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Cricket in Australia 1877-2002, click here
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The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1970s have now been
posted. More than two-thirds of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage;
virtually all others offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything
previously made available online. The starting page is here. An information page
outlining this database is here. A Bonus Page: some remarkable first-class
innings, re-scored. |
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some remarkable first-class innings, re-scored. |
The Davis Test
Match Database Online. Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the1990s have now been
posted. Almost three-quarters of Tests include ball-by-ball coverage;
virtually all others offer some degree of extended detail, beyond anything
previously made available online. The starting page is here. An information page
outlining this database is here. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1877 to 1970. Major Test Partnerships (200+) 1971 to 1999.
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A
further note on the use of air transport: the 1938 Australian touring team to
England actually had a clause in their contracts that air transport would not
be used. The first use of air transport for a cricket tour came in 1946, when
the Australian team flew to New Zealand. Australian tours to England
continued to travel by ship up to 1964 (which went part of the way by air);
the 1968 team travelled entirely by air to Britain. ******** At
Port-of-Spain in 1960, Frank Worrell was caught on the boundary (one-handed)
by Fred Trueman, but umpire Jordan signalled six. It is not clear what the
umpire thought had happened, but Worrell ‘walked’ and averted any
controversy. ******** It
is unusual to come across ‘significant’ errors in the standard online Test
data sources (Cricinfo /Cricket Archive), but here are a couple from 1993… At
Moratuwa (Sri Lanka) Jonty Rhodes in the second innings scored 101* off 204
balls, not 107 balls. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket says 193 balls, but
that applies to Rhodes reaching the century, not his final BF. At
the Gabba later that year, Richard de Groen’s innings of 3 is given as 3
balls and 5 minutes, even though his last-wicket partnership with Tony Blain
was worth 40 runs. De Groen actually faced 30 balls and batted 55 minutes. ******** In
the third Test of 1993-94 against Sri Lanka at Ahmedabad, Sachin Tendulkar,
at age 20, was the Indian vice-captain. Tendulkar took on the on-field
captaincy duties on the fourth day when Mohammad Azharuddin was indisposed.
Has any player younger than this (20.79 years to be exact) ever taken on
captaincy duties, even in an acting capacity? The
youngest confirmed named captain was Tatenda Taibu, who was 21 when he
captained Zimbabwe in a couple of Tests. (Rashid Khan was supposedly younger,
but I do not regard dates of birth from Pakistan and Afghanistan to be
reliable.) ******** |
17 December 2020 About
four years ago I posted a list of the best
head-to-head bowling averages for bowlers, specifically when bowling to the
best batsmen – those with batting average over 45. A reader, Arjun, suggested
that I try a similar exercise for batsmen against the best bowlers. To do
this I had to decide on some criteria for deciding who the best bowlers were.
I came up with the following: - Bowlers with 200 Test
wickets, or 150 before 1970, or 100 before 1940. - All other bowlers with 25
or more wickets and a bowling average under 30. Bowlers
meeting these criteria have taken about 35,000 wickets, representing about
half of all wickets taken by bowlers. This divides the bowlers neatly into
two similar-sized sets. Not
surprisingly, most batsmen’s averages against the ‘top bowlers’ are lower
than their career averages. It is not always the case, however. Typically,
the top bowler average is about 87% of career average. I would say this is a
smaller effect than I would have expected. Anyway,
here are the batsmen with the best averages against top bowlers…
Minimum 1000 runs against top bowlers So
Bradman’s 99.94 comes down to 75.5 when facing the
best bowlers of his time. This is thanks to the efforts of bowlers like
Hedley Verity and Alec Bedser, who did well against The Don. Next come a few
West Indians, whose averages were little affected by facing top bowlers: I
can’t really explain this except to note that Tests in the West Indies in the
1950s were a graveyard for many top bowlers. Prominent
batsmen who did not meet the 1000 run threshold but did very well against top
bowlers include Graeme Pollock (68.4) and George Headley (55.7). A curious
case is Andrew Jones of New Zealand, whose top bowler average is 56.4, which
is 127% of his career average of 44.27, the highest (and most
counterintuitive) percentage for any batsman. Wasim Raja had a similar
percentage (career average 36.16, top bowler average 46.0). I’m
not sure what more to make of this. Why some batsmen do better against good
bowling than bad bowling is puzzling. Perhaps others can make more of this
than I can. ******** The One-Year Wonder Some
notes I made years ago on fast bowler Ted McDonald. I thought I might as well
post them… Warwick
Armstrong certainly seemed to prefer his fast men bowling from the same end
taking turns, rather than bowling in partnership. Sometimes McDonald had to
shoulder a bigger burden: if Gregory had scored runs, Armstrong would cut
back his bowling duties for a few hours thereafter. While
they usually opened together, it appears that Gregory and McDonald, as a
pair, never took the second new ball together (available after 200 runs in
those days). Generally, Gregory would take the new ball, with someone like
Kelleway or Hendry at the other end. McDonald's
entire Test career fitted into one calendar year (1921), in which he took 43
wickets. No other bowler with such a short (single-year) career ever took so
many wickets; in fact no one is even close. When
Armstrong bowled his famous two overs in a row after an abortive declaration
by England at Old Trafford, McDonald probably should have bowled the
intervening over. It was reported that the umpires ignored calls from the
crowd that the wrong bowler was preparing to bowl. The score presents a
puzzle here: I am pretty sure that McDonald bowled only 30 overs, not 31
given in official scores, in that innings. McDonald
twice dismissed batsmen by breaking their bats. At Leeds, McDonald broke A
Ducat's bat. The splinter hit the stumps while the ball was caught by
Gregory, and the batsman was given out caught. At Johannesburg, McDonald
broke the bat of JW Zulch, the splinter hitting the stumps and he was given
out hit wicket. I know of no other case of a batsman being out in this way. Batting
at The Oval, McDonald thought he was out bowled (by Parkin) and left the
crease, but was recalled by the England captain Lionel Tennyson, who felt
that the wicketkeeper had dislodged the bail. There
is a picture of Tennyson batting one-handed against either Gregory or
McDonald at Leeds (the other bowlers he faced would have had the keeper at
the stumps). Tennyson hit a five off McDonald in this innings, and
(amazingly) two fours off Gregory and a six over square leg off Mailey.
********** The first ever international cricket broadcast? I
came across this snippet from the 1931 England/New Zealand series. It is not
100% clear to me what form this broadcast took…
UPDATE:
Peter Huxford in the UK has sent me some links to New Zealand reports of
these broadcasts, found on the Papers
Past website. It appears that the broadcasts were after-play match
reports, and they began with the first Test of the 1931 series. The
broadcasts, some of which were relayed through Sydney, were sometimes
unsuccessful. It seems that they were attempting shortwave broadcasting; very
ambitious in those days considering the distances involved. It
is also evident (from newspaper radio guides) that receivers in New Zealand
were able to pick up conventional Medium Wave broadcasts from Sydney and
Melbourne at that time. They must have had good aerials, but it was quite
feasible, especially if there was ‘clean air’, where frequencies were
uncluttered by competing stations. Radio reports of the 1930-31
Australia/West Indies series were received in New Zealand. It
is curious that shortwave broadcasting to Australia was not attempted for the
1934 Ashes series; the ‘synthetic’ broadcasts using telegraphed information
were preferred. In 1938 the synthetic broadcasts were still being used;
shortwave technology was improving but reportedly still unreliable. (The ABC,
incidentally, did not invent synthetic broadcasts – they had been used in
1930 by Australian commercial radio stations.)
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******** Sreeram
asked: John Reid hit four sixes before lunch on Day 1 at Calcutta, 1964-65.
Has anyone else done that ? 5
Gayle at Basseterre v India 2006 4
Blackwood at Kingston v India 2016 4
Hayden at Chennai v India 2001 Blackwood
was batting at #5 ! The
Reid one is not in the database and was a surprise to me; so there could be
others, although it seems very unlikely in older Tests. The
most in any single session is 9 by Hammond and Astle. You can guess in which
Tests. UPDATE:
Gayle’s 5 sixes were actually hit in the second session of the match, the
first having been rained off. ******** Update on the 1961 video. (see 18
October) John
Leather writes to say that the BBC did have video machines from 1958 onwards.
However, the Ampex machines cost $70,000 each and the tapes were so expensive
and few in number that they were used only for short-term storage. Editing
these tapes was not practical. Long-term
recording of footage was primarily done with kinetoscopes (also known as
telerecording), which converted the image as displayed on a monitor onto
conventional film. The 1961 Ashes footage was archived and stored in this
way. Telerecording
continued through the 1960s even as videotape technology
improved. Tapes were wiped and reused even for important shows like Doctor Who
and At Last the 1948 Show, a 1968
precursor to Monty Python. It is fortunate, perhaps, that permanent copies of
Monty Python were kept. ******** |
21 November 2020 Timeline of
India’s Famous Win, 3rd Test Port of Spain 1976 This
was an important match historically. Not only a great win for India, but a
turning point for the West Indies, who, after this humiliation, always played
for keeps, with the fast bowlers offering no quarter. In the following Test
at Kingston, the short-pitched bowling was given free rein, and India
eventually crumbled. It was the start of a dominant era for the West Indies.
A Question from Arjun Nathan
Hauritz dismissed Andrew Strauss in all the 6 innings he bowled to him in ODIs.
Is it true? …. A:
This is very well spotted. Not only is it true, but it is possibly unique.
Strauss and Hauritz played in 11 ODIs together, but Hauritz bowled to Strauss
in only six of those and dismissed him each time. I
have look at ODIs since 2001 (about 58% of all ODIs)
and this is the only case of 6 that I found. Other cases of 5: Shane Watson
to Chris Gayle, Murali to Chigimbura, and UT Yadav to D Ramdin. It
may also have happened earlier than 2001, but I think that the data is too
patchy to make a judgement. In
Tests, Hugh Tayfield bowled to JH Wardle in eight innings and dismissed him
each time. This is the most that I have in the Test database. Next is Patrick
Patterson to Craig McDermott with 7 dismissals. Head to Head without dismissal We
are looking here at the number of games where the bowler actually bowled to
the batsman. Given that Wasim Akram took far more ODI wickets than anyone
else, it is remarkable that he never dismissed David Boon in the 18 innings
that he bowled to him… Wasim
Akram bowling to David Boon… 18 games J
Srinath to W Cronje… very uncertain but no more than 18. JH
Kallis to Michael Bevan… 17 games Chaminda
Vaas to Bevan… 15 or 16 games. S
Pollock to Shoaib Malik… 14 games Mohammad
Nabi to Sikander Raza… 14 games Murali
to AD Jadeja… up to 14 games The
uncertainty is due to lack of data for some games. Without ball-by-ball data,
it is often not possible to be certain whether a batsman faced a particular
bowler. In
Tests, John Gleeson bowled to John Edrich in 19 innings without ever
dismissing him. Also on 19: Carl Hooper bowling to Steve Waugh. With
data being incomplete, there could be other pairings exceeding this. However,
it is very unlikely. For example, Mudassar Nazar bowled in 25 innings that
Sunil Gavaskar batted in, without ever taking his wicket. Ball-by-ball
records are missing for most of these Tests. However, available data plus a
close look at scorecards suggests that in at least 9 of these innings, Mudassar
could not have actually bowled to Gavaskar. ******** Counting No
Balls. The
counting of no balls in bowling analyses (runs conceded) started in 1983-84,
but for some reason New Zealand and England did not adhere to it until later.
The 1983-84 Test series between New Zealand and England, 1983-84 Sri Lanka
and New Zealand, and 1984 Tests in England did not adhere to it. My bbb
database for the 1984 Tests was in error in this respect and I have fixed
that now. The
adding of a run for every no ball (even when scored from) was much later,
starting with Australia v Pakistan in 1998-99. I am pretty certain that all
countries changed from that point on. Note that this was a more important
change than the earlier one, because it actually changed team totals; it is
probably the only such change since sixes were introduced. I have noted
earlier that Australia would have won the 1992-93 Adelaide
Test under the later protocol, because they scored off more no balls
than West Indies. England would also have beaten Zimbabwe in a drawn Test in
1996 for the same reason. As
for multiple no balls being separated into 1 no ball plus byes/leg byes, I
have notes of cases occurring from mid-2018. A couple of multi-no balls in
mid-2017 were simply described as ‘5 no balls’ and ‘2 no balls’ respectively
in the Cricinfo texts, and it appears that they ended up as multiple no balls
in the scores. So 2018 seems to be the starting point. The
accounting of no balls and wides against bowlers has a rather complex
history. Wherever possible I think that, in scores, the no ball/wides columns
against bowlers should count only the actual number of deliveries called by
umpires. This is currently the protocol; however, varying protocols have been
used in the past. I may at some stage change my online scores to reflect the
modern standard (wherever possible but a big job). However, there will be a
significant number of other older Tests (about 300) where this cannot be done
(bowlers’ no balls and wides were published, but bbb is not available). There
are also about 240 further Tests where no information on bowlers’ no balls
and wides is available at all. ******** |
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The Earliest Broadcasts The
first full ball-by-ball broadcast of a cricket match was for the 3rd Test of
the 1924-25 Ashes series in Adelaide, from 16-23 Jan 1925. Bill Smallacombe
of radio station 5CL was the sole commentator, and he did the whole 7-day
match without help. 5CL
had only commenced broadcasts a few weeks earlier. There cannot have been
many home radio receivers in Adelaide at the time, but large crowds gathered
around shops and other places that had radios. There
had been earlier live radio reporting of cricket matches, including the first
two Tests of that series (Sydney and Melbourne) but they were in the form of
regular updates rather than ball-by-ball descriptions. Credit
to Bernard Whimpress who researched the 1925 Adelaide broadcast. ******** Last Use of Boundary Fences in
Australia In
Australia, some of the Tests of 2000-01 retained the fence boundaries, but
(from video evidence) all the Tests of 2001-02 had boundary ropes inside the
fences. The ropes in 2001-02 were closer to the fence than they are today. I
recall that ropes were used in early day-night ODIs at the SCG, because the
lights did not illuminate the outfield completely. There
was a boundary rope for the Adelaide Test in 2002-03, but it was only about a
foot inside the fence. It
can be seen in video of Glenn McGrath’s famous catch. ******** Unfortunately
the excellent "test-cricket-tours" website has gone down:
"Suspended" it says. In the past I have linked to this extensively
from my own database. Those links no longer work. The
fellow who created this (Michael Ronayne) died a few years ago without
completing it. Most of the 20th Century series were complete, but
there were gaps: Pakistan tours were missing, among other things. Even so it
was an extremely useful source. I placed links to it on each series cover
page on my database website, and saved copies for most series (up to 1991) on
my own computer. Test
series up to 2015 had been posted, although some 21st Century series were
missing or incomplete. I don't know if it will come back, but in case it
doesn't I have started a scrape of the old copies of the website pages found
on the Wayback Machine. There are hundreds of pages to download. I will post
these on my database and change the links but this will take some time. It
is a lesson about ‘free’ data on the internet. It can disappear overnight
without warning and never return. I
understand that there are some published booklets by the same author that
cover the same territory. I must find them and see if they fill any of the
gaps. ******** Two
little snippets...I was watching a ODI from 1980,
and Richard Hadlee, as a fielder, did a 'slide pickup' of a ball that was
nearing the boundary. It is the norm nowadays, but I don't remember seeing it
very often that far back. Some
film I saw of a Test in 1961 included a 'tag team' return from near the
boundary, one fielder scooping the ball up to a nearby teammate who completed
the throw. Again, something that is routine now. When
Farook Engineer (on 18) was struck on the head by Andy Roberts at Delhi in
1974, the ball landed about 2 yards inside the boundary. Engineer retired
hurt and lunch was called; he returned to the crease later and made 75. ******** |
18 October 2020 So, who
bowled the most no balls? Identifying
the bowler who bowled the most no balls in Tests is not quite
straightforward. Information from the major websites is very patchy. There is
also the issue of how to count no balls; the protocol has varied over the
years. Nowadays,
the number of no balls counted against the bowler is the same as the number of
actual no ball calls by the umpires. This was not the case before 1998;
before then no balls with runs off the bat were not counted as such, while
multiple no balls (with added byes/leg byes) counted as more than one. For
comparison of bowlers, I much prefer the modern counting, and this is
possible with ball-by-ball records. As
it happens, no balls have become less common for various reasons (mainly
umpires who don’t bother to check for them anymore). The greatest numbers
come from previous generations of bowlers, after the front-foot rule was
introduced around 1964. There are two contenders who are well ahead of anyone
else – Bob Willis and Wasim Akram. I
have Willis’ career (17,357 balls) complete in ball-by-ball form. In this
database, Willis was called for 932 no balls. In ‘classic’ counting it would
be only 763 (no balls with runs off the bat excluded). The 932 is an
extraordinary number and sets the bar quite high. The
case of Wasim Akram is more complicated. He bowled 22,627 balls, but I have
only about 81% of his career ball-by-ball. There were 768 no balls calls in
that data. I also have another 10% of his career with published no ball
counts, but no ball-by-ball data. This adds 72 no balls, but these would be
classically counted: the figure translates to 81 no ball calls, based on his
typical pattern. There
is an additional 9% or so of Wasim’s career with no available data, so some
estimating is required. Based on the patterns for the other 91%, the estimate
comes to 936 no ball calls for his whole Test career. I am not sure how wide
the put error bars should be, but Willis’s 932 would certainly be within the
margin of error. So
for now, I cannot distinguish between the two bowlers. Wasim may ease clear
if you include his wides – more than 40 to Willis’s 19. The
next bowler on the list appears to be Malcolm Marshall. Once again there is
no exact number and some estimating is required; this produces an overall
figure of 810 no ball calls. ******** I
was watching some footage of the 1961 Ashes a couple of weeks ago. It
occurred to me that this was the earliest footage of such quality that I have
seen. By ‘quality’ I mean that the coverage actually captured most incidents
of importance, and the viewpoint, in line with the pitch, made appreciation
much easier. Just
about all other film that I have seen from around this time or earlier is of
indifferent quality. Prior to TV, the cameramen sent to the grounds obviously
had very limited amount of film; this meant that they either missed most
important events or only caught the aftermath of dismissals. The newsreels
used various editing tricks to try and paste together a narrative. I
don’t know how the 1961 footage, which originated with the TV broadcast, was
recorded. Videotape existed in those days but I don’t know if it was being
used in Britain at that time. The footage that I have seen looks like it was
recorded by putting a film camera in front of a TV monitor. There are
fragments of earlier such footage: some of Laker’s 19 wickets at Old
Trafford, and England winning the Ashes in 1953 can be found online. They
look like TV material. The 1961 material is much more extensive. I
have the ABC coverage of Tests in Australia from 1958 to 1963, about an hour
per Test. This was taken by a single film camera; it misses a great deal in
terms of highlights but is still most interesting. For some of these Tests,
the film was processed and edited in a great rush each day and flown by
special courier to other capital cities, where it was shown as highlights
about 10pm on local TV. It was not possible to transmit TV from one city to
another in Australia (using coaxial cables) until the early-to-mid 60s.
