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
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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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Wagon Wheel History/ Moody Canon some remarkable first-class innings, re-scored. |
The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed
scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1990s have now been posted. Almost
three-quarters of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage; virtually all others
offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything previously made
available online. The starting page is here. An information page
outlining this database is here. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1877 to 1970. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1971 to 1999.
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19 June 2022 Until now, the
Test Match Database has not had any proper ‘Player Register’ with career
details of individuals. To address this, I have started to include pages that
show some of these details; these have been attached to each series. An example is here. In time, I
will create pages for every historical series. Currently, data is in place
for recently-posted series (2002-2003), and for pre-War series (1877-1939). The presented information
by necessity has had to be limited (one line per player). However, I have
included data for individual batsmen’s scoring speeds. Some of this is
estimated, but it is based on knowledge of about 90 per cent of balls faced
and 99.5+ per cent minutes batted. Note that there are some very inaccurate
figures for past players, with respect to scoring speed, to be found in some online
sources. Recently I saw a figure of 63.6 runs/100 balls for Sunny Gavaskar in
Tests. His actual scoring speed was around 45. I have included
players’ ages for each series. I have decided to leave this blank for players
from Pakistan and Bangladesh; I consider a lot of year of birth data from
these countries to be unreliable. ******** I noticed that
something had gone haywire with the dropped catch information, as presented
in the Half-Centuries detail page for each recently-posted series. This
affected a dozen or so series posted (2002-2003); these have now been fixed. An example is here. ******** |
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Here's an
'achievement' that could possibly have a name. When playing an unofficial
Test in South Africa in 1985/86, Kim Hughes made a 'king pair'. Having done
that, he came out as a runner for Rodney Hogg and was run out first ball. "King
Trio", "Emperor Trio"?? ********* Test Team
Rankings: History… Prior to
2003, there was an unofficial "World Test Championship", first
mooted by Wisden in 1995 and
sometimes known as the "Wisden Test Championship". This was
regularly reported n the Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine. It was given
ICC approval about 2001. There were a few problems including South Africa
being given #1 ranking in early 2003 in spite of Australia having won 8 of
their last 10 Test series (one loss, one draw), and only 5 defeats in 40
Tests. In June 2003
a new system, the ICC team ratings system, came into play. This has since
been backdated, but references published earlier than 2004 will be to the
earlier system. Under the new system, Australia were #1 from June 2003 until
2009. ******** Test Cricket
Broadcasting history update… The first
complete Test ball-by-ball radio broadcast was for the 3rd Test in Adelaide
in 1924-25, with Bill Smallacombe commentating the entire 7-day (!) match
himself on station 5CL. Earlier Tests in that series had radio broadcasts,
but only for updates and reports. The first
live TV broadcast of a Test match was for the Lord's Test of June 1938 (BBC).
TV in England at the time was limited to London. Lieutenant-Colonel HBT
(‘Teddy’) Wakelam, better known in connection to rugby, has been identified
as a commentator. An earlier match, Middlesex v Australians at Lord’s, had
also been broadcast on television (see blog 1 November 2021). There are
suggestions online that a Women's Test in 1937 was broadcast on TV, but this
does not appear to be correct, based on newspaper listings from the time. It
was probably on radio; it is worth noting that Marjorie Pollard was one of
the commentators. Television in
1937 was extremely limited; at best there was only an hour a day of broadcast
during daylight hours, and the BBC was off air for extended periods
(sometimes weeks) with technical problems. Colour TV
broadcasting of Test cricket began in England in 1968. ******** |
17 June 2022 Team Hat-Tricks
revisited I first reported
on this in 2012. When England took three wickets in three balls including a
run out at Lord’s (Stuart Broad bowling), it was time for an update. The only
cases I know of are listed below: it appears that it has never happened in
Australia, or India. The most extraordinary thing is that Little-known South
African Godfrey Lawrence was involved in two, and in consecutive Tests. Cases
like Broad’s over, where three wickets fell in the space of three ball during
a single over, but no hat-trick occurred, are very rare indeed. Three wickets in three balls, by two different bowlers
Three
wickets in three balls, same over, including run out
These lists can now be found in the Unusual Records section. ******** The extraordinary scoring of England to
finish off the Nottingham Test came close to record-breaking speeds. I have
analysed all Test ball-by-ball records to find the most runs in various
numbers of overs. England at Nottingham did not set any records, but the
15-overs maximum of 150 runs is (equal) second all-time to New Zealand in
2015-16, when Brendon McCullum scored his record-breaking century in
Christchurch. Most Runs in 'x' overs in Tests (Tests with
ball-by-ball records only)
The lists are
dominated by the 'big bat/small ground' era, but there are some interesting
exceptions. The data is strictly from ball-by-ball records so may not be
complete. A few cases involve 8-ball overs. If instances overlap, only the
highest is listed. I have read, for
example, that Richie Benaud personally scored 48 runs in 3 overs in 1955.
However, the reports are ambiguous - it may have been 3 overs off one bowler
rather than 3 consecutive overs. |
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Have there
been any two-day first-class matches since 1947? Since the publication of the
new edition of the Laws in 1947, all first-class matches are supposed to be 3
days or more. However, there have been exceptions. A match between NE
Transvaal and Australians in 1957-58 was scheduled for 2 days and left drawn.
I don't know how it came to be ranked as first-class. UPDATE:
Australian newspapers described the match, in advance, as a “second class”
match scheduled for two days. Somehow it was granted first-class status after
the event, perhaps something to do with internal South African cricket
politics. A first-class
match in Pakistan in the 70s was left drawn after two days when an umpire
fell ill and the third day was called off. ******* |
21 May 2022 The Diamond Duck
(updated and bumped) I tried to find
early uses of the term ‘Diamond Duck’, as it is most commonly used now,
referring to a batsman being dismissed without facing a ball. As a cricketing
term, it did not show up in straightforward searches of newspapers before
2011. The following searches were negative: Guardian 1980-2003, Sydney
Morning Herald 1980-1995, Times of India 1980-2010, Jamaica Gleaner
1990-2010, British Newspaper archive 1980-2010. Wisden online has a
search facility, but that came up negative also. There is one
instance in The Times in 2004, but it defines Diamond Duck as
dismissal on first ball of a match. In my searches,
I did get occasional hits for the term, since it is used in Contract Bridge;
there was also a mascot for a sporting team in the US known as the Diamond
Duck. But nothing in a cricket context in the 20th Century. I first used the
term in an article in 2006. I can't
remember where I got it from – perhaps I coined it myself! However, there may
be earlier uses of it that others can find. It is still not
universally used in the way that Duck and Golden Duck are. Some people tell
me that they recall the term being used in junior or club cricket in the last
Century. I can’t say that I remember it myself, and it is worth noting that
it is an uncommon event, so would never have been used much. In any case, the
fact that The Times defined it differently in 2004 suggests that it
was not yet in general cricketing vernacular. It would be nice to find
something in print before 2006. The term was not
found in “The Language of Cricket” by Eddowes (1997) or the “Lexicon of
Cricket” (2006), or some other volumes that have entries on ducks. It does
not appear to be mentioned in Meher-Homji’s entertaining little book “Out for
a Duck” (1993). I have an archive of all of Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball texts and
match reports from 1999 to 2006, but there is no mention of the elusive
“diamond duck”, even when it actually happens, at least in Test matches.
Generally, it is described as “run out without facing a ball” or similar
language. There is,
however, an occurrence of the term in an ODI report from 2001 (NZ v Zim at
Auckland) which describes TN Madondo as the “diamond duckman”. Madondo was
indeed run out without facing a ball, so this would seem to be a clear
identification, but there is a complication. It was also the first ball of
the innings, so it is uncertain whether the commentator was using the ‘Times
2004’ definition, or the more modern definition. Incidentally, I
found an instance of “Golden Duck”, for a batsman out first ball, in a
British newspaper in 1963. I was a little surprised not to find it in
Australian sources in Trove (which peters out about 1954), nor did it turn up
in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1955 until the first hit in 1980.
