Z-score’s
Cricket Stats Blog Archive 2017
Longer
articles by Charles Davis
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In the
first ever Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Johannesburg in 1994-95, the injured John Commins
came in to bat using a runner (perhaps the fastest runner in world cricket,
Jonty Rhodes, who had been out the previous ball). Off his first ball, Commins completely forgot about the runner and set off on
a run, and was hopelessly run out going for a second as confusion reigned. He
collapsed on the ground, having aggravated his injury. In a final insult, the
umpire called the run a leg bye, so Commins was out
for a golden duck. UPDATE:
although the newspaper report that this is based on specifically describes a
leg bye, the ball-by-ball record shows that no run was completed, and the
published score confirms this. Commins was run out
at the striker’s end. There was a leg bye earlier in the over, before Rhodes
was out. ******** Have I
discovered a new Test cricket record? The New Zealand Herald reported that, on the
fourth day of the Bulawayo Test in 1992 (Zim v NZ),
"play started in front of one paying spectator". If true, this is the smallest recorded
crowd at a Test match where spectators were permitted. There has been a small number of other Tests where spectators
were excluded for security reasons on one or more days. Of course,
it is possible that the reporter was exaggerating for effect. ******** A curious
moment in cricket history that Wisden may prefer to forget: In March 1982, Wisden
announced that the matches then being played by a ‘rebel’ English team
against South Africa would be recognised as Test matches. The announcement met
with immediate criticism, and Wisden never followed through. ******** In 1996,
the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians reported that
pre-1970 Wisdens contained errors in
70 per cent of their scorecards of county matches. They determined this by
comparison with official county scorebooks. A couple
of points in Wisden’s
defence: 1) many of the errors were trivial, for example confusing byes with
leg byes. 2) I have found plenty of ‘official’ scorebooks that contain errors
if you look closely enough. ******** On the
fourth day of the Test at Ahmedabad in 1987, Pakistani fielders were pelted
with stones by “hooligan” spectators. Pakistan captain Imran Khan refused to
continue and about an hour of play was lost. Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar made appeals for calm in Gujarati and Hindi.
When order had apparently been restored and play was re-started, eight of the
Pakistan players came onto the field wearing helmets. According to The Hindu newspaper, this demonstrated
the players’ “sense of humour”; personally, I very much doubt that they were
trying to be funny. ******** The most popular days of the Test year: If I calculate correctly, there have been 113 Tests with play on
January 3, and 103 on January 4. I haven't excluded washed out days, but rest
days are excluded. Boxing Day is fourth place on 90. Those 113
Tests occurred in 71 different years, since some of them had concurrent Tests. In
Australia, 'New Year' Tests have a longer tradition than Boxing Day, although
they often did not start exactly on New Year's Day. There have
been only 3 Tests with scheduled play on May 9, and in one of those play was
washed out. ******** There have
been 87 Test innings with just two individual centuries, where the
two centurions did not bat together in partnership. The smallest such innings
was 374 by New Zealand at Hamilton 1990-91, where John Wright scored 101 and
Andrew Jones 100*, but they did not bat together. There has been only one
case where both batsmen reached 150: Auckland 2003-04 where Scott Styris made 170 and Chris Cairns 158. ******** |
24 December 2017
A
Long Day’s Batting
The most balls
faced by a batsman in a day’s play, that I know of, is 424 deliveries faced
by Alec Bannerman on the third day at Sydney in 1891-92. He scored just 67
runs. There is a small uncertainty about the balls faced (plus or minus)
which may be important because Bradman faced 421 in a day during his triple-century
in 1934 and 420 in a day during his triple in 1930. There are 3 others in the
range 410-420 so it is all very close. This is a
category that is really 'set in stone'. All these marks were set in the days
when more than 140 overs could be bowled in a day. There is no possibility
that any modern batsman could rival these numbers. Most balls Faced in a Day of Test
cricket: Individuals
******** I was looking at
Test series where one bowler completely outclassed his team mates. The
ultimate example (excluding one-off Tests) was Bangladesh in England in 2005,
where Mashrafe Mortaza
took 4 wickets at 49.5 (in itself, pretty ordinary), but his team mates
combined managed only two wickets at 375.5, a difference in average of 326. For a more
substantial series, with a bowler who took ten wickets or more in a minimum
three Tests, Ray Bright took 15 wickets at 23.8 for Australia in Pakistan in
1979-80, while the other bowlers (including Dennis Lillee)
put together took just 8 wickets at 92.4. In a six-Test series in Pakistan in
1982-83, Kapil Dev took 24 wickets at 34.6 while his team mates averaged 85. At the other end
of the scale, Graham McKenzie took one wicket for 333 runs in South Africa in
1969-70. His fellow bowlers took 64 wickets at 40.5 – still not very good,
Australia lost the series 4-0. ******** A few years ago
Benedict Bermange kindly sent me lists of the longest-serving #1 players in the ICC Test ranking lists. He has now updated
them in comments on an Ask Steven post. I am copying them here since Facebook
posts soon get hard to find. Benedict has been
involved in the development of the ratings systems for many years and has a
copy of the algorithm. Without that, these numbers would be jolly hard to
calculate. Most Matches Ranked #1 Batsman G.S.Sobers 189 I.V.A.Richards 179 B.C.Lara 140 S.R.Tendulkar 139 S.P.D.Smith 114 K.C.Sangakkara 97 S.R.Waugh 94 D.G.Bradman 93 G.A.Gooch 81 R.T.Ponting 76 Most Days Ranked #1 Batsman D.G.Bradman 6320 J.B.Hobbs 5845 G.S.Sobers 3705 C.Hill 2715 I.V.A.Richards 2631 J.J.Lyons 1692 L.Hutton 1582 W.G.Grace 1524 A.Shrewsbury 1463 B.C.Lara 1363 Most Matches Ranked #1 Bowler D.W.Steyn 265 M.Muralitharan 214 G.D.McGrath 174 C.E.L.Ambrose 145 R.J.Hadlee 127 S.M.Pollock 93 L.R.Gibbs 92 M.D.Marshall 80 D.L.Underwood 79 R.R.Lindwall 72 Most Days Ranked #1 Bowler W.J.O'Reilly 3643 G.A.Faulkner 2661 D.W.Steyn 2358 J.Briggs 2189 H.Trumble 2131 M.W.Tate 2107 F.R.Spofforth 2043 C.V.Grimmett 1873 L.R.Gibbs 1845 R.J.Hadlee 1824 I am of the
opinion that the ratings system is very sound, but becomes less reliable
further back in time. There were probably enough teams and enough Tests
played from about 1955 onwards to produce useful rankings; before that, I am
a bit dubious. The suspension of Test cricket in wartime, in particular,
produces some funny results. Aubrey Faulkner did not take a single wicket
during his period as “#1” bowler from 1914 to 1920. The reason is that S.F
Barnes, who was #1 (by a country mile) up to 1914, did not play after the
war, so his career ratings were terminated. Faulkner, on the other hand,
played a single Test after the War (in which he took no wickets) and so is
considered one of the few bowlers whose careers straddled the War. Of these
bowlers, he had the best career record in 1914, even though he took his last
Test wicket in 1912. There is
certainly a case for arguing that Dale Steyn is the greatest bowler of all
time, based on these figures. ******** |
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A report
of a Sri Lanka/India Test from 1993 describes Sachin Tendulkar as India’s
vice-captain. Tendulkar was barely 20 years old at the time. I don’t have any
info on vice-captains, but I wonder if he was the youngest. “Vice-captain” is
not an official position, and teams are not required to have one. Tendulkar
filled in as
acting captain when Azharuddin was indisposed for
part of the third Test.
******** During the
first Test between Sri Lanka at Morutawa in1993,
Sri Lanka appealed against Richie Richardson, simultaneously for caught behind
and a stumping. Umpire Samarasinghe gave the
stumping not out, but umpire Francis gave Richardson out caught behind.
Replays showed that both decisions were probably wrong; the upshot was that
Richardson was out anyway. ******** At Lucknow
in 1994 against Sri Lanka, Sachin Tendulkar went from 88 to 100 in four balls
(4, 0, 4, 4 off Wickremasinghe).
Others have done it faster, but Tendulkar’s effort was notable because it was
off the first four balls of the day. ******** Indian
paceman Atil Wassan broke
a stump when he bowled Mark Greatbatch to take his
first Test wicket, at Christchurch in 1990. ******** I was
surprised to see on Ask Steven that Peter Siddle
went the most Tests without taking a catch (25). In fact the 25 Tests were
the last 25 of his career. Siddle dropped three
catches during that sequence. ******** At Nagpur
in 1994 (Ind v WI), the first 16 wickets fell to
catches. Only two of them went to wicketkeepers. ******** |
8 December 2017
Just a few bits
and pieces, while I search for inspiration… Four dropped catches in an innings, since
2001
No one has
recorded more than four drops in an innings in this period. ******** A recent Item in
Ask Steven dealt with the longest gap between Tests for a player, in terms of
number of matches missed. I wondered which players had missed the most total matches in his career, not just
between two appearances. I should have been able to guess the answer. Most Tests missed during whole career.
Here are the
players who both played more than 75 Tests, and missed more than 75 Tests,
during their careers
Most number of
separate gaps in career
Longest Test
careers without missing a single Test.
AR Border missed
only one Test during a 156-Test career. Kapil Dev (131 Tests) missed only one
Test, and that was for disciplinary reasons. ******** Debutants who top
scored and had best bowling return for their teams (first innings only)
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At the
start of play on the third day at Christchurch in 1987, Gordon Greenidge, 16 not out overnight, went out to bat without
his batting gloves. After five balls (faced by Haynes) he interrupted play to
go and get some. After a delay, Haynes was out next ball, to Chatfield.
Haynes evidently had something to say to Greenidge
about the interruption. Greenidge was out to the
next ball after that, to Hadlee’s first ball of the
day. ******** Most balls
faced between dismissal in ODIs: Chris Harris in
1997-98. He faced 465 balls between dismissals (9 innings) and batted for 150
overs. ******** Wellington
1990, a ball from Danny Morrison slipped from his grip and rolled to square
leg. Alan Border claimed it, walked over and hit it to the boundary, with
Morrison standing (glaring at him, I daresay) a few yards away. ******** During the
first Test at Karachi in 1988-89, the Australians were furious at the
umpiring of Mahboob Shah, claiming a number of
unfair lbw decisions. The year previously, England had almost curtailed a
Pakistan tour over similar issues. As they had in the previous season,
Pakistan authorities resisted the Australian complaints and appointed Shah to
the second Test as well. The Australians were a little mollified when Shah
gave opener Ramiz Raja out lbw, second ball to Bruce Reid. Shah also
gave Javed Miandad out
lbw in the same Test (for 107). This was a rare experience for Javed in home Tests. ******** |
14 November 2017
Most
Expensive First Over in Test Cricket (Runs)
Sohag’s over included four leg byes, so his
figures at the end of the over were 1-0-14-0. Bartlett’s over would have cost
17 runs using modern counting (a no ball was scored from) but also included
four byes. DD Ebrahim scored 15 runs in the
Anderson over, the most by a single batsman off a bowler’s first over in Tests.