[UPDATED see 21 November.]
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Watching
some old films of the 1962-63 Ashes, an odd observation: at Adelaide, there
was a boundary rope maybe 10 metres in at the River
end of the ground. Very unusual for those days. There
have been no recorded instances anywhere since 1996; such strokes are much
more unlikely now that grounds have been shrunk down. Incidentally,
there was only one hit for six in the whole 1958-59 series. That was by Fred
Trueman off Richie Benaud at the SCG, and he was out next ball. ******** At Brisbane in 1970-71, Rod Marsh was
caught off Colin Cowdrey, but a no ball was called because three fielders
were behind square leg. Lou Rowan was the square leg umpire. ******** Wisden
1984 says that the first use in a cricket match of a full electronic
scoreboard that could show replays was at the Victoria v England XI match in
December 1982. ******** At
Lord’s in 1956, Richie Benaud was struck on the pads by Brian Statham. There
was a loud appeal, and umpire Lee immediately give Benaud out lbw. However,
the ball, still in motion, rolled onto the stumps and the bails fell. Benaud
was recorded as out bowled, as the Laws allow for the ‘bowled’ dismissal to
take primacy here. ******** Also
from 1956, spinner Tony Lock actually opened the bowling on the final afternoon
at The Oval “…rubbing the ball first into the ground to remove the shine.” (Belfast News-Letter). Australia only had to bat 2 hours to save the match, but were in
such a state of confusion against Laker and Lock that they almost lost,
finishing on 27 for 5 off 38.1 overs when bad light stopped play. ******** The great double-century drought: when Greg
Chappell scored 204 at the SCG against India in 1981, it was the first Test
double-century in Australia for more than ten years, since Keith Stackpole
had made 207 against England at the
’Gabba in 1970. There had been more than 1,950 innings played in Australia in
the meantime. Moreover, there had been more than 560 innings since anyone had
passed 150, the score made by Derek Randall at the SCG in 1978-79. I
remember noticing the dearth of big scores at the time, and wondered where
they had all gone. It just seems to have been one of those things.
******** The
practice of altering playing hours and extending lunchbreaks in Pakistan, to
accommodate Friday prayers, appears to have started in the series against
India in 1978-79. I have notes that in two of the Tests (1 & 3), the
first session of the Friday was “extended”, and it may well be that this
applied to the other Test too. I don’t know how long the lunch breaks were. It
probably did not apply in the previous series against England in 1977-78. In
the Karachi Test in
that year, the first Friday session was 10:00 to 12:00. Lunch was in fact
extended that day, but this appears to be due to the teams being presented to
General Zia. Play restarted at 1:05. ******** |
20 September 2020 The Old
Stump Scramble I
remarked a little while ago on the old, odd, practice of players
‘souveniring’ stumps, bails and balls at the end of a Test match, usually after
an unseemly scramble. In 1946 Keith Miller even grabbed a stump while the
ball was still in play, and ran the winning run with stump in hand. At Trent
Bridge in 1948 Sid Barnes, thinking the match won after he hit a boundary,
seized a stump and bolted for the Pavilion. He, and the stump, had to be
hauled back out of the dressing room because Australia still needed one run
to win. It took some time to restore order and complete the match. I
wondered when this practice ended, and found a reference in Trove. In
September 1952, the Australian Board of Control ‘asked’ that captains
instruct players not to do it anymore. For the upcoming South Africa series,
umpires were instructed to collect the stumps and bails and return them to
ground authorities. The authorities were then permitted to distribute the
stumps and bails to the players, equally to each team. So
the on-field scramble had ended (in Australia) with the last Test of 1951-52
against the West Indies. A report from the final Test of that series says the
souveniring had only been half-hearted anyway, perhaps because the series had
long been decided. The
Board’s action followed the lead of the M.C.C., which had stopped the
practice in England that year. I
am not so certain when the habit started. I couldn’t find and mention of it
for the 1920-21 and 1924-25 Ashes series, but some souveniring went on when
England won the Ashes at The Oval in 1926. Arthur Mailey, last out, stuck the
ball in his pocket, while Herbert Strudwick grabbed the “last” stump. There
are references to players taking stump souvenirs in the 1928-29 series. Other
countries also took part. There was the “usual scramble for souvenirs” at the
end of the Bombay Test of 1948-49 (India v West Indies). In that case, the
scramble may have tricked the umpire into calling stumps early, with India
needing six runs to win. The scramble was reported in the 1951-52 Tests
between New Zealand and West Indies, but I found no mention of it in
newspapers reporting the 1952-53 New Zealand v South Africa Tests. [UPDATE:
Ashru has sent me a photo of a stump scramble when New Zealand won its first
ever Test, against West Indies in 1955-56. It would have been quite unusual
by that time, but it was a very special occasion as far as New Zealanders
were concerned. On (special) occasion, stumps have been souvenired since
then. I think Botham grabbed a stump when England won the Ashes in 1981, and
there is that famous footage of Shane Warne ‘dancing’ with a stump in 1993.] ******** Largest
innings without facing a maiden over (where known)
Warner’s
innings is the highest for a team batting first. The Walters and Paynter
innings involved 8-ball overs, so maiden overs were harder to bowl. Walters
faced one over where he did not score off the first six balls, as did
Paynter. The highest score with just one maiden is Ben Stokes’ 258 at Cape
Town in 2015-16. The
most maiden overs found in a single innings is 36 by
Dudley Nourse (208) at Trent Bridge in 1951. The number is a little uncertain
because of a high number of unmarked byes and leg byes in the score. Bob
Simpson faced 33 maidens and Ken Barrington faced 31, in the same Test at Old
Trafford in 1964. The
number of maidens faced by Hanif Mohammad in his 337 is not known, but would
probably well exceed the above figures. ******** The
Lord’s Test of 1963 is famous for its finish, a draw with England nine
wickets down, six runs to win, and with Colin Cowdrey at the non-striker’s
end with his arm in plaster. The match would have had a much different
finish, however, but for an oddity in the scheduling of Tests in England in
those days. The standard hours were 11:30 to 6:30, but on the last day hours
were shortened to a 6:00 pm finish, apparently to make it easier for touring
teams to reach their next location. And so it was at Lord’s – the fifth day was
shortened by half an hour and play finished at 6:00. [Correction: the final
day playing hours were 11:00 to 6:00.] ******** I
have been gathering more information on bowling ends and umpires’ ends for
Tests before 1972, this time for Tests in England. Much of the data has come
from scouring the online (subscription) British Newspaper Archive.
Information is now virtually complete for all Ashes Tests since 1948. (For
1948, Barry Valentine’s analysis was very useful.) I have also gathered the
necessary info for series involving West Indies in 1963, 1966 and 1969, and a
few other Tests (including Edgbaston 1957 and Lord’s 1960). From 1971
onwards, the information is substantially complete, thanks largely to Bill
Frindall, who started recording these things in his scoresheets from about
that time. The
information is incorporated into ball-by-ball files and is being uploaded
progressively. For Tests in Australia, the upload is complete for Tests
(those that have bbb) since 1911-12. I have bowling end and umpire info on
more than 60% of all Tests; this will end up online eventually I hope. I
hadn’t realised this before, but Lord’s is one of very few grounds to have an
east-west pitch (Pavilion to Nursery end). The standard north-south is
probably not possible at Lord’s, because the famous slope would play havoc
with bowlers. Old Trafford used to have an east-west pitch too (Stretford to
Warwick Road) with the Pavilion off to the north, but it was reoriented after
2010. The ends are now called the Anderson end (Pavilion) and the Statham
end. The
MCG was originally an east-west ground. It was used as such in the Tests of
1877, but stumps had to be called at 5 pm (in March, very late in the season)
because the batsmen were looking into the sun. Shortly after that, the pitch
was realigned to north-south, and we ended up with a ground with huge square
boundaries and much shorter straight boundaries. Football is still played on
a (roughly) east-west axis on the MCG. Eden
Park at Auckland has a pitch running southeast to northwest. ******** |
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When
illness struck the team during the Bangalore Test of 1988, New Zealand took
to the field with five fielding substitutes, including Jeremy Coney – retired
from Tests but reporting for Radio New Zealand – and TV commentator Ken
Nicholson. Only three bowlers were fit to bowl in India’s second innings. ******** We’ve
all seen the old films of players rushing to souvenir stumps when a Test
match finished. In the 5th Test of 1946-47, Keith Miller went one
better. Three runs were needed to win when Colin McCool drove a ball from
Dennis Compton. They ran two, and with an easy third run on offer, Miller
seized one of the stumps at the bowler’s end. With the ball still in play,
Miller ran the winning run with stump in hand. Miller handed the stump to
Compton as they left the field. ******** When
Ernie Toshack took 5 for 2 off 19 balls against India on a drying ’Gabba
pitch in 1947-48, the only runs he conceded were off a thin edge that all but
bowled Sohoni. Sohoni was out next ball. ******** Peter
Petherick of New Zealand scored a place in the records by taking his first
three Test wickets as a hat-trick, at Lahore in 1976. Petherick was also a
“world class” Number 11 batsman. In the following Test at Hyderabad, Petherick hit his
first ever boundary in first-class cricket, on the way to 12 not out. Prior
to that he had played in 13 first-class matches and had scored just 17 runs. ******** Most
‘handled the ball’ incidents are somewhat contentious, but when Mohinder
Amarnath was the first to be dismissed this way in an ODI, at the MCG in
1986, the batsman actually walked before the umpire could give a decision.
Amarnath had blatantly used his hand to swat away a ball that he had played
but was heading for the stumps. He knew right away that he had done wrong,
and when the Australians appealed he turned and headed for the pavilion. ******** Cricketing Understatement of the
Century? As
Trevor Chappell prepared to bowl the notorious underarm ball against New
Zealand in 1981, TV commentator Bill Lawry, perhaps taken aback, commented “…possibly a little bit disappointing” Richie
Benaud was rather more forthright when presenting the highlights that
evening: “…a
disgraceful performance…should never be permitted to happen again”. “We keep
reading that the players are under a lot of pressure; perhaps they might
advance that as an excuse…not with me they don’t. It was a very poor
performance, one of the worst things I have ever seen on the cricket field.” ******** At
Perth in 2015-16, David Warner and Usman Khawaja put on 302 in 63.4 overs
without a maiden over being bowled. There were 91 consecutive non-maidens
including parts of the previous and subsequent partnerships. The first day of
90 overs included only one maiden, the first over of the day. Warner did not
face a maiden over in his innings of 253. ******** A
couple of snippets from India’s tour of New Zealand in 1989-90, courtesy the
“Test Cricket Tours” website: • When selected for the New Zealand
tour, pace bowler Vivek Razdan had already toured Pakistan with India. Even
though he was now going on his second Test tour, he had played only one
first-class match in India at that time. He had played two Tests (in
Pakistan), but was not selected for the Tests in New Zealand. He faded from
selectors’ favour and played for a few years in Indian domestic cricket. • “Bedi’s reign as India’s first
‘cricket manager’ or coach was brief. His uncompromising approach became
renowned after making furious threats to throw members of the team out of the
plane into the sea (!) after losing to New Zealand, and after eight months he
was replaced.” ******** |
23 August 2020 Shipperd
Strikes Back When
Mark Greatbatch took 462 minutes (341 balls) to reach 100 in the Perth Test
of 1989-90, it was the slowest century in terms of time in Australian
first-class cricket history. As it happened, the previous record had only
been set three weeks earlier when Greg Shipperd took 449 minutes (343 balls)
for Tasmania v Western Australia on the same ground. I don’t know if Shipperd
regarded this as a challenge, but only six days after Greatbatch’s marathon,
Shipperd re-took the record with a century in 481 minutes (412 balls) against
Victoria at Launceston. This remains the slowest century in Australia in
terms of both time and balls faced. Outside of Test cricket, only two batsmen
are known to have faced more than Shipperd’s 412 balls in reaching a century. Shipperd’s
earlier record came during an innings of 200 not out (in 708 minutes, 571
balls). I wonder if anyone making a double-century has taken longer over the
first 100. In Tests, the slowest century to be turned into a double was by
Grant Flower, who took 437 minutes and 340 balls to reach his century on the
way to 201, against Pakistan at Harare in 1995, in a rather notorious match. ******** Here
is an apparent error in the official umpire listings. For the 5th Test of
1951-52 (Aus v WI) the umpires are named as HAR Elphinstone and MJ McInnes.
These names are given online and in the Wisden
Book of Test Cricket. However, the official score from the SCG for this Test
names HAR Elphinstone and RJJ Wright (name given as R Wright). Searching
Trove for "umpire McInnes" for the dates of the Test produced no
hits, but Wright is named in newspapers from the time. Cricinfo
and Cricket Archive have been informed. Another
correction: some sources say that Thomas Flynn, who umpired some Tests in the
1890s, was born in Kyneton, Victoria in 1869. This is not the case. The
actual year of birth appears to be 1849, and although he lived in Kyneton he
was born in Melbourne or in Tasmania. (There was a younger Thomas Flynn born
in Kyneton in 1869, but he was the nephew of the Test umpire.) As
such, Flynn cannot be counted among the youngest Test umpires. Flynn
died in Townsville in April 1931, aged 82. ******** Fewest
Scoring Strokes to Reach Test 100.
Not
surprising to see Astle and Gilchrist on such a list, but note that their innings
are not their most famous high-speed centuries. McCullum’s record-breaking
century off 54 balls heads the list, though. Beyond the above list the field
is quite crowded, with almost 40 innings coming in at fewer than 35 scoring
strokes. Also, this is a ‘where known’ record. ******** I
have been doing some work to identify bowling ends in Test matches in
Australia, and the umpires at those ends. (specifically,
the end used for the first over of each innings). This information is
generally not found in scorebooks prior to 1980, with the exception of
Frindall’s scores (from 1968). Even Fergie’s scores lack the information,
with the odd exception of the 1911-12 Ashes. I
am only looking at Tests for which ball-by-ball scores are available. Once
that info is available, you only need to find a single incident in a
particular innings for which the end is known, and everything else falls into
place. Very often this can be gleaned from photographs. Prior to 1970, nearly
all Test match photos published in Australian newspapers were taken from the
northern (Pavilion) end of the grounds, and this can be confirmed by the
direction of shadows. Where
possible, I have added identification of umpires for the first over of each innings.
This is not always so easy for the old days, as umpires were not the
celebrities that they seem to be regarded as today, and were only
infrequently mentioned by name in connection to specific incidents. However,
with the power of Trove it can be done for some innings. Moreover, once you
have an umpire ID for one innings of a Test, the rest of the Test falls into
place, assuming that the umpires followed the protocol of standing at one end
for the first two innings of a match, and changing ends for the third and
fourth innings. I have checked data where possible, and I think that
Australian umpires have been sticklers for this protocol for a very long
time. Ray Webster tells me that the practice pre-dates Test cricket. I
have completed this work from 1911-12 onwards in terms of bowling end, and
from 1924-25 in terms of umpires, up to the late 1960s. The 1970s was already
done, but with gaps that I will try to fill. There are several Tests for
which I cannot find the umpire information, even with Trove. Trove also
largely ends in 1954, so other sources have to come into play. The Sydney Morning Herald is available up
to 1995 through the Victorian State Library, and Google
newspapers has a partial but substantial collection of The Age. Trove still has the Canberra
Times after 1954, and various foreign papers (The Times, Guardian, Times of India) are
available online. I have video copies of Test highlight films, made by the
ABC, for the 1958-59, 1960-61 and 1962-63 series, about 45 minutes per Test
and all very useful. For
Tests in England, end ID and umpire ID is substantially complete from 1968
onwards, thanks largely to Frindall’s scores. I may be possible to push this back in time a little, but it may be more difficult
than the Australian work. Other countries will be more difficult still, at
least for years before 1980. The
updated ball-by-ball records will be posted progressively. I have done
1911-12, 1920-21 and 1924-25 so far. ******** I
have been making some cosmetic changes to the presentation of data for 50s
and centuries in my online database. It looks a little less cluttered. An example is here. I will post these
progressively. The original versions were posted (a frightening number of)
years ago and there may be some added information. I haven’t kept track of
changes. ********* |
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Batsmen
dropped (catches) most often in 21st Century Tests: 78 for Alastair Cook, 67
for Sehwag and Sangakkara. Sehwag is an interesting one since he played fewer
innings than the others. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he
hit the ball so hard. Ben
Stokes recently reached #3 in the ICC rankings even though his career batting
average was only 38.5.This is the lowest average for a #3 batsman even when
rankings are ‘backcast’ to 1954. (IMHO, the ranking system does not work well
before then, because Tests were too infrequent). The previous low for a #3 was an average of 38.8 by Gundappa Viswanath in
September 1972. Lowest
batting average by a batsman when he reached #1 batsman in ICC Rankings… KR
Stackpole (1972) 39.96 IM
Chappell (1973) 40.90 GR
Viswanath (1975) 42.19 GA
Gooch (1993) 43.05 (since 1955). Gooch was also #1 in 1991 when his average
was 43.12 ********
HJ
Tayfield bowled to JH Wardle in 8 Test innings and dismissed him each time.