Perhaps others could take a shot at this. It is intriguing that terms like
Golden Duck, which seemed so common in the cricketing vernacular in the past,
turn up so rarely in published sources. The first Golden
Ducks in Tests occurred in Spofforth’s hat-trick in 1878-79, MacKinnon and
Emmett being the second and third victims. The first diamond duck was by W
Attewell at the SCG in 1884-85. ANOTHER
UPDATE: Sreeram
has found an occurrence of the term diamond duck from 1999. The Age on 28 Oct
1999 refers to “a brilliant run out of Graham Manou for a diamond duck (that
is, without facing a ball)”. There is an earlier, somewhat more cryptic,
reference in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1997, strangely enough in
connection with horse racing, but defined in cricketing terms. Both
references go to the trouble of defining the term, suggesting that it is not
widely understood. Sreeram also
found an earlier reference to “golden duck”, in 1961, in the Buckinghamshire
Examiner. Curiously, this is exactly the same newspaper where I found the
1963 reference. ******** |
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Every Australian
Test team has had at least one player born in NSW. With regards to team
representation rather than birth, three teams have had no NSW players,
including Perth 1981. The others are The Oval 1972 (two Victorians) and Kandy
1983 (one Victorian). It is quite
striking that there have been 90 Test matches with no Victorian
representatives, but only three lacking NSWalers. This lack of Victorians in
many teams may be related to the monopoly that AFL has on top athletes and
sports in Victoria, which is not the case in NSW. If I have
calculated correctly, Durban 1921/22 had nine NSW players, although one
(Carter) had been born in England. In the
Sheffield Shield era, the most Victorians in a Test has been six, most
recently Brisbane 1952/53 (including DT Ring born in Tasmania). ******** Luke Fletcher
recently scored a half-century in a County match batting at #11. He followed
it up by opening in the second innings and scoring another 50. It is extremely rare for a #11 in one
innings to score two 50s in a match, regardless of where they bat in the
other innings. The nearest to Fletcher’s double is Robin Jackman in 1982 who
scored 60 and 68 for Lancashire against Surrey, at #11 and #3. In the latter
innings he came to the wicket as a nightwatchman at 1-1. I can’t find
any cases of a #11 hitting 50s in both innings in first-class cricket. Note,
however, that there may be a lot of matches where the second innings batting
order is uncertain. ******** Most
non-boundary runs in a Test innings. Several reports give Hanif Mohammad
24 fours in his 337 in Bridgetown in 1957-58, meaning that he ran for 241 out
of his 337 runs. However, the old England scorer Geoffrey Saulez examined the
scorebook for this Test while in Barbados during the 1970s, and came up with
different numbers. He reported 26 fours, 16 threes, 40 twos and 105 singles,
which adds up. That would bring Hanif's non-boundaries down to 233 runs. (It is conceivable
that he hit one or more all-run fours, but such shots are rare in the West
Indies (about 0.25% of fours in the modern Test game). I don't recall reading
about any all-run fours in Hanif’s innings. Sadly, that Bridgetown scorebook
is now lost.) However,
Australia's Bob Cowper did have two all-run fours in his 307 against England
in Melbourne in 1965-66, bringing his boundary fours down to 18. That would
give him 235 in non-boundary runs. If you
include running for partner’s runs, the most running in an innings (more than 10,000 yards) goes to Len Hutton
in his 364. ******** The early
Tests involving Bangladesh were very unserious affairs. This can certainly be
seen in the two Tests in Sri Lanka in 2002. In the first, Sri Lanka won by an
innings and plenty, with Aravinda de Silva scoring 206. The response of the
selectors was to drop seven Sri Lankan players, including Aravinda! Some of
the replacements were little known; the captain Jayasuriya said he had not
even seen them play. Aravinda, for his part, retired from Test cricket,
becoming one of only four players who have scored double-centuries in their
last Test, and one of only two (with Seymour Nurse) in their last innings. I am not sure
if Aravinda resigned in disgust or was planning to retire anyway; he did
continue in ODIs. Sri Lanka easily won the second Test also, but by a reduced
margin. Bangladesh did not reach 200 in either Test. ******** |
17 May 2022 Sreeram has
alerted me to a Twitter post by one “SaikiaArup” which has a ball-by-ball
record of the last 13 overs of India’s famous win at Port of Spain in 1976,
scoring 406 in the final innings. Made from a radio broadcast at the time. I
have extended this by one over (which had a wicket) and posted the data here or here. It encompasses the innings
of Brijesh Patel, who scored his 49* off 50 balls. Data like this, from West
Indies/India Tests, are few and far between. It appears that
this source has no other similar records; I am still hoping that there must
be people out there who scored other matches like this on an amateur basis. ******** Left, Right, Right, Left Following a
question from Arjun Hemnani, here is data on player v player averages for
bowlers of different types against left- and right-handed batsmen in Tests.
f- fast, fm- fast
medium (includes medium-fast), m- medium, sp- finger spin, wr- wrist spin.
Data since 1999. I don’t know if
there is a great deal to be drawn out of this without over-analysing every
little variation. Left-hand finger spinners seem to have quite different
records against left and right handers. Left-handed bats do better against
pace than right-handers, but worse against right-hand finger spinners. ******** I was asked a
question about most
wickets on first-class debut. I came up with 15 by three bowlers, all
of them strange cases. The only one in the last 150 years was one Nadeem
Malik. Malik took 18 wickets in his three-match career, 15 of them in his
first. A strange
feature is that his three matches were spread out from February 1974, then
seven months later in September 1974 and one more in 1979. The 1974 matches
were for "Lahore Reds" and "Lahore C" and neither team
ever played again. The 1979 match was for Lahore Division, a more
conventional team. There is
something of a tradition in Pakistan of briefly cobbling together teams and
calling them first-class. “Dera Ismail Khan” in that notorious match in 1964
(lost by an innings and 851 runs) is one example. It was the only match
played by a team of that name in that era. The other
bowlers who took 15 are William Brown in his only match for Tasmania in 1857,
and John Kirwan for Cambridge Town v Cambridge University in 1836. If you ask
me, the first-class status of all of these debut matches is questionable. ******** Here are some
simple but eye-opening stats on the number of ODIs played by each country
since 1 Sep last year. Illustrates the collapse of (proper) white-ball
internationals. Oman 22 Papua New Guinea
18 Nepal 12 United Arab
Emirates 11 South Africa 10 Scotland 8 Namibia 7 Netherlands 7 Afghanistan 6 Bangladesh 6 India 6 Ireland 6 Sri Lanka 6 United States of
America 6 West Indies 6 Zimbabwe 6 Australia 3 New Zealand 3 Pakistan 3 England – the
men’s team anyway – has not played a single ODI since July. ******** |
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Australia won
the three-Test series in Pakistan by winning in the final session of the
series after drawing the first two Tests. This has only happened once before
(in any country), when England won in Karachi in 2000 with only 2.3 overs to
spare after drawing the first two Tests. ******** Batsmen
reaching milestones at low team totals… Data is
incomplete for many early ODIs, but Jayasuriya reached 50 out of 53 (off 17 balls)
in an ODI at Singapore in 1995-95. There were 3 sundries with Kaluwitharana
not out on 0. In Tests,
Clifford Roach scored 50 out of 54 at Bridgetown in 1929-30, since matched by
Chris Gayle (Port of Spain 2014) and Tamim Iqbal (Wellington 2017). Gayle
actually hit a two to go from 49 to 51 out of 55 while Tamim hit a three to
go from 49 to 52 out of 56. David Warner
reached 100 out of 122 in his century before lunch at the SCG in 2017. This question
comes up from time to time, so I have added a list to my Unusual Records page. ******** |
21 April 2022 First-Class FoW; Some New Stats Some notes on the recording of Falls of Wickets The listing of
Falls of Wickets (FoW), as a part of scorecards, is such a familiar sight
that it might be a surprise that for a long time such detail was often not
seen in publications. FoW can be found in original scores going back more
than 150 years; however, this data did not always make into newspapers or
other published reports, particularly in England. The Times did not routinely list FoW for Tests until 1928. While Wisden followed suit for some Tests
from the 1930s, it did not routinely report FoW for county matches until
about 1952. In Australia, the
practice goes back rather further, with FoW listed, as a defined section, in
Test match scores from the beginning of the 20th Century, but
apparently not before. It is notable
that a complete set of FoW for all past Tests was included in Roy Webber’s Playfair Book of Test Cricket in 1951.
Webber must have done a fair amount of research to put that together, since
the data was largely absent from Wisden;
he would have been helped by some Australian newspapers. The book’s
successors, now the Wisden Book of Test
Cricket, have continued with this. In the wider
realm of first-class cricket, data for older matches still contains gaps. There
must have been a lot of research to gather what is now known, but still there
are perhaps nine per cent of matches before 1970 for which FoW data is absent
or very patchy. This includes most matches before the Test era. FoW data is
about 99 per cent complete since 1970, but I might add that not all of f-c
cricket matches have full scores anyway; for example, some matches in Sri
Lanka in the 80s and 90s, a time of civil war and upheaval, are represented
by ‘potted’ scores only. The practice of
naming the batsmen out at each FoW, allowing the easy identification of
batsmen in partnerships, is relatively a more recent phenomenon. It has only
become widespread in the electronic era from the 1990s, although Bill
Frindall was ahead of the game in the 70s with his published Test cricket
scores for various series, continued in the Daily Telegraph Cricket Year Books in the 1980s. Researchers have
gone back through some types of old matches, notably Tests and Sheffield
Shield matches, to make such identifications, although I have found that this
data can be a bit unreliable; from my own research, I have made over 400
changes to online identifications of batsmen out in Test matches. Apart from Test
and Sheffield Shield, batsman ID in FoW is something of a blank area in
first-class cricket before about 1995. Even quite recently, data can be
incomplete, with almost ten per cent missing from online scores since 2013,
notably for matches in Pakistan. Statistics of Major First-Class
Partnerships This is
something of an introduction to a piece of research that I have done on
identifying the batsmen in major partnerships in f-c cricket. The potential
field is vast, so I have been limited to looking at partnerships exceeding
200. Even then there are over 7,000 known partnerships. It would be nice to
be extend the analysis to all century partnerships, but with over 65,000 to
go through, it would be rather overwhelming. It also becomes more difficult
to be sure about batsman ID the smaller the partnership gets. You would think
that it would be easy for partnerships over 200, and indeed it is in most
cases, but even at that level there are so many uncertain ones that time gets
consumed. Apart from
matches for which FoW is missing entirely, there is some uncertainty
introduced by the incidence of batsmen retiring hurt. This adds imprecision,
but I have decided to include these (if they can be identified), and just
list the two major batsmen when it happens. It appears to happen in less than
two per cent of major partnerships, and in many of those there was a two-man
200+ partnership anyway. Firstly, the
numbers of partnerships. These are the ones I have identified; the numbers
will be mostly but not absolutely complete. Bear in mind that the data I have
gathered may not represent all known data. It is not really
clear to me why there are fewer opening stands than subsequent wickets. Number of Known 200+ Stands in First-Class Cricket
I have searched
for the lowest scores made by batsmen involved in a (two-man) 200-run
partnerships. The list is led by the freak partnership between the Hazare
brothers in 1943-44. Vivek Hazare’s 21 in five and a half hours represents
probably the most extreme sustained slow scoring in f-c cricket. Lowest scores by players involved in 200+ stands.
