Longer Articles     

 

A new section featuring older articles by Charles Davis. Hopefully this will grow with time.

 

A Short History of Run Outs. Published in the Cricket Statistician, on the subject of fielding credits for run outs in Test cricket.

 

The Thousand-Ball Partnerships.   An article published in the Cricket Statistician, on the longest Test partnerships ever.

 

The Great Test Match of 1880.   An over-by-over reconstruction of this historic match at the Oval, with famous centuries by WG Grace and Bill Murdoch.

 

Bannerman’s Miracle.    An historical study of the very first Test innings, Charles Bannerman’s incredible 165 (retired hurt) at the MCG in 1877, which holds a number of Test records to this day.

 

The Myth of the Nightwatchman. This is older excerpt from my book The Best of the Best. It gives some background to discussion of the nightwatchman tactic in the blog, and shows how the tactic fails more often than it succeeds. There is also a short piece on partnerships: do wickets fall in pairs after long partnerships?

 

A Tale of Two Spinners. An unedited version of an article published in Wisden Australia 2005-06, comparing the careers of Shane Warne and Mutiah Muralitharan. Data to June 2005 only.

 

The Last Shall Be First. An unpublished analysis of the advantages, or otherwise, of winning the and the choices captains make. The data are only current to 2005, but the trends have not changed since.

 

Page Inserts For Wisden Australia 2005-06. This is material published in Wisden Australia 2005-06. It covers the same ground as some items in the blog, but there is some new material here. Again, data is current to mid-2005 only.

 

Statistical Snippets. Prepared for The Age (Melbourne) Ashes Magazine.

 

Some comments about Shane Warne’s Test career. These were written for a book “On Ya Warnie” by Ken Piesse.

 

Searching for the Greatest Olympic Performances a paper presented at the “Olympic Legacies” conference at Oxford University in 2008.

 

The Don’s ‘Missing’ Runs: A Question of Averages   Written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the West Australian. Original Text August 23 2008.

 

Some Statistical Snippets from Don Bradman’s Career  Some information supplied to Ken Piesse for use in his book Our Don Bradman.

 

A new version of The Last Shall be First, published in the Age 19th December 2008

 

A Detailed Timeline of the famous Mackay/Kline match-saving partnership in 1961.

 

Travels of a Collector An article published in the journal Between Wickets describing the foundations of my Tests database, the search for data, and some interesting aspects of what I found.

 

Cricket Fatalities Some shocking historical statistics on the number of people killed playing cricket. From Between Wickets Winter 2015.

 

Jackschon, Fergie and the Genesis of Advanced Cricket Scoring. The story of the pioneers of advanced scoring techniques, and the slow adoption of statistical standards that have become so ubiquitous in the modern game. From Between Wickets Winter 2015 (edited version).

 

An article on the most extreme Test performances of the last 50 years, combining batting and bowling performances on the same scale. This is an extended version of an article written for Cricket Monthly online. Dec 2015.

 

A review of the 2015-16 Australian season, which was published a little belatedly in Between Wickets Winter 2016. I have included an image of the first page of the article as published, since it includes an introduction that I swear I did not write.

 

Here is an article on the statistics of DRS in Tests, which was published online by Cricket Monthly in June 2017.

 

Here is an article on the statistics of Missed Chances in Tests, which was published online by Cricket Monthly in October 2016.

 

Here is an article on the effects of breaks in play on wickets falling, including stumps and lunch breaks, which was published online by Cricket Monthly in March 2017.

 

http://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Pressure2018.pdf   on the pressure faced by Steve Smith prior to the sandpaper scandal.

 

http://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Trumper335.pdf An article for the Cricket Statistician on Victor Trumper’s legendary 335 at Redfern in 1903.

 

RETIRING HURT: A SHORT HISTORY Which bowlers have inflicted the most retirements on batsmen?

 

Over rates time study Comparing over rates of individual bowlers in two eras: 1968-77 and 2015-21.

 

An updated article on the Madras Tied Test final day, incorporating data from a newly-discovered scoresheet.

 

A 2023 article from The Cricket Statistician on historical trends of Missed Chances (catches and stumpings) in Test matches, going back as far as 1920.

 

 

A short article on the discovery that Imran Khan took four wickets in five balls in a Test in 1985.