Next best is Craig McDermott bowling to Patrick Patterson in 7 innings,
dismissing him each time. ******** Charlie
Macartney scored 231 and the Australians 330 runs in a two-hour session
(lunch-tea) against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1921. Don't know if
that is a record for first-class cricket, but it must be right up there for a
two-hour session. When Australia scored 721 in a day against Essex in 1948,
the session totals were 202, 292 and 227. ******** On
Australian TV, they have been showing some ODIs from the 1980s. An
observation: displaying players' names on their cricket shirts started in
1988-89 (Australia/West Indies/Pakistan tri-series). ******** Most
runs in the 50th over of ODI innings: MS Dhoni 315, (data
complete), CZ Harris at least 243 (data missing for five matches) ******** In
Tests, Decision Review outcomes are close to 60:40 in favour of batting
teams, partly because bowlers are more likely to initiate reviews, and most
reviews are unsuccessful. Where
umpires' decisions are overturned, it is a bit tighter; the outcomes favour
the batting side 55:45. This means that wickets are slightly more harder to
get than in the days before DRS. ******** |
29 July 2020 The First
Test umpire A
couple of snippets of information missing from the very first Test in 1877
are the bio dates of one of the umpires, known as Richard Benjamin Terry. My
wife Ann, a skilled hand at genealogy, has tracked him down and found that he
was born Benjamin Terry in Bulwell; then a village, now a suburb of
Nottingham. He was born on 25 Nov 1852 and was baptised was on 5 Dec 1852.
Known as Ben, he spent a few years in Australia from 1876 and played three
first-class matches. He returned home and moved to Scotland, played some more
(non f-c) cricket and became a bookmaker. He died aged 57 on 10 July 1910 in
Edinburgh. Indications
are that Terry, aged only 24, was umpiring at the bowler’s end for the
first ball of that first Test in 1877 (unconfirmed). The pitch was oriented
east-west in those days, and the first ball was from the east end. Terry
remains one of the youngest ever Test umpires, although George Coulthard in a
Test in the following year was younger still. “Terry was
standing at square leg for the opening over of the England first innings in
the inaugural Test in March 1877. The Melbourne Argus reported that Hodges’
final delivery [from the west end] was turned to leg and, as the batsmen set
off for a run, it was noticed that a bail had been dislodged. On appeal, Terry claimed that he had not
seen how that had occurred, nor did Reid at the bowler’s end, with the result
that Hodges was denied a wicket. It
was further reported that the batsman later confirmed he had made contact
with the stumps.” Online and
later published sources give Terry’s given names as Richard Benjamin.
However, no original sources, including birth or death certificates, include
the name Richard. That name should be deleted. *********
After
the sudden flurry of activity, there have now been 72 Tests at Old Trafford
since five-day Tests were introduced to England in 1948 (the three-day Test
of 1949 being the only exception). Most have been affected by weather to a
greater or lesser extent. I have made a list of Manchester Tests that lasted
into the fifth day and experienced no apparent weather interruptions. It is
quite short…
Special
mention should go to the 1995 Test against the West Indies, which lasted only
four days. It had no weather interruptions apart from a short suspension of
play due to “sun glare” from a row of greenhouses adjacent to the ground. Tea
was taken 21 minutes early, but no net time was lost. The
1955 Test finished with South Africa winning with nine balls to spare. The
1964 Test, a famous (perhaps notorious) marathon draw, went the distance with
551 overs bowled. Modern Tests almost never go beyond 450 overs. Bob Simpson
was on the field for 548 of those 551 overs. Although
it was a four-day Test, 1934 is also deserving of a mention: "From first
to last, the sun blazed down, the heat being at times almost unbearable"
(Wisden). The next Ashes Test at
Old Trafford (1938) was rained out without a ball being bowled. ******** Q. Shannon Gabriel's highest FC score is 20
not out. Does he have the lowest high score of all the players with minimum
100 First class matches? A. Jim Griffiths played 177 matches for
Northamptonshire from 1974 to 1986 with a highest score of 16. Also Eddie
Row, 103 matches, HS 16 and James Shaw (long ago), 115 matches, HS 18*. More
recently, Ethy Mbhalata, 129 matches, HS 19 from 2002 to 2016. None
of these players played Tests. ******** I
just came across a note from the Lord's Test of 1979. John Lever batted left-handed
for one ball of his innings of 6 not out off 8 balls, facing Bedi, the second
ball of 4 that he faced in that over (0001). A strange incident, but recorded
clearly in Bill Frindall's score. The only other known cases of batsmen
batting both left- and right-handed in the same innings are Salim Malik v
West Indies in 1986, and Talat Ali at Adelaide in 1972-73. In both cases the
batsmen were suffering from broken bones. Colin Cowdrey, with a broken arm,
was prepared to bat left-handed at Lord's in 1963, but he did not have to
face a ball. ******** Royal
Presentations… George
V was the first British Monarch to attend a Test match, Australia v South
Africa at Lord's in 1912. The King arrived just before tea, and play halted
while he was being seated. The players were 'presented' to the King, off the
field, when tea was called a few minutes later. It was a Wednesday. George
V also attended Saturday play of Ashes Tests in 1921 and 1926. Players were
presented to the King, off-field apparently. George V attended the 1924 Test
v South Africa at Lord's but apparently not the 1929 Test or the 1928 Test v
West Indies. When
the King attended the Lord's Test of 1930, play was interrupted for 10
minutes and the King met the players on the field. Ponsford was out 2 minutes
after play resumed. Players
have been presented to Elizabeth II in quite a number of Tests. One of these,
in 1977, was at Trent Bridge rather than Lord’s. ******** |
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Reaching ODI 100 with a four most
times... V
Kohli 12 S
Dhawan 10 LRPL
Taylor 9 HH
Gibbs 8 KC
Sangakkara 8 One
other century by Gibbs is not recorded. Sixes... AB
de Villiers 7 EJG
Morgan 6 HH
Gibbs 4 RH
Sharma 4 Combined...
de Villiers, Kohli on 14. ******** In
Tests, Wasim Akram bowled at least 20 unsuccessful hat-trick balls, and two
successful ones. Murali, who never took a Test hat-trick, bowled at least 17
unsuccessful hat-trick balls. These
figures do not include taking of the last two available wickets with
consecutive balls, precluding any hat-trick. The
figures are uncertain because there could be some unidentified instances from
the 1990s. These would be few in number. In
the Tests that I have ball-by-ball up to 2019, there are 1195 hat-trick balls
and 38 hat-tricks, or one hat-trick in every 31 attempts. ******** Damien
Fleming’s hat-trick in 1994-95 must one of the most unusual in first-class
cricket. His third victim was Salim Malik, whose 237 is far and away the
highest score by the 3rd wicket of a Test hat-trick; the next highest is 1. I
suspect that it would be a record for first-class cricket also. Only
four century-makers have been involved in a Test hat-trick. Apart from Malik,
the others were all the first victim, the highest
being Javed Miandad with 163. The
highest score by the second victim of a hat-trick is 52 by PM Walker, in
Geoff Griffin's hat-trick in 1960. ******** |
26 June 2020 Barry
Valentine has produced a ball-by-ball record of the 1945 "Victory"
Tests, which is available on the ACS website for those who are interested. https://archive.acscricket.com/research/The_Victory_Tests_1945.pdf I
get a rather fulsome mention. The
series has some interesting aspects. It began only a couple of weeks after
the German surrender, while the Pacific War was still raging. One of the
matches started on the day the Atomic Bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. It
is interesting that Bill Ferguson was around to score the series. I can only
presume that he was in Britain for the duration of the War (he had scored the
Tests of 1939, on a West Indies tour of England that was cut short by the
outbreak of war). Fergie accompanied the 1945 Australian Services team to
India for some matches and the team then toured Australia before disbanding.
I have read that the players did not much enjoy all this touring, since they
were keen on getting home to their families, but they were aware of the
importance of this tour in re-starting first-class cricket. ******** I
have completed the task of making notes on all cases of batsmen retiring hurt
in Tests, recording the cause of each. There are 342 cases in my list, a
handful of which are absent from online sources. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket was useful for descriptions of
many cases, but many others required deeper reading. The
data probably justifies a longer article, but I will just summarise here some
data on the bowlers responsible for ‘retiring’ batsmen. This is something I
have touched on some years ago, but the data now is more certain. Batsmen
retire not out for a variety of reasons, many of which do not directly
involve a bowler: pulled muscles, illness, cramp, collisions, or previous
injuries are among them. The majority, however, retire after being struck by
a bowled ball – 269 out of the 342. The bowlers involved are nearly all pace
bowlers (the cases off spinners generally involve batsmen edging balls onto
the face/head). The
bowlers inflicting retirement on the most batsmen are listed. I have taken
care to identify the bowler responsible for the injury, which is not always
the bowler active when the batsman actually retires. There are some cases
where the batsman retired some time after being struck. Bowlers Causing Most Retired Hurts in
Tests
While
Courtney Walsh leads in this category, Colin Croft stands out with six
retirements in just 27 Tests. It is also fair to say that Croft was regarded
as the most feared and dangerous bowler of his time. Other
bowlers with high ‘strike rates’ include Silvester Clarke (27 per 100 Tests),
Azeem Hafeez (17), Harold Larwood (14), and Neil Adcock (12). However, these
bowlers only caused three retirements each during their careers. The
absence of active bowlers from the list is a sign of the decline in batsmen
retiring hurt, which in the past decade has been less than half the rate of
the peak years 1975-85; this is attributed to improvements in protective
equipment. There has, however, been a recent increase in cases due to the
increased concern about concussion and its long-term effects. The
availability of full substitutes is a corollary. ******** Which
century partnership has one partner contributing highest percentage of the
runs in Tests? Sanath
Jayasuriya (253) scored 89 out of a partnership of 101 in 2004; there were 11
extras, and his partner Dilhara Fernando made 1. You would expect that (at
87.1%) this would be the record, but Mike Hussey scored 88.8% of a stand of
107 with Glenn McGrath in 2005-06 at the MCG. Dennis
Lindsay scored 71.0% (157 runs) of a 221 stand with PL van der Merwe in
1966-67. For 300+ stands, Wasim Akram is unchallenged with 70.3% of the 313
with Saqlain Mushtaq at Sheikhupura in 1996 (220 out of 313) Honourable
mention: Dennis Compton 164 in a stand of 192 with Trevor Bailey at Trent
Bridge in 1954 (85.4%). ******** Here
is a rare reference to the first 1877
international as a 'test match'. This was in a New Zealand newspaper; I
haven't seen the term 'test match' used in relation to this match in
Australian sources, although it was used occasionally in reference to other
matches or other sports around that time. This reference was found by Peter
Huxford. Peter has also found the phrase ‘test match’ in Australian
newspapers in the early 1880s; while they sometimes refer to actual Test
matches (as per the modern canon) the references are
rather scattered and irregular. In
my recent searches, I have seen the use of the term 'test matches' randomly
in the NZ papers for even provincial matches. ******** What
is the highest score by a batsman off his first 100 balls in a Test innings? An
interesting question with a strange answer: Brendon McCullum - twice. For
exactly 100 balls, McCullum reached 145 off 100 balls against Sri Lanka at
Christchurch in 2014 on the way to 195. For less than 100 balls, it is 145 by
McCullum once again, this time off 78 balls at the same ground, against
Australia in 2016. He was out next ball. Ross
Taylor (138) was on 137 off 100 balls at Hamilton in 2010 against Australia,
and Roy Fredericks reached 134 off 97 also against Australia, Perth 1975-76,
on the way to 169. In
ODIs, Shane Watson scored 185* off 96 balls against Bangladesh in 2011. For a
batsman facing his 100th ball, AB de Villiers had 172 against
Bangladesh in 2017. ******** |
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Highest
Test partnerships without extras: Two
Test partnerships of 222, both for the 4th wicket: Hazare
(89)/Manjrekar (133) Leeds 1952 v England Rahane
(82)/Kohli (140) Hyderabad 2017 v Bangladesh. ******** In
the Pakistan v New Zealand series in 2018-19, Pakistan had five 5WIs to New
Zealand's one, and four centuries to New Zealand's two, but New Zealand won
the series 2-1. ******** First
use of StumpCam: Stump
Cam was an innovation of Kerry Packer's Channel Nine network. Allan Annual
1989-90 (Allan Miller) records the first use in the 1989-90 SCG Test v Pakistan. (My own memory was that it was older than
that, but I think I was confusing it with the Stump Microphone which goes
back to the early 80s.) ******** The
first overseas cricket televised live in Australia was part of the final Test
of 1972. I watched it, and remember Rod Marsh swinging his arms round and
round as he ran the winning run. In retrospect it is strange that they didn't
televise more of that series, given that the technology existed. I
was so keen in those days that many times I sat up late into the night
listening to the radio broadcast. 1975
was the first overseas series shown in full. Colour TV had just started in
Australia. The
first use of the term "test match" was for some matches of the
Stephenson tour of 1861-62. The term was coined by Tom Wills. Those matches
were against odds and certainly not regarded as Tests today. A
quick look through Trove for "Test match" gave no hits for 1881-82,
but a number of hits for 1882-83 including the first Test. It still was not a
common term. There were mentions for 1884-85, but few and far between. The
Shaw/Shrewsbury tour book uses the term test match (once) in relation to the
3rd Test, but not the first two Tests.
In fact, the touring team did not regard the first two Tests as
authentic. The
term became more common from 1886-87 onwards, particularly from 1891-92. A
quick search of The Times and the Guardian produced no hits for 1890 or 1893,
but a number of hits for 1896. The surviving scorebook for the 1890 tour does
not seem to use the term Test match, but the 1893 scorebook does so. Australian
newspapers were using the term regularly when reporting Tests in England from
1884 onwards, but not in 1882. See
update above - 26June. ******** |
22 May 2020 Here
is a list of players who played Test cricket with a notable disability or
chronic condition, for all or most of their careers. Sporting injuries are
excluded. Credit
to Michael Jones for initiating the list; others have contributed. Readers
are invited to suggest additions. (I
am not sure about Murali, who rather benefited from his condition)
******** Highest average Test partnerships. Unbroken
stands counted as ‘not outs’. DG
Bradman 71.1 H
Sutcliffe 56.7 RT
Ponting 55.9 JB
Hobbs 52.5 ML
Hayden 51.8 Younis
Khan 51.7 Shoaib
Mohammad 49.9 SJ
McCabe 49.8 DPMD
Jayawardene 49.8 GC
Smith 49.7 minimum 30
Tests Factors:
batting average, batting averages of team mates, openers and higher order bats
favoured, because they bat less with tailenders. Slower batsmen do a little
better than expected (note Shoaib Mohammad). Their partnerships tend to be
longer, and when batting with a fast batsman, are worth more runs. ******** |
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22 April 2020 The nervous 90s and Beyond Here
is a graph of the frequency of dismissals over a range of scores (75 to 130)
in Tests. Strange to think that I first made a graph of this more than 20
years ago, to look for scores where the number of batsmen getting out was
unusually high or unusually low. Well, I have updated it now.
The
relationship between score and number of dismissal is an exponential decay
curve, best shown on a log-linear scale. An exponential line has been fitted
to the data; this comes out as a straight line on a log-linear graph. It can
be seen that this line fits the data quite well across the range of scores used. Of
particular interest is the frequency of scores before and after the magic
score of 100. In short, there is a deficit of scores in the range 85-99, and
an excess in the range 100-115, and more specifically a deficit from 95-99
and a surplus from 100-105. These observation can be quantified as departures
from the fitted curves, in a table
This
data shows that the “Nervous Nineties” is a myth, or rather, that whatever
nerves occur are often beneficial for the batsman.
In general, a batsman has considerable lower chance of dismissal in the 90s
than just after reaching 100. In the range 94 to 99, the chances of dismissal
are depressed by about 10 per cent. From 100 to 105 the chances are elevated
by about 13 per cent. It is curious however that the number of dismissals
specifically on 99 is very close to the expected value. ******** I
mentioned a while back that I have a new format for ball-by-ball files in my
database, limited to one over per line. I have now completed the uploading of
the new format for Tests prior to 1940. The work will continue, but at a
measured pace. I still find it necessary to check each bbb record for
problems before uploading. |
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21 March 2020 Highest
Innings Starting and Finishing in Same Session
Nearly
all of these were post-tea sessions. You will see from the batting times that
at least four of these innings benefited from extended session times. In the
old days, this could happen due to the flexibility of the tea break, which
could be called very early if there was a change of innings. More recently,
post-tea sessions are often extended to meet minimum over requirements. ******** I
have done a reconstruction of Shahid Afridi’s famous century in Nairobi in
1996 (102 off 40 balls), and posted it here. The reconstruction uses the
ball-by-ball record in the Cricinfo Archive, supported by
other sources. Cricinfo lists every ball faced by Afridi, but does not
include his partner Saeed Anwar, and it does not
have the first wicket partnership of Anwar and Saleem Elahi. There is some
quite good video on YouTube that allows most of these gaps to be filled,
resulting in a reconstruction that covers the first 20 overs of the innings.