‘Retired hurt’ partnerships
excluded. These are the
final scores by the batsman rather than their contribution to the
partnership, although I think they may be the same in each of these cases. There
may be others who contributed fewer runs to a major stand, but who ended up
with more than 40 runs in total. Generally, it is not possible to identify
these. This list does not
include the strangest double-century partnership of all, 246 unbroken between
M Nayyar (101*) and K Bhaskar Singh (12*) for Delhi in 1991. There were 180
runs included in this stand thanks to penalty runs for a slow over rate
(throughout the match) by Bombay – so it is not a real 200 stand, but I leave
it in anyway, because it is so curious. The dataset
allows, I think for the first time, identification of batsmen involved in
major partnerships. Most double-century stands in first-class
cricket (individuals).
On reflection,
it is not too surprising to see Sutcliffe topping Hobbs. Sutcliffe was a
slower batsman; in fact in Tests his average innings length rivals Bradman.
This means that there was a higher chance of large numbers of runs being
added while he was batting. Filtering for
triple-century stands produces this list
Curiously I get
only five for Hobbs and four for Hammond. Both tended to score faster than
their batting partners, and so accumulate fewer giant stands. For 400+ stands,
I get 3 for Rahul Dravid and 2 for various others. However, one of Dravid’s
included a retired hurt. For batting
pairs, I get the following… Most major stands by batting
pairs (all wickets)
The 200+ stands include the 300+
stands. I think that the
dominance of Holmes and Sutcliffe in this statistic was already known; all of
their stands were for the first wicket and so could be very easily
identified. There was a
lesser-known pair, FB (Frank) Watson and Ernest Tyldesley, who matched
Sutcliffe and Holmes in making four 300+ stands, although they only had six
200+ stands in total. I didn’t find any pairs involved in more than one 400+
stand. Frank Worrell
and Ravi Jadeja have both been involved in two 500+ partnerships during their
respective careers. ******** |
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Most ‘dismissals’ with no balls
since 2000:
updated list. This depends
on the accuracy of Cricinfo texts and my ability to search them. Apart from
‘caught off no ball’ and ‘bowled by a no ball’, it includes cases of
"lbw to no ball" that may be a matter of opinion or uncertainty. Bowler M Morkel 13 KAJ Roach 13 I Sharma 12 B Lee 11 ST Gabriel 11 Z Khan 7 RA Jadeja 7 Wahab Riaz 6 A Flintoff 6 SL Malinga 6 VD Philander 6 K Rabada 6 ******** Wicket with first ball in Test
cricket. This list has
one or two differences with other published lists. Bowler TP Horan 1882 A Coningham 1894 WM Bradley 1899 EG Arnold 1903 AEE Vogler 1905 JN Crawford 1905 GG Macaulay 1922 MW Tate 1924 M Henderson 1929 HD Smith 1932 TF Johnson 1939 KR Miller 1945 R Howorth 1947 Intikhab Alam 1959 RK
Illingworth 1991 NM Kulkarni 1997 CJ Drum* 2000 MKGCP
Lakshitha 2002 NM Lyon 2011 RMS Eranga 2011 DL Piedt 2014 GC Viljoen 2015 *In Drum’s
case it was actually his second delivery, following a no ball to start. Horan was not
playing in his first Test, but it was his first time bowling. ******** Kraigg
Brathwaite faced 673 balls in the Bridgetown Test just completed. This is the most known for
a West indies batsman in a Test, but there is another contender. The number
can only be estimated, but Frank Worrell faced a similar number of balls at
Kingston in 1952-53. Some years ago I came up with an estimate of 674 balls
for Worrell (237 & 23); Brathwaite faced 673. Worrell's actual figure is
probably in the 650-700 range, but exact figures were never recorded. ******** |
23 March 2022 Warne and McGrath Sreeram
suggested that I should write something about Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne
and their head-to-head records against the best batsmen of their time. For
those interested here is the updated data. I can't say it is very flattering
to Warne, particularly looking at the very best (Tendulkar, Lara). It's probably
avoided by most commentators, but the reality is that top batsmen generally
do much better against spin (even the best spinners) than against pace
bowlers. Spinners do have something of a disadvantage in that when top-order
batsmen fail, it is sometimes before the spinners come on. Nevertheless, the
difference is stark. Warne, it should be remembered, was effectively crowned
Greatest Bowler Of All Time by Wisden in 2001 – he was the only full-time
bowler among the “FIVE CRICKETERS OF THE [20TH] CENTURY” – when
his career still had years to run. Yes he was a great bowler, but IMHO Warne
was not even the best bowler in his team. McGrath and Warne: head-to head
against top batsmen
Note: averages are strictly player
v player; e.g., Kallis scored 167 runs off McGrath’s bowling, with 6
dismissals, average 27.8, and 354 runs off Warne’s bowling, with 7
dismissals, average 50.6. ******** I have been
looking more closely at Barry Valentine’s ball-by-ball work on Ashes Tests
from 1920 to 1961, and made a log of all the dropped catches that were
mentioned. For the first time, this allows a long-term view of trends in this
very difficult area of statistics. Without further ado, here are some
numbers, compared to the recent data that I have been collecting over the
last two decades. Percentages are calculated using the numbers of catches and
stumpings in the relevant Tests. Historical Missed Chances (Ashes
Tests)
Includes missed stumpings, but
not run outs. A couple of
points: reporting styles changed in the 1950s, becoming more interpretive and
less rigorous in terms of straight out facts. In some series such as 1956
there is a dearth of reports of dropped catches off tailenders; it may well
be that some relatively unimportant chances have been left out of reports.
For the 1960s, there is currently very little data. I hope this can be
improved in time. While we should
not read too much into every bump in the trend, there is a clear trend of
improvement over many years. There is also
some more work to be done on Tests from the 70s to the 90s. The percentage in
the 70s may have been around 30%, but more work on that is needed. I have
some data from Frindall for these decades but need to work on it more. I have edited
the ball-by-ball records of Ashes Tests from 1920 to 1961 to include dropped
catches, and included columns in the half-centuries detail files to include
dropped catch data. Examples here and here. ******** Here is a list
of most balls faced by a batsman in the fourth innings of a Test…
******** |
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8 March 2022 Shane Warne The news here –
recently dominated by War (Ukraine), Flood (NSW and Qld) and Pestilence
(Covid) – has been pushed aside by the very untimely death of Shane Warne.
There are already mountains of articles on the subject; I have little to add,
except to notice that Warne’s “larger than life” personality features in
commentary at least as much as his cricketing achievements, perhaps more so. A quiet
introverted version of Warne would have had less impact on the game, even
with just as many wickets. My own opinion: it is possible to be both a very
great player and to be overrated. Plus a couple of
little stats… · Warne’s name appears on
standard Test scoresheets (Batting, Bowling, dismissals section and FoW) more
times than any other player (Jimmy Anderson is second). · During his bowling spells
in Tests, Warne’s bowling partners took more wickets than he did. That is,
723 wickets were taken by other bowlers when Warne bowled the previous over,
vs 708 taken by Warne himself. Run outs excluded. · I have a theory that
Warne was congratulated, in person and by name, more times than any other
person in human history. He got a “bowled Shane!” from Ian Healy and others
for maybe 50% of the 50,000 balls he bowled in international cricket.