Anderson first four deliveries in Tests were: no ball, FOUR, no ball, FOUR.
“…not the greatest of starts for Anderson” said Cricinfo
in the ball-by-ball text. ******** Allan Border’s
two highest scores in Tests (at the time) both included incidents where the
batsman believed himself to be out, but was
recalled. At Lord’s in
1985, Border, on 87 (the co-called Devil’s number for Australians) had turned
towards the pavilion when Mike Gatting juggled a
catch at short leg, then appeared to throw the ball in the air in
celebration. Gatting, however, made a hash of the
whole thing and umpire ‘Dickie’ Bird ruled that he had not controlled the
ball sufficiently. Border went on to make 196. At Adelaide in 1987-88,
Border, on 66, appeared to be caught at mid-on by Jeff Crowe. The fielder,
however, was not sure if he had caught it cleanly and called Border, who was
heading for the pavilion again, back. In that innings,
Border was also given not out to an lbw appeal that Robelinda
calls the “Plumbest ever LBW turned down in
cricket”. I tend to agree. Even Border looked bemused. At the time of
writing, the video is here. ******** Fastest
ODI Centuries on Debut
Perhaps the most
enduring important ODI record that could still be broken is Desmond Haynes’
highest score on ODI debut: 148 against Australia in 1978. Since then, almost
3900 ODIs have been played without anyone topping Haynes’ mark, representing
almost 99% of all ODIs. Scoring a century on ODI debut is still fairly rare,
and there have been only 14; one reason is that with so many matches played,
debuts are not particularly common. Here’s a list of
most of the debut centuries ranked according to fastest to reach the century.
For the innings
as a whole, Haynes’ remains the fastest century on debut (108.8 runs per 100
balls). To get a
first-100 figure for Haynes, I had to get a copy of the original scorebook,
kindly supplied by Colin Clowes at Cricket NSW.
Even this did not give a balls faced figure for first 100, but by re-scoring
the scoresheet, I was able to get a reasonably accurate figure. The
scoresheet was not very easy to read in places, but I am happy with the final
figure. There are a
handful of ODI early debut centuries for which balls faced are not available
for the first 100 runs, including the first by Dennis Amiss. However, these
were not scored at a speed that would rival the highest-ranked. [I forgot to add
that none of these innings compare for speed with Shahid
Afridi’s first ODI innings (100 off 37 balls), but that was scored in his
second match.] ******** |
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Against
Pakistan at Abu Dhabi in 2011-12, Graeme Swann took a wicket with the last
ball of an over, but was then taken off because the new ball was available in
the next over. When Swann was brought back on, he took a wicket with his
first ball, and thus took wickets with consecutive balls in the same innings,
but 14 overs apart. In an ODI
in Guwahati in 1993 between Sri Lanka and South Africa, Rumesh
Ratnayake, who was batting with a runner, was run out when
he set off for a run while his runner did not move from the crease. He
remonstrated with the umpire, who changed his decision to ‘not out’, only to
finally – and correctly – give the batsman out when the South Africans
fielders had something to say. On the
final day of the Sydney Test of 1985-86, against, India, Australian captain
Allan Border was out twice, and only scored 10 runs. He was out at 11:18am
(for 71, having been on 64 overnight) and again at 5:46pm, for 3. In between,
at 3:40pm in Brisbane, his wife gave birth to a daughter. Australia,
347 for 4 in their first innings overnight on the fourth day,
managed to nearly lose the match, being all out for 396 against India’s 600
for 4, and losing six wickets for 119 in the follow-on. There had been just
eight wickets in 321 overs on the first four days, but there were 12 wickets
off 104 overs on the fifth. ******** At Old
Trafford in 1948, the Australian batsmen (batting for a draw) did not change
ends for the first 38.5 overs. All the runs, more than 50, were in twos and
fours. Alec Bedser's first spell was 8 overs: 48 balls, and Arthur Morris faced all 48. Bedser’s
spell finished, and there were, of course, other bowling changes during those
38.5 overs. Ian
Johnson was out for 6 off 32 balls, but only faced Pollard. When Bedser came on for a second spell, Morris was still at
the same end and faced the first 23 balls; so he faced the first 71 balls
that Bedser bowled in the innings. At
Melbourne in 1883, Bill Murdoch faced up to 48 consecutive balls from Barlow
without facing anyone else. He did not score. ******** |
18 October 2017
Bowling to Exhaustion I have tried to
nail down the most balls bowled in a Test without a bowling change. I already
knew that it was probably Ramadhin and Valentine at
the Gabba in 1951 (final innings), but there is no
surviving score. I think I can say now that it was 69.7 eight-ball overs
(plus or minus one, perhaps) which translates to 93
six-ball overs (rounded). The next best known is 86 overs, by the same
bowlers at Lord's in 1950. Ram and Val came
on immediately after a wicket in the fourth over (1 for 8), and the score was
on 12. They bowled the last 11 overs before tea (very probably). There was a
change of ends immediately following tea (one over for two runs by Gomez, in
place of Ramadhin), then the 69.7 by Ram and Val
extending into the next day. Ramadhin bowled from
the Stanley St end before tea and the Vulture St end afterwards. Australia won by
3 wickets. Note the lack of imagination on the captain's part not to try any
other options, especially as Gomez had taken a wicket, and Valentine took 1
for 117. I found an
interesting line about Ramadhin in the match. It
says that when called on to bowl, he rolled his sleeves DOWN. I have read
somewhere that he once admitted that he bowled in long sleeves to disguise
the possibility of chucking. Australia had
some luck. Hassett, on 11, played a ball from Ramadhin onto his stumps without the bails falling. A quote from
Wisden. [Note: the "first five overs" comment is incorrect; it was
the first four.] "Goddard's tactics
caused considerable comment. Although Gomez took a wicket in his opening
spell, he and Worrell bowled only the first five overs of the innings – they
conceded fourteen runs – before Goddard switched to Ramadhin
and Valentine, who were called upon to bowl unchanged to the end. Between
them they sent down over 80 overs and both gave signs of having been over
worked. Valentine lost his usually splendid length and Ramadhin
suffered reaction in subsequent games. After calling for the new ball Goddard
rubbed it on the ground to remove the shine and asked his spinners to
continue." Sreeram added the following: Frank Worrell said
that Goddard was tactically naive and did not know anything besides bowling Ramadhin and Valentine. He relied heavily on the players
for his tactics (I don't now remember who these were apart from Worrell. Stollmeyer, Gomez etc possibly)
In the 1951-52
Australia series, the players fell out with Goddard and they stopped
providing their feedback to Goddard. So when Australians began to work Ramadhin & Valentine out, Goddard did not know what
else to do. [I would add that
team discipline fell apart when Johnston and Ring were playing their
match-winning last-wicket stand at Melbourne. Bowlers and other fielders
changed the field around when the captain’s back was turned. Ramadhin just walked off the field. Goddard withdrew from
the next (final) Test, citing “nervous exhaustion”.] Two bowlers
unchanged (six-ball overs equivalent): 93 overs, S Ramadhin
and AL Valentine, Brisbane 1951 86 overs, S Ramadhin
and AL Valentine, Lord’s 1950 79 overs, W Rhodes and WE Astill,
Georgetown 1930 75 overs, DA Allen and GAR Lock, Calcutta 1961/62 73 overs, S Ramadhin
and AL Valentine, Christchurch 1952. 65 overs Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef
Ahmed, Karachi 1979/80 ******* Rutherford
Does an Alletson (well not quite)
I have carried
out an unusual re-score, on a partial score of Ken Rutherford’s 317 off 245
balls at Scarborough in 1986. I have the batting page for this innings
(kindly supplied by Jamie Bell at the Cricket Museum, Wellington), but not
the bowling page. However, I was able to come up with something akin to a ball-by-ball
analysis after I realised that the scoring strokes on the batting page were
colour-coded according to the bowler who conceded the runs. Eventually, I was
able to identify the bowler and tease out the scoring for each over, although
the placement of dot balls within each over could only be estimated. Even so,
it was possible to reproduce exactly all the published bowling figures, and
the balls faced figures for batsmen (including milestones) seen on the
batting page. It was made easier by the extremely fast scoring, which meant
there were few maiden overs. Rutherford’s
scoring was a close rival for Charlie Macartney’s
345 in 1921, and especially remarkable after a
regulation early phase: he did not score until his 14th ball and
took 64 balls to reach 50. Rutherford scored 199 runs between lunch and tea,
and at one stage scored 100 runs (213 to 313) in the space of nine overs – in
just under half an hour. (Compton scored more than 100 in nine overs at Benoni in 1948-49, but they were eight-ball overs.) These latter
stages of Rutherford’s innings rival Ted Allettson’s
189 off about 106 balls in 1911 (the last 142 off about 51 balls) – perhaps. I have added
the score to the page here. ******** Kings
of the No Ball
On 7 September 2017 I briefly reviewed the bowlers, with the
longest careers, who had bowled very few no balls in Tests. To follow up,
here is the other extreme: bowlers who bowled no balls most frequently. This
sometimes has to be done from incomplete data, as oftentimes in the past no
balls in scores were not ascribed individually to bowlers. The ball-by-ball
database helps here. Wherever
possible, I have used the number of deliveries that were called no ball or
wide, rather than the number of runs conceded, so a delivery that goes for
‘four no balls’ counts as only one against the bowler, something that has
been enshrined in official scoring protocols only in the last few weeks. No balls
that were scored from are also counted wherever possible; these were not
added to no ball totals in conventional scorecards
before 1998, and have to be derived from original scoresheets. The bowler with
the most no balls in the database is Bob Willis with 762. However, Wasim Akram certainly bowled
more: I have 745 in the database, covering 82% of his bowling career, and so
have used an estimate of 838 no balls in total. Bowlers with highest
rates of no balls (Tests)
*Estimated from incomplete
data. Qualification 100 wickets. The bowler with
most recorded wides is Jacques Kallis with 104,
followed by Mitchell Johnson with 90 and Ian Botham on 77. Currently, Morne Morkel is on 75 with
probably more to come. ********* |
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Most consecutive dot balls in ODIs: The most
in the available data for a single bowler is 39, across two games by Ray
Price of Zimbabwe in 2008 (against Ireland and Kenya). Jimmy
Anderson bowled 31 in a row, including five consecutive maidens, in one game
against Australia at Adelaide in 2003. These
sequences did not contain byes or leg byes. Note: I
only have data for about two-thirds of ODIs, and almost none before 1985.