While a few of the overs remain speculative, the reconstruction reproduces
all known stats for the first 186 runs, including Anwar reaching 50 off 47
balls with 8 fours. ******** |
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14 March 2020 What
is the most common number of runs conceded by bowlers? A bowler taking, say,
four wickets in an innings will rarely concede less than 15 runs or more than
150, but somewhere in between the frequency will peak. It is quite
interesting to look at the data that emerges from many Tests… Most Common
Runs Conceded by Bowlers
Data for
Test innings since 1907. For 3 wicket data, bowlers bowling fewer than 10
overs excluded. More than 10,000 bowling returns were used in the
calculation. The
most striking thing is that, by and large, the typical runs conceded hardly
changes with the number of wickets taken. Nor does the spread of results,
expressed as Standard Deviation. The data for nine wickets is the exception,
for reasons unclear; note that the only bowlers taking 10 wickets conceded 53
and 74 runs respectively (average 63.5), rather similar to the data for 3 to
8 wickets. For
wicket counts lower than 3, the medians are lower, but the results tend to be
muddied by a large number of ‘small’ analyses from single short spells. This
data is not shown. Graphing
the data for each level produces something akin to a set of Bell Curves,
although somewhat skewed by the fact that the data is bounded at zero but
unbounded at the high end, giving each curve a ‘long tail’.
I
said ‘akin to’ a Bell Curve but there is something else at play here. It
appears that the data does not smoothly fit a Normal Distribution. The
upslope seems more linear than bell-like. Better statisticians than I might
be able to work it out. ******** |
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1 February 2020 I
have done some work on tidying up my session-by-session database, and fixing
a few anomalies. In doing so, I came across an individual century in a
session that I believe was previously unrecognised. At Leeds in 1924, England
was 122 for 1 at lunch on the first day against South Africa. Patsy Hendren
came in shortly after lunch and was 104 not out at tea, out of a score of 303
for 6. Even
though I have a scorebook copy for this Test, I had missed this one, mainly
because the scorebook is in a mess and contains so many anomalies that my
analysis has remained incomplete. Nevertheless, the century in a session is
clear from newspaper reports that are now available on the British Newspaper
Archive online. Hendren finished with 132 off about 160 balls. I
was also able to compile a list of batsmen making 99 runs in a session, which
I think should be complete. 99 Runs in a Test Match Session
BB
refers to total balls bowled in the session. In
some of these cases, the batsman benefited from considerable extensions to
the session, but I have included them anyway. That first day of Test cricket
way back in 1877, featuring Charles Bannerman, was effectively just two
sessions. Play did not start until 1:00 pm, and ended at about 5:00 pm,
possibly because the batsmen were looking into the late afternoon sun (in
mid-March) on the east-west pitch (the pitch orientation was changed to
north-south a few years later). A lot of balls were bowled in that second
session, but it is nice to put Bannerman on the list. Trumper,
in his famous 214* at Adelaide, made 98 between lunch and tea and then 99
between tea and stumps. Both sessions were only about 90 minutes long. Kapil
Dev made his 99 in the final session of a dull draw. He had been one not out
at tea, and was allowed to complete his century, but not his session century,
before the match was called off prior to the scheduled close. Some
adjustments and addition have been made to session data in the database. Most
changes are minor, although there has also been some data added. Affected
series are: 1907
Eng SAf 1912
Eng Aus 1924
Eng SAf 1953
WI Ind 1955
WI Aus 1958
Ind WI 1959
Pak Aus 1976
WI Ind 1978
Ind WI 1984
Pak Ind ******** Another
block of Tests, from 1982 to 1986, has now been
completed and added to the database. Most of this period is based on
surviving scorebooks, but there are still gaps. The last series in this block,
Pakistan in Sri Lanka in 1986, is
particularly short on extended data, perhaps as much as in any other series
in Test history. If anyone has any detailed info on this series, by all means
contact me! ******** |
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10 January 2020 From
time to time I hear of teams that choose not to use the DRS (Decision Review)
when doing so would have resulted in the reversal of a decision. I haven’t
seen any stats on this, so I set out to acquire some, by sorting through
Cricinfo texts for the last couple of years. I
looked through the texts for 90 recent Tests, searching for occurrences of
the word “review” or similar on balls where no review occurred, and phrases
that indicated that the bowling team should have reviewed a “not out” or a
batsmen should have reviewed an “OUT”. This is not an exact process; it is
probable that instances were missed. We should also recognise that any
checking of decisions in the absence of an official review is informal, so we
cannot be absolutely certain that the 3rd umpire would have upheld
the review (overturned the decision). All
‘hits’ from the search process were checked, and confirmed or rejected, by
careful reading. There were also a number of instances where recognition of
the failure to review was only noted several balls later, when the DRS data
became available. Nevertheless, I would think that I identified a large
majority of cases, enough to compare teams. Overall,
there were 67 definite or probable cases of ‘failure to review’ – where a
review would have been successful – in 90 Tests. In 13 of these cases, the
failure was that the team had no reviews left; they had failed in too many
reviews earlier in the innings. In the other 54, the team had an opportunity
to use the DRS but declined to use it. Overall, 55 failures involved lbw
decisions – the rest were catches. The
breakdown by team is as follows…
The figures mean that Australia (for
example) had 14 ‘failures’. Two of these were due to running out of reviews,
so Australia chose not to review on 12 occasions when decisions would have
been reversed in its favour. If
you were under the impression that Australia has tended to blow its reviews,
there is good support for that. The above figures include the 2019 Ashes,
during which Australia failed to review six times when a review would have
gone in their favour; they also had one case of running out of reviews. This
was exacerbated by Australia having 13 consecutive bowling reviews go against
them in the Ashes. Australia’s only successful bowling review in the series
came against a tailender, and that was just a few overs before the end of the
series. Australia
did a little better in batting reviews in the Ashes, getting three decisions
out of 18 overturned. That is still a very unimpressive success rate. I
have posted a list of review failures here. If anyone can add to it (for Tests in
the last 2 years) please let me know. ******** |
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A
contact in India, Gulu Ezekiel, has sent me a copy of an interview with Col
Hoy, published in an Indian cricket magazine (Cricket Quarterly Jan-Feb 1978). It
contained an interesting item about the Brisbane Tied Test (umpired by Hoy)
that I didn't know: Hoy says that the scoreboard at the ‘Gabba missed a run
during the last over, and showed the West Indies winning the match. The
operators had missed a bye off the fourth ball of the over. The scorers, who
were probably a bit snowed under at that point, had not called the scoreboard
to correct the error. It
is not mentioned in Fingleton's book or the newspaper reports that I have on
hand. I wonder if anyone has read about this elsewhere. The
reaction of the West Indies players at the end suggest that at least some of
them thought they had won the match. ******** Sreeram
has noted that Keith Miller had once hit the first ball of a Test day for six
(Adelaide 1946-47, Day 4, off a no ball bowled by Doug Wright) and asked if I
knew of any other cases. To my surprise I was unable to come up with anything
apart from Chris Gayle hitting the first ball of a Test for six against
Bangladesh. So Miller is the only known overnight not out to do this. ******** Sreeram
also tells me that during Ben Stokes' century at Leeds he scored 70
consecutive runs off the bat (61* to 131* plus a wide) scored between
Archer's last four and Leach's single. ******** |
6 December 2019 Here's
an odd coincidence... The
sharing of the strike can be an important factor in some innings. Most large
innings fall in the range 45-55%, but there are some outliers. I
figured out a way to easily calculate % strike received for major individual
innings, without rearranging my data. So I calculated this stat for all the
centuries and half-centuries that I could, over 3500 Test centuries in all
(out of 4100). Here
is the coincidence, for Test centuries: Lowest
% strike: 36.3% AC Gilchrist 101 Port of Spain 2003. Highest
% Strike: 66.3 % AC Gilchrist 113 SCG 2004/05 There
have been over 770 century-makers, so seeing the
same batsman at both extremes is strange indeed. One
factor involving Gilchrist is that innings with few balls faced tend to have
a wider spread in terms of the strike, and Gilchrist faced fewer balls in his
centuries than just about anyone. Longer innings tend to regress toward the
mean; it is very hard to farm the strike for extended periods. Highest %
Strike: Centuries
The
figure for Sinclair is only approximate. Lowest %
Strike: Centuries
The
extremes for half-centuries…
Ashraful’s
67 was an extremely fast innings; domination of the strike is much more
likely over short periods. Intikhab’s
innings was during a famous 9th-wicket partnership at The Oval in
1967, which is also represented, from the other perspective, in the century
by Asif Iqbal. I also remember watching Asif farm the strike at the WACA in
1978-79; he was the most skilled batsman in this respect that I have seen. ******** Dropped Catches Report, at last After
a long layoff, I have managed to update my database of missed chances
(catches and stumpings) that I have been maintaining since 2001. (Based on
searches of Cricinfo’s texts. These are wonderful; however, the searches are
tiresome work and I wish Cricinfo’s commentators had a way of ‘tagging’
chances. It would make it so much easier.) There
is enough data in the update to make a historical comparison of wicketkeepers
in this century. The results are interesting, I think. The Best
Wicketkeepers of the Century: Fewest Missed Chances
Minimum 50
chances as wicketkeeper (32 wicketkeepers qualified). Catches
and stumpings are only counted for those matches where missed chance data is available
(not necessarily total career). In the case of Rashid Latif, that makes the
numbers rather provisional, because only 18 Tests out of his 37-Test career
have data. This includes a couple of Tests from the 1990s where data was
logged by Bill Frindall. I took a close look at Rashid’s stats because Rashid
himself asked me about them. For
Adam Gilchrist, some early matches are missing. For
most players data ends in May this year, except for Tim Paine whose data
includes the recent Ashes. Paine’s figures are remarkable; we will see if he
can sustain this (Gilchrist and Boucher were also in single digits at the
same stage of their careers, but both faded a little in later years) It
is also interesting that Matthew Wade, who was Australia’s keeper in between
Nevill and Paine, had a much higher drop rate of 17%. Wade, of course, is a
much better batsman than either of the others and is now back
in the team as a specialist batsman. I did calculate once that the extra runs
conceded through Wade’s missed chances (compared to Nevill) almost exactly
counterbalanced the extra runs that he scored. At
the far end of the scale, about half a dozen wicketkeepers have missed over
25% of their chances. Mushfiqur Rahim missed over 30%. ******** After
a lot of thought, I have decided to change the layout of the ball-by-ball
records of matches in the Test Match Database. Previously, I presented data
with two overs per line. The saved space and was quite neat in presenting
overs at each end in a side-by-side configuration. However, I finally decided
that this layout was just too difficult to read. I had thought that readers
could figure out the complexities if they really wanted to, but it was all a
bit too difficult. The
new layout presents one over per line, rather like linear scoring. There are
also line breaks where wicket(s) occur during an over, and at the end of
every session, so that the exact score at these events is clearly displayed.
An example of the new layout is linked below. https://www.sportstats.com.au/zArchive/1980s/1984AW/1984AW4bbb1.pdf The
new layout uses more pages in the pdf format, but I hope it is more user-friendly.
Eventually, I will redo all the old ones, about 700 of them (!) I
have just reached Test # 1000 in my database! ******** |
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I
have added some bits of data to certain post-War series in my database. Some
if this data came from Ashru. Other data concerns batting milestones,
particularly times for half-centuries. Series affected include Eng v NZ 1949,
Aus v Win 1951-52 and v SAf 1952-53, and series in India and Pakistan in
1954-55 and 1958-59. |
14 November 2019 One
of the most fascinating innings from the ‘Golden Age’ of Test cricket is
Jimmy Sinclair’s 104 against Australia at Cape town in 1902. It was one of
the fastest innings of its day – it would even be the fastest century of all
time if some reports are to be believed. In truth, though, the
record-breaking claims are very dubious. I
have studied Sinclair’s tour de force in the past, and some years ago posted
online my reconstruction, based on
contemporary newspaper reports. Recently, Robin Isherwood sent me a copy of
another over-by-over analysis of the innings, made many years ago by R.H.
Curnow. Curnow also based his analysis on newspapers, perhaps a more
extensive set than I had access to. I have posted the resulting over-by-over
score here . In short,
the two versions are substantially in agreement with regards to Sinclair’s
innings and its statistics, although there are differences in detail. One
contentious aspect of this innings is that some newspapers state that
Sinclair’s innings lasted an hour or less; this would make it the
fastest-ever Test century in terms of time. However, my analysis and Curnow’s
agree that there were far too many overs bowled for this time to be possible,
and 60 minutes is in clear conflict with times given for other milestones in
the innings, stated in the same reports. One report said 80 minutes rather
than 60, and this seems to be correct. The error may have arisen if the
dismissal of Shalders was used as Sinclair’s starting time (leading to a time
of 60 minutes), when in fact Sinclair had come to the wicket at the dismissal
of Smith about 20 minutes earlier. Reports saying that Sinclair reached 50 in
35 minutes are similarly almost certainly wrong; the real figure is 55
minutes, in all probability. I
wondered if there had been a 20-minute tea break, but no report mentions any
breaks in the innings. In those days, there was usually no tea break if a
change of innings occurred after lunch, which was the case here. A
remarkable aspect of the reporting is the detailed account given in the Cape Argus. Amazingly, the report,
covering the entire innings, was published
on the same day as the innings (Monday Nov 10, 1902) even though
Sinclair’s innings did not end until 5:40 pm! The Argus was an afternoon paper with multiple editions, and
apparently they held the final edition open until the cricket report could be
completed. Reports were sent from the ground to the office by bicycle
courier. I
have a photocopy of this report, sent to me by Ross Smith many years ago;
unfortunately it is sometimes hard to read, and I haven’t been able to get a
better copy. I presume that Curnow had access to a clear version. Anyway,
here is my interpretation of some of the time features of the innings, based
on reports from five newspapers: 4:15-4:20
pm, over 31. CJE Smith out at 81/2. Sinclair in. 4:25
pm, over 36. South Africa 100 in 95 minutes. 4:30-4:35
pm, over 38. Shalders and Twentyman-Jones out. 115/4. Sinclair 26 off ~22
balls. 4:50
pm, over 44. Llewellyn out 136/5. 5:15
pm. Sinclair 53 off ~50 balls, 55 minutes. Over 49. Overs
51-52. Sinclair hits 34 runs in 2 overs. 5:30
pm over 55. South Africa 200 in 160 minutes. 5:37
pm. Sinclair 100 in 80 minutes, 70-75 balls. Over 57 5:40
pm. Sinclair 104 in 83 minutes, 75-80 balls. Over 58, stumps called. Uncertainties
about balls faced are unavoidable, because dot balls are mostly not mentioned
in reports, even though we have a good over-by-over account. In overs where
singles or threes are described but the specific ball numbers are not, dot
balls are distributed in what seems a reasonable fashion. It seems fair to
assume that Sinclair faced fewer dot balls than his batting partners, given
that he was making far more scoring shots. ******** Fast Centuries, Slow Times? I
was looking at some Tests from earlier this century when I came across some
odd stats for a century by Adam Gilchrist at Port of Spain in 2003. Gilchrist
reached his century off 104 balls, impressively fast as usual, yet he it took
him 208 minutes. He received only 36.5% of the strike during his innings; in
particular, he received little strike late in his innings, while batting with
Darren Lehmann (160) and Brad Hogg (17*). Gilchrist faced only 31 out of the
last 120 balls of the innings, which was declared closed when he reached his
century. I
decided to take a look at centuries with the most extreme ratios of minutes
to balls faced. Gilchrist is the leader here. Test
Centuries: Highest Ratio of Minutes batted to Balls Faced
At
the other end of the scale we have innings from long
ago, when over rates were much higher… Lowest Ratio
of
Minutes
batted to Balls Faced (where known)
[Note
that I only have the requisite data on about 70% of early centuries.] One
point that I would add is that while balls faced is rightly recognised as the
best way to compare the speed of innings, minutes batted should not be
ignored. The latter is an important element of the spectator’s experience. A
two-hour century will generally be more memorable than a three-hour century,
other circumstances being equal. Generally,
it is very hard to maintain a severe imbalance in strike over a long period,
but evidently there are exceptions. I don’t know if Gilchrist’s century is
the most extreme in % Strike, but I may report on that later. ******** |
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A
surprise to me, worth recording... In the 2002-03 Champions Trophy (ODI) in Sri
Lanka, lbw decisions were frequently referred to the 3rd
umpire. Shoaib Malik was the first batsman given out lbw this way, on 12 Sep
2002. Back
then there were fewer hi-tech aids, and the 3rd umpire was simply making his
decisions from conventional replays. Many
catch decisions were also referred to the 3rd umpire; almost all ended up
'not out' because the available vision was inconclusive (in the days before
HD TV) and the batsmen got the benefit of the doubt. There were complaints
about this and about the delays it caused. The
lbw experiment was shelved after this series. The more sophisticated DRS was trialled in 2008 and introduced in Tests in 2009. ******** Tim
Paine recently scored his first first-class century for 13 years (125
matches). This ranks pretty high in the longest intervals between centuries,
but not at the top. Meyrick
Payne of Middlesex, like his near namesake a wicketkeeper by trade, scored a
century in 1907 and his next in 1927. For a career uninterrupted by War,
Arthur Sims went 17 years between centuries. His second century, in 1913-14,
was notable for a world record partnership of 433 for the 8th
wicket with Victor Trumper. Fred
Titmus went 293 f-c matches between centuries, from 1965 to 1976 (age 43). He
had made his f-c debut in 1949. ******** Some
years ago I did a study of some of Bill Frindall's scores that recorded shots
that went off the edge (as Frindall saw it). I logged the edge shots from 27
Tests. FWIW, there were 1443 runs off the edge out of 25,156 total runs off
the bat - about 5.7%. ******** Rohit
Sharma made 176 and 127 in the recent Test at Visakhapatnam, repeating
exactly the scores of Herbert Sutcliffe at the MCG in 1925. It is only the
second time that a century in each innings has been repeated exactly. The
other was Inzamam making 109 and 100* at Faisalabad in 2005, matched exactly
by Azhar Ali at Abu Dhabi in 2014. Only
two batsmen have made higher scores in both innings than Sharma (and
Sutcliffe): Brian Lara with 221 & 130 in 2001 and Greg Chappell with 247*
& 133 in 1974. There
was also Andy Flower 142 & 199, if you reverse the innings. ******** Most
dismissals by a fielder/bowler pair in first-class cricket: I get 356 for
Ames/Freeman. Next is FH Huish/C Blythe on 320 and Hunter/ Rhodes on 307. The
above figures include a large proportion of stumpings. For catches alone I
get 252 for George Dawkes off Les Jackson for Derbyshire. I also get 250
catches for Edward Brooks off Alf Gover (Surrey). (Data
before 1984 only) ******** |
17 October 2019 Long-time
correspondent Ashru has reminded me of an unresolved anomaly in the score of
the Trent Bridge Test of 1950, and pointed out that Brodribb discussed this incident
briefly in Next Man In (1952). Day
3 of this Test ended when rain interrupted, after Reg Simpson had hit the
first ball of an over for three. When play restarted after a rest day, there was
confusion over who should bowl and who should face. First Ramadhin, then
Valentine, were told to bowl, before the scorers (Ferguson and Wheat) ruled
that Ramadhin had to finish the over. Unfortunately he then bowled to Simpson
again, so the wrong batsman was facing anyway. The
surviving score does not resolve matters satisfactorily. It seems clear from
the score that only Ramadhin and Valentine bowled between tea and stumps. The
overs are not numbered in the score, but Valentine must have bowled the odd-numbered
overs, starting at Over 37, and Ramadhin the even;
this preserves the correct sequence of scoring strokes for the batsmen, which
otherwise goes haywire under any other bowling order. There were no extras in
the session. The
main problem in the score is that, after Ramadhin bowled Over 48 to
Washbrook, the three by Simpson follows immediately, off the first ball of
Over 49, apparently with Ramadhin bowling again. There are no other available
overs in the recorded score to insert after Over 48. The scores published in
newspapers next morning reproduce exactly the bowling figures in this
scenario, recording 6.1 overs for Ramadhin and 14 for Valentine. Tea-Stumps
Day 3, Trent Bridge 1950
The
best explanation that I can suggest is that the three was actually hit off
Valentine, and erroneously (or confusingly) recorded by the scorers when play
suddenly ended. Press reports say that when Ramadhin lined up to bowl next
day, umpire Frank Chester intervened and wanted Valentine to bowl instead,
but this was overruled by the scorers. Ramadhin continued ‘his’ over, but to
the wrong batsman. Perhaps Chester was right after all. So
in effect, Ramadhin has been recorded as bowling two consecutive overs,
something known on only two other occasions in Test history. If
readers can suggest other scenarios, let me know. ******** At
Christchurch in 1977-78, in England’s second innings, there was an unusual
set of contentious run out incidents, all in the space of five overs. England
needed quick runs in advance of a declaration, but captain Geoff Boycott
decided to bat in his customary manner (26 off 80 balls). In
Ewen Chatfield’s third over, Derek Randall cut a ball through gully and ran a
quick two, returning to the ‘danger’ end. He made it, but keeper Warren Lees
saw that Boycott was sauntering back to the bowler’s end, while looking back
to see that Randall had made his ground. Lees threw down the bowler’s wicket.