Absolutely impossible to prove of course. A couple of
articles of mine from some years ago on the subject of Warne… A
Tale of Two Spinners. (2006) Some comments on Shane Warne’s Test career (2007) ******** When Joburg was in the Wars Here are some more
notes on the extraordinary circumstances and events surrounding the
Johannesburg Test of 1895-96. Thanks to Robin Isherwood for information. The tour and its
scheduling was impacted in late December 1895 by what is known as the
‘Jameson Raid’, a military incursion from Rhodesia into Transvaal by
supporters of Cecil Rhodes. It was hoped that the raid would trigger an
uprising against the Boer government in Transvaal, but it failed in that
objective. It was undoubtedly a precursor to the Boer War (1898-1902). Another
difficulty for the cricketers, not entirely unrelated to the above, was the
deep antipathy between cricket authorities in the Cape and Transvaal. This is
evident from both sides, in comments in newspapers at the time, and there was
a lack of cooperation between the two groups. Nevertheless, Lord Hawke’s team
ventured inland in mid-February, apparently having scheduled a match against
Transvaal for the 22nd. Then on February
19, while the team was playing a scheduled minor match in Bloemfontein, a gigantic explosion occurred in
Johannesburg. More than 50 tons of dynamite, on five rail trucks,
detonated in a rail yard, killing scores of people and leaving a crater up to
50 feet deep and 250 feet long. Houses hundreds of yards from the blast were
destroyed and the shock wave damaged most of the buildings in the city. One
witness described “a vast black and gold cloud rising like a colossal
mushroom into the blue”, which must be one of the first descriptions of a
Mushroom Cloud. The exact circumstances of the explosion were difficult to
ascertain, since everyone directly involved had been killed. The nearby
Wanderers Ground was given over to triage and treatment of hundreds of the
injured. Prior to the
explosion, it appears that a Test match had been added to the schedule,
either replacing the Transvaal match or, more likely, to be played
afterwards. It is not entirely clear, but in any case the match on the 22nd
could not take place. The team passed through Johannesburg and witnessed the
devastation, and arrangements were made to move on to Pretoria instead. The
Test match, possibly slated for the 26th, was pushed back to
Monday 2nd March. When the Test
started the buildings around the Wanderers were still being used as a
makeshift hospital, an extraordinary circumstance indeed. “The Wanderers Hall,
which was actually a pavilion, still stank of iodoform and was full of
wounded” (Hayward’s History of
Transvaal Cricket). As a sidelight,
Robin tells me that referring to the Ground as the “Old Wanderers” is
incorrect, since the ground was never known by that name. Known just as the
Wanderers Ground, it was closed to make way for the expansion of Johannesburg
railway station in the 1940s. The current “Wanderers” further to the north
was opened in 1956 and should be referred to as “Wanderers Stadium”. I am
making some changes in my database to reflect this. ******** |
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George
Lohmann’s wicket sequences across two Tests in 1895-96 in South Africa… Five wickets
in six balls. Six for 2 in
13 balls. Seven for 2
in 19 balls. Nine for 2 in
31 balls. Ten for 4 in
38 balls. Twelve for 4
in 44 balls. These figures
are gleaned from press reports; the number of balls for six wickets or more
are not necessarily exact. Note that
Lohmann bowled in minor matches between the two Tests, so the figures apply
to Test (and first-class) cricket only. There was
drama in Johannesburg between the two Tests. On February 19, there was a
massive explosion in a railway yard when as much as 50 tons of dynamite
detonated, apparently accidentally; more than 80 people were killed and
windows were shattered throughout the city.
The English
players were in Bloemfontein at the time. The scheduled tour match against
Transvaal in Johannesburg on the 22nd was cancelled and a Test was
then scheduled, but it did not start until March 2. This was the first Test
match played in Johannesburg, a place that had been open farmland less than a
decade earlier. The explosion
was not mentioned in Wisden. There is mention of “disturbances” in
Transvaal, but this refers to military skirmishes in December that were
precursors to the Boer War. The disturbances had delayed the team’s venture
into the South Africa inland. In this tour,
RM Poore was asked by the England manager if he would join the England team
to replace HT Hewitt, who had returned home. Poore, though, chose to play for
South Africa instead. ******** |
21 February 2022 Dropped catches report 2021 I have completed
an analysis of dropped catches in Tests in calendar year 2021, drawn from
Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball texts. There were 289 missed chances found in 44
Tests. Overall, 23.9%
of chances were missed, including missed stumpings (run outs not included),
which was almost identical to the 24.1% in 2019-20 (with fewer Tests, I
combined the data for 2019 and 2020). The averages move from year to year,
but there has been a slight, if irregular, improvement in catching over the
20 years that I have been doing this analysis. From 2004 to 2008 the average
was 25.8%; in the last 5 years, 24.4%. For 2021, New
Zealand had the best catching record, a result that is consistent with
widespread impression of that team’s fielding. Although rankings do vary from
year to year – sometimes unaccountably – New Zealand, South Africa and
Australia have been the top three teams averaged over the last five years,
just as they are in 2021.
After several
good years, Pakistan slipped considerably in 2021; Sri Lanka was similar.
West Indies fielding has been improving. England’s ordinary performance
confirms the impression from the recent Ashes series. A few records from the last 20
years of data… Batsmen missed
most times AN Cook 78 (Sangakkara and Sehwag on 67) Batsman with
highest % misses: J Blackwood 39% (Sehwag 37%, Ross Taylor 36%), minimum 50
chances. In the field, Cook
also missed the most catches with 81. Much of his early career was spent
fielding at short leg, which is the most difficult position for taking
catches. Bowlers with
most missed chances: Anderson 129, Broad 127 (up to and including calendar
year 2021, so not including the last couple of Ashes Tests). Zulfiqar Babar
of Pakistan suffered a rate of 52% of the 58 chances missed off his bowling,
including stumpings. Mohammad Rafique had a rate of 44%. Graeme Smith
dropped only 15% of his possible catches in the slips during his career. Among keepers
receiving more than 100 chances, Mark Boucher had a miss rate of 10.3% and AB
de Villiers 10.4%. (de Villiers drop rate as non-keeper was a somewhat more
typical 21%.) At the other end of the scale, Mushfiqur Rahim missed 31.5% of
his 113 chances. Most misses by a
keeper: MS Dhoni missed 66 chances in his Test career (18.3%). Note that
keeping to spinners is more difficult, and results in more missed chances,
than keeping standing back. The usual
caveats apply with regards to dropped catch data. A chance can be a matter of
opinion, and it can be possible to overlook instances when searching the
texts. Nevertheless, my search method has been consistent for 20 years
(actually it goes back to 2000, but I haven’t analysed all Tests in the early
years because the texts sometimes lacked detail). ******** I mentioned
Barry Valentine’s work on Ashes series in my last post. Looking at his work
on the 1924-25 series, it became apparent
that there were problems with my own analysis, that was carried out quite
some years ago and has been online for a few years. I have now corrected the
problems and posted new versions of the data. A core problem
was that I was relying on copies of Bill Ferguson’s scores; the originals are
kept at Cricket NSW. Although made by Ferguson himself, these scores are
handwritten copies made after the event, and there are signs that they were
made hurriedly. A good deal of secondary information, including info on separation
of bowling spells and session scores, and byes and leg byes, is missing.
Fortunately, it turns out that Fergie’s running sheets for this series exist
at Lord’s, and copies have even been posted online by the National Library of
Australia. Until a few years ago, I was not aware of existence of the
1924-25 linear scores: they are the earliest surviving Ferguson running
sheets (earlier ones, going back to 1909, have been lost, although
traditional-style scores survive). Anyway, there
are quite a lot of differences between Fergie’s re-copied scores and his
running sheets, so going back to the latter has led to changes to some balls
faced figures, lunch and tea scores, and ball-by-balls records. Mostly these
are not substantial changes, but they are numerous. Even the very first over
of the series required changing – the running sheets (0,0,1bye,1bye,1,0,1,0)
and the Cricket NSW score (0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0) do not agree. While doing this
upgrade, I have also included information on dropped catches, for this series
and for 1928-29. For this I have
Valentine’s work to thank. I have also
re-done my analysis of the 1958-59 series, again thanks
to Valentine’s work. In this case, the score copies that I had obtained many
years ago had been very hard to read in places, being multigenerational
copies via microfilm. Valentine managed to obtain better-quality copies, and
I have used his analysis. Likewise, I have revised the 1954-55 series for similar
reasons. ******** |
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I wonder if
this has any parallels: an active first-class cricketer who was murdered
during a Test match that he had attended the day before. From Barry Valentine
(referring to the last day of the 1st Test of 1920-21)... "In
mourning for the death of Dr. C.J. Tozer, DSO, the flags round the ground
were flown at half-mast, and the Australian players all wore black arm bands.
Newspapers report that he “was shot dead in a private house to which he was
attached in his private capacity”. Claude Tozer had been in the Army Medical
Corps wounded in France, and was a leading NSW batsman. In early December at
Brisbane he scored 51 and 53 for an Australian XI v MCC. On 20 December he
attended the Test. Next day he visited the home of a patient, Mrs. Mort, with
whom he had been having an affair, and when he told her was going to marry
another woman, she shot him in the head and chest and tried to shoot herself.