About half of the cases of bowlers bowling six or more maidens occurred
before 1980; almost all of them were in 55- or 60-over games. I do have data
for Phil Simmons 10-8-3-4 in 1992, but his longest sequence was shorter than
Anderson. ******** In a Colombo
Test in 1985-86, Roy Dias (4) was out caught second ball, after being dropped
first ball by Viswanath at slip, with the ball
going to the boundary. ******** |
3 October 2017
To supplement the
Test Match Database Online, I have posted a small number of notable
first-class innings that I have been able to re-score. - Trumper
293 in three hours in 1914 (Cricket NSW Library) - Woolley
305 in 3.5 hours in 1912. (National Library of Australia collection) - Macartney
345 in under four hours in 1921. (Cricket NSW
Library) - Bradman
452* in 1929-30. (Cricket NSW Library) - Compton
300* in three hours in 1948-49. (M.C.C. Library, Lord’s) - Lara
501* in 1994. (Warwickshire C.C.C. Archive) The sources are
original scorebooks found in various locations, listed above. They have been
re-scored into linear form, along the same lines as the Test matches. As is
sometimes the case with old scores, the early ones have occasional anomalies,
with slight corrections required. The Trumper
re-score produces a score of 294 not 293, while Macartney
comes in at 343 not 345. Careful analysis has isolated an over where Macartney’s missing 2 runs were probably scored, and that
has been added. The relevant
page is here. ******** Comparing
Bowling Performances: a Simple but Effective Way?
I have found an
interesting and simple way to compare great bowling performances, which I
would suggest has some validity. (The idea was suggested by Michael Jones.)
It looks at the value of the batsmen dismissed. Simply add up the career
batting averages of the batsmen dismissed by a bowler. A performance where a
bowler dismisses five top-order batsman will be
rated much higher than one who dismisses five tailenders, and this method
allows for strength of opposition almost automatically. Here are the results
for innings bowling.
Figures are sum totals of batting averages
of batsmen dismissed in the innings. Although it
wasn’t in a Test match, Lillee's 8 for 29 against the
World XI in 1971/72 beats this lot, but only just,
with a total of 346.2. I was surprised
not to see a bigger presence of bowlers who had dismissed Bradman, but Bowes
in 1934 is the only one. It was surprisingly uncommon for a bowler to dismiss
Bradman along with the other top batsmen in the same innings. Highest Total Batting Value, Allowing for
Runs Conceded (Test Innings Bowling)
A few of these
performances are provisional, since the final career batting averages of the
batsmen are yet to be resolved. Steve O’Keefe makes it onto the list with a
‘mere’ 6 for 35, but it was a remarkable return for very few runs. All six of
his victims had batting averages over 32. Well, there are
limits to the usefulness of this. Judging those with very short careers by
their batting average is a bit dubious. It’s an interesting exercise,
nevertheless. One thing that I like about it is that it does not require a
battery of ‘adjustment factors’. I don’t much care for ratings that bring in
too many factors. Ultimately, the choice and weighting of the factors can be more
important than the raw performances. I will do an
analysis of match figures at some stage. Since both of Laker’s innings
returns in 1956 are found in these lists, I know what would be #1. Over a whole
career, the value of batsmen dismissed tends to even out, but pace bowlers do
tend to dismiss higher-value batsmen, on average. ******** |
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Playing
for Australia v Pakistan in an ODI at the MCG on 16 Jan 1997, Anthony Stuart
(5-26) took five wickets for 2 runs in the space of 14 balls, including a
hat-trick and all of them top- or middle-order batsmen. It was his last
appearance for Australia; he was not selected again. ******** A curious
(and rare) anomaly in the score of the 1st Test of the 1982-83 India
tour of West Indies at Kingston. In India’s first innings, Venkataraghavan is listed as “b Roberts 0”.
However, multiple independent reports, from the West Indies and India, say
that Venkat was out hit wicket. Both the West Indies Cricket Annual and Jamaica
Daily Gleaner say that Venkat’s helmet came off
and fell onto the stumps. Against
Sri Lanka At Wellington in 1982-83, New Zealand wicketkeeper Warren Lees took
five catches in the space of 70 minutes on the fourth day. ******** Playing in
last Test series in 1983-84, champion slipper Greg Chappell was keen to
overtake Colin Cowdrey’s record for most catches in
the field. Going into the third Test, he needed only one to tie; however the
third and fourth Tests passed without any catches for Chappell, and in fact
no catches at all were taken by Australia in the
slips in the fourth Test. ******** |
18 September 2017
I have reached a
milestone in uploading the Test Match Online Database, with the uploading of
the 1913-14 England tour of South Africa. This completes the pre-WWI Test
matches and means that all Tests from 1877 to 1960 have been completed with
as much data as I can easily muster. Some upgrading of
the 1920-1960 material will take place. For instance, I now have info on the
locations of catches for about 97 per cent of catches. I am working on
carrying this data through further and have reached 1984 (the first 1000
Tests). There is a gap to 1999 and from then on I have quite good data. I
hope to continue the post-1960 uploading before long. In the meantime I
might polish up and upload a handful of first-class matches that I have
re-scored ball-by-ball. The list is short but interesting and will include
the following, if I can find them among my computer files – - Trumper
293 in three hours in 1914 - Woolley
305 in 3.5 hours in 1912. - Macartney
345 in two sessions in 1921. - Bradman
452*. - Compton
300* in three hours in 1948-49. - Lara
501*. ********* A question on Ask
Steven got me thinking about the effect of no balls and wides on bowling
averages. Historically, the counting of no balls and wides against bowling
analyses has varied, from not at all before 1983, to a complete counting
since 1998, even when runs are scored of the no ball. This has had an effect
on bowlers’ averages; not a great effect, but for some bowlers there is a
considerable change when it comes to rankings. This can be seen in the
following table, which shows the best Test career bowling averages in the
last 100 years. The shows the bowlers ‘official’ bowling average alongside the
averages those bowlers would have obtained if their performances were counted
according to pre-1983 protocols. The biggest
differences are recorded by relatively modern bowlers who bowled a lot of no
balls, such as Wasim Akram
and Sean Pollock. By deleting these runs conceded from no balls and wides,
their averages improve. Wasim Akram,
who bowled more no balls than any other bowler, actually gains 12 places on
the all-time list. Best Test bowling averages of the last 100
years, with no balls and wides not counted (pre-1983 accounting)
Minimum 100 Test wickets. This is not
necessarily a ‘fair’ adjustment. No balls and wides are the bowler’s fault of
course, and should be counted against them. But this table does give a more
level historical comparison. I find it interesting how tightly bunched the
averages are, more so than the averages of batsmen. Incidentally, I
would expect that doing the operation in reverse, that
is, counting pre-1983 bowlers by post-1998 counting, would have less effect
on the original rankings, because the earlier bowlers in this list did not
bowl a lot of no balls. Some benefited from the back-foot no ball rule prior
to the late-60s. It is a curious
thing that, prior to the adjustment, Johnny Wardle, the English spinner, has
the best average in the past 100 years. This is not something that many
people would guess. Wardle was the ‘junior’ spinner to Jim Laker and in the
1950s was in and out of the England team, which also had periods of strongly
favouring pace bowling. Wardle never played more than seven Tests in a row,
played only 28 Tests in all, and barely qualifies with his 102 wickets. He
tended to be selected when conditions favoured spin bowling, and that may be
why his average is so exceptional. ******** Most ‘Total’ Test dismissal credits. Wickets
+ catches + run out credits.
Caught &
bowled count as only one each. ******** |
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At Lahore
in 1977, Geoff Cope, on Test debut, came as close to a hat-trick as it is
possible to come without actually getting one. After Abdul Qadir and Sarfraz Nawaz were
out, Iqbal Qasim edged Cope’s hat-trick ball to Brearley
at slip, and the umpire upheld the appeal. Wild celebrations had already
begun and Iqbal was heading for the pavilion when Brearley
indicated that he thought the ball not carried to him, and recalled the
batsman. ******* Kapil Dev,
94 not out overnight at Delhi in 1978-79, reached his first Test century by
hitting the first two balls of the day from Norbert Phillip for four and six.
His century came off 101 balls. ******** The third
day of the Karachi Test in 1980-81 was delayed 20 minutes because umpire Shakoor Rana had left his bag in the car that dropped him
off at the ground. ******** At Sabina
Park in 1981, Michael Holding had three batsmen caught and two catches
dropped, all in the space of two overs. ******** At Banglaore in 1974-75, Alvin Kallicharran
(124) was involved in ten partnerships in one innings even though he did not
open. He came to the crease at 38/0 after Roy Fredericks retired hurt, and
was last out. (Fredericks returned at 264/8 and was ninth out.) ******** |
7 September 2017
Here’s some data
on the bowlers who bowled the fewest no balls and wides in Tests. Naturally,
data on this subject is not complete, but with about 90% available, we can
make some comparisons. About 80% is from scoresheets, the other 10% from
published data. Wherever
possible, I have used the number of deliveries that were called no ball or
wide, rather than the number of runs conceded, so a delivery that goes for
four wides counts as only one. No balls that were scored from are also
counted wherever possible. The data is something of a hybrid, in that even
when no ball numbers are published, no balls scored from are not always. You
need a full scoresheet for that; but make of this what you will. There have been
reports floating around the internet that bowlers like Kapil Dev and Michael
Holding never bowled a no ball. These are nonsense. They bowled scores of no
balls and wides, hundreds in the case of Kapil. Zero Recorded No Balls and Wides in Test
Career
While we can be
pretty certain that Tayfield never bowled a no ball
or wide, Mankad and Venkat are no so clear.
Unfortunately, Indian sources for this sort of data are often weak. Grimmett was already well known as a bowler who
almost never strayed. In 1989, Greg McKie analysed Grimmett’s first-class career and found that he did not
bowl any no balls at all among 50,000 deliveries. McKie
found just five wides. Wides but Zero No Balls in Test Career
Swann did record
one no ball in ODIs, but it was called for having an illegal leg side field!