Boycott was almost certainly out of his ground, but the umpire Goodall said
he was ‘unsighted’ (not paying attention is more likely) and ruled not out. This
incident probably provoked what happened a few balls later, when Chatfield
did the ‘Mankad’ on Randall. Personally, I don’t have problem with bowlers
doing this, but in this case, Chatfield did not even enter his delivery
stride, breaking the stumps underarm. New
batsman Ian Botham soon became fed up with Boycott’s slowcoach methods. Off
the first ball of Chatfield’s fifth over, Botham patted a shot to cover point
and called Boycott through for an impossible run. Boycott called “NO!”, but
Botham carried on and managed to pass Boycott before Stephen Book returned
the ball to Lees and the stumps were down. Boycott was judged run out. If
there was any doubt that it was a deliberate act by Botham, it was put to
rest when Botham cheerfully admitted it. There is YouTube video of the incident, featuring a Botham with extensive mullet, here. ******** |
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In
the 2003 World Cup, both Kenya and Pakistan fielded 10 players who had played
in the previous World Cup. The
only team that has changed completely in consecutive World Cups is Australia
in 1975 and 1979. The 1979 team selection excluded the Packer players. The
longest interval between two identical teams appearing in ODIs is 682 days,
for a Sri Lanka team on 14-Apr-2002 and 25-Feb-2004. The players were: DPMD
Jayawardene HDPK
Dharmasena KC
Sangakkara M
Muralitharan MS
Atapattu RP
Arnold ST
Jayasuriya TM
Dilshan UDU
Chandana WPUJC
Vaas ******** A note following Steve Smith’s
sequence of high scores. Ray Illingworth in 1970-71 exceeded his batting
average (as it stood at the time) in 10 consecutive innings (during the Ashes
series). Navjot Sidhu did the same in 1992-93. ******** I
can find 10 cases of a player making a double century having missed the
previous Test of the same series (excluding Test debuts), prior to Steve
Smith’s 211 at Old Trafford. Not sure how many were due to injuries - not
many - but the most notable must be Len Hutton missing the Leeds Test of 1938
through injury then scoring 364 at the Oval. Hutton did it again in 1950, injured
for the 3rd Test but made 202* in the 4th. Bob
Simpson missed the 3rd Test of 1965-66 through illness but scored 225 in the
4th Test. Bob Cowper was dropped for that 4th Test to make way for Simpson
but returned for the 5th Test and made 307. Ijaz
Ahmed made 211 in the Asian Test final in 1998-99 having missed the previous
match, but I think he had been dropped previously, not injured. That was the
most recent case that I found. ******** |
25 September 2019 Yes
it has been too long since any real posts. I have no explanation available,
apart from some waning in enthusiasm after about 15 years on this blog. I
have kept busy, though, with progressively adding to the online database,
which has now reached 1982. I have also upgraded all available ball-by-ball
records to include, where available, times of day for each start and close of
play (even this small addition involved a lot of work, considering that there
are now more than 700 Tests online. The time upgrades for the most part are
from 1905 onwards). The ends of sessions are now colour-coded for easier
reading of the scores, and exact scores are now displayed for every lunch,
tea and stumps break. There are upgrades and additions to how other breaks of
play are recorded. I hope the changes allow for a clearer picture of the flow
of play for each ball-by-ball score. ******** Here
is some data examining the historical incidence of lbws in Tests. I was
looking for a purported ‘DRS effect’. There was a common expectation that
introducing the Decision Review System would lead to a spike in lbws. DRS was introduced in 2009, and by 2012 was being used in more
than half of Tests. By 2017, it was being used in almost every Test. If
there is any DRS effect, it is not evident in the broad data. Over the long
term, lbws have increased, but the trend seems to have plateaued in the 1990s
or early 2000s. Historical
Incidence of lbws
I
took a closer look at lbw decision after the introduction of DRS, comparing
Tests where it was used against the rest. Again, no effect evident, without
forgetting that DRS and non-DRS represented a somewhat different mix of
countries. If anything, DRS Tests had fewer lbws, although the effect is
weak.
********* Against
West Indies in August/September, Jasprit Bumrah had a sequence of 10 wickets
for 16 runs, across two Tests. Similar sequences are very rare. George Lohmann
had a run of 10 for 4 in South Africa in 1895/96, but that was against
ultra-weak opposition. The next best sequence of 10 wickets that I can find
is Tony Lock against New Zealand in 1958. Across 2 Tests at Lord's and Leeds,
Lock's bowling included a sequence of 10 wickets for 15 runs. He finished the
first innings at Lord's with 4 for 1, took 4 for 12 in the 2nd innings, and
started with 2 for 2 at Leeds. If
you extend the sequence back to the final Test of 1957 against West Indies, I
found that Lock had sequences of 20 wickets for 68 and 30 for 97. ******** Some new
notes on Test scorers: Sreeram
has discovered a report that Sahal S. Laher, a scorer for Zimbabwe’s
inaugural Test in October 1992 (v India) was 16 years and 10 months old. That
would make him the third-youngest scorer known, after Mark Kerly and Scott Sinclair in
New Zealand in the 70s. Some
early instances of two women scorers… Sandra
Hall and Dumi Desai, Zim v NZ, Bulawayo (Athletic) 1992-93 The
first Test in Australia with 2 women scorers was SCG 2001-02 (v S Africa):
Merilyn Fowler and Ruth Kelleher. Merilyn
Fowler is called Merilyn Slarke in CA. One of those is presumably a married
name. ******** |
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In
the Perth Test of 1988-89, West Indies won the match with only 11 minutes
left on the clock (5:48 pm). However, the over rate had been so slow that
there were still 25 overs left to be bowled. ******** In
an ODI at Dhaka on 9 Oct 1999, Ridley Jacobs stumped two Bangladeshi batsmen
off wides: Shaharia Hossain Campbell, and Aminul, both off the bowling of
Campbell. It is the only case of two such dismissals in an ODI innings. While
a stumping off a wide is not rare in shorter forms of the game, as far as is
known, there has never been a stumping off a wide in a Test match. ******** In
the 1891-92 Ashes Test series, WG Grace, at age 43, took more catches (9) than the
teams’ wicketkeepers combined. He took
most of the catches at point: the number of catches that went to point in 19th
Century Tests is one of little mysteries of the early game. ******** |
31 May 2019 Bowler Breakdown A
while back I think I mentioned that injuries to bowlers during play were
becoming more common than injuries to batsmen (in Tests). I have taken a look
at bowlers’ injuries now, in terms of bowlers who were unable to complete an
over. The
rules concerning this changed in the early 1980s. Prior to 1981, if a bowler
was injured during an over, then the over was left uncompleted and the next
over began from the other end. The first bowler to have an over completed by
another was Graham Dilly at Kingston in 1981; his over was completed by Robin
Jackman. Dilley was able to resume bowling not long afterwards. I
have made a list of 178 bowlers failing to complete an over since then (up to
late 2017 in my ball-by-ball data). This is not the complete number; for one
thing I am (for simplicity) only considering Tests for which I have complete
bbb data. There is also the issue of bowlers going off injured after
completing an over – I can’t really detect those reliably, and they are not
considered. In
these terms, the bowler who has ‘broken down’ most times is Dale Steyn… Most
uncompleted overs 1981-2017 (Tests)
Murali
was once injured while on a hat-trick; he returned later in the innings but
could not complete the hat-trick. In an odd incident at Mumbai in 2002-03,
the batsman (Dravid) and the bowler (Dillion) retired off the same ball. Historical
incidence of uncompleted overs (retirements /100,000 balls)
Data from Tests with bbb data
only As
you can see from the basis of 100,000 balls, retirements are not a frequent
event. There is, however, an upward trend in the data, although shorter-term fluctuations
are perhaps the more notable feature. Bowling retirements have indeed become
more common than batting retirements, even allowing for the fact that there
will be additional cases of bowlers retiring after finishing an over, and
this is not captured in the data. 133 bowlers have retired in mid-over since
1998, as against 97 batsmen retiring hurt (or ill) in the same Tests. Close
to one-third of the retiring bowlers were able to resume later in the
innings; the return rate for batsmen is closer to 60% since 1998. Two bowlers
have retired twice in the same innings: Aamir Nazir at Joburg in 1994-95, and
Dale Steyn at Durban in 2015-16. ******** I
have been making a few improvements to early pages in the Online Database.
Some text descriptions of Tests are being added: these are from material I
wrote for a book years ago, covering Tests in Australia only. I have also
made some appearance improvements in pages showing the ball-by-ball data and
session-by- session data. In the ball-by-ball data, ends of session are more
clearly marked and are colour-coded. ******** |
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5 May 2019 The fastest Test batsmen, adjusted for historical scoring changes These scoring rates attempt a better comparison
of leading batsmen of different eras, since scoring standards have changed
over the years, particularly with the shrinking of grounds and introduction
of “superbats” since the early 21st century. Scoring rates of 21st
Century batsmen have been ‘discounted’, based on the
recent general rise in scoring speeds. Virender Sehwag’s rate has fallen from
82.2 to 72.9 runs per 100 balls, although he retains #1 position. Scoring
rates rose substantially after about 2001. Data is to March 2019. Qualification is
restricted to fully recognised batsmen only, with an average batting position
of 6.1 or less. This generally excludes wicketkeeper/batsmen or
lower-middle-order all-rounders, who have become
more prominent in recent fast-scoring lists.
I
have updated the Hot 100 scoring lists, and the above
table is included. ******** The
online database now encompasses 100 years of Test cricket 1877 to 1977! |
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In
the second Test of 1936-37 at the SCG, Joe Hardstaff, on 11, offered a catch off
Bill O’Reilly, but it was dropped by 12th man Ray Robinson at
square leg. That’s not so unusual, but Hardstaff had a double dose of luck;
he trod on his stumps during the shot, but umpire
Borwick, watching the catch, did not see it. Stan McCabe appealed, but the
umpire ruled in the batsman’s favour. There
is a picture of the incident in Jack Fingleton’s Cricket Crisis. (Thanks
to Ashru) ******** In
1974-75, Srinivas Venkataraghavan (Venkat) captained India against West
Indies in the second Test in Delhi, but was dropped to 12th man
for the next Test and did not play again in the five-Test series. His
captaincy had been a fill-in job in the absence of the Injured Pataudi, and
once Pataudi returned, the spin team of Prasanna, Bedi and Chandra kept
Venkat on the sidelines. Lindsay
Hassett also experienced the captaincy in one Test and 12th man
the next, in 1951-52. Hassett was injured, however, and his appointment as 12th
man seems to have happened as part of some strange selections, with Sid
Barnes kicked out of the team “for reasons other than cricket”, and Phil
Ridings selected and then dropped again before the match began. Ridings never
did play Test cricket. ******** |
15 April 2019 I
have re-scored the two (complete) Test scores from 1893 (second and third
Tests) that I obtained some weeks ago. Some notes of interest... At
Old Trafford, George Giffen opened the bowling for Australia and bowled his
67 overs without change (!) These were 5-ball overs, but even so, the 335
balls ranks third on the longest spells of all time
(where known). It is the longest spell by an opening bowler. The
first hit for 'six' in a Test in England: W Gunn scored six by running four
with two overthrows, off CTB Turner. All-run sixes, even with overthrows, are
still very rare. JJ
Lyons hitting fours off five consecutive deliveries at The Oval, in two
separate overs, is confirmed. (This is still very rare). The last two would
be counted as six nowadays. He was out next ball. Harry
Trott played a very unusual innings: out for 12 off 4 balls (444W). AB De
Villiers in 2004 is the only other who has played a similar innings. W
Bruce hit 18 off a Briggs over at Old Trafford (44244). This is the most
expensive over known in the 19th century. The shorter overs and lack of sixes
back then made it harder to do this. Alec
Bannerman scored some runs in this series (his last). There is now enough
balls faced data to clearly calculate is his scoring speed: 22.4 runs per 100
balls, the slowest (by some margin) for anyone who made over 1000 Test runs. The
ball-by ball records of this series have been added to the
online database. The first Test score in the scorebook lacks bowling details,
so cannot be re-scored into ball-by-ball form. ******** Brothers in Australian first-class cricket,
some quick notes. In
a couple of matches in 1953-54, two pairs of brothers played for Victoria
(Harvey and Maddocks) against the Archer brothers playing for Queensland. In
1909-10, The Waddy brothers of NSW played against three Hill brothers for
South Australia. In
a match in 1894-95, Victoria had the Trott brothers AND the McLeod brothers,
while South Australia had the Giffen brothers AND the Jarvis brothers. ******** I
have started adding a few more series to the database, from 1976-77. ******** |
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In
an ODI at Bridgetown in 1998, Carl Hooper and Stuart Williams, in the space
of 16 overs (from over #16 to 31), added 57 runs, comprising 53 singles and
two 2s. This was an extreme case of the mediocre and unadventurous batting
that was then commonplace in the middle overs, and had authorities scratching
their heads. Eventually, Power Plays and the like were introduced to try to
spice up the middle overs of ODIs. Ultimately it would lead to Twenty20
cricket. Williams
broke the monotony by hitting Robert Croft for 6 in the 32nd over.
West Indies won the game. ******** Mysteries
of Pakistani players’ names continued. In a List A match on 26 Jan 2011, two
players named Hasan Mahmood turned out for Faisalabad Wolves. Both were out
for 53. ******** Another
curious coincidence. Greg Chappell played just one innings his first calendar
year in Test cricket (1970): he scored 108. At the end of his career,
Chappell played just one innings in his last calendar year (1984,) scoring
182. ******** |
28 March 2019 The 400-wicket bowlers Runs, balls and Tests on taking 400
wickets
These
are exact numbers for the bowlers on taking their 400th wicket.
The exception is Richard Hadlee – I don’t have the scorebook for the Test in
question, so his figures are estimates. However, the estimates should be reasonably
accurate, based on other information. ******** A
short article that I wrote last year on the pressure (of playing schedules)
faced by Steve Smith and players of earlier generations. http://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Pressure2018.pdf ******** A
small breakthrough in the search for old Test scores… I have
obtained copies of the original scores of the Tests of 1893; the original
tour scorebook turns out to be in the National Sports Museum here in
Melbourne. Some
years ago I visited the museum and copied what scores they had. The 1893 book
was purchased after that, and I was unaware of its existence until now. Overall,
the 1890s have been the most difficult decade of Test cricket to study
statistically, so this is a boon. Unfortunately the first Test in 1893 does
not have a full score (bowling analysis is missing) but the other two are
complete. I
believe that the museum paid over five thousand pounds for the scorebook at
an auction. I note this for the benefit for all those teams and grounds that
have thrown these things away considering them worthless (Kennington Oval
among many others, including almost every venue in India). ******** |
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In
an ODI at Edgbaston in 1991, England, set 174 to win in 55 overs, reached the
target in 49.4 overs to win by one wicket, with opener Mike Atherton still at
the crease on 69*. The West Indies, though, had been called for no less than
39 no balls and wides, and had thus bowled the equivalent of 55+ overs
anyway. Without all the extra runs, England would have been nowhere near
victory. ******** In
2015, New Zealand went 147 overs (513 runs) without losing a wicket in 2
consecutive partnerships, but in different series (v Sri Lanka and England).