She was later found not guilty by reason of insanity." There is a
Wikipedia page of murdered cricketers. If I have read it correctly, Tozer was
the only one who was an active first-class cricketer at the time of his
death. UPDATE:
Sreeram reports the case of Nauman Habib, who was shot three days after
playing in a first-class match. ******** |
7 February 2022 Over rate in extremis Some years ago I
put together an analysis of the opening partnership
of Grace and Scotton at The Oval in 1886 (first day). The stand was worth 170
and when Grace was out at 216, he had also made 170. I recently had reason to
take another look at this innings, and I have to admit that I found
considerable problems with my analysis. I have re-done
the work and the numbers have changed. (There is no surviving scorebook, so
putting together an over-by-over account, from newspaper accounts, is fraught
with uncertainty. The results can only be regarded as approximate.) A wider
access to old British newspapers has helped, and there are also detailed
reports of the day in some Australian newspapers, although they were
published weeks after the event – having been sent by mail rather than
telegraph. One peculiar
thing about the day is that it appears that the over rate before lunch was
very different to the over rate afterwards. Almost impossibly so, I thought,
to the extent that I had glossed over it previously. Yet there are multiple
lines of evidence suggesting it. The scoring rate was initially exceedingly
slow, and the bowlers Giffen and Garrett stormed through their four-ball
overs. There were 52 overs in the first 65 minutes, with only 20 runs scored,
and 80-82 overs in 112 minutes before lunch, taken at 56 for 0. Giffen was
taken off before lunch after bowling 36 overs for 22 runs. These stats are
supported by independent sources. This represents
almost 180 balls per hour! This is the fastest over rate that I have heard of
(equivalent to bowling 180 six-ball overs in a six-hour day), and bear in
mind that the fielders changed end 80 times. Maiden overs must have been
completed in a minute or even less. After lunch,
Grace went on the attack and the over rate ‘plummeted’ to about 133 balls per
hour. The over rate seems to have been very sensitive to the scoring rate. Statistically,
the innings was particularly noted for the slow, often immobile, scoring of
Scotton. It has been previously recorded that he had stayed on a score of 24
for 67 minutes; the reconstruction estimates that he faced about 70 balls.
Remarkably, however, it appears that this was not actually Scotton’s biggest
stall of the innings. Before lunch, Scotton scored a three in the ninth over,
and did not score again until (about) the 60th over, facing about
80 balls in the interim. Thanks to the extreme over rate before lunch, this
only took about 50 minutes. Ultimately, Scotton faced about 290 balls for his
34 runs, still the slowest innings of its size in all Test cricket. I have posted
the revised reconstruction. There are still many uncertainties – among other
things, the sources sometimes conflict – but I hope that readers can accept
that. ******** I have begun to
include some data on dropped catches into my online material, for selected
series – at this point restricted to scores of 50 or more. An example is here. This will only be available
for a minority of series for 2000 and 2001, but I anticipate being much more
complete from 2002 onward. I have also
accumulated dropped catch data for about 350 Tests in the 20th
century, a sizeable number although still only about a quarter of the
century’s Test matches. Some of this is thanks to Barry Valentine, who has
made some deep dives into Ashes series between 1920 and 1961, using a wider
array of sources than I did in my work. Barry has been kind enough to send me
copies of his work; the analysis of a single series can run to more than 200
pages. Among the data is mention of dropped catches wherever they can be
found. I have analysed
Tests from 2021 for missed chances and will report on that shortly. In the meantime
here is a list of batsmen who were missed most times in an innings, perhaps
the first time such a list has been attempted. This list is subject to the
usual caveats about dropped catches, and of course it is probably incomplete.
Most missed chances in a batsman’s
innings – where recorded
Suggestions for additions
to this list would be welcome. UPDATE: Lawrie
Colliver tells me that Clive Lloyd was dropped six times in his 242* at
Mumbai in 1974-75. His source lists all six in detail. Actually I think I had
read that somewhere but had forgotten. ******** |
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After Pat
Cummins declared in Sydney when Leach took wickets with consecutive
balls, I looked for earlier Tests where
a declaration was made with a bowler on a hat-trick... Eng v WI (1),
Bridgetown, Barbados 1935 SAf v WI (3),
Bridgetown, Barbados 2001 Aus v WI (3),
Bridgetown, Barbados 2003 Aus v SAf
(2), Melbourne (MCG) 2005/06 ******** Most bowlers
faced by a batsman in Tests: Tendulkar faced about 300 bowlers, and Murali
bowled to about 390 batsmen. In both cases, there are maybe 10 opponents
included, but for whom data is uncertain. ******** Batting
through a day most times… If you
exclude days with less than 50 overs (300 balls) and exclude the final days
of Tests with a definite result, then the leaders are AN Cook 15 G Boycott 11 KC Sangakkara
9 L Hutton 9 MA Atherton 9 This stat favours
openers, partly because openers are the only batsmen who can bat through Day
1 of a Test. ******** After a bit
more research into 12th men, I have found that Upul Chandana of
Sri Lanka has passed Andy Bichel and now leads 20 to 19. There are also
several other Tests played by Sri Lanka around that time where Chandana may
have carried the drinks, but no 12th man names can be found. Official
Australian scores still usually have names for 12th man in them, but for most
teams the idea has become obsolete. ******** In a number
of Tests from 2013 to 2015, Australian teams had eight players born in NSW.
There are also a number of earlier instances. At Perth in
2002, Australia had 5 from (born in) NSW and one each from Qld, Vic, SA, WA,
Tas and Northern Territory. That is from
a file I made in 2016, which I have not updated. ******** |
12 January 2022 Scott Boland’s Flying Start Scott Boland
must think this Test cricket game is a bit of a lark. So much for taking
several years to adapt to the highest level of the game. I have made
several list showing some of Boland’s noteworthy achievements already,
including a list of bowlers who were fastest to take their first 10 Test
wickets, in terms of balls bowled. Fewest balls for first 10 Test wickets
I don't have Hirwani's
Test ball-by-ball, but I figure that after taking 8 in his first innings in
18.3 overs, he took wickets in each of his first two overs in the second
innings, leading to the estimate of 120 balls. Perhaps readers have more info
on that. I'll admit that
I hadn't heard of Sipamla. The 239 balls comprise his entire career to date. I expect that
the data is largely complete. If anyone can think of candidates for the Top
10 who are not there, let me know. Fewest
balls to reach six wickets in an innings, after first coming on to bowl.
Boland also equalled the record for
fewest balls to reach five wickets in an innings, after first coming on to
bowl - 19 balls. Shared with Toshack 1947-48 and Broad in 2015. Six wickets in (the space of) fewest balls
Appropriate
updates have been made to the Unusual Records section. ******** The First Boundary Hits I mentioned last
month the matter of the introduction of boundary fours in first-class cricket,
an innovation that predates Test cricket. There is also the related concept
of five runs or six runs for hits over the boundary. Here are some notes on
this subject: some of this information has been provided by Shane Hicks. The notes are by
no means a full study, but are presented as is. It is not a particularly easy
area to research, but it does seem that, while some very early examples have
been found, it has been hard to find more. So it seems that the awarding of
five or six for big hits in the 1860s was unusual. ·
In the 1860s, boundary fours began to be recorded at larger grounds
(with defined boundaries) in England. A curious exception was Trent Bridge, where
most boundaries were awarded 3 runs and the batsmen changed ends. ·
There is an interesting phrase in a report of an 1865 match at the
MCG, saying that Ned Gregory's hits to the fence scored "four, as per
agreement". The use of that phrase suggests that it was a novel idea. ·
There is a reference in the Nottinghamshire
Guardian in 1865 to Richard Daft hitting a six out of the Trent Bridge ground.
Daft also hit boundary threes and boundary fours in the same innings. ·
A batsman named Coates was awarded six for a “brilliant hit outside
the fence beyond long off” in an intercolonial match at the ·
At an intercolonial match between Victoria and New South Wales at the
MCG in early 1870, a report makes reference to hits to the "pavilion
fence" counting 3 and the "ring fence" counting 4. · There is a reference to
Charles Bannerman hitting a ball over the chains for five in an intercolonial
match in 1874-75 (MCG). I haven’t found any earlier references to such fives
in Australia. In this case, the captains agreed before play started that hits
over the fence would count for five; this suggests that it was not standard
practice. I noted two hits for five at the MCG in 1870 by Wardill, but it
appears that both were all-run. |
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Alan Davidson
is one of quite a number of bowlers who
took a wicket with their last ball in Test cricket. But Davidson also
took a wicket with his last ball in a non-Test first-class match, and it was
Garfield Sobers out bowled in a Sheffield Shield match. I reckon that such a
double (Test and non-Test f-c) must be very unusual. That final
Test was a few weeks after the Shield match. ******** When
wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs was injured in mid-over at Antigua in 1999, the bowler,
Jimmy Adams, donned the pads and took over. This meant that he could not
finish the over, so Carl Hooper finished it for him. ********* In the Old
Trafford Test of 1999, every player for New Zealand went into the Test with a
first-class century to his name. ******** The
Australian tour of England in 1884 was so lucrative that each player made 900
pounds clear profit from the tour. This was at a time when £50 per year was a
very good salary and many in the working class could earn less than £10 per
year. The Governor of the Bank of England had an annual salary of £400 in
1880. The tourists
in 1882 – the year of the original Ashes Test – made between 600 and 700
pounds per man. ******** At Chittagong
in 2008, Daniel Vettori had New Zealand’s best bowling in both innings, top
scored with 55 in the first innings and was 3 runs off top score in the
second innings (76 to Redmond's 79). ******** When did the concept of four runs for
a boundary begin? My impression is that the idea of a boundary hit began in
the 1860s. WG Grace said that in his earliest years all hits had to be run,
and that around 1860 he once hit a six and a seven, all run, in the first
over of a match. By 1865 boundary hits were scoring
four in Australia. There is an interesting phrase in a report of an 1865
match at the MCG, saying that Ned Gregory's hits to the fence scored
"four, as per agreement". The use of that phrase suggests that it
was a novel idea. I would be interested if readers have
any other information on this question. ******** Most bowlers go from "x99"
to "x(+1)00" wickets in the same match. At about 326 days, Nathan
Lyon took far longer than anyone to go from 399 to 400, previously Chris
Broad with 76 days. Most for other milestones... 99-100 W Rhodes 548 days. 199-200 CS Martin 288 days 299-300 RJ Hadlee 79 days ******** Historically, there are more than 40
cases in Tests of a batsman facing a hat-trick ball as the first ball of his
career, as Alex Carey did in the Gabba Test. At least three were out to their
first ball, thus completing the hat-trick (TA Ward, FT Badcock and WW Wade).