Another bowler reputed to have never bowled a no ball was Lance Gibbs, but
there is one in a scorebook from the 1965 series against Australia, and
another reported from a Test in Pakistan in 1974-75. Tate, in addition to
bowling no no balls, was never hit for six in a
Test match, the longest such career. No Balls but Zero Wides in Test Career
Certainly an
extraordinary contrast in no balls and wides from Underwood. ******** Maiden Over in
the Final Over of an ODI (50 overs) I don't have all
matches, but I know of eight occasions. Two are in the first innings AA Donald SAf
v Ban, Benoni 6-Oct-2002 CJ Anderson NZ v SAf, Mt
Maunganui 24-Oct-2014 The others were
in the second innings C Pringle Aus
v NZ, Hobart 18-Dec-1990 SK Warne Aus
v Pak, Colombo 7-Sep-1994 AJ Hall SAf
v SL, Adelaide Oval 24-Jan-2006 RN ten Doeschate Ber v Ned, Potchefstroom 8-Apr-2009 N Deonarine WI v Zim, Grenada 22-Feb-2013 GJ Maxwell Pak v Aus,
Abu Dhabi 12-Oct-2014 In the overs by
Warne, ten Doeschate, and Deonarine,
the batting team had no chance of winning. In the Pringle
and Maxwell overs, the batting team needed only 2 runs to win and 1 to tie.
Bruce Reid faced the Pringle over, and was unable to put bat to ball. In the
Hall over, 11 runs were required. ******** |
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Jerome
Taylor's first first-class century was 106 in a Test match. His previous
highest score was 40, and his first-class average prior to the century was
12.5. To date he has played over 50 non-Test first-class matches, and has
still not made a score over 50. His first-class average outside Tests has
dropped to 10.5. Bruce
Taylor of New Zealand scored a century in his first Test innings. It was only
his fifth innings in first-class cricket and his previous best was 49. Ian Healy
scored four first-class centuries, all of them in Tests. He is the only
player with more than 2, if I have calculated correctly. ******** At
Auckland in 1977, Greg Chappell’s innings of 58 was interrupted when he was
menaced by a streaker. Chappell attempted, apparently successfully, to hit
the intruder on the backside with his bat. The incident appeared to distract
Chappell, as he was run out off the very next ball. Another
snippet on early use of the reverse sweep: during that innings Chappell was
described as playing a “back-handed” sweep. ******** |
22 August 2017
Dropped
Catches Report 2016-17
I have surveyed
more ball-by-ball texts for dropped catches and missed stumpings,
covering the period Feb 2016 to April 2017. This extends the missed chance
data to about 700 Tests going back to year 2000. There was
increase in the percentage of catches dropped in the recent data. The 2016-17
figure was 26.5% chances missed, about two
percentage points higher than the average over the previous four years.
However, the miss rate was very similar to other years, including 2003 and
the four years from 2008 to 2011. It is not
entirely clear why the rate was higher this year. One factor is an increased
number of Tests involving Zimbabwe (30% misses) and Bangladesh (32.2% misses)
which drags the overall percentage upward. If it is apparent from their match
results that Sri Lanka is in decline, this is also borne out in the catch
stats; SL’s stats have increased from 25% misses in 2015 to 30% in 2016-17. Unlike the
all-country data, the combined average for Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa and England is steady at 23%. South Africa recorded only 18% misses,
one of the lowest single-year figures for any country since surveys began in
2000. The recent
figures reverse a slight historical improvement trend seen over the previous
decade.
Figures for
individual countries in 2016-17 are
On the individual
front, Alistair Cook has overtaken MS Dhoni to
claim the most career misses of any modern player. He has 70 misses to Dhoni’s 66; the latter is probably a career final, while
Cook’s figures do not include the current England season. Rahul Dravid is one recent player who may have dropped more
catches than Cook; I only have data for about 70% of his career; from that I
would estimate about 75 misses in total. Most expensive
miss of the year occurred when Azhar Ali was 17
against West Indies at Dubai; he was missed by Leon Johnson in the gully, and
went on to 302 not out. KK Nair, who against England made one run more, was
missed on 34, 217 and 246. Steve Smith was missed four times in his 109
against Sri Lanka; the innings, under difficult conditions, was nevertheless
rightly acclaimed. Kane Williamson
had an exceptional year in the field, taking 14 catches and dropping only
one. Johnny Bairstow recorded the most misses, 15. At the time of
writing, Jimmy Anderson has probably become the first bowler in this century
to have 100 catches dropped. I have 97 for him, but that does not include the
current England season. Harbhajan Singh had more
than 100, but some of those, an unknown number, occurred before 2000. Stuart
Broad is not far behind Anderson. It will take further analysis. ******** I have posted pdf
versions of a couple of articles by me that have appeared online in Cricket
Monthly. 2) “End-over”
jitters, that is the effect of having to bat in the final overs of the
day (very little as it turns out). March 2017. |
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SOME SNIPPETS FROM THE 1970s… In the final over of
the drawn third Test of 1974-75, bowled by Tony Greig
with Australia needing 14 runs to win, umpire Bailhache
(officiating at point) called no ball on the grounds of three fielders behind
square leg. According to reporters, three previous balls in the over had also
been bowled with this (illegal) configuration, but not noticed by the
umpires. There were six runs and one wicket off the over, and the match was
drawn with Australia finishing on 238 for 8, eight runs short of victory. The
penultimate over, bowled by Derek Underwood, had been an eight-ball maiden. ********* In the
Test at Auckland in 1975, England’s Keith Fletcher took five ‘brilliant’
catches at slip according to The Times, but the Manchester Guardian reported that he
dropped another five. ******** In the
Christchurch Test that followed, Barry Hadlee (12th
man) fielded as a substitute, joining his brothers Dale and Richard on the
field, while their father Walter watched from the stands. Barry never played
in New Zealand’s first XI in A Test, although he played two ODIs for New
Zealand alongside his brothers. ******** On the
first day of the Kanpur Test of 1972-73, two thousand police were assigned to
the ground. There were 30,000 spectators. There was supposed to be play on
the following day, but it was a public holiday, and the police force could
not find enough available officers, so it was declared a rest day. ******** In the
Adelaide Test in 72-73, Talat Ali, on debut,
suffered a broken hand in Pakistan’s first innings. He was the first batsman
since Charles Bannerman to be listed as retired hurt in his first Test
innings. He was not expected to bat again, but came out to bat in the second
innings, late in the day, with Pakistan 214 for 9 and on the verge of an
innings defeat. Holding the bat with one hand, he faced nine balls and forced
play into the fifth day, but only thanks to a dropped catch by Ian Redpath on
the very last ball of the fourth day. What a
finish that would have been if it had been a four-day Test! The
hoped-for rain did not arrive, and Talat was out in
the second over next morning: 0 off 16 balls. A fourth-day photo shows him
batting right-handed, but a report from the fifth day says he switched to
left-handed. If so, he was the first known batsman to bat both ways in a Test
innings, Salim Malik being the only other known case (see entry for 23 Oct
2016). ******** On the
subject of ‘switch hitting’, one of the claimed inventors of the reverse
sweep was Mushtaq Mohammad. Here’s some proof that
he used the stroke in Tests – a quote from the Otago Daily Times during the Dunedin
Test of 1972-73. “After tea, both batsmen produced as fine a
hitting display as seen on Carisbrook in memory. Off the first four overs, 46
runs came from spinners Pollard and O’Sullivan with Mushtaq
showing incredible footwork by switching from right-hand to left-hand during
the flight of the ball to sweep boundaries.” Mushtaq made 201 off 407
balls and his partnership with Asif Iqbal (175 off 299) produced 350 runs off
about 575 balls. The later
stages of the partnership included 100 runs in the space of 37 minutes. ******** |
11 August 2017
Ashru Mitra has done
a nice piece of research on Test umpires who, on their Test debuts, gave a
batsman out, or saw a wicket fall, on their very first ball (at the bowler’s
end). I had heard of Bill Alley and maybe one other, but I was a little
surprised at the number of names that came up. Although, technically, all
dismissals require a decision by an umpire, not all of these necessarily
required an active decision. Ashru has kindly allowed me to publish his
findings here. Debutant umpires giving dismissal verdict
on the very first ball of the Test: A preparatory list Umpire Debut: Thomas Burgess and Richard
Torrance Both umpires were
making their Test debuts. Which ends they took is not known but wickets fell
on the first balls of both the first and second overs. Batsman
dismissed: Herbert Sutcliffe cwk James b Badcock (UPDATE: Umpire Torrance) Batsman
dismissed: E Paynter b HD Smith (UPDATE: Umpire Burgess) Australia v.
England at Brisbane, 1936-37 Batsman dismissed: Stanley Worthington cwk Oldfield b McCormick
India v West Indies at Calcutta, 1974-75 West Indies v Bangladesh at Gros Islet, 2004 First ball of the second over of the
match: Australia vs
England at Melbourne (5th), 1958-59 Umpire Debut: L Townsend (Confirmed: His
decision) Batsman dismissed: TE Bailey c Davidson b Lindwall The following
umpires were making their debuts when a wicket fell first ball, but the
decision either fell to the other umpire or is not known: Australia vs England at Sydney, 1903-04 Umpire Debut: AC Jones (Confirmed: Not his
decision) Batsman dismissed: VT Trumper
c Foster b Arnold South Africa vs
England at Cape Town, 1922-23 Umpire Debut: GJ Thompson (No information
available) West Indies v.