The time, 630 minutes, was greater than the Turner/Jarvis partnership of 540
minutes, but shorter than the Jayasuriya/Mahanama partnership of 1997 (753
minutes). ******** At
the Oval in 1952, Len Hutton was the beneficiary of eight overthrows in the
space of two overs bowled by GS Ramchand on the first morning. There was a
‘six’ (two runs + four overthrows) in one over and a five in the next (1+4). Without
them, England would have scored only 48 runs off 42 overs before lunch. David
Sheppard was only 20 at lunch, and after lunch hit his first boundary after
facing 180 balls. ******** |
2 March 2019 I
am posting an article that I submitted to The
Cricket Statistician last year. They haven’t fit to publish it yet (these
things take time) but these days I no longer have the necessary patience to
wait. It is on the subject of Victor Trumper’s famous 335 at Redfern Oval in
1903. A ball-by-ball record of the innings is
here. I
hope that readers find it interesting. I think it is an interesting subject.
For those who would like more info there is a recent booklet on the innings
by Caitlin and Cardwell. Roger Page Cricket Books should have it. ******** In
the current Dunedin Test (NZ v Ban), there were 327 runs scored before the
first extra (sundry). The most runs before first extra that I know of is 400
at Joburg 1957-58 (4th Test) by Australia. That extra (a leg bye)
came after tea on the second day with the equivalent of 198 six-ball overs
having been bowled. However, there had been two no balls that were scored
from (did not count as extras in those days). The
most consecutive runs without an extra (where known) is
471 runs at Mumbai 2012-13: India's last 173 runs and England's first 298 in
the first innings. 157 overs. The second day was free of extras. This sort of
thing is a bit more likely recently than before, given the 'decline' in no
balls. ******** |
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Taking
wickets in the first over of a Test. Irfan Pathan (Karachi 2006) is the only
one with three. I know of five cases of two J
Srinath Ind v Aus (2), Kolkata 1997/98 J
Srinath Ind v NZ (2), Hamilton 1998/99 CL
Cairns NZ v Eng (1), Christchurch
2001/02 SCJ
Broad Eng v Aus (4), Nottingham (Trent
Bridge) 2015 ST
Gabriel WI v Pak (3), Sharjah 2016/17 There
were two wickets in the first over of the Adelaide Test of 2010-11 (Anderson
bowling) but one was a run out. Curious
that there do not seem to be any cases before 1997. ******** Two bowlers only in the first 20
overs of an ODI innings. There are gaps in the early data, so there
could be more. GD
McGrath/AC Dale Aus v SL, Adelaide Oval 24-Jan-1999 J
Srinath/BKV Prasad Ind v Aus, Sydney 14-Jan-2000 Waqar
Younis/Fazl-e-Akbar Pak v Eng, Leeds 17-Jun-2001 AR
Caddick/JM Anderson Eng v Aus, Adelaide Oval 19-Jan-2003 JN
Gillespie/MS Kasprowicz Aus v Zim, Harare 29-May-2004 KAD
Hurdle/S Mukuddem Ber v Ned, Benoni 2-Dec-2006 Seems
to have gone out of fashion. |
I
am busy with non-cricket related work at the moment, but here are a few items
presented briefly. Most
minutes batted in a series of 4 Tests (or fewer) : 1869
min CA Pujara (521 runs) in Aus 2018-19 1861
Min R Dravid (602 runs) in Eng 2002 1814
RB Richardson (619 runs) WI v Ind 1988-89 No
wonder I was getting a little tired of watching Mr Pujara. ******** Here
is an addendum to my list of five wickets in fewest balls in
Tests. These are the instances since 2016. 2018 Update
*Boult took six wickets in 15
balls. ******* It
occurred to me that it might be interesting to compile official batting
rankings of Test batsmen in terms of Median rather than Average ranking.
(Average can be unduly affected by low ranking early in a career). The
following list is based on a download of month-by-month ICC batting rankings
since 1955 (for completeness I included Sobers’ rankings for 1954 as well).
Players with substantial careers before 1955 are not included. I have added a
column to show how many competitive countries were active at the time of a
career. Sobers gets a 6.5 because although South Africa was active at the
time, it was playing only a limited number of Tests against just a few
countries. Richards gets a 6.5 because Sri Lanka were
only playing for part of Richards’ career; in fact West Indies did not play
Sri Lanka until 1993, after Richards retired. Sobers
median of 1.5 means that he was ranked #1 almost the same number of times as
all other rankings put together. Tendulkar’s figure of 7 means that he was
inside the top 7 about as many times as he was outside the top 7.
******** Jason
Gillespie’s double-century against Bangladesh in 2006 remains one of the
strangest ever played. It keeps cropping up unexpectedly when records are
calculated. Here is a list of notable records, related to this 201*… - Highest score by a
nightwatchman - Career average batting
position of 8.8, lowest position by a double-century scorer. - Only player to be dropped
from his team after winning a man of the match award and never play another
Test. (current active careers excluded) - Only batsman to bat on
four days of a Test in a single innings, for a winning side. - Averaged 231.0 in Tests
in calendar year 2006, highest for a calendar year since Bradman in 1932. - Series batting average of
231 and bowling average of 11.3 unsurpassed combination (minimum 8 wickets). - Only batsman to score a
double-century the only time he batted at #3. - Only Australian with a
top score more than 10 times his batting average. Wasim Akram the only one
from other countries. - Tallest batsman to score
a Test double-century (since broken). - Partnership of 320 with
Mike Hussey was the only time they batted in partnership. Highest since
Hutton/Leyland in 1938. - Gillespie is the only
player in history (at that time) whose only first-class century is a Test
double-century. - Gillespie made his first
Test century in his 92nd innings, the longest wait for any player (since
broken) I
have tried to focus on records that could theoretically be broken in any
Test. There would be many other records of more specific type
(team/country/ground). |
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I
have reached a milestone in the re-scoring of ODI scores prior to the
‘Cricinfo era’, into ball-by-ball form. In 2016-2017, I rescored matches from
1985 to 1999; I then went back to the beginning and have now finished the
matches from 1971 to 1985. I have not actually finished, though, since I have
collected about 60 additional scores this year, and I will have to tackle
those before long. Overall, the project will produce ball-by-ball records of
about 750 of the first 1400 ODIs. There are prospects for obtaining a
significant number of additional scores; but there will still be hundreds of
matches for which complete records cannot be found. I
also have obtained about 15 scores that Cricinfo did not cover after 1999. In
the early years, Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverages was
somewhat incomplete. ******** |
The Greatest Umpiring Blunder? One
of the most exciting Tests of its era was the Bombay Test of 1948-49, which
ended with India eight down and needing another six runs, with the umpire
erroneously calling stumps early on the fifth ball of an over. I had
understood, based on newspapers reports at the time (Times of India, and
Calcutta Statesman) that this was the extent of the error, but when
discussing this, Ashru Mitra pointed out evidence that it was worse than
this, and that an additional over should also have been bowled. I
have now found some more evidence supporting Ashru on this one. It is from an article by Berry Sarbadhikary,
published in a book in 1975 (India v West Indies Tests) but probably written
much earlier. I borrowed this rather rare book from Roger Page's inestimable
collection. Sarbadhikary
was a radio commentator at the time and was well placed to know exactly what
was going on. He states that there was more than a minute remaining and the
extra over should have been bowled; he goes into some detail. The
only difficulty I have with this is understanding
how Sarbadhikary can quote his own spoken commentary verbatim in such detail.
He does not explicitly say that he has a recording. Was Indian radio really
recording its broadcasts as early as 1949? One
inconsistency is that Phadkar is described as facing the last ball when other
sources say it was Ghulam Ahmed. It
even appears possible that the umpire (AR Joshi, in fact) may have been
tricked by Stollmeyer ‘swooping’ to seize the stumps as though the match was
over. Maybe this caused Joshi to panic and call stumps. In any case, this may
be the worst umpiring error in Test history. Although
two wickets were in hand, the last man, P Sen, had a broken arm. He was
reportedly ready to bat with his arm in a sling. I
have updated my online scores to reflect this new information. ******** Bowlers Taking 4 wickets for 0 run in
7, 8, or 9 balls This
is an addendum to a list from 24 October 2018, on the subject of bowlers who
took four wickets in very few balls.
Many
of these instances involve the bowler running through the tail. Cummins is the
first bowler in Tests to take the first four wickets of an innings for no
runs in the space of fewer than 10 balls. ******** Days where the only wicket was a run
out When
Sri Lanka recently batted through a day without loss of a wicket, various
lists appeared of such instances. Here is an addition: complete days’ play
where no wickets fell to bowlers, but a run out occurred.
In
the Colombo Test of 1985-86, India dropped seven catches during the day. ******** Most Time spent on Field in a Test
(Minutes) I
don’t think I have ever put up a list like this, combining batting and
fielding time. The list excludes Timeless Tests. If the Durban Timeless Test
of 1939 is included, it would take the top three positions, led by PGV van
der Bijl on 1936 minutes.
The
list assumes that the player fielded throughout the opposition’s innings. In most
cases, I have no way of confirming if this is true. The list is dominated by
recent performances because the addition of extra time at the end of a day
(due to slow over rates) has become quite standard. ******** |
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The
English team that toured Australia in 1884-85 under the management of Alfred
Shaw went through the whole five-Test series unchanged. In fact, the team was
unchanged in every first-class match on tour. There
was a simple reason for this: there were only eleven players touring. As a
former Test player, Shaw was on hand to fill in, but he only played in minor
games, as did assistant manager James Lillywhite. Robert
Peel (reportedly) managed to take no fewer than 356 wickets on tour, thanks
in no small part to the number of games against odds
of teams up to 22. Peel took 18 for 7 in one innings against Moss Vale. For
comparison, bear in mind that the most wickets in a first-class Australian
season is 106 by CTB Turner (if my old record book is still correct). ******** |
Here
is a trend that will become a bit of a worry if it continues: the last 12
Tests have all been won by the team winning the toss and choosing to bat. Of
the last 22 Tests, only two have been won by the side batting second, or the
side losing the toss. There has been one draw, and 19 wins to the side
batting first. In
the last 38 Tests, the highest score by a team batting second is 427, with a
batting average of 22.2. ******** Updated
list of no ball ‘dismissals’ beginning in 2001 and including Adelaide Test.
Bear
in mind that this relies on Cricinfo ball-by-ball texts, and my ability to
search them. There are some cases of ‘lbw off no ball’ which require a
measure of judgement, including the most recent at Adelaide. It
appears that the % of no balls that are attached to ‘dismissals’ is
increasing. This is because umpires are ignoring a lot of no balls when a
dismissal does not occur. I think that this is a bad thing. One day a match
will hinge on this. It may well have at Abu Dhabi or even Adelaide – who
knows? ******** I
wouldn't go so far as to call them unsung heroes, but in international
cricket, the scorers must be the most unsung officials. This came home to me
when I tried to google for information on Geoffrey Saulez, who scored a great
number of Tests all over the world from the 1970s to the 90s. Very little of
any substance turned up. A search of London Times from 1970 to 2009 turned up
one – single-line – mention. I
was interested in finding a list of Tests that Saulez (whose name I don't
even know how to pronounce) scored, but I doubt if there is one. My interest
was piqued when I found a note that Saulez had scored some of the 1971-72 New
Zealand tour of the West Indies. He scored India's tour of Sri Lanka in
1985-86 and many other 'exotic' Tests. Saulez
would go anywhere, at his own expense, to score Tests. The 'at his own
expense' bit was the key to his popularity with touring teams. He was
'official' scorer for England many times, but always had to pay his own way. John
Kobylecky is one of the very few who have collected old Test match scores. He
told me that he corresponded with Saulez before the latter's death in 2008,
and obtained a few scores. It appeared that Saulez had kept copies of many
others. When Saulez died, John heard about it and urgently called the family,
to make sure nothing was thrown out before statisticians could have a look at
Saulez's papers. However, when he was able to go visit, John found that all
the papers and old scores had been thrown away anyway. This
was a huge and irreplaceable loss to cricket statistics. There must have been
dozens of Test scores of his that are now on the 'lost forever' list. Anyway,
if anyone knows of other info on Saulez, (apart from his Wisden obituary),
let me know. I presume there is some stuff in various tour books. I
do wonder, though, if Saulez devalued the craft and importance of scoring by
doing it all for free (and at great personal expense). Mind you, I post all
this for free too so perhaps I am not one to talk. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played
first-class cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in 1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with
Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers: Even though this was
introduced in October 1983, the ODIs in New Zealand in February 1984 (the
Rothman’s series against England) used the old counting system. The runs
conceded by some bowlers in this series remain technically incorrect to this
day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before Gooch recovered. Morris then
flew home, apparently flying right around the world. It wasn’t much of a
‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of playing at the Bradman Oval in
Bowral. ******** |
Test Matches of the 1970s I
have begun posting detailed scores of Test matches in the 1970s as part of
the Test Match Database Project. Ball-by-ball
records for the 1970s are actually more limited than for the 1960s (67% vs
77%), largely because of increasing numbers of Tests outside the
‘England/Australia’ axis. Keeping of official records in India, Pakistan and
West Indies during this decade was practically non-existent. Another factor
was South Africa dropping out of Test cricket. On the other hand, scores
exist for all of England’s Tests home and away, and
all Tests in Australia bar one, plus some of Australia’s tours. However,
published scores began to show more detail in this decade. Balls faced for
some major innings can still be found even where original scorebooks are
lost. Overall, about 78% of innings in the 1970s (on a runs scored basis)
have balls faced figures, a figure comparable to the 1960s. ******** A Long-Time Record Examined The
partnership of 577 by Vijay Hazare and Gul Mahomed, for Baroda v Holkar in
1947, stood as the highest in first-class cricket for almost 60 years. It
remains the highest for the fourth wicket. However, apart from these bare
statistics, not much has ever been said about this stand. I have gleaned a
little more on this; however, information is limited – it was a long time
ago, in a non-international, and outside the major cricket centres. The
match was the final of the Ranji Trophy, and was played to a finish without a
rest day. Timeless cricket had been discontinued in Australia and elsewhere
by this time, so by 1947 such matches were unusual. The playing hours appear
to have been five hours per day (2+2+1, starting at 11 am) but even this is
not completely certain. Holkar
was bowled out just after tea on the first day for 202 in 248 minutes, and by
stumps Baroda was 16/0 off 11 overs. Next morning, Baroda scored slowly until
Adhikari was out at 91/3, 7 minutes before lunch. The fourth-wicket
partnership then extended until the first session of the fourth day. The
known intervals are as follows:-
Gul
Mahommad was the more aggressive and his 319 was scored entirely within the
one partnership. He reached 200 in 302 minutes, 300 in 505, and 319 in 533.
Hazare was more circumspect: he reached 100 in 268 minutes and was out at
746/8 for 288 in 628 minutes. All
these figures are from newspapers or other publications. They cannot be
regarded as ironclad. However, there is some internal consistency in the time
figures for Gul Mohammad. There
is a specific puzzle in the number of overs per day: 108 on Day 2 but only 86
on Day 3, while 85 overs were bowled before tea on Day 4. The Day 3 figure
seems too low to be explained by tiring bowling alone. No delays are
mentioned in the available sources. However, a delay, probably before lunch
on Day 3, is necessary to explain the low over count and Gul Mohammad’s
batting times. Mohammad was only 171 at lunch on Day 3, by which time he
should have been batting over 5 hours, in conflict with his reported 200 in
302 minutes. The reports describe Mohammad batting with great aggression
before lunch on Day 3, yet he scored only 57 runs. A shortened session seems
the best explanation. Estimated
number of overs for the partnership: 65 on Day 2, 86 on Day 3, and 25 on Day
4. At about 1050 balls, this makes the partnership shorter than the longest
stands in Test matches, led by 1152 balls of the Turner/ Jarvis stand at
Georgetown in 1972. The 577 may well be the longest stand outside Test
cricket, however. This
is an incomplete study. Any help from readers would be appreciated. ******** Highest Scores with no Boundaries in
ODIs The
record is attributed to Adam Parore in making 96 at Baroda in 1994-95. I have
no reason to doubt this, but I have a couple of corrections to other innings
high on this list.