Ward also faced a hat-trick ball as his second ball in Tests and was out
again, completing TJ Matthews’ second hat-trick at Old Trafford in 1912. ******** From 2013 to 2015, several Australian
teams had eight players born in NSW. There are a number of earlier instances.
At Perth in 2002, Australia had 5
from (born in) NSW and one each from Qld, Vic, SA, WA, Tas and Northern
Territory. ******** Since 2017, when India started using
DRS, Virat Kohli has been out LBW 17 times. One of those came via a
successful bowling review. Of the other 16, Kohli reviewed 14 unsuccessfully.
He chose not to review the other two; ironically one of them would have been
given not out (he was on 204 at the time). He has also made two successful
batting reviews, where the initial LBW decision was overturned. The 14:2 batting LBW review ratio is
the worst among batsmen with 10 or more LBW reviews. David Warner is 8:1. ******** Mayank Agarwal’s 150 in the Mumbai
Test against New Zealand is the highest score ever achieved in the face of a
bowler taking all ten wickets (Ajaz Patel 10 for 119) in all first-class
cricket. Previously 149 by Les Ames in 1934, when W Jupp took all ten in a
county game. ******** Bangladesh lost a Test against
Pakistan in Dhaka even though they did not commence the first innings until
after lunch on the fourth day. This is the latest ever start for a first
innings in a completed Test. ******** |
15 December 2021 The Curious Case of Frank Irving. You don’t often
come across someone like Frank Irving, a man who, despite playing a role in
four Australian cricket tours to England, has virtually disappeared from the
annals of Australian cricket. They were
historic tours too – the first four Test tours by Australian teams, in 1880,
1882, 1884 and 1886. So what role did Irving play? Until recently, no one has
identified names for scorers for these touring teams: it appears that no
official scorers were appointed. But now some detective work by various
people on an ACS (Statisticians) chat page has produced convincing, if
sometimes circumstantial, evidence that Frank Irving was involved in these
tours as a scorer. Irving was a
newspaperman (specifically, a compositor) with an apparent penchant for long
sea voyages; he travelled to England five times in his short life, and can be
placed in England during all four tours. He acted as a reporter on those
tours for the Advertiser in
Adelaide, even though he was and is largely unknown for such work in
Australia. Nor is his name found in connection with scoring in Australia. Yet
it seems that, after faithfully following the teams around in England, he
came to act as scorer in some historic matches, including the original Ashes
Test in 1882. I asked some of
the luminaries of Australian and South Australian cricket history; they were
unfamiliar with Irving. His name does not appear to be mentioned in the 1882
Ashes Tour book by Charles Pardon or Clarence Moody’s 1898 history of South
Australian cricket, and eluded Michael Ronayne in his detailed tour summaries
covering that period. The Trove newspaper archive does record his name, but
only fleeting references have been found so far; likewise the British
Newspaper Archive. Currently it
appears that Irving was not appointed to tour with the team in an official
capacity, and he did not actually sail with any of the teams. He seems to
have settled into the scorer duties rather unofficially. Note that
players George Bonnor and Jack Blackham are the only others known to have
been involved in all four tours. I would like to
add some evidence from my score collection that links two of the tours. I
have copies of scores from the 1882 and 1884 Tests from the
respective Australian tour scorebooks, and I am convinced that they were
written by the same person. Examples of the writing are shown below. (The
1880 and 1886 Australian tour books cannot be located; the surviving 1880 score is from
the Surrey CCC and is in a different hand, presumably that of the local
scorer.)
The styles of
numerals are also identical in the two scores. I would add that the method of
recording bowling figures, in both cases, is unusual. In the box for each over,
the four balls are arranged in a square pattern, with the first ball of the
over in the bottom line, like so…
whereas scores made
by others from the period are what I would call more conventional…
This
helps tie together the scorers for 1882 and 1884. The evidence is also clear
that he was scorer in 1886 (see below). The evidence from 1880 is less clear,
but he definitely accompanied the team. While
the Manchester and Oval Test scores from 1884 are complete, it may well be
that Irving did not actually score the second Test at Lord’s. The Lord’s
score is in the same hand as the other Tests but it is incomplete, lacking
detail in the bowling section. It is probably a re-copy made by Irving. There
is another Test in the back of the 1884 scorebook – the first Test of 1884-85
at Adelaide. It was played in December by the 1884 tourists, who were still
together, against the English team that had just arrived in Australia. This
score is not in the same hand as the Tests in England. This suggests rather
strongly that Irving did not accompany the Australian team on their return
voyage. Indeed, passenger manifests show that Irving did not return to
Adelaide until late December, after the Adelaide Test match. The following compiles
information available about Irving, as gathered by various ACS members. The critical
observation that got this investigation going was by Harry Watton when he
picked up the reference to Irving in the December 1902 Cricket magazine. Frank (Francis) Irving Born 1855
Adelaide Joined Advertiser in 1876. 1880 March 1879:
Identified as a printer who was going to England via New Zealand and USA as a
journalist for the Advertiser. His
activities in 1879 are unclear; there is no direct evidence that he was a
scorer in 1880, but he certainly accompanied the team. Returned from
Plymouth to Adelaide departing 2 October 1880. 1882 Listed as a
passenger on the steamer POTOSI sailing from Adelaide bound for London on 13
March 1882, departing three days before the Australian team sailed from
Melbourne. (South Australian Register 14
Mar 1882). Identified as
Australian scorer against Cambridge P&P at Portsmouth (Hampshire Telegraph 19 Aug 1882), a
week before the ‘Ashes’ Test. Frank Irving age
26, listed arriving in Adelaide in Dec 1882 from England on the HAUROTO. This
was not with the team, which had returned via America in November. 1884 In a 1902
interview in Cricket magazine, Surrey
scorer Fred Boyington said that Irving was his co-scorer in the 1884 Oval
Test. A Mr F. Irving,
age ~30, is listed as a passenger on the AUSTRAL departing London on 11 Nov
1884, bound for Adelaide (and on to Melbourne and Sydney). He is the only F.
Irving listed travelling to Adelaide in the years 1883 thru 1885. Newspapers
have him disembarking in Adelaide on Dec 24. 1886 Irving was a
press representative on the tour (as he had been in 1884), the Adelaide Express reporting on 19 April
1886 that Frank Irving is ‘about to visit England [to] represent the Advertiser in connection with the
Australian Eleven’. He is reported in the South
Australian Chronicle of the same day to have made three previous visits
in that capacity (i.e., 1880, 1882 and 1884). A column in the London Evening News of 17 July 1886
refers to ‘[m]y old friend Mr. Frank Irving, the Australian scorer’, and
reports an anecdote of Irving’s from the recent match between Yorkshire and
the Australians on 12-14 July, when the ball had whistled past the scorebox. F. Irving age
~31, occupation compositor, arrived back in Adelaide from England aboard
IBERIA on 7 Jan 1887. 1887: captain of
Advertiser cricket team. 1888 No known
connection with the touring team, or evidence of travel. Leaves for
England again 11 Nov 1889? Died (intestate)
6 May 1890 Carlisle, Cumberland, England, just prior to a planned return to
Australia. He is listed in a ship manifest departing London on 9 May but his
name is crossed out. Irving’s
ancestors and relatives hailed from Dumfries Scotland and the surrounding
area, just over the border a few miles from Carlisle. 21 June 1890: a
short obituary appeared in South
Australian Chronicle (“four trips to England since first journey with the
Australian eleven”) ACS members who gathered the above information
include Harry Watton, Neville Flood and Sreeram Iyer. ******** The Test Match
Database has now reached the 21st Century. It is now well and truly
overlapping with other online ball-by-ball records, but I will continue with
it for now. For some Tests, there is material in my scores (for example,
session scores) that would be rather hard to extract from other online
sources. I don’t know how much further I will take it; who knows what 2022
will bring? ******** |
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I came across
a 1982 newspaper article by Bill O’Reilly. He was talking about his early
recollections of cricket broadcasting on television, which he had first seen
in 1938 in England. The match was Middlesex v Australians on 30th
May 1938 (O’Reilly says it was the 28th, but that day was rained
out). This is before the Tests that year, and must represent one of the very
first cricket TV broadcasts. The
television set (super-expensive in those days) was on loan to the hotel where
the Australians were staying. Most curiously, O’Reilly said he was in the
team playing that day, but he had stayed behind in the hotel to deal with
some correspondence! He had expected the team to bat all day, but they
started losing wickets. O’Reilly could see from the broadcast that the pitch
was dodgy, so he hurried down to the ground, and was just in time to bat and
make a duck. ******** I took a look
at the question of a bowler taking a wicket with his last ball of a Test and
first ball of his next, and found only 25 cases (from the database covering
about 85% of Tests). Waqar Younis and Richard Hadlee did it twice. The low
number might seem surprising when you consider that there are well over one
thousand cases of wickets with consecutive balls in general play, but
remember that there is never more than one opportunity per Test match for a
bowler to do take two in two in different Tests (and usually no chance at
all), whereas the same bowler may well have multiple opportunities for two
wickets in two balls during the course of
a Test match. There are no
known cases of three in three across two Tests (a quasi-hat-trick) except for
the extraordinary case of George Lohmann, who took a hat-trick to finish a match
in 1895-96, and then a wicket with his first ball of the next Test, to secure
four wickets in four balls (he made it five in six two balls later). Overall, the
chances of taking a wicket with a hat-trick ball are only 1 in 30, so, given
the low incidence of two in two balls across two matches, it is not
surprising that three in three is so rare. There is an
interesting case of Mervyn Dillon, whose last two balls at Port of Spain in
2002 were a run out and a wicket (in two different overs), followed by a
wicket with his next ball at Bridgetown. Waqar Younis
extended one of his wicket pairs to three wickets in four balls; Rashid Khan
of Afghanistan has done the same, and that was across his first two Test
matches (9 months apart). ******** |
1 November 2021 The Test Match
Database Online has reached a crossover point with the Cricinfo Ball-by-Ball
Archive texts. Beginning with the 1998-99 India v Pakistan series in January
1999, Cricinfo began to archive their bbb logs. I am fairly certain, from
memory, that they were doing some ball-by-ball descriptions of internationals
before that – the earliest record goes back to the 1996 World Cup final – but
for some reason they never preserved them (sad emoji). If I have checked
correctly, the only Test that we have from Cricinfo, from that period, is a
single day from the 1997 India series in West Indies. The early
Cricinfo texts were typed commentaries and were not designed as rigorous
scores; there are gaps and anomalies. Where necessary (and possible) these
have been adjusted with reference to surviving scores or other published
information. In a few cases, such as the final day of the Asian Test
Championship Final in Dhaka 1999, the gaps and problems are substantial, and
there is no detailed backup. In such cases, I have ‘recreated’ a bbb version
that is consistent with surviving scores and reports. These cases are few and
I hope I will be forgiven for doing this for the sake of completeness. There are
actually seven Tests from the early period that are missing entirely from
Cricinfo, five of them in New Zealand; I have managed to obtain alternative
scores for all of these and so maintain continuity of the ball-by-ball
record. I have also
obtained alternative scores for a significant number of other 21st
Century Tests, but this collection is not comprehensive. Of the first 100
Tests from the ‘Cricinfo era’ starting in 1999, there are 36 Tests where I
rely entirely on Cricinfo for bbb records. The archived
Cricinfo texts gradually improved in detail and reliability, especially after
2002. It would be
wonderful if someone at Cricinfo could unearth some ancient backup tapes from
1997 and 1998 and find some more bbb logs. 1998 is not so essential as I have
all the Test matches from that year already (some ODIs are missing), but
there are considerable gaps in my data for 1997. I understand that there has
been a search of this kind, sadly without success. I am not sure
how far into this new era that my online work will go. But I have been at
this for nine years now and I don’t really know how to stop. ******** The Kolkata Test
of February 1999 at Eden Gardens is one of only seven Tests that Pakistan has
played at that cavernous venue. The match quite possibly attracted the
highest attendance of any Test match; however, the numbers were never
accurately counted. I am told that the ground had 90,462 seats at the time,
so any numbers in excess of that must have been standing room only. The
available numbers are estimates, and it must be said that the estimates vary
widely. I have collected
(with assistance from others) some mentions of crowd numbers from reports at
the time, illustrating the variations in estimates…
Ironically, the
last overs of the match were bowled in a virtually empty stadium, following a
roughhouse clearing out of the final day crowd by police, in response to
serious unrest that suspended play for three hours and 20 minutes. There had
also been serious unrest on Day 4. Even though it
appeared in Wisden, I consider the
estimate of 465,000 to be highly improbable. A figure around 400,000 seems a
reasonable compromise from the conflicting numbers. This number is in the
same ballpark (if I may use the expression) as the estimate of 395,000 for
the Test against Australia at the same Ground in 2001, and the 390,000
estimate from 1981-82. I don’t have figures for Tests at Eden Gardens after
2002, but it has been apparent that Test attendances have been declining in
India, even though interest remains substantial. At the same time, Indian
authorities have been distributing Test matches among a wider range of
smaller venues, and Kolkata has hosted only 12 Tests in 22 years since the
match in question. The largest
accurately measured total attendance for a Test remains the 350,534 over six
days at the MCG back in 1937. The most for a five-day Test is 271,854 for the
MCG Boxing Day Test in 2013-14 (including a ground-high 91,062 on the first
day), and the highest average daily attendance is 81,450 for the equivalent
match in 2006-07, which only lasted three days. ******** |
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I don’t think I
have discussed before, on this blog, the origins of the early Test match
“canon”, that is, the list of matches regarded as official Tests. It is widely
held that the originator of the list was a South Australian journalist named
Clarence P. Moody. Beyond that, it remains a bit of a mystery how Moody’s
list, drawn up in the 1890s, became accepted as gospel. With limited debate,
and no input from English sources, it has become set in stone, so to speak.
Moody was something of a cricket statistician. He was also a friend of George
Giffen, who may well have suggested the creation of the list. However, there
was never any official imprimatur on Moody’s work. I went looking
for Moody’s original list. Various printed sources and online articles said
that it came from Moody’s 1898 book on South Australian Cricket. I managed to
borrow, from Roger Page, a facsimile copy of this book (originals are rare
and valuable) and was rather surprised to find that it contained no such
list. However, an Introduction to that facsimile edition pointed me to an
earlier (1894) Moody work, Australian
Cricketers 1856-1893-94. Fortunately, the Trove Archive has this book
online, and there can be found the original list, on pages 80 and 81. Clarence Moody’s 1894 list of
Test matches
One noteworthy
aspect is that Moody restricted himself to England v Australia Test matches.
In that respect, the list is indeed identical to the accepted canon, but
there are several other matches, played in South Africa in 1888-89 and
1891-92, that are not included. So how did those Tests get into official
lists? I don’t know but I would like to find out. (I am told that the South
Africa matches were listed as Tests by Ashley-Cooper in a Cricketer Annual in
1930-31, but I don’t know if there are earlier references.) I do know that
there has been plenty of doubt and dispute over the Test status of some matches,
and also some matches that did not make the list but might have. In the case
of 1888-89, even the first-class status can be questioned, since there was no
first-class cricket in South Africa at the time, and a number of the
Englishmen were themselves not first-class cricketers. (A favourite stat: JEP
McMaster played Test cricket, but was out to the only ball he ever faced in
first-class cricket.) In his 1951 collection of Test match scores (The Playfair Book of Test Cricket),
Roy Webber certainly expressed a sceptical view, but he also said that
“little purpose seems to be served by omitting ‘doubtful’ matches”. I agree,
but I think that caveats need always to be expressed when records from those
matches crop up (such as Briggs 15 wickets for 28 at Cape Town, 14 of them
clean bowled). A comment from
the Sydney Sportsman in 1901 seems
pertinent here…
It should be
said that Moody’s list did not require deep scholarship. Once the matches of
1877 are accepted into Test cricket, most of the rest falls into place.
However, the fact that the list came to be used as a reference, in the face
of the disagreements expressed above, makes it important. I won’t go into
the detail of the claims of certain matches for Test status. But here are a
couple of observations: - The touring
English team in 1884-85 did not regard the first two matches, now regarded as
Tests, as authentic. As far as they were concerned there were three Tests in
the series. The canon lists five. - The 1887-88
match was by no means regarded as a proper Test match even in Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald described the
Australians as the "non-representative Australian XI". ******** An Earlier Wagon Wheel I have written
(somewhere) that the first known batting Wagon Wheels were found in Test
match reports in the Daily Express
in 1905. Sreeram has now pushed the date back a little further, finding
similar diagrams in Manchester Guardian
reports for the first Test of that series (innings by Hill and Tyldesley).
Unfortunately, the Guardian reports
do not say how the diagrams were made or by whom, although they do claim
copyright. The Express does suggest
that theirs were drawn up in the newspaper office, based on information
telegraphed or telephoned from the ground. It has been
claimed/reported that Wagon Wheels were invented by Bill Ferguson, who in
1905 was the Australian scorer, making his first of many tours. However, the
diagrams in the British papers are different in style to Ferguson’s, with
concentric circles for each run value. No actual Ferguson-style Wagon Wheels
earlier than 1911 have been sighted. In his
autobiography, Ferguson provides a whole range of examples of his Wagon
Wheels, but he is curiously vague about their development. The earliest
diagram in that book is from 1912 (he didn’t call them “Wagon Wheels” by the
way; I wonder when the term originated). Sreeram has
added further evidence by finding another 1905 Guardian Wagon Wheel, this time from a county match, Lancashire v
Yorkshire in June (Tyldesley 134). It even names the bowlers for each shot.
Ferguson at this
time was elsewhere scoring for the Australian team, so he could not have
contributed to this. I think that it is now fair to say that Ferguson
adopted, rather than invented, the idea of a Wagon Wheel. ******** |
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In the Test
match at The Oval, Rohit Sharma (127) was dismissed by the first ball with
the new ball, after a partnership of 153 with Pujara. This is the second
highest partnership ended by a brand new ball, after a partnership of 172
between Mark Richardson and Stephen Fleming at Colombo PSS in 2003.(where
known) ******** Something
curious about cricket watching in Sri Lanka…during England’s Test match in
Colombo in 1992-93, the attendance on the Saturday was only about 1,000. On
the same weekend, two interschool matches in Colombo attracted crowds of over
10,000. (source: Sunday Times) ******** Here is a neat
little stat. When West Australian Des Hoare batted for the first time on
debut at Adelaide in 1961, his first ball was from Lance Gibbs, who had just
completed the hat-trick. As far as I
can see, Hoare is the only batsman in Test history whose first ball in Tests
was the first ball after a hat-trick (the double hat-trick ball). Others on
debut have come in after a hat-trick, but it was either the second innings,
or they didn't face the double hat-trick ball. One case was CA Absolom in
1878-79, who came in after Spofforth took a hat-trick, but the hat-trick came
off the last three balls of an over, and Absolom faced a ball in the next
over, before Spofforth bowled again.
******** Longest
sequence of missed chances off a bowler without a catch being taken (data
since 2003)... In 2019, Joe
Root had a sequence of seven chances missed off his bowling, without any
catches being taken, spread over three Tests. Same thing happened to Nathan
Hauritz in 2010, again over multiple Tests. ******** It hadn't
occurred to me until a question on Ask Steven, but I found that never before
had a team, behind on first innings, declared its second innings after lunch
on the 5th day, and won. This is what India did to England at Lord's. ******** The most
threes in a Test career were hit by Steve Waugh (397) and Ricky Ponting
(381). The top six positions are held by Australians who were active (at
least in part) during the 1990s, before the much-lamented ‘shrinking’ of the
grounds and the advent of Super Bats. Mark Taylor hit 354 threes or 14.1% of
his runs; this is the highest percentage of any major batsman. Threes have
always been more common on the larger Australian grounds. The top 13
positions are held by Australian or English batsmen. ****** |
16 September 2021 I have been
working on a list
of “Unusual Dismissals” in Test matches. This is largely
drawn from notes that I have made over the years in my study of Test matches
and scorebooks, rather than specific research. Some of the instances have
been thanks to suggestions by others. The stimulus to
finally put this together was the dismissal of Nauman Ali at Harare earlier
this year, stumped by Chakabva off a wide. As far as I know, this was
unprecedented in Test matches, although it happens from time to time in
limited overs games. Any suggestions
for additions would be welcome. The general criteria include: a dismissal
must have occurred, and there must have been something very unusual about the
dismissal itself, not just the situation (for instance, run out for 99 is not
included unless there was something strange about the dismissal). Also
excluded is where one fielder drops a catch and deflects to another: there
are actually many examples of this in Tests. Bowlers deflecting a shot to
effect a run out is also excluded, unless it was a dropped catch. ******** While checking
through the list of most
overs in a day by individual bowlers, I noticed again the
absence of any modern names. The list is effectively set in stone, and is
dominated by Tests where over rates were high and days lasted six hours. Most
instances came from the 1940s and early 1950s, when some captains, rather
lacking in imagination, would put spin bowlers on and just keep them bowling.
This certainly applied to John Goddard of the West Indies. So I have
prepared a separate list for Tests since 1998. Most Overs in a Day: individual
bowlers since 1998.
Incomplete overs counted as one There are ten
cases of 39 overs. Even in this list, the near absence of instances in the
last ten years is notable, with just one appearance, by Jadeja. There are
only three instances from the last ten years in the Top 30. By contrast,
Muralitharan appears ten times in the Top 30, and even then his Tests before
1998 are not included. There are
worrying signs that over rates are on the way down again. It has become
unusual for teams get through 90 overs in the allotted six hours, often not
even in the allowed extension to 6.5 hours. The great majority of innings in
Tests this year have recorded over rates of 80 balls per hour or less (40 out
of the last 46 innings). In the 1960s, rates of more than 100 balls per hour
were commonplace; in the 1940s and earlier, it was 120 balls per hour or
more. Fielding sides
are mostly to blame, but not entirely. Batsmen nowadays often go through
elaborate preparations and are quite frequently not ready to face when a
bowler is trying to get through an over more quickly than usual. ******** There has been a
general checking and updating of various records in the “Unusual
Records” section. Not everything has been checked, but
those sections that have been checked have been appropriately labelled with a
date. |
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A scoring
curiosity: in the second Test between Zimbabwe and New Zealand at Harare in
1997-98, it appears that when no balls were scored from, an extra run was
added (for example, a no ball hit for four added five runs to the total).
This was not the established protocol at the time: the practice came into
general use about a year later. There were no instances in the first Test of
that series (none of the no balls were scored from), but there were several
instances in the second Test. The change
became permanent in Test #1424, Pakistan v Aus, Oct 1998. In the Zim
Test, it is particularly interesting in that the match was very close. In the
final innings, the 8th wicket fell with 4 balls left and 11 to win. At that
point the tailenders decided not to go for victory and played out the four
balls. But if the scoring protocol had been normal for that time, the target
would actually have been 8 runs (and 7 to tie), not 11. I wonder: perhaps
they would have had a go at that. ******** From time to
time a batsman scores a century on the first day of a Test even though his
team batted second. Bowlers have also been known to take five or more wickets
on the first day, bowling second, but it has become rather rare in these days
of covered wickets and slow over rates. The most recent case is Glenn McGrath
at Lord’s in 2005. After Australia was out for 190, McGrath took five wickets
for two runs from his 4th to 9th overs, immediately following
tea. He finished the day with 5 for 21. ******** Fred Price
was a wicketkeeper from Middlesex who played one Test in 1938. He played 402
first-class matches without ever bowling, the all-time record for a complete
career. Kumar
Sangakkara played 529 List A games (and also 267 T20) without bowling.
However, he bowled in f-c cricket. T20: Eoin
Morgan has played 333 T20s to date without bowling. Combined
totals: Steven Davies, who has played for England and various counties, has
played 581 games (240 f-c, 188 List A, and 153 T20) without bowling. He
bowled one over in an Under-19 Test. He is still active. ******** |
17 August 2021 In response to
an enquiry, I put together a list of bowlers who have bowled underarm in
Tests. Gerald Brodribb
actually wrote a book on underarm bowling.
I don’t have a copy, but there is a surprising amount of stuff on
‘lob’ bowling on the internet (Cricket Country and elsewhere) that is
probably derived from Brodribb, at least in part. I have scoured this and
come up with the following (some is from notes in my database). Most of these
were bowling lobs, and the underarm part is presumed. Hornby is an exception,
bowling "grubbers". Underarm bowlers in Tests T Armitage Eng v
Aus (1), Melbourne (MCG) 1876/77 AN Hornby Eng v
Aus (1), Melbourne (MCG) 1878/79 WW Read Eng v
Aus (1), Melbourne (MCG) 1882/83 WW Read Eng v
Aus (3), The Oval 1884 A Lyttleton Aus
v Eng (3), The Oval 1884 G Ulyett Eng v
Aus (2), Melbourne (MCG) 1884/85 one ball only AE Stoddart Eng
v Aus (4), Melbourne (MCG) 1897/98 GHT
Simpson-Hayward Eng v SAf 1909/10 Five Tests Simpson-Hayward
is regarded as the last of the regular lob bowlers. Test players recorded as bowling
underarm in first-class cricket but not in Tests For the most part, these players did so only once,
or on rare occasions. EM Grace SMJ Woods CB Fry R Spooner GF Vernon LCH Palairet RH Spooner EG Wynyard JM Blackham H Verity JB Iverson JM Brearley CF Root G Brown Yuvraj of
Patiala Dilip Vengsarkar
is said to have bowled an over of lobs for West Zone against the MCC in
1984-85. However, these appear to have been ‘donkey drops’, not underarm. I read also the
Hornby was also ambidextrous with regard to bowling. Apart from him, I have
not seen any references to bowling ‘grubbers’ (as opposed to lobs) in Tests. |
