpole
(44441401) off Bevan Congdon. It was an 8-ball over, but there were 21 off
the first 6 balls. (The first known 6-ball over with 22 runs was in 1978.) The
Australians continued in this fashion in the second match in Christchurch,
with Ian Chappell this time scoring 86 off 67 and Australia reaching 265 in
their 35 overs (164 minutes). This was scoring rarely, if ever, seen in Test
cricket history up to that point. Congdon was clobbered again, conceding 11
runs per over. Not to be outdone, New Zealand gave it a good shot, reaching
234. Ken Wadsworth scored the first run-a-ball century, reaching 100 off 96
balls and out for 104 off 98. The real potential of limited-overs cricket was
being explored. Progressive
Fastest Centuries in Early ODIs
A
thank you to Colin Clowes at Cricket NSW, who found
the New Zealand scores. ******** Statistics
of Test fours since 2009
In
India, there have been over 5000 fours since 2009; only two of them were
all-run without overthrows. Both were at Nagpur in 2010; there have been none
since. (I am rather relying on reliability of the Cricinfo
texts here.) Since
2009 there have been 20 all-run fours without overthrows at the Gabba and 19 at the MCG, 17 at Lord's and 9 at Adelaide.
The very long square boundaries in Brisbane and Melbourne are more conducive
to this than the straight boundaries in Adelaide, where fieldsmen are more
likely to be lurking. Brisbane
and Melbourne were both originally classic ovals, longer than they were wide.
However, the pitches faced east-west. When this was altered to the more
normal north-south (many many years ago) the
boundary points were not changed, so the straight boundaries became rather
short and the square boundaries very long. ******** A
couple of milestones have been reached in posting the Davis Test data online.
I have completed the 1960-65 section, and I have also updated
all interwar Tests (1920-39) with new information including locations of
catches and names of scorers where known. I will start posting Tests from
1965 onward before long, and begin updating existing scorecards from 1946 to
1960. ******* |
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Fergie’s Monopoly:
Legendary Australian scorer Bill Ferguson was an official scorer of every
Test played in the world from mid-1935 to 1939 – 33 consecutive Tests.
Nineteen of these Tests did not actually involve Australia. After the War,
Ferguson missed one Test (NZ v Aus in 1946, which
was only accorded Test status in 1948) but then scored the next 17 Tests,
giving him 50 out of 51 Tests. Ferguson travelled by ship to England seven
times in this period, and twice to South Africa. Fergie toured England with
the 1935 South African team, then South Africa with the 1935-36 Australians.
He went back to England to score for the 1936 Indian team, then Australia and
New Zealand with the England team in 1936-37. He accompanied the team back to
England, where he served as scorer for the 1937 New Zealand tourists. His
wife accompanied him on some of these tours; perhaps it was the only way of
getting to see him. ******** The New
Zealand Herald reported that in the Lahore Test of 1965 between
Pakistan and New Zealand, there were at least 17 catches dropped in the
match, and only 13 taken. In my surveys of almost
700 21st Century Tests, I have found only one Test with more
dropped catches than this. At Mumbai in 2005-06 (India v England), 19 catches
were dropped, although 28 were taken. ********
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17 April 2018
At
the Last Gasp
Here
is a list of Test matches completed with very little time left (up to 3 overs
or 10 minutes remaining). This is actually tricky to research. Readers might
let me know of omissions or errors.
* One day lost. ** 3 days lost. Contrived
result; match fixing (Cronje) Two
drawn Tests have finished with scores tied: Bulawayo
1996 (Zim v Eng) Mumbai
2011 (Ind v WI) There
was also a Test in Pakistan in 1955-56 (Lahore) that some sources say
Pakistan won on the last possible ball. This is probably in error; other
sources say there were 18 minutes to go. The
lack of matches before 1934 is partly because Tests in Australia were played
to a finish. There was never a “last possible over”. It is a little
surprising, however, that no early Tests in England went ‘down to the wire’. ***UPDATE:
Alastair Lynch has alerted me to the following additions:
I
had flagged these as tight finishes, but in my notes I had incorrectly added
one over to each, and so they missed the cut. ******** Sustained
Impact
100
runs in a match: most consecutive Tests
Faulkner
and Nourse are the only players to score 100 runs
or more in every Test of a five-Test series. ******** Here
is Garry Sobers’ entire ODI batting career, as
recorded by scorer Irving Rosenwater. A six-ball
duck at Leeds in 1973. ******* An
article of mine has appeared in Cricket Monthly online, on the subject of the
trends in scoring speeds, and the fastest scorers of all time. It can
be found here. I will post it on this website in
due course. |
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In the Auckland Test, England was out for 58 in the first
session, and in reply Kane Williamson reached 59 at the end of the second
session (dinner, not tea, this being a day/night match). He was the first
batsman, batting second, to outscore his opponents before the end of the
second session of a Test match. At Cape Town in 2013, Alviro Peterson
of South Africa was 45 at tea after New Zealand was bowled out for 45. At
Lord’s in 1912, South Africa was bowled out before tea for 58 after there was
no play before lunch. RT Spooner was not out 67 at stumps. The most runs before tea by a batsman batting second is 67 by Sanath Jayasuriya at Colombo
SSC against Bangladesh in 2001. Bangladesh was out for 90. ******** At Trent Bridge in 1935, South African bowler Bob Crisp came in
to bowl the first ball of the series, and the first of Crisp’s Test career,
only to fall over. He was not injured, but ended up on his backside, with
ball still in hand, next to the stumps. ******** |
28 March 2018
Statistician
of the Year 2017
I
have just returned from a flying visit to Britain that included receiving an
award: the “Statistician of the Year 2017” from the
Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. The award was made at the
AGM of the Association, held in Derby. I was treated as an honoured guest. It
was also terrific to meet up in person with various contacts who have helped
me with my work in the past. Only
one Australian has previously won the award, which has been awarded annually
for over 30 years. That was Ray Webster. ******** |
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At Johannesburg in 1994-95, Aamir Nazir was called for as a Pakistan replacement but had to
fly in from Pakistan. He arrived at the ground 36 minutes after the match had
started. The South African captain had permitted a substitute while Pakistan
fielded. Nazir broke down and was unable to finish
an over twice on this first day. It is the only case I have on record (up to
2015) of a bowler breaking down and not finishing an over twice in one Test
match. CORRECTION: Boyd Rankin was unable to complete an over twice in
one innings at the SCG in 2013-14. It was his only Test match (UPDATE, until
Ireland’s first Test). ******** GC ‘Jackie’ Grant was appointed captain of the West Indies team
to Australia in 1930-31 without ever having played first-class cricket in the
West Indies. His cricket had been in England, mostly in university matches.
Nevertheless, he was a considerable success as captain. He did not return to
the Caribbean with the team, but sailed to Rhodesia to work as a missionary.
Grant did not play f-c cricket in the West Indies until1934-35, when he
captained the team again, against the touring England side. ******** A little statistic finally confirmed... There were 60 Tests played on matting wickets. I can confirm
this after correspondence with cricket historian Rollins Howard in the West
Indies. Previously I was unsure of some Tests there. The only Tests in West Indies played on matting were at Port of
Spain. The last was in 1954 (v England). There were 42 such Tests in South Africa (the last in 1931), 10
in Pakistan (including some in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh), 6 in West
Indies and 2 in India. The last Test played on matting was at Karachi in 1959
(Pakistan v Australia). ******** |
8 March 2018
Here's
a funny little discovery... For
the 4th Test of England's tour of New Zealand in 1929-30, one of the official
scorers was a "Miss A Hall". Hall scored the
match with Bill Ferguson ("WF"), the Australian who was doing duty
as the tour scorer for the English team. As
far as I know, this would be the earliest case of a woman being official
scorer of a Test, previously thought to be Shirley Crouch at the Brisbane
Tied Test in 1960-61. Jamie
Bell of NZ Cricket Museum tells me that a Miss A.W. Hall was chair of the New
Zealand Women's Cricket Council in 1937-38. Almost certainly the same person, and they may be able to come up with more
information. That
4th Test in Auckland had been organised in a rush, after the
3rd Test a few days earlier had been ruined by rain. The 3rd Test
had been scored by someone else (TSC Haig, with Ferguson). Perhaps Haig was
not available at short notice, and Hall filled in. Sreeram
reports that a young woman named Margaret Platts
was the scorer in the Essex v Worcestershire match in 1939 under unfortunate
circumstances (a car accident involving multiple players). It was discussed
in the ACS list in 2014 as the first fc match involving a woman scorer. So
this discovery has precedence. It may well be that Miss Hall had already
scored first-class cricket in Auckland. Grace
Morgan scored in the first four women's Tests and is named in Cricket Archive
scorecards. ******** There
are 30 or more bowlers who have taken wickets with both their first ball and
their last ball in a Test match. I haven't checked them all. Possibly the
first was RO Schwarz in 1905, and the most recent was Mitchell Starc at Galle in 2016. Two
bowlers have done it twice, Maurice Tate and (amazingly) JP Duminy. Duminy did it at Dubai
in 2103, and at Johannesburg in 2010, where he bowled only 1.5 overs in the
match and took just two wickets. ******** |
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In 1962, Subhash Gupte
was excluded from the Indian team on disciplinary grounds. His ‘offense’ was
being the room-mate of AG Kripal Singh, who had had
the temerity to ask a woman (a hotel receptionist) out on a date during a
Test match. “Gupte was accused of failing to
control his room mate's behaviour.”(!) Gupte was the best bowler in the Indian side, but was not
selected for the tour of the West Indies. India lost the series in the West Indies 5-0, having also lost
the previous tour abroad 5-0 (in England). The team did not tour abroad again
for more than five years. ******** |
25 February 2018
More
Test match Database!
I
have begun to extend the Test Match Database into the 1960s, and
I have reached 1962 so far. Series will be added progressively. At the same
time I am progressively upgrading scorecards from 1920 to 1960 to include a
little more information including the fielding locations of catches. The
official scorers of Tests are being identified wherever possible. ******** Eight
Wickets in Fewest Balls (individual bowlers, where known)
The
records for five wickets, six wickets and eight wickets in fewest balls (by
an individual bowler in a single Test) have all been set against Bangladesh.
Bangladesh does occasionally have some good matches, but their capacity for
ridiculous collapses is tiresome. ******** Sole
Run out credits in ODI
There are another three
run outs where Rhodes was fielding but no run out credit is recorded. Sole
Run out Credits in Tests (where known)
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An odd coincidence: long delay before first boundary in an ODI
(teams). In an ODI at Perth 6 Dec 1991, India (all out 126 with two
fours) hit the first boundary off the LAST ball of the 26th over against West
Indies. The score was 53. One year later – to the day – Australia (160) hit the first
boundary off the FIFTH ball of the 26th over, on the same ground against the
same team, with the score on 52. There is an unconfirmed report of no boundaries in the first 38
overs of an India/SriLanka ODI in 1986
(Austral-Asia Cup). UPDATE: Steve Pittard records the
following cases… In the 1975 World Cup qualifier,West Indies v Australia, the first boundary
was hit in the 27th over (Clive Lloyd). At Lord’s in 1988, there were no boundaries until the 31st over
(Graham Gooch). ******** Last time ODIs were played in the middle of a Test series
(between the same teams). Looks like the 2002-03 Ashes tour, where ODIs were played
between the 3rd and 4th Tests. ODIs were played in India between Tests in 2017, but they did
not involve the Indian team (Afghanistan v Ireland). In 1992-93 an ODI in Zimbabwe was actually played in the middle
of a Test, in a never-repeated experiment. The Test in Harare was on Dec 7,
9, 10, 11, 12 with the ODI on the 8th. ******** Origin of Abdominal Protectors.
They were advertised as "Private Guards" as early as 1855. There
was an earlier cryptic 1851 reference to a "cross-bar india rubber guard". It is said that Jack Gregory batted without one, even when
facing Larwood. The story seems to originate with
Jack Fingleton writing in 1973. It is known that
Gregory often batted without gloves, as did Herbie Collins (both were WWI
veterans, if that is relevant). Eric Rowan of South Africa also sometimes batted without one.
"Made me concentrate" he said. (Research by Gideon Haigh and David Studham,
found in Haigh’s book Silent Revolutions.) It would seem that abdominal protectors were introduced only a
few years after the first gloves and pads, which first appear in
illustrations in the late 1840s. ******** At Hamilton in 1996-97, Kumar Dharmasena
was bowled by Daniel Vettori, but the Pakistani
umpire Mahboob Shah, confused by the wicketkeeper
Adam Parore taking off the other bail, ruled the batsman not out. Video
review, which showed the incident clearly, was not available to the umpires. On a related issue, I came across an English newspaper report of
a Test match in South Africa in 1999. It is a reminder of how obsessed
reports and commentary could be about umpiring, in the days when there was
abundant video but before DRS. http://www.sportstats.com.au/pe99.pdf I don't know how much of it is justified, but I would say that
some of the disputation in the report is really just the reporter's opinion.
There is substantial agreement in other reports, however, and it appears that
the players went out of their way to try to intimidate the umpires. I also came across a Test report in the Guardian in March 2001
with a headline “Bitterness Mars England’s Progress” followed by sub-headings
“Uproar over Jayasuriya dismissal” and “Umpiring
falls to pieces under pressure”. ********* |
2 February 2018
Bowlers
Taking Three Wickets in Four Balls: Some Issues.
Cricinfo
has a list of bowlers taking three wickets in four balls in Tests here. The list starts as follows:
There
are some problems with this list. I would mention these: · Spofforth, The Oval 1882: this is
not correct; it is actually three wickets in eight balls. I think this came from
a misreading of the original score, which has an odd way of presenting the
bowling. · Gregory, Nottingham 1921:
the scorebook gives Gregory 3 in 5 balls WW[new
over]00W. · Mitchell, Johannesburg
1935-36: again the scorebook has 3 in 5 balls WW01W. I
would also add these confirmed instances to the list prior to 1997-98
The
Cricinfo list is also a bit misleading. It
basically stops in 1997-98 but adds a single instance in 2015. There are actually
more than two dozen other cases in the intervening period. ******** Here
is some info that might be worthy of further investigation. Some commentators
seem almost obsessed with the idea of ‘rotating the strike’. It occurred to me
that there is virtually no evidence on the effectiveness of this, one way or
the other. So I took a look at the incidence of singles in partnerships of
different sizes (in the last five years or so). I kind of expected to find no
effect, but there is something here. Per
Cent Singles in Test Partnerships
There
is some trend, and it is fairly consistent albeit rather weak. Higher partnerships
tend to have a higher incidence of singles. Since a higher incidence of
singles will tend to rotate the strike, maybe there is some benefit after
all. ******** Here
is something so arcane that I doubt if any list has been seen before… Fielders
taking catches off consecutive balls in different fielding positions.
I
know of about 20 cases of fielders taking catches off consecutive balls,
usually in the same position. Dilip Vengsarkar once took three catches in four balls at short
leg, in one over by Ravi Shastri at Wellington
1980-81. ******** |
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In the first Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 1997, Ijaz Ahmed was given out, run out, on a score of 98 early
on the second day. There was initial confusion over which batsman was out (Ijaz or Salim Malik). The decision against Ijaz was given by TV umpire KT Francis, who nevertheless
continued to review the video. The disconsolate Ijaz
was back in the dressing room by the time Francis decided to change his
decision, and informed on-field umpire David Shepherd that Ijaz was to be recalled and Salim Malik was the one out
(for 58). Ijaz went on to a score of 113. This echoes an incident from Don Bradman’s career when he was
run out and left the field, only to be recalled and Stan McCabe given out
instead. ******** Fewest runs conceded by a bowler in taking his first ten wickets
in Tests: 39 runs by Ernie Toshack. JK Lever conceded 70 runs. Both bowlers bowled a
few no balls, which weren't counted against bowlers in those days. Charles
Turner conceded 75 runs in taking his first ten wickets in the 1880s, with no
no balls. ******** Until this season the slowest century by an Australian, in
minutes batted, was by Justin Langer against Pakistan in 1999-2000, at 388
minutes. But now Steve Smith has exceeded this twice, with two centuries, at
Brisbane and Melbourne, weighing in at an identical 416 minutes. There are more than 40 centuries by batsmen from other countries
that are slower than Smith’s, and about 70 that are slower than Langer’s.
Smith’s ‘slowness’ is really an indication of slow over rates; at 259 and 261
balls faced, neither was a particularly slow scoring rate. Contrast the minutes vs ball rate with Bill Woodfull’s
century in 1929, where he faced 372 balls but batted only 322 minutes. I think that the fact that Smith set records also reflects
Australia’s dominance during most of the era of slow over rates; Australian
batsmen since 1975 (the era of slow over rates) have played far fewer really
defensive centuries than batsmen from other countries. ******** Steve Smith missed two catches off Alastair Cook (244*) in the
MCG Ashes Test. As it happened, this deprived him of a record. Smith took no
catches in the match, having taken at least one catch in each of his 26
previous Tests. The record for catches in consecutive Tests
(non-wicketkeepers) is 27 by Bob Simpson in 1961-64. ******** On 21 December 1998, New Zealand and India played an unofficial
One-Day game in Dunedin. It was a day-night game, yet a red ball was used and
the players were in whites. Curious. ******** |
7 January 2018
A
Dull Session, a Mind Wanders
While
I was sitting (at the ground) watching Mitch Marsh score ten runs in a
complete session, on the last day of the drawn Boxing day Test, I resolved to
update my list of fewest runs in a full session by an individual batsman.
I restricted myself to ten runs or fewer in a session, in the last 20 years. Fewest
runs in a 2-hour session (individuals) since 1998.
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