The
Barnett and Haynes innings are given as boundary-free by online scorecards, but
this is contradicted by surviving scores. It is conceivable, perhaps, that
the fours were all-run, but I very much doubt it. It
reminds me of the 84 by Bill Lawry in a Test match at Brisbane in 1970. For
years this was identified as the highest boundary-free innings in a Test
match, but it all went back to a typing error in a magazine scorecard,
carelessly repeated in a RS Whitington tour book. Lawry actually hit 9 fours. ******** |
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The
first player from a major county who played in List A but never played
first-class cricket was Len Beel from Somerset, in 1969. ******** Double-century
partnership in each innings of a Test match (individuals): Doug
Walters (242&103) SCG 1968-69 – 336 with Bill Lawry and 210 with Ian
Redpath. Graham
Gooch (333&123) Lord’s 1990 – 308 with Allan Lamb and 204 with Mike
Atherton. Gary
Kirsten (102&133) Kolkata 1996-97 – 236 with Andrew Hudson and 212 with
Daryll Cullinan. ******** More
on the counting of no balls and wides against bowlers:Even
though this was introduced in October 1983, the ODIs in New Zealand in
February 1984 (the Rothman’s series against England) used the old counting
system. The runs conceded by some bowlers in this series remain technically
incorrect to this day. The
old method seems to have persisted in some ODIs well into 1984. As I
mentioned before, scoresheets in the ODIs in Australia in 1983-84 used the
old counting method, but the bowlers’ figures were adjusted when the scores
were published. The adjustments did not happen in a number of England’s ODIs
in 1984. ******** When
Graham Gooch was injured during the 1990-91 Ashes tour, Hugh Morris of
Glamorgan was flown out to Australia as a fill-in replacement. Morris played
just two games – both minor one-dayers – before Gooch recovered. Morris then
flew home, apparently flying right around the world. It wasn’t much of a
‘tour’, but Morris did have the pleasure of playing at the Bradman Oval in
Bowral. ******** |
Most balls bowled before conceding
first run in Tests
UPDATE:
Sreeram tells me that Wisden reports ‘Tufty’ Mann, at Trent Bridge in 1947,
starting his career with eight maidens. I don’t have this scorebook, and
don’t know the exact number of balls before the first run. The
available data covers only about 80% of Tests. Tony Dell was an England-born
fast-medium bowler who played only two Tests. I
only have data for about two-thirds of bowlers in ODIs, but I found that over
100 bowlers have bowled a maiden as their first over. More than 15 have
bowled two maidens to start. Not many famous names, the most recent being
Kane Richardson of Australia. I
found only two bowlers who started with three maidens. Asad Ali, who played
just four ODIs for Pakistan, did so against Ireland. The
other was none other than Garry Sobers, who played only one ODI (and made a
duck), in 1973, opening the bowling in West Indies’ first ever ODI. Sobers'
first 21 balls were scoreless, one more than Asad Ali. Who would have thought
that Sobers held an ODI record! ******** Here's
a strange one. There are two unrelated players in international cricket named
HMCM Bandara, one male and one female. It is strange enough, perhaps unique,
that two players would share a surname and all four initials, but I also
found (a week ago) that the woman (Chamika Bandara) was also listed as
playing in Mens’ List A matches. According to Cricket Archive, she played 5
matches for a team called "Neganahira and Uthura" in 2012/13. I
wondered whether this was the only case of a woman playing in Mens’ senior
cricket, but it turns out it was an error on Cricket Archive’s part, and this
has now been corrected. The player in those Mens’ matches is now identified
as Malinga Bandara. I
note that that this Neganahira and Uthura team has played no senior cricket
apart from those five List A games. Such is the strange state of Sri Lankan
domestic cricket. ******** Most
first-class wickets in a calendar year
Tich
Freeman took over 250 wickets in a season in England six times. These old
records will never be broken. The most in the last 20 years are…
******** |
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The
counting of no balls and wides against bowlers’ runs conceded commenced in
1983-84 (October). Curiously, official scoresheets of the 1983-84 season in Australia continued to use the old counting
system. Wisden, however, published the scores using the revised counting, as
they appear in current ‘official’ online scores. ******** Victor
Trumper scored 178 in his 178th first-class innings. ******** They
made hat-tricks with every hat-trick ball they bowled in Tests: TJ Matthews
(2), PJ Loader (1), PJ Petherick (1). Murali
bowled 17 hat-trick balls in Tests without success. ******** At
Windsor Park in 2017, Mohammad Abbas bowled a hat-trick ball (to AS Joseph)
and faced a hat-trick ball (bowled by JO Holder). Neither resulted in a
hat-trick. The
same happened to Brad Stokes at Lord’s later that year. Keiran Powell was the
batsman facing Stokes, and Jason Holder, once again, was the bowler. ******** |
One of the most freakish innings in the early years of ODIs came from
Lance Cairns. It was at the MCG in February 1983 where Cairns scored 52 off
25 balls against Australia. Cairns hit one 4 and six 6s; his 50 off 21 balls
was the fastest of its time (see entry for 19 May 2018). A re-score has now
been done and gives Cairns the following sequence 00146066602166000021311W The sixes were hit on the full-size MCG with no boundary ropes, long
before the age of ‘superbats’. Cairns reached 44 off 14 balls, which would
still rival the fastest first 14 balls in any ODI. I did find one (and only
one) innings that was faster out of the gate: Martin Guptill reached 46 off
12 balls against Sri Lanka at Christchurch on 28 Dec 2015. Cairn’s innings was in a very much lost cause. He came in when New
Zealand was 45/6 off 18.3 overs chasing 302 (regarded as a near-impossible
target in those days; in fact it was only the second time that a team had
scored 300+ in a 50-over ODI) and New Zealand was thrashed by 149 runs. ******** Scoring Test centuries in the same innings: a curious result
I might have expected to see Adam Gilchrist on this list. ******** Lyon joins a short list, four wickets in six balls Nathan Lyon took four wickets before lunch on the first day in the Abu
Dhabi Test. The last time a spinner took four wickets before lunch on the first
day was also in the UAE for Australia v Pakistan, Shane Warne in 2002, in the
match where Pakistan scored 59 and 53.
* Probable Roach, like Lyon, took his sequence in the first session of the match.
He conceded 2 runs off the last ball of the over. Perhaps that was too
expensive, because he did not bowl again in the match, finishing with
5-1-8-5. Andy Caddick took four wickets in an over in 2000, but thanks to a no
ball it was four wickets in seven deliveries. ******** |
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The
‘explosion’ of List A cricket: 150 List A matches were played in England in 1969,
more than all previous seasons in all countries combined (1963-1968). Numbers
continued to rise, towards 200 per English season in the late 1970s. ******** An
old ODI score (made by Irving Rosenwater, copy supplied by Andrew Samson) has
recently been obtained, from the MCG on 9 Dec 1979 – the one where Viv
Richards scored 153*. It records an all-run five, apparently without
overthrows. It is annotated as “all-run m/wkt”, referring to midwicket. It
was hit by Desmond Haynes off Dennis Lillee in the 7th over. I
haven’t come across any all-run fives without overthrows in an ODI before.
Midwicket/ square of the wicket at the MCG is one of
the few places where such a hit would be possible. UPDATE:
of course I was forgetting the five + run out at the MCG in the previous
season (DL Bairstow). It appears from descriptions that there were no
overthrows involved. ******** Twelve
players batted in Leicestershire’s first innings against Kent in August. One batsman,
ZJ Chappell, retired hurt, and apparently was given a full substitute under a
‘concussion rule’. The substitute was Dieter Klein, who was permitted to bat
and bowl. Chappell took no further part in the match. Full
substitutes are not uncommon in modern f-c cricket, but allowing them to bat
in the same innings as the player they are replacing is, I am sure, quite
unusual. ******** For
decades praise has been heaped on the 1948 Australian touring team to
England, for going through the tour undefeated; they became “The
Invincibles”. Far
less well-known is the fact that in the following year, the touring New
Zealanders lost only once on an entire tour of England, out of 39 matches,
and were undefeated in both the Tests and all the county games. Perhaps this
speaks volumes of the strength of English bowling after the War. When New
Zealand toured England in 1958, things were dramatically different,
disastrously so for the New Zealanders. ******** Mohammad
Shahzad reached his century when Afghanistan had only 131 runs on the board
in an ODI against India on the 25th of September. This was
described as a record, but was actually one run shy of the 100 out of 130 by
Dennis Amiss in 1973, in only the 6th ODI ever played. Shahzad
did have 103 out of the 131 runs, so he had a higher percentage of the runs
than Amiss. |
29
September 2018
Following
up on earlier posts, a small compilation of the youngest official Test
scorers, where known Mark
Kerly (16), Auckland in 1977-78. Scott
Sinclair (16), Dunedin 1979-80. (Sinclair
was just 8 days older than Kerly had been when he scored his first Test.) Alison
Margaret Hall (19) Auckland 1930 Sydney
James Southerton (19), 1893 Tests H/T
to Sreeram for the Southerton info. Southerton was an Englishman and the son
of the James Southerton who had played in the first Test in 1877, aged 49. As
young man, Sydney worked on the ship that carried the 1893 Australia touring
team to Britain. He seems to have talked tour manager Victor Cohen into appointing
him as scorer/assistant for the team. It was the start of an impressive
career as journalist and writer: Southerton eventually became editor of Wisden in 1933, but died in 1935. Earlier
information that Ninion Batchelor was a scorer on the 1893 tour needs to be
corrected. That information was always tenuous. Batchelor did act as scorer
on the 1890 tour, though. For
Tests in Australia, there are no known scorers younger than age 26. E.C
Weller, who was a scorer in 1881-82, was 26 years and 3 months. ******** I
have recently been surveying List A matches as held by Cricket Archive,
trying to get the numbering straight in my system. One thing that has really
surprised me is the number of matches for which scores are very incomplete or
absent altogether. I haven’t been counting but there may be hundreds of such
matches. All the ones I have seen are from Pakistan or Sri Lanka in the 1980s
and (particularly) the 1990s. There are even matches where only one team name
is known, such as “Multan v not known” on 10 Mar 1985 (CA# a4340).
Practically no other details are recorded for that match. A
good deal of the missing Sri Lanka data seems to come from the time of civil
War in that country. It does mean that career data for players from that time
is very incomplete. The assessment of what was, and what was not, a List A
match in those days seems to be rather haphazard. ******** Some
recent progress in finding old scores for internationals and other matches: · I was able to get permission to copy Bill Frindall's
ODI scores kept at Lord's. (Researchers could access the scores but could not
copy them for copyright reasons.) Getting permission involved a chain of four
contacts passing on my request to Debbie Frindall (who held copyright), but
once I finally was able to get in contact, Mrs Frindall kindly gave
permission. By good fortune, Andrew Samson was just about to visit Lord’s,
and he was able to copy about 30 ODI scores. · In his younger days, Lawrie Colliver in South Australia
scored the 1987 World Cup Final from a TV broadcast, and he has sent me a
copy of his score. Apparently South Australia was the only state to broadcast
the entire match. I now have all World Cup finals ball-by-ball. No official
score for that 1987 match has been found in Australian, English or Indian
archives. · Lawrie also has sent me scores of various other
ODIs and Tests that he scored off TV in the 80s and 90s. A true enthusiast! · Ronald Cardwell has sent me a copy of an original
score of Victor Trumper’s famous 335 in Sydney in 1903. Although the score is
difficult to decipher, I have managed to re-score the innings. I will report
on this later. · Jamie Bell in New Zealand sent me scores from
some ODIs in New Zealand in 2000 that had no online ball-by-ball coverage.
Cricinfo was doing bbb by then, but their coverage was patchy in the early
days and they missed a number of early ODIs in New Zealand (and one Test).
They also missed a few ODIs in Australia, which I have also obtained
elsewhere. · I have now obtained scores or ball-by-ball
records of all bar five of the 617 ODIs played in Australia since 1971. |
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Keith Stackpole made a pair of ducks
in his last Test match in 1974 (Eden Park). He was out to the first ball of
the match, to a waist-high full toss from Richard Hadlee, (a height that
might be called a no ball today). Stackpole ‘had a go’ at it but edged it to
John Parker at slip, who surprised many onlookers by taking a good catch. I
am told by Francis Payne that Parker dropped as many catches as he took at
slip. Francis also tells me that the crowd
on the final day in this Test was 34,000, which remains the highest in any
New Zealand Test. ******** Possibly (probably?) the last pre-War
player to play List A cricket was Bill Edrich. Edrich’s last innings, at age
54, was at Lord’s (in a Gillette Cup match) in 1970, 36 years after his
first-class debut. He scored 36, and his innings finished with 22 runs off
six balls (2,4,6,0,4,6,W). (H/T Sreeram) ******** It has been noted by others, but
worth noting again: Eric Tindall of New Zealand, who died in 2010, just
months before his 100th birthday, was a dual international in
Rugby and cricket both as a player and as a referee/umpire. ******** |
5 September 2018
Bowlers taking wickets with the
last ball of a session and the first ball of the next. This
list, drawn from the ball-by-ball database, is probably not complete. The
data includes wickets with the last ball of the day and first ball of the
next day.
The
shortness of this list highlights the astonishing coincidence of Mohammed Shami
doing it twice in one match. Rabada is the only other bowler to do it more
than once in a career. It
has become more common. I get the impression that umpires are more inclined
to call a halt when a wicket falls in the last over of a session than they
used to, although when tried to look at this statistically, the data was
inconclusive. There has been a change in the rule in recent years; when a
wicket falls within three minutes of an interval, there is no more play. The
limit used to be less than that. In
200 Tests from 1998 to 2002, there were 211 sessions (out of 2200) that ended
with a wicket on the last ball. In the last 200 Tests, there have been 265
such sessions out of 2400. ******** I
have been fortunate to receive a complete set of copies of Bill Ferguson’s
scores of the Ashes Tests of 1926. For a long time, the whereabouts of this
scorebook was unknown. Other scores from this series were known, but they
were sometimes in poor condition, with many errors (particularly the historic
final Test). The new material has allowed me to make greatly improved
ball-by-ball records of this series. The updated series link is here. This
means that all of Fergie’s Ashes scores (1905-1953) have been located, with
the exception of 1912. Fergie scored all of the Ashes Test in this period,
with the exception of the 1907-08 series. ******** |
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At the first-ever Limited Overs
match, between Lancashire and Leicestershire in 1963, the ‘Man of the Match’
was a brand new innovation; nevertheless it was an old-timer, Frank Woolley,
who presented the award to Peter Marner. Woolley was then 76 years old, and
his first-class career had begun 57 years earlier. Brian J Booth faced the first ball
from Terry Spencer. Booth hit one six in his 50, which was almost certainly
the first six hit in One-Dayers. Later, Marner (121) hit four sixes. Early in England’s first innings at
Leeds in 1971, an over by Salim Altaf was left
unfinished. Nothing to do with injury: the bowler split his trousers and left
the field for repairs. Under regulations at that time, incomplete overs did
not need to be completed by another bowler. ******** I have notes on 16 instances of 5
all-run without overthrows in Tests, but I don't know of any since the Craig
McDermott at Adelaide Oval in 1996. They have happened at only four
grounds: The Oval, MCG, Adelaide and Perth. Neil Harvey went from 95 to 100 to
reach his first Test century with one such shot, in 1948. ******** |
26 August 2018
I
am slowly working through my collection of One-Day International scores,
analysing each one fully to create ball-by-ball records. Most analysis
confirms, or is reasonably consistent with, ‘official’ figures, but sometimes
there are departures. Here is an example: the 1st ODI of 1981-82
between India and England, the first ODI played in India. When I completed
the ball-by-ball analysis, the core stats were confirmed, but the balls faced
stats for the batsmen showed some significant differences in comparison to
‘official’ online sources.
One
peculiarity is that the balls faced figures are not explicitly given in the
score; they have to be derived, rather painstakingly, by re-scoring into ball-by-ball
form. I am confident in the figures, however: the score is by Geoffrey Saulez
and is rock solid. Apart from balls faced, every stat checks out 100%. I
should add that the other two matches of this series have the same problem. One
other curious thing about these first ODIs in India: the innings were cut
short if the 50 overs were not completed in time. One of the matches was
shortened by bad weather, but in the other two the Indian bowlers, bowling
first, got through only 46 overs in 210 minutes, at which point the innings
was stopped. India were then allowed a 46-over chase, but as we know from
Duckworth and Lewis, chopping off the last four overs of an innings is a
bigger penalty than losing the first four overs, and India thus enjoyed a
considerable advantage by failing to get through its overs! ******** A
question from Sreeram: In the recent test, England lost
16/20 wickets to a catch to keeper / slip cordon. Is that a record? At
Perth in 1983, Pakistan lost 17 wickets to catches in the cordon from keeper
to gully. There was one batsman bowled, one lbw and one run out. 16
is the most I know of for England. England lost 15
this way at Leeds in 2008, and also at Trent Bridge against India in 2011
(curiously) ******** It
occurred to me that, in my Test Match Database, major partnerships are not
presented with detail in a convenient format. In light of that, I have
prepared a table listing all partnership of 200 or
more, from 1877 to 1970. The table includes breakdown, where known,
of the relative scoring of the two partners, and partnership milestones.
Milestones are expressed as balls bowled where available; where absent,
minutes have been substituted. Speeds of the partnerships in runs per 100
balls have been estimated even in the absence of ball-by-ball records; it is
reasonable to estimate these from times and prevailing over rates, especially
as the complication of strike-sharing does not apply to partnerships. The
Database is now complete to 1970. I will continue posting Tests after a
pause. ******** |
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A while back I reported that Shakib
Al Hasan of Bangladesh was the only batsman in Tests to score 50 or more consecutive
runs entirely in boundaries within a single innings (Hamilton 2009/10). Now I
have found a rather similar case and it is Shakib Al Hasan again. At Mirpur
in 2015, Shakib scored his last 46 runs in boundaries in making 89 not
out against Pakistan. He then started his second innings with a boundary
giving him 50 runs in a row. ******* For the first few days of the Lord’s
Test of 1948, a significant number of spectators, leaving at the end of the
day’s play, went straight to the entrance gates and began queuing for the
next day’s play. ******** A century stand lost: the online
scores of the ODI at the SCG on 15 Jan 1981 (Australia v India) have
Australia losing its 4th wicket at 155 after a partnership of 100
between Allan Border and Kim Hughes. The ball-by-ball scoresheet by Irving
Rosenwater tells a different story. The wicket fell at 135, not 155; the
partnership was only worth 80 runs. ******** At the MCG in 1931-32, South African
Ken Viljoen hit a shot for six runs – all run. The shot started with an
all-run four where Viljoen was almost run out by a ‘relay’ throw; the return
from Ponsford ricocheted off the stumps and two more were run. Wicketkeeper
Oldfield attempted another run out at the other end, but Quintin McMillan was
home for the 6th run. Overall, four fielders plus the keeper
handled the ball and both wickets were put down, while Bert Ironmonger was
the unfortunate bowler. I have notes on only two other all-run
sixes in Tests. Both also involved overthrows. Hugh Massie scored the first
six in Tests in 1881-82, with a three plus three overthrows. (Hits clearing
the boundary scored only four or five at the time.) Mike Atherton hit a
similar shot off Aqib Javed in 1992. There was also, of course, an all-run
seven hit by Majid Khan off Dennis Lillee, at the MCG in 1981-82, four
all-run plus three overthrows. I know of no all-run sixes without
overthrows in Tests, although they were not unknown in the past in
first-class cricket. Sixes with boundary overthrows still occur from time to
time. ******** Towards the end of the second day of
that Delhi Test against Pakistan in 1979-80, Dilip Doshi was given run out by
umpire Mohammad Ghouse, after Doshi left his crease thinking that the ball
was dead. Ghouse was technically correct, but with a major disturbance
brewing, the acting captain, Majid Khan (deputising for Asif Iqbal) showed
admirable discretion and withdrew the appeal – against the advice of some
more hot-headed team mates. Considering that Pakistan was playing its first
series in India for almost 20 years after years of hostility between the
countries, Majid avoided what could have been an escalating diplomatic
incident. ******** |
6 August 2018
Please note the new contact email
address in the header to this blog. The old address will be checked and
remain open for a time, but will be shut down before long. ******** In
March I reported the discovery of earliest known female scorer in a Test match,
a Miss A. Hall at Auckland in 1930. Initially it was hard to get more detail
about Miss Hall, but Steven Lynch, and others in the ToSH group, ran with
this one and identified Alison Margaret Hall (1910-2004). Steven has now
published an article on the subject here. I
won’t add much to Steven’s article, except that Alison married New Zealand
Test player Paul Whitelaw in 1948. Also, it has been established that Alison
Hall is not Miss A.W Hall, who was chair of the New Zealand Women's Cricket
Council in 1937-38. Here
is a short list of early female Test scorers… A.M.