Pakistan at Port of Spain, 1957-58 New Zealand v Australia at Auckland,
1973-74 Pakistan vs West Indies at Karachi, 1990-91 Umpire Debut: Riazuddin
(Confirmed: NOT his decision) Batsman dismissed: CG Greenidge
lbw b Waqar Younis South Africa v
India at Durban, 1992-93 Sri Lanka v West
Indies at Pallekele, 2010-11 Umpire Debut: Bruce Oxenford (Confirmed:
Not his decision) Batsman dismissed: Chris Gayle lbw b Lakmal ******** In Tests, the
practice of having another bowler complete an over, when a bowler was injured
mid-over, seems to have started in 1981. At Kingston in that year, Graham
Dilley was unable to complete an over, and Robin Jackman bowled the last two
balls. I can’t find any
earlier cases in ODIs. Perhaps the need never came up. ******** A questioner on
Ask Steven asked if there were completed first-class matches where no one
made 50 and no one took five in an innings. I looked at the last few years
and found (only) one: Badureliya Sports Club v
Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club in 2014. The highest score was 45 and
the best bowling was 4/17. It was an interesting scorecard: Bloomfield led by
2 runs on first innings and also won by 2 runs when both teams made 175 in
the second innings. ******** |
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The Oval
Test of 1905 featured a strange set of high-scoring strokes. Joe Darling hit
a six, but that was thanks to overthrows. He also cleared the boundary with
another stroke, but that counted only five. Kelly and Hill hit similar
strokes. Two batsmen, Hayward and Spooner, hit all-run fives without
overthrows (the only Test where this happened twice), while Rhodes hit a five
with overthrows. By this
time, Australian (and South African) authorities were being more sensible and
awarded six runs to all hits clearing the boundary. This did not come into universal
use in England until 1912. |
7 August 2017
‘Century in a
session’ is a familiar record category. How about most runs in two
consecutive sessions? Not so familiar, but here is a list. I did this
calculation after Shikha Dhawan’s
tour de force in Galle. Most Runs in Two
Consecutive Sessions (Test Matches)
Where a player
qualifies twice for the same innings, the higher value only is listed. Dhawan’s 190 is the highest
innings to be contained entirely within two sessions. His 126 between lunch
and tea is a record for the first day, and the third-highest between lunch
and tea on any day, after the 173 by Compton and 150 (or 151 or 152) by
Hammond. Of course, the
old-timers had the advantage of higher over rates, and so comparisons must be
considered with that in mind, but they did also play with much inferior bats
and on larger grounds. |
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Five
wickets in fewest balls in an ODI, where known 11 balls J Garner, WI v Eng,
Lord’s 23-Jun-1979 (World Cup Final) 11 ACI Lock, Zim v NZ, Napier 3-Feb-1996 11 Shoaib
Akhtar, Pak v NZ, Auckland 18-Feb-2001 12 Mohammad Sami, Pak v NZ,
Lahore 1-Dec-2003 12 M Morkel,
SAf v NZ, Napier 29-Feb-2012 Zahoor Khan took six wickets
in 15 balls, Dubai 2-Mar-2017. KAJ Roach
took 5 wickets in 9 balls, over 2 games in 2011. B Lee took
8 wickets in 27 balls, over 2 games in 2003. |
19 July 2017
I
wrote an article on the statistics of DRS a while back, which was published
online by Cricket Monthly. I have posted it in my longer articles
section here. A
Note on Score Reconstruction
I have been
including, in the database for pre-1915 Tests, ball-by-ball reconstructions
for certain innings and/or matches, made in the
absence of complete scorebooks. I just wanted to make some points clear about
this process, especially as the Database approaches the 1902 Tests played by
Australia in England and South Africa. It is a great
misfortune that no scorebooks are known to exist for these matches. However,
greater resources are becoming available in terms of match reports in
newspapers, to the extent that it is possible to construct over-by-over
(sometimes ball-by-ball) versions of some innings, particularly those that
involve rapid scoring or frequent falls of wickets. The British Newspaper
Archive now boasts dozens of titles, available in full and online, for the
year 1902. In addition to this I have accessed, from libraries, copies of
other newspapers that are not in this Archive. These reports vary in detail,
but when distilled together, and taken with information from other sources
(such as a partial score available for the Old Trafford Test), it makes
possible a ‘best rendering’ of important innings that in turn allow estimates
of balls faced and other important statistics. This has also
been done for the series in South Africa. Although sources are fewer, the
South African papers of the time often used a strictly narrative style
(old-fashioned at the time) of reporting that mentions almost all scoring
shots in sequence. Australian papers prior to 1894 often used the same style;
after that, a more interpretive style of reporting came into vogue that makes
it much harder to reconstruct innings statistically. Three points: 1) Even with
combined sources, gaps occur that must be filled using educated
interpolation, 2) The sources
sometimes conflict. 3) It is not
always possible to come up with a sequence of overs that is perfectly
consistent with every source. Generally,
however, the broad structure of innings are clear (who was bowling when, and
in which overs wickets fell), and many of the scoring details can be
accurately placed. It is just certain passages of play that must be filled
in. Periods of slow play with occasional singles and maidens are particularly
difficult; by the same token, they are often not important. Some other detail
from the sources can assist, such as the reporting of the number of ones,
twos, threes and fours for major innings, and this can be found in certain
sources. I hope that the
reconstructions can be accepted in this spirit; that they are not exact, but
offer a useful guide to the progress of certain important innings and
matches. There are more
sources out there, unexamined: perhaps others can take up the challenge of
tracking more of them down. For instance, Gerald Brodribb
gives a ball-by-ball list of Gilbert Jessop’s famous 104 at the Oval, but
does not name his (newspaper) source. Having looked at dozens of potential
sources, I have yet to find this. So don’t fret
over potential errors: improve on it if you can! ******** A question on Ask
Steven had me looking for bowlers who took wickets with their last two balls
in Tests. The only ones that I found were Gerry Hazlitt (Australia) in 1912
and Godfrey Lawrence (South Africa) in 1962. Current players were not
considered. Hazlitt, who only
took 23 wickets in Tests, took 5 for 1 off his last 17 balls at the Oval in
1912. Lawrence took
just 28 wickets in Tests. His last two were the 8th and 9th of New Zealand’s
second innings at Port Elizabeth in 1961/62. Peter Pollock then took a wicket
with the first ball of the next over to finish the innings and complete a
rare 'team hat-trick': three wickets in three balls by two different bowlers.
That said, I
thought I would re-visit these ‘team hat-tricks’, which I reported on in
2012. The only ones I know of are listed below, followed by a few other cases
where three wickets fell in the space of three balls, but no hat-trick
occurred. They are rare indeed and getting rarer: it appears that it has
never happened in Australia, or India. The most extraordinary thing is that
Godfrey Lawrence was involved in two, and in consecutive Tests. This is one
of the strangest coincidences that I have seen in cricket statistics. Three wickets in three balls, by two
different bowlers
******** |
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10 July 2017
I have been
successfully convalescing after major surgery, and while doing so I have been
able to keep up with updates to my Online Database. The data update is now
complete for Tests in the 19th Century. Once I finish 1900 to 1914
the database will be complete up to 1960. The next step would be to refine
and update some of the Test data from 1920 to 1939. ******** Slowest 50s in ODIs
(balls faced)
50-over matches only UPDATE: 132
balls KR Stackpole
(61 off 145) Australia v England,
Edgbaston 28-Aug-1972 ******** Most ‘Dismissals’ by no
balls since 2000 – an updated list (bowlers).
The most runs
scored after a no ball 'dismissal', recorded since 2001, is 279 by Kumar Sangakkara (287) in Colombo in 2006. He was bowled by a
Dale Steyn no ball on 8. A catch was dropped in the same over. The next
wicket fell 603 runs later. Chris Gayle (333)
was caught off a no ball when on 287, at Galle in 2010. Earlier this year
at Galle, Kusal Mendis
was caught first ball off a no ball, and went on to make 194. At Wellington in
2016, Adam Voges, on 7, was bowled by a no ball
from Doug Bracewell. Replays showed that the umpire erred, and that the ball
was legal. Voges went on to make 239. The leading
beneficiaries among batsmen are Rahul Dravid on 7,
with Michael Clarke, Virender Sehwag
and Alistair Cook on 5. Although he has benefited only twice, Sangakkara has added the most runs after his ‘dismissals’
with 326, followed by Kevin Pietersen on 323 (three
innings) and Michael Clarke on 295. I recently came
across a note, in a linear score, of Len Hutton being caught off a no ball
(by Bill O'Reilly) during his 364 at The Oval in 1938. Hutton was on 153 at
the time. This is not
really the same thing as modern instances, because under the back-foot rule,
the batsman had time to change his shot after the no ball call. Hutton was,
in effect, taking a 'free hit' which was caught in the deep. He scored one
run. |
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6 May 2017
I have embarked
on an effort to expand the Davis Test Match
Database Online, to cover Tests from the beginning in 1877,
up to 1914 (1920-1960 is already online). A covering
page for the early Test series is here. The match scoresheets have a new
feature, in that the fielding locations of nearly all catches are specified,
using ‘shorthand’ notation of “sl” (slip), “wk” (wicketkeeper), “mn”
(mid-on) etc. Each series cover page has a full key to the notation used. Ball-by-ball
records of Tests have been posted, where possible. In the case of most very
early Tests, these are not derived from scorebooks, but are reconstructions
based on the very detailed reports in some newspapers of the time, which
often mention the events of every over if not quite every ball. As such,
there are inevitably some approximations and anomalies, and readers should
bear in mind that complete precision is not possible in such cases. Balls
faced data from these reconstructions should be regarded as indicative only.
I hope that they can be regarded as useful, nevertheless. In some Tests of
the 1890s and later 1880s, I have been able to reconstruct only parts of the
matches, but I will post these fragments anyway, since they usually relate to
interesting parts of Tests. I will endeavour
to update the Database when I can; however, impending health problems may
reduce the rate of updating of the Database, and the blog, for the
foreseeable future. ******** For something
completely different, I have started writing reminiscences from some of my
travels over the years. The stories are spiced up with photos from those
travels. I have posted a story, of a journey from China to Pakistan along the
old Silk Road and the Karakoram Highway in 1989, in two parts. Part 1 is here
and Part 2
is here. An account of the joys of ‘Hard Seat Class’ on Chinese trains is
here. |
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The first
ball faced by Bob Willis in Test cricket was a hat-trick ball (Perth 1971,
bowled by John Gleeson). I was surprised to find that this is not
particularly uncommon, with a few dozen cases. |
22 April 2017
The
LBW Miser
It’s somewhat
notorious but also true: in the six Tests of the 1970-71 Ashes series, not a
single Australian batsman was given out leg before wicket. The umpires
involved were Lou Rowan and Tom Brooks (five Tests each) and Max O’Connell
(two Tests). These men did see
their way clear to give five Englishmen out lbw (itself a very small number)
in that series. I have been able to determine which umpires gave the
decisions. Three of them were given by Rowan, one by O’Connell, and just the
one (in five Tests!) by Brooks. The rather unfortunate batsman was John
Hampshire, given out at Adelaide, just before a declaration when England was
chasing quick runs. I do recall my
father talking about Tom Brooks. Dad was a first grade umpire in Sydney the
1970s when Brooks was the dominant figure in umpiring there. Brooks, Dad told
me, was adamant that the conditions for lbw were extremely hard to satisfy,
and that lbw decisions should be rare. I don’t think Dad actually agreed with
this, and modern-day DRS data shows conclusively that Brooks’ opinion was
incorrect. Rowan was a
police Sergeant. He was, I am told, also a man of unswerving opinions, with
great confidence in his own judgement. I suppose that helps if you want to be
a top-flight umpire. With only one lbw
decision against them, the Englishmen could hardly accuse Brooks of bias, I
suppose. They were troubled, though, by the umpires intervening to apply
restrictions on intimidatory bowling, in a way that
they saw as being unfair to star fast bowler John Snow. I happened to be
at the SCG on the day that Snow hit Terry Jenner on the head with a bouncer;
it is just about my earliest ‘live’ memory of a major event on the cricket
field. Jenner retired hurt, although he was able to bat again later. Rowan stepped
in and warned Snow about bowling bouncers, arguably unfairly under the
guidelines of the time. It was arguable enough for England captain Ray
Illingworth to get into a shouting match with Rowan. Shortly afterward, Snow
was accosted by a drunken spectator, and England stormed off in protest. With
the Ashes at stake, cooler heads prevailed and the match continued. England
won the match and the Ashes. It was a rugged
series. Here is a photo of
Graham McKenzie’s last ball in Test cricket. Hit on the face by a good length
ball from Snow and retired hurt. That was “Blow Number One” as the photo
says. Blow Number Two was delivered by the selectors, who obligingly told
McKenzie, that very evening while he was convalescing, that he was dropped
from the team. I don’t know if
it was a fashion at the time, but there were also only five batsmen given out
lbw in the six Tests of the subsequent 1971 season in England. Only two of
the five were English. Something seems to have happened between then and the
1972 Ashes series, in which 27 batsmen were given out lbw in five Tests. Did Brooks relax
his views? In the 1974/75 Ashes, he stood in all six Tests. He gave nine
batsmen out lbw, six of them Australian, including two ducks for Wally
Edwards, who would later become Cricket Australia chairman. The other umpire,
Robin Bailhache, gave six lbws, two of them
Australian batsmen. ******* |
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I have
notes on 46 instances in Tests of a batsman being run out ‘accidentally’ at
the non-strikers end, when a shot ricocheted off the bowler. No batsman has
been out this way twice. However, there are two batsmen who, as striker,
twice saw their partners run out this way, VVS Laxman
and SV Carlisle. In Laxman's case, Harbhajan Singh was run out at Mohali in 2003, and Dravid was run out at Kanpur in 2009. In the Dravid incident, the ricochet was a dropped catch by Herath off Laxman. In
Carlisle's case, the batsmen run out were Ebrahim
at Bulawayo in 2001, and Taylor at Harare in 2005. It is
possible, though unlikely, that there are others. ******** Hugh Tayfield took a catch off the second ball of his debut
Test, and Ian Chappell took one off the third ball of his. A substitute
named Chris Sabburg took a catch off his second
ball on the field in a Test a few years ago. Sabburg
has not yet played first-class cricket, although he has appeared in the BBL. There has
been at least one umpire who was required to give a batsman out caught behind
from his first ball in Test cricket (HP Sharma in India in 1974-75, I think). This was
probably exceeded by Hanif in 1958, but there is no
data available. Alec Bannerman failed to score off 568 out of 620 balls faced
at the SCG in 1891/92. He scored only 91 runs. ******** The list
of non-Test players who scored most first-class runs is dominated by England
county cricketers (not all of them English), led by Alan Jones. So I wondered
who hit the most f-c runs among those who never played in England. The
database came up with Sajid Ali who hit 15,368 f-c
runs. Ali played no Tests; however, he did play ODIs for Pakistan. The player
with most f-c runs without ever appearing for his country or playing in
England appears to be Amol Muzumdar with 11,167
runs in 171 matches. ******** In the
Ranchi Test against Australia, Cheteshwar Pujara became the first Indian batsman to officially face
more than 500 balls in a Test innings (202 off 525 balls, batting for 162
overs). As a first, this is actually quite odd, since more than 60 batsmen
from other countries have played innings longer than 500 balls. However,
it is likely that Pujara has at least one Indian
predecessor. At Port of Spain in 1952, Midhav Apte batted for 200 overs for 163. With half the strike,
that would come to 600 balls. I don’t have a balls faced figure for Apte, but the odds of someone batting for 200 overs but
facing less than 500 (or 525) balls are extremely small. The standard
deviation for balls faced for an individual batsman over a span of 200 overs
is about 25 balls. There is a greater than 99% chance that Apte faced more balls than Pujara. ******** |
30 March 2017
Ogdontaeptaphobia*
explained?
There is a
tenacious myth in Australian cricket: the ‘87 hoodoo’, that holds that a
score of 87 is somehow unlucky. Tenacious yet tenuous. The myth has long been
debunked – in fact it is the safest score in the 80s for Australian batsmen –
but the story still crops up regularly during idle moments in Test matches. The origins of
the myth are somewhat obscure. The most accepted line is that Keith Miller
originated it; the
story is here. Miller says he formed the idea on seeing Bradman dismissed
for 87 in 1929. Personally I have been a bit sceptical. Miller was prone to
spinning tall tales, and the claim that he would originate such an idea at
age ten sounds fanciful. Note how he glides over the difficulty of Bradman
not actually being dismissed for 87 (“the scoreboard was slow”: if you say
so, Keith. In fact, Bradman was 85 at lunch and went
from 85 to 89 with a four, so it seems unlikely that the scoreboard would
ever have read 87). Anyway, I have come across an item
that sheds light on the origins of the hoodoo. From the Sporting Globe in 1950, it is an anecdote from a club match
(albeit one involving Test players) and it sets out the superstition as explained
by Test spinner Ian Johnson. Johnson said that his 87 anxiety came from the
previous season’s Australian tour of South Africa, where, Johnson said,
wickets seemed to fall frequently on a score of 87. Curiously, the report
applies the hoodoo more to team scores than individual scores. There are some
interesting aspects to the report. For one thing, the reporter hasn’t heard
of the hoodoo and has to have it explained to him. This suggests that the
hoodoo was a new thing in 1950. For another, Johnson is quite clear about it
originating on that tour, and offers the interesting detail about the team
avoiding hotel rooms numbered 87. Gideon Haigh, in The Summer Game, has something to add here. Early in the tour,
reports Haigh, Bill Johnston was seriously injured in a car accident in
Natal: he had been staying in Room 87 in the team’s hotel. The next morning,
on the first day of first-class cricket on the tour, star batsman Neil Harvey
was out on a (team) score of 87. [I checked and found that there was nothing
‘unlucky’ about 87 on that 1949-50 tour. Just four wickets fell on 87 in the
entire tour, none of them in Tests and only two involving Australian batsmen:
by contrast, eight wickets fell on a score of 84, but no one seemed to be
worried by that.] The combination
of Johnston’s room number and Harvey’s dismissal may have been just enough to
give impetus to the superstition. Since Miller was on the tour, one could
imagine him being the instigator, and perhaps reviving an earlier
superstition of his. One problem with this, however, is that Miller was not
in South Africa at that time: he was only selected as a result Johnston’s
injury (a selection saga that is a whole other story) and it took him weeks
to travel to South Africa. It certainly seems that the myth took hold without
him. However, Miller,
Johnson, and Lyndsay Hassett all played for South
Melbourne club (the same club mentioned in the Sporting Globe report) in the late 1930s and just after the war,
before Miller moved to New South Wales. An article in The Age in 2007 mentions a South Melbourne connection to the
hoodoo, as does the Arunabha Sengupta article linked to earlier. So in spite
of my scepticism, signs still might point towards Miller; one hypothesis
would be that the myth was just a South Melbourne club ‘thing’ (started by
Miller, perhaps in the 1930s), until its elevation to Tests was sparked by
the ‘87’ events in Durban (instigated by Johnson and possibly Hassett). I have found
nothing else on the hoodoo in the NLA Trove database from 1945 onwards.
Others might like to have a look. Ken Piesse tells me that Miller told him that the whole thing
was “sheer bunkum”; I’m not sure if Miller was talking about the hoodoo
itself, or the origin story. In the past I
have heard claims that Ken Mackay originated the belief. Mackay was known for
his superstitions, but the 1950 report rules Slasher out. Mackay did write an
article on cricket superstitions, published in 1964 in Jack Pollard’s Six and Out; this article discusses
the 87 hoodoo in some detail, proving that the idea was widespread in
Australia at that time. (Even so, newspaper accounts of Brian Booth’s 87
against South Africa at the SCG in 1964 do not mention any hoodoo.) However,
Mackay said he did not know the hoodoo’s origins, and he does not mention
Miller in his article. *Ogdontaeptaphobia is a word I made up using the Greek
words for eighty seven. Postscript:
Miller, Johnson, Hassett, Harvey, and Johnston were
all from Victoria. ******** I noticed, from an
Aslam Siddiqui post, that Cricinfo was missing a
ball-by-ball text of an ODI, Zimbabwe v Afghanistan in 2014. As it happened, Cricbuzz covered this match and a couple of others that Cricinfo missed in 2012. Using those gives complete
ball-by-ball for the last 650+ ODIs, since 2011. However, prior to
that, data is not complete. Although Cricinfo
started doing ball-by-ball in 1999, more that 15% of ODIs are missing from
1999 to 2011. The great majority of these are what might be called 'minnow
matches'; the gaps are bigger in the earlier years. My collection of
ODI scores covers about 50% of ODIs from 1985 to 1999, and a small number of
earlier ones. So far, I have re-scored about 300 out the 550 or so obtained
from 1985-99. (I do one each day, last thing before I got to bed: most can be
done 20-30 minutes.) There was a
curious incident in that Zim/Afg
game in 2014: an instance of '6 wides'. No other information is given.
However, the batsmen changed ends, so I presume that they ran one and there
were four overthrows. There are no
other cases of six wides in my database of ODIs and T20 internationals. There
is just one in a Test, which involved a helmet penalty and the batsmen did
not change ends. ******** UPDATE on the
history of streaking: Sreeram has now
posted an article on the subject with more information. Published on the
Cricket Country website. |
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In an ODI at
the MCG in January 1995, Darren Gough opened the bowling for England, but
injured himself in the delivery stride of his first ball and did not deliver
a ball in the game. Angus Fraser bowled the over and Gough is not listed as a
bowler. Gough was taken to hospital with a stress fracture in his foot. ******** On the
subject of unfortunate first overs, at Adelaide in 1969 opening bowler
Charlie Griffith conceded 19 runs off his first over. It was an eight-ball
over that also contained four no balls. The runs off the bat were all hit by
Keith Stackpole. The over was the second of the
innings, Sobers having bowled the first. The most runs off the first over of
an innings, where known, is 18 hit by Bob Simpson
off Wes Hall at the MCG in 1961. ******** In the
final innings of the Bombay Test of 1969, India managed to drop (or miss)
five catches off the New Zealand batsmen; in spite of this, all ten wickets
fell to catches, and New Zealand, chasing only 188, lost the Test by 60 runs. ******** In the
Galle Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Kusal Mendis was caught off a no ball, first ball, and went on
to make 194. It is quite unusual for anyone to be 'out' to a no ball when on
0. I know of 14 cases since 1999, but only one batsman went on to make more
than 32. That was Hasan Raja (68) at Sharjah in 2002. Only two
previous batsmen were 'out' to a no ball first ball and neither reached
double figures. Data is
limited to 1999-2016. ******** |
14 March 2017
For something
completely different… The origins of
‘streaking’ at sporting events go back to about 1974. According to Wikipedia,
instances at US colleges dated back to the 1960s; it became a major fad in
colleges in 1973, and began to be seen at major sporting events the following
year. Wikipedia puts the first streak at a major sports event at April 1974,
but Sreeram has found reports of a streaker on the
field at a Test match in March of that year. It was the Auckland Test on 22
March 1974; there was a streaker on the first day, followed by another on the
second day. The culprits disappeared into the crowd and are unidentified. The
New Zealand Herald mentions them in
only a backhanded way, commenting that the final day was “for once streakerless”. Searching the Canberra Times for the word ‘streaker’
comes up with no real hits before March 1974, but it does mention the first
incident in Auckland, in its report from the first day. The same paper
appears to have no reports of streakers from the 1973-74 Australian season. The Times
also lacks hits until March 1974, and even then it only mentions incidents
unrelated to sporting events. The first streak at Lord’s was in 1975. Nowadays the fad
has largely disappeared at cricket grounds, thanks to intense security at
sports fields, and (in Australia) massive fines for setting foot on the
playing surface. I noticed
something else quite rare about that first Auckland day. Doug Walters scored
104 not out on a day when 18 wickets fell, seven of them ducks. Australia was
bowled out for 221 with New Zealand 85 for 8 at stumps. This is the most
wickets to fall on a day containing a complete individual century in the last
100 years. Apart from Walters, the batsmen batting that day averaged 10.1. ******** In my files, I
have come across a hand-written note by Colin Clowes
on those hat-tricks by Matthews, with some detail that might not have been
published before. The second came
in Matthews’ 7th over of the second innings with the score on 70
for 5: W, W, W, 0, 4, 4. The wickets were Taylor,
Schwarz and Ward, with the runs scored by Beaumont. Kelleway,
bowling at the other end, had taken a wicket in the previous over, and took
another wicket (the 9th of the innings) in the next over after the
hat-trick (a maiden). Matthews’ 8th and last over was 2, 3, 0, 4,
0, 0, at which point he was taken off. The hat-trick appears to have occurred
in the 24th over of the innings. South Africa was out for 95, in
95 minutes, in the 29th over of the innings, Kelleway
taking the final wickets. In playing time, the hat-tricks were about 85
minutes apart. Five wickets fell
in three overs; the exact number of balls from first to last is not recorded.
I’m not sure what possessed the captain to elevate Ward in the second innings
batting order, so as to face another hat-trick ball. ******** Here
is an article by me, just published in the Cricket Monthly, on the
“end-over” jitters, that is the effect of having to bat in the final overs of
the day (very little as it turns out). There is a curious comment under it by
a cricket captain who basically says “I don’t care what the stats say, it
feels good so I will keep doing it.” It’s rather difficult to reason with
that. At some stage I
will also post the article on my website. ******** I have completed
another stage of a survey of Test match catches, identifying the field
locations of as many catches as possible. The years covered in this part of the
survey are 1877 to 1970 (670 Tests), with locations identified for more than
ten thousand catches. Wicketkeeper and bowlers, of course, are easy, but not
so the others. Nevertheless, locations have been found for about 96% of
catches in this period. There are only two series for which I have almost no
data: MCC in West Indies in 1929-30 and New Zealand in Pakistan in 1969-70. One complication
has been the evolving names for fielding locations, and it is difficult to be
certain about some old terminology. For example, ‘cover slip’. According “The Language of Cricket” (Eddowes),
this is an old name for third man, but some old reports mention fielders in
both positions in describing field settings, suggesting that they were
different things. The term ‘midwicket’
was not encountered until 1931, and did not become used widely for a few
years after that. It seems that previously ‘short leg’ was used instead, with
other terms for what we would call short leg now. The nomenclature going
around the legside field was mid-on, then short leg
(midwicket), then square leg, and then long leg. ‘Fine leg’ was mostly a
later term. The term ‘cover’
seems to have originated as a covering or backup fielder for the point
fielder. Before 1945, ‘cover point’ was the almost universal term. ‘Cover’ or
‘the covers’ as standalone terms came later. ******** |
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During the
rest day of the Bridgetown Test of 1977, Pakistan players Zaheer
Abbas and Wasim Bari were rescued from drowning, by
life guard Aldolphus Griffith, while attempting to
swim back to their hotel from a raft that had drifted out to sea. Zaheer was not actually playing in the Test, but Bari
was. The following day, Bari, batting at #11, scored a match-saving 60 not
out, adding 133 for the last wicket with Wasim Raja. ******** In the
second Test of 1953-54 (South Africa v New Zealand), John Reid broke his bat
playing a shot and was out caught at short fine leg. ******** Abdul Azeem, who played first-class cricket in India in the
1980s, had a complete career of 114 innings but made no ducks at all. He did,
however, make a couple of ducks in List A cricket. ******** At Bombay
in 1956, Neil Harvey should have been caught on 99, but the fielder failed to
move to the ball. Harvey then took another half an hour to reach his century.
The number of balls he faced is not recorded. ******** A piece of
umpiring trivia. The first time that Australian umpires were permitted to
take the field without coats was the Adelaide Test of 1967-68 (v India).
Reason: extremely hot weather. They still had to wear ties. |
21 February 2017
The
Odd Fields of the Early Days
Here is a little
bit of data that suggests that the game was played rather differently in the
very early days. In the reports in The
Times for Tests in 1888 and 1893, there is a listing of the field
placings deployed at the beginnings of some innings. There are lists for 14
separate innings/bowlers; all of them apply to the first one or two overs of
an innings. While hardly exhaustive, there is enough data to tabulate to give
a taste of how fields were set in those days. Use of field placings: 14 examples
1888-1893. Field place
names have been converted into modern parlance where I can be confident of
the translation.
The number 14 generally
means that the position was used in every case. There are 15 ‘cover’
fieldsmen (always referred to as ‘cover-point’ in those days) because there
two cover fielders listed in one innings, and one in all the others. The most striking
thing, though, is the massive concentration of fielders from mid-off to
mid-on. Some innings featured two mid-offs, a long-off, a mid-on and a
long-on. (In a small number of cases, positions were referred to as ‘short’
mid-off or mid-on). If I have interpreted the accounts correctly, fielders
between what we call midwicket to fine leg were, by contrast, extremely
sparse. Remember that these are opening bowlers in their first over. I have
illustrated two fields given for the opening overs of Old Trafford 1893.
There is a remarkable contrast between field settings for the opening bowlers
Arthur Mold and Johnny Briggs.
The Mold field is the only one of the 14 that resembles a
modern field setting for an opening bowler; even so, it would be considered
somewhat defensive for a modern Test match. It is the only field with a third
slip (called ‘cover slip’, while second slip was ‘extra slip’). As for the
Briggs field, I can’t say I have personally seen anything quite like it.
Long-off, straight hit, and long-on for the opening over, plus mid-off and
mid-on? That is what it says in The
Times. There was method
in those field settings that suggests that they were set because the range of
shots of batsmen was more restricted. I am still preparing data on this, but
a lot of batsmen were out caught between mid-off/mid-on in those days. Note some
caveats: the exact positions, or ranges, of ‘point’ and ‘third man’, as used
on those days, are possibly open to interpretation. ‘Midwicket’ did not exist
as a named position: ‘short leg’ is sometimes used in reports instead, but
does not mean a close-in fielder. ‘Gully’ did not exist as a named position;
there is a possibility that some point fielders fielded there. ******** The following
players had a six as the first scoring shot of their careers in Tests Batsman EW Freeman Aus v Ind, Brisbane ('Gabba') 1967/68 CA Best WI v Eng, Kingston, Jamaica 1986 KM Dabengwa Zim v NZ, Bulawayo (Queen's) 2005 DM Richards WI v Ban, Arnos Vale, St. Vincent 2009 Jahurul Islam Ban
v Eng, Mirpur 2009/10 Shafiul Islam Ban
v Ind, Chittagong 2009/10 Al-Amin Hossain Ban v SL, Dhaka (Mirpur) 2013/14 MD Craig WI v NZ, Kingston,
Jamaica 2014 DM de Silva SL v Aus, Pallekele 2016 Kamrul Islam Ban
v Eng, Dhaka (Mirpur) 2016/17 Craig is the only
one to do so first ball; Freemen did so second ball, by hitting the ball out
of the ground. The Bangladeshis, apart from Shafiul,
did not do this in their first Test innings; all made ducks before hitting
their first runs. The frequency of
recent cases shows how debased the hitting aspect of cricket has become, due
to smaller grounds and bigger bats. |
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At Trinidad
in 1948, umpire Henderson had to be escorted off the field by police at the
end of the third day, after an unpopular decision to give Frank Worrell out
caught behind on 97. Journalists in the press box thought the decision a fair
one. ******** The Times
reported in 1949 that on the second day of the Test at the Oval, Godfrey
Evans hit a five, all run and without overthrows, off GF Creswell. I also
came across a report of Graeme Hole hitting such a five, to the long boundary
at the Adelaide Oval in 1951, on the day that 22 wickets fell (all the
fielders were clustered around the wicket). This brings to 13 the number of
known cases, five
of them at The Oval and three at Adelaide. ******** At Lord’s
in 1950, Clyde Walcott kept wickets in England’s first innings but opened the
bowling in the second innings, with Robert Christiani
filling in as glove man. ******** The
batsman who hit the winning run at The Oval in 1936 was Charlie Barnett. This
might seem rather trivial - and it is - but it means that I now have a
complete set off all batsmen who have hit the winning runs in Tests, and all
the bowlers involved. For the
last couple of years, that 1936 match was the last holdout and difficult to
research, but I found the information in the Portsmouth Evening News, a
newspaper that is now available online, through subscription to the British Newspaper Archive. ******** Taslim Arif
(210*) scored runs off all 11 bowlers at Faisalabad in 1980. In the same innings,
Javed Miandad (106*)
faced all 11 bowlers, but scored runs off only ten: he did not score from the
three balls he faced from Allan Border. ******** Consecutive runs entirely in boundaries: Test and
ODI. At Bulawayo in 2004, VS Solanki began
with 9 fours = 36 runs. (He scored 56 out of his first 58 in boundaries).
This is the most known in ODIs since 1999. In Tests,
the most consecutive runs scored entirely in boundaries, where known, is 52 by Shakib Al Hasan (100)
against New Zealand at Hamilton in 2009/10. He went from 4 to 56 with two
sixes and ten fours. Jayasuriya played a
Test innings of 32 with 8 fours at Colombo 1997 (against India). At
Bridgetown in 1978, Bruce Yardley (74) started with 7 fours and a six in his
first 34 runs. But this was not even a ground record. The only greater figure
I have noted was at the same ground.
In the equivalent Test of 1955, The Jamaica Daily Gleaner reported that the
then little-known teenager Garfield Sobers started with nine fours in his
first 36 runs. He was out for 43 with ten fours. |
3 February 2017
Just some bits
and pieces. Here are some stats on run outs in Tests, presented in a way you
may have not seen reported before. They cover Tests in this century up to
2014. The excess of non-strikers being out appears to be related to
strike-farming with tail-end batsmen.
******** Opposing Captains in Most Tests
Batsmen Dismissed Twice in the Same
Session
******** Some notes on the
Question by an Ask Steven commenter "Who holds the most records?" Source: Cricinfo Test records batting section Qualification: highest
position on a high-performance list that has more than one name. Number of
appearances: DG Bradman 15 BC Lara 7 SR Tendulkar 5 Take out the
somewhat artificial ‘milestone’ records (fastest to ‘x’ number of runs etc) and Bradman drops to 10, Lara 6, and Tendulkar 3. Murali has about a dozen in the bowling, but
some of these are really subsets of bigger records (e.g. "most batsmen
out caught") and half of them are artificial 'milestone' records
('fastest to x number of wickets') ********
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Bobby Abel
spent the first 429 overs on the field in the SCG Test of 1891/92. Several others
have exceeded 400. Glenn Turner managed about 420 overs in 1971/72, not at
Georgetown but at Kingston. The most for a team batting first is 418 overs by
Bert Sutcliffe at Delhi in 1955/56. Frank
Worrell was on the field for the first 385 overs of the five-day Leeds Test
of 1957. This may have been matched or exceeded by Glenn Turner at Georgetown
in 1972; the precise number is uncertain. Bob
Simpson was on the field for 550 out of 553 overs in the Manchester Test of
1964. The most
overs by a player who spent the entire match on the field is
413 by MS Atapattu at Galle in 2001. Alastair
Cook spent the first 1490 minutes on the field at Abu Dhabi in 2015. These
figures presume that the player was not substituted as a fielder at any
stage. ******** Most
centuries in a calendar year: Don Bradman made 22 centuries in first-class
cricket in 1938, and Dennis Compton the same in
1947. I don't think these have been surpassed in the era of multiple formats.
Martin Crowe holds the records for most total runs (f-c + List A), 5200 in
1987, but he only made 18 centuries, and Jimmy Cook made 17 in 1990. The most List A centuries in a year is 10 by Saurav
Ganguly in 2000, but he made no f-c centuries at
all in that year. ******** With England
chasing 234 in an ODI at the SCG in 1987, Allan Lamb reached 59 without
hitting a single boundary, but was then faced with the task of 18 runs off
the last over. He hit 2,4,6,2,4 off Bruce Reid to
win the match with a ball to spare. ******** I believe
that Renshaw is the 20th Australian to bat unbeaten through the first day of
a Test, based on a minimum of 450 balls in the day. There have been 36
previous instances, including Justin Langer five times. Renshaw is the
youngest, displacing Graeme Wood who was aged 22. ******** Some cases
of players not being present at the start of a Test: ·
Everton
Weekes was selected to play for West Indies (Kingston 1948), after he was
previously told that he had been dropped, but word got to him so late that he
couldn't make it to the ground on time, and he actually saw play in progress
from the air as he flew in. Weekes scored 141, the first of a still
unsurpassed sequence of five consecutive Test centuries. ·
Sandeep Patil did not arrive for the Nagpur Test of 1983 until
late in the first day. Link: an article by A Mukherhee on the extraordinary circumstances. ·
Just before
the start of the Leeds Test of 1935, Maurice Leyland pulled out with a back
injury. Someone was sent to fetch Arthur ‘Ticker’ Mitchell of Yorkshire; he
was found pottering in his garden. Normally an opener, Mitchell batted down
the order on the first day. ·
At
Sheffield in 1902, some odd selector shenanigans led to S.F. Barnes being
belatedly informed, by telegram on the first day, that he was to show up and
play. He arrived late, but bowled first change and took 6 for 49. Barnes, who
for much of his career operated outside the county system (although he was
playing for Lancashire at the time), had been a success on the 1901/02 tour
of Australia, but this was his first Test in England. He took wickets with
the second and third balls he bowled in a Test in England. ·
UPDATE: At
Johannesburg in 1994-95 Aamir Nazir
was called as a replacement but had to fly in from Pakistan and arrived at
the ground 36 minutes after the match had started. The South African captain
permitted a substitute while Pakistan fielded during this period. 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 match. ******** |
5 January 2017
There is an
increasing availability of old newspapers online, which extends the detail
available for old Test matches. One subscription service, the British Newspaper Archive, is
particularly helpful for some Tests in England. I used it to get more detail on
one of the more intriguing pre-War innings, a score of 56 by Clifford Roach
at The Oval in 1933. There is no original surviving score from this match. Roach scored his
runs in 45 minutes, and reached 50 in 33 minutes, making it competitive with
the fastest innings of its day (or any day). What the newly-available papers
were able to confirm was that Roach reached 50 in the ninth over of the
innings. The number of balls he faced is still uncertain, but a
reconstruction suggests that the strike favoured Roach, and the 50 came off
about 32 balls. This is very similar to a number from a similar
reconstruction of John Brown’s 50 in 28 minutes in 1895. Reaching 50 in
the ninth over is extraordinary in any era. Even in these times of Superbats, which dominate this category, Roach’s effort
rates very highly… Earliest to Reach
Individual 50 in an innings (total balls bowled)
At Karachi in 1985/86, Mudassar
Nazar may have reached 50 in as few as nine overs
against Sri Lanka. *Update
6th January Ironically, it
took Roach two hours elapsed time to reach 50, thanks to a lunch break and
some rain. Roach was 24 in five overs at lunch, and reached 50 in the fourth
over on resumption. There was one other rare incident: a ball that went for
seven leg byes in the third over, when Roach was facing. Had it been called
runs off the bat, Roach’s fifty would have come an over earlier. (There is
only one other instance of seven leg byes known, in 1989.) Incidentally, I
also determined that a pair of ducks in this match, by HC Griffith, was not a
king pair; he was out first ball in the first innings, but second ball in the
second. *** On a similar
subject, here are some notes I have made on the claim by Farouk Engineer that
he scored a century off 46 (or 48) balls at Chennai in 1966/67. Engineer was
94 not out at lunch on the first day, and claims to have hit a six off the
first ball thereafter to reach his century… I don’t have any
scorebook for this Test. However, 46 balls (I have also read 48 balls) is effectively impossible. For one thing, in reality
Engineer took 23 minutes and (probably) eight overs after lunch to reach his century
against the spin of Sobers and Gibbs. After Gibbs had taken a wicket in each
of his first two overs after lunch, there was a maiden by Gibbs to Engineer,
and Engineer reached his century with a single to midwicket in Gibbs’ next
over. He reached 100 in 143 minutes with 17 fours and was out, for 109,
twelve minutes later. With Hall and
Griffith opening, there were only 28 overs bowled before lunch, so scoring 94
off that was a quite remarkable achievement, and 44 overs between lunch and
tea with Sobers and Gibbs bowling spin. The Hindu newspaper records 44 scoring
shots in his 109 (18x4, 2x3, 7x2, 17x1), with no sixes. That paper has a
detailed account, but mentions no imbalance in the strike, and it would have
taken an extreme imbalance to produce a century in less than 50 balls in that
time. An interesting
feature of this and other innings at the time is the disparity in over rates
depending on the bowling type. In this match, Hall and Griffith bowled only
12 overs in the first hour, but when Sobers and Gibbs were bowling spin, the
over rate peaked at 23 overs per hour. The rates in each hour on the first
day were 12, 16, 21, 23, 11 (new ball after 75 overs) and 6 in the last
half-hour. The Hall/Griffith over rates look slow even by modern standards. I
am of the opinion that the overall slowdown in modern over rates is largely
due to spinners taking longer to bowl their overs. Constant changing of field
settings, and long conferences with captains, are factors. ******** I don’t yet have
a big collection of ODI scores from the 1980s, but I noticed an interesting
item in one of that I do have, an England v Australia one-dayer
at the WACA in 1986. Record sources list this match as containing a 26-run
over, scored by Ian Botham off Simon Davis (4,4,2,4,6,6). However, the
official score is quite clear: the over also contained a wide (4,4,2,4,wd,6,6), making 27 runs. This makes it the most
expensive over known up to that time in ODIs (previously, it was equal
leader). It was not exceeded until Sanath Jayasuriya hit 30 off an over in Singapore October 1995,
and was not exceeded on a major international ground until November 1999,
when 28 runs were scored, by Tendulkar (mostly), at Hyderabad. Since then,
tallies like this have become regular occurrences, thanks to the twin evils
of boundary ropes and monster bats. One can distill the progressive record in this category as
follows 26 Rod Marsh off BL Cairns, Adelaide
1980/81 27 Ian Botham off SP Davis, Perth
1986/87 30 Sanath Jayasuriya off Aamer Sohail, Singapore 1995/96 36 Herschelle
Gibbs off DLS van Bunge, St Kitts, 2007 Off Test-ranked bowling, the records are
32 by Shahid Afridi off CM Bandara
in 2007, and 35 by NLTC Perera off RJ Peterson in
2013 The record prior
to 1980 is not clear (perhaps readers can help here). The Cricinfo
records do not list any overs less than 26 runs. A 1998 book, One-Day International Cricket Lists,
also lists overs from 23 to 25 runs (from research by Ross Dundas), but none
of those listed occurred before 1980. The most expensive over in the very
first ODI was 17 runs off an (8-ball) over by Basil D’Oliveira.
To some extent,
this must remain a ‘where known’ record. UPDATE: Steve Pittard reports a 22-run over at Old Trafford in 1978,
bowled by Richard Hadlee to Ian Botham. It was the
last over of the 55-over innings, with a sequence 4,4,4,2,2[nb],6. Since the Dundas research found no overs of 23 or
above in this period, this should stand as the record at the time. |
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