(Alison) Hall, Auckland 1930 S.H.
(Shirley) Crouch, Brisbane from 1960-61. Miss
P. Williams, Johannesburg from 1964-65 Miss
S.R. Hall, Johannesburg from 1966-67. Alison
Hall at age 19 also seemed a good candidate for the youngest official scorer
of a Test match, but Steven found someone younger (identified by Francis
Payne): Mark Kerly at the age of 16 in Auckland in 1977-78. Remarkably, it
transpires that another New Zealand scorer, Scott Sinclair, was also an
official scorer at age 16 (Dunedin 1979-80). Sinclair was just 8 days older
than Kerly had been when he scored his first Test. …… This
reminded me of a school friend, Malcolm Gorham; we went through high school
together in Sydney. Malcolm was a cricket tragic from a very young age and
used to keep meticulous ledger books in the days before computers, with all
the scores of every active player in Australia. Malcolm had a roller and kept
a cricket pitch mowed and rolled in his backyard; unfortunately his skill at
the game was no greater than mine. However, by the time he was 15 or 16,
Malcolm was the official scorer for Western Suburbs 1st Grade
(next level below Sheffield Shield) every weekend. I remember going to a game
at Pratten Park circa 1971 and seeing his linear scores. It was the
first time I had seen linear scoring: I think my initial reaction was that it
looked like a waste of paper. (I have very much changed my view!) Unlike
the New Zealand teenagers, Malcolm took a while to graduate to more senior
scoring – it is normally the preserve of older gents – but he did eventually
become official scorer for some Test matches and ODIs at the SCG. Very sadly,
however, he was stricken by a neurological disorder and died in his mid 40s.
I very much regret that I never kept in touch with him after we left school. I
have copies of some of Malcolm’s Test scores. I think they are the neatest,
clearest scores that I have ever seen. ******** The Unchangeables
I
count 86 innings in Tests where one bowler (but not two) remained unchanged
through an all out innings (136 including cases where two bowlers were
unchanged). It was common in the early days of Tests, but there have been
only 14 cases since 1993. A
few curious cases... Fred
Spofforth bowled 36.3 out of 71.3 overs in an innings at the Oval in 1882. He
did so by 'changing ends' which meant bowling two consecutive overs, which
was permitted (once per innings) in those days. At
Delhi in 1979, Sikander Bakht bowled more than half the overs even though he
bowled second; this happened because Imran Khan was unable to complete one of
his overs due to injury (reports that Sikhander completed Imran's unfinished
over are incorrect; the over was left unfinished). Six bowlers bowled in this
innings, the most in an innings where one bowler was unchanged. At
Lahore 1987 v England, Abdul Qadir, across both innings, bowled his 73 overs
in the space of 148 team overs, missing only one possible over, plus one
change of end. The
most overs by an unchanged bowler in an innings in the last 100 years is 30.3 by Kapil Dev at Ahmedabad in 1983, taking 9 for
83. Incredibly, Kapil, who was captain, was criticised for his effort and did
not win the Man of the Match Award. Bowling unchanged in most Test
innings
Bowlers
on 3 include Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram. ******** Bowlers with 10 wickets in a day in
Tests
********* It
may be that the explosive increase in six-hitting that began about 15 years
ago is reaching a plateau. In the list of batsmen with most sixes in Tests,
there are no currently-active Test players in the Top 25. (I am treating players
like Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers as non-active here.) Brendon McCullum
leads with 107 sixes followed by Adam Gilchrist on 100, but the most for any
active player is 55 by David Warner, in 28th position. Warner, of
course, can be expected to advance up the rankings. However,
it’s a different story with the bowlers. Both Rangana Herath and Nathan Lyon
have conceded 192 sixes, just two short of the number recorded off Murali.
The exact number conceded by Murali is uncertain, but is in the range 194-198. ******** The
most minutes batted for a winning side in a Test match is 835 by Rahul Dravid
(233 & 72*) at Adelaide in 2003-04. He batted on four days, and nine
sessions in total. Geoff
Boycott (99 & 112) batted for 799 minutes spanning 10 sessions on 5 days
for the winning side at Port of Spain 1974. It was a 6-day Test match, with
some sessions rain-shortened. Boycott lasted only one ball in one of the
sessions. The
most minutes batted in a drawn Test is of course Hanif Mohammad. Hanif batted
1018 minutes at Bridgetown in 1958 if my sources are correct. Although Hanif
lost the record for a single innings in first-class cricket, to RR Nayar, his
match total appears to just shade Nayar’s 1015 minutes. Andy Flower batted
879 minutes for a losing side against South Africa at Harare in 2001. A
questioner on Ask Steven asked if anyone had batted on four days of a Test,
in a single innings, and for a winning side. My initial reaction was that
this could not possibly have happened in a five-day Test, and any Test with
an individual innings spanning four days would surely have to be a
rain-affected draw, but to my surprise it turns out there is one case. It was
one of the most unexpected innings in Test history, an innings that crops up
from time to time in records: Jason Gillespie, who at Chittagong in 2006 made
201* as a nightwatchman, batted on each of the first four days (with rain
interruptions). Australia won the match by an innings. ******** |
|
Some early female cricket
commentators … o Chandra Nayudu,
daughter of CK Nayudu, commentated for radio in India in the 1970s. o Kate Fitzpatrick
commentated for Channel Nine in the 1983-84 series in
Australia. Fitzpatrick was a well-known actress who
was keen on cricket, but she was not a good commentator (my opinion; I
remember listening to her) and her contract was not renewed. o Sreerupa Bose, a
former international, commentated on radio and Indian TV from the mid-1980s
to the late 1990s. o Donna Symonds of Barbados commentated Test matches
from 1988 (radio only?) and appeared on the BBC’s Test Match Special in 1998. Alison Mitchell, recently signed as a leading commentator
for Channel Seven’s upcoming cricket coverage, has been operating as a
commentator since 2005 and commentated for ABC radio in 2014. |
18 July 2018
On
the first day of the recent West Indies/Bangladesh Test at Kingston,
Bangladesh bowled 35 overs before lunch on the first day, a number so great that
it had the Cricinfo commentator checking his notes to see if it was right.
Bangladesh bowled a similar number in a Test in 2013, but apart from that you
have to go back to 1987 to find more overs bowled before lunch on the first
day. (I’m looking at 2-hour sessions here: there have several more extreme
cases in Pakistan, but always when sessions were 2.5 or 3 hours). The 1987
Test was at Edgbaston, where England bowled 38 overs before lunch on the
first day.
******** It's
as though Test cricket and ODI cricket are being played on different planets
at the moment. Some stats... Last
10 Tests runs per wicket = 23.25 with 17 teams bowled out for less than 200. Last
10 ODIs runs per wicket = 35.5 with 2 teams bowled out for less than 200. There
have been 64 Test innings since the last team score over 500. The
23.25 average for the last 10 Tests is the lowest for 10 consecutive Tests
since 1969, and before that, 1956, and before that, 1914. What is going on? What
we are also seeing is ever-increasing numbers of 'off-season' Tests, as other
formats crowd out the traditional game. The traditional seasons were chosen
for a reason. The wickets for the off-season Tests can be difficult for
batsmen, it seems. It
used to be that the only Tests in June and July were in England. Now they
crop up in all sorts of places, with the exception of England I am sorry to
say. I thought for many years that Test cricket was holding its own in
England, but now it has been shunted into the season fringes, in favour of
ever more meaningless ODI and T20 series. (Stats
calculated on 17 July 2018)
In
addition to uploading series from 1965 to 1970 Into the Davis Test Match
Database, I am re-uploading series from 1945 to 1960 (one at a time). Some of
these were originally uploaded as long ago as 2012, and more information has
come to light since then. I have also expanded the scope of the data a bit
since then, and this will bring the Tests of the 1940s to the same level of
detail, where possible, as later Tests. ******** |
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On Test debut at Kingston
in 1976, Wayne Daniel bowled 20 no balls in India’s first innings (reported
in the Georgetown Chronicle). It is not clear how many actual no ball calls
there were. There could have been some multiple-run no balls, which would
have reduced the number, and/or no balls that were scored from, increasing
the number. The latter is actually quite likely. Challenging Daniel for
most no balls on debut is AL ‘Froggy’ Thomson at Brisbane in 1970. Thomson
recorded 17 no balls in the first innings, but also bowled three other no
balls that were scored from. On a match basis,
Patterson Thompson bowled 22 no balls, plus 9 scored from, at Bridgetown in
1996. In the same year, Mohammad Zahid registered 21 no balls on debut.
However, there were only 18 no ball calls off him; there was one ‘four no
balls’ and no other no balls were scored from. ******** |
8 July 2018
I
am back home now after a long holiday. I managed to visit Lord's again and I got
copies of most of their ODI scores that I had not obtained previously, except
for some of Frindall's scores that they won't allow me to copy. Overall I
obtained about 60 scores. I
visited The Oval as well. I was disappointed to find that some of their
international original scores have gone missing, with almost nothing before
1995. Ironically, I now have a collection of Test scores from The Oval that
far exceeds theirs. I have scores for all Oval Tests since 1952 and many
earlier Tests. This
is largely thanks to John Kobylecky, who almost 20 years ago visited The Oval
and photocopied all the Test scores that he could find. In 2002, John kindly
let allowed me to make copies of these, including the 1880 Test, the oldest
existing Test score. Sometime
after that, The Oval lost track of all the pre-1995 originals. The current
archivist (who was not responsible for the loss) and I searched a small
storeroom full of documents (in disarray) without success. The
1880 scorebook alone would have been worth a lot of money to collectors.
Let’s hope it is found come day. ********* In
2016 (see blog entry for 1 Feb)
I speculated that during the first World Cup, on 7 June 1975, Dennis Amiss
may have retaken the ODI innings scoring record for a few minutes, before
being overtaken in turn by Glenn Turner. (it was an
answer I offered to the question “Who held an important record for the
shortest period of time?”) Amiss
had scored the first ODI century in 1972, but by 1975 David Lloyd held the
record with a score of 116. On the 7th of June, Amiss scored
137 and Turner 171 not out, in separate matches that started simultaneously.
I now have some more information; although he reached his century first, it
appears that at no stage did Amiss re-take the record. From
separate scorebooks, I determined that Amiss reached his century at 1:46 and
Turner reached his at 2:00. From this, one might expect that Amiss would have
reached the 116 record first, but it is probably not the case. Amiss lost the
strike for a bit and did not reach 116 until 2:15. Turner, meanwhile, scored
at a furious pace and reached 146 by 2:23. I don’t have an exact score for
Turner eight minutes earlier at 2:15, but it almost certainly would have been
greater than 116. ******** I
have re-started the uploading of Test series in the Davis Online Database.
The next stage of the project will tackle series from 1965 to 1970. The
starting page for this section is here. ******** |
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Recently I mentioned the
case of Bob Crisp, the South African bowler who fell over in the delivery stride
of his first ball in Test cricket. Ashru informs me that the same fate befell
Bharat Arun at Kanpur in 1986-87, and also Mike Gatting at Auckland in
1977-78. Gatting was bowling his first ball but was not making his Test
debut, having not bowled in his first two Tests. ******* Mahela Jayawardene hit the
winning run off the first ball he ever faced in a One-Day International, in
making 1* at Colombo Premadasa against Zimbabwe on 24 Jan 1998. He would go
on to play 448 ODIs. Overall, there are about
30 batsmen who have hit the winning run in their debut ODI, starting with Rod
Marsh in ODI#1. Notable names include Michael Clarke, Mohammad Yousuf, and
Kevin Pietersen. There have been a few surprises, like Bob Willis in 1973. ******** |
19 May 2018
ODIs:
Hot and Cold
Long-time
correspondent Sreeram (I recently came across emails from him from 2004, on
an old laptop) has sent me a copy of a score he made from a TV broadcast of
Sanath Jayasuriya’s record-breaking half-century in an ODI in 1996 (50 off 17
balls), against Pakistan at Singapore. I have lined up the balls faced by
Jayasuriya against the previous record-holder, Simon O’Donnell in 1990 (50
off 18 at Sharjah). Note that these innings were played before “superbats”
came into vogue or the grounds were shrunk down.
O’Donnell’s
innings was notable for the lack of dot balls – none at all after he reached 20.
It was freakish at the time; there had been very few other innings anything
like it until Jayasuriya came along. The previous record for fastest 50 was
probably held by Lance Cairns with 50 off 21 at Melbourne in 1982-83.
Cairns was out for 52 and his overall
strike rate was 208 to O’Donnell’s 255. Thanks
again to Sreeram for providing this, and
much other interesting material over the years. ******** Slowest
Centuries in One-Day Internationals
†More than 50 overs The
balls faced for Boon and Greenidge differ slightly from online versions. In
Boon’s case, this is because early sources included wides in balls faced,
whereas the above figures, obtained by re-scoring original scores, use the
modern protocol of ignoring wides. Boon faced 166 deliveries including wides.
Greenidge faced no wides. ‡
UPDATE: I have added a figure found for Glenn Turner’s
171* against East Africa in 1975. The balls faced
probably includes any wides (up to five, probably two or three).
I don’t have this innings ball-by-ball. The
majority of these innings were played for winning sides carefully chasing
down modest targets. The slowest for a team batting first is the 157 balls by
Ramiz Raja. ******** “Wider
Still and Wider Shall Thy Bounds Be Set” Those
who have followed One-Day Internationals from the beginning may remember a time
when wides were called far less often; at some point a directive must have
gone out for umpires to be much stricter on one-day wides than in multi-day
cricket. To examine this, I made a table of the historical incidence of
wides, and found that the calling of wides tripled, more or less, between
1980 and 1982, and remained high thereafter. Historical
Incidence of wides in ODIs (wides/100 balls)
My
memory was that the calling of wides in the early days was along the same
lines as Tests, but looking at the figures, this was not so. Wides in ODIs
were always much more common that in Tests. Test
wides… 1960s:
0.04 wd/100b 1970s:
0.10 wd/100b 1980s:
0.16 wd/100b The
first table also shows that the incidence of wides, after the sudden rise in
the early 1980s, remained fairly steady until 1990 and then began to rise
again, over the next 10 years. It seems to have plateaued at a new level in
this century. At some stage of this process there was the introduction of the
(somewhat draconian) ‘wide line’ just outside the leg stump, which penalises
bowlers for even small departures. I don’t know when these lines were
introduced, although I suspect they had something to do with that post-1995
increase in wides. Readers might help me here if they know about this. I
doubt that the actual accuracy of bowlers has changed much over the years.
Most of the changes in the incidence of wides probably come down to changing
fashions in umpiring. [Having
said that, there is an anecdote about George Giffen, who at some point late
in his career made a bet that he could hit a single stump at least 18 times
out of 24 from 22 yards. He won the bet. I certainly can’t vouch for the
truth of this, but I doubt if there are many bowlers today who would take on
such a bet.] ******** |
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The Changing Game: the
Test at the Oval in 1965 was drawn after rain interrupted England on
308/4 and in sight of their
target. “South Africa’s slow over rate hinders progress” said the headline in
the Guardian. What was that over rate then? It was 98 balls per hour (or 98
overs per six hours) a rate higher than almost anything seen in the modern
game. ******** With war looming, the 1939
tour of West Indies to England was curtailed in late August and seven matches
cancelled. The West Indians took the first available ship across the
Atlantic, which travelled under naval escort. ******** |
26 April
2018
ODIs:
The Early Days
I
have been pursuing original scoresheets of ODIs in the 1970s and 80s, with
some surprising success. It turns out to be easier to find scores from the
70s than it is from the 90s. In fact, I now have 17 out of the 18 ODIs that
were played before the 1975 World Cup, and 68% from the 1970s as a whole,
with possibly more to come. The main reason that these scores can still be
found is that most of the matches were played in England or Australia, where
such things are better preserved. The
first ODI was organised in a hurry during the 1970-71 Ashes tour, when a
Melbourne Test was cancelled due to poor weather. Although it was a success
(attendance 46,000) authorities did not quite know what to make of it. In
1971-72, two one-dayers were played against a World XI (filling in for a
cancelled South Africa tour; there was also a virtual T20 match of 15 8-ball
overs each), but there were only two more ODIs in Australia over the next
seven seasons. Although a domestic competition was held every year, Australia
did not really begin to embrace one-day cricket until Packer’s World Series
Cricket pioneered day/night games in 1977-78. While Wisden had
practically ignored the original ODI in its tour report, England was more
proactive than Australia and began the regular scheduling of ODIs during the
Ashes tour of 1972. Looking
through the scoresheets of those early matches, the two ODIs played in New
Zealand in 1973-74 stood out. Most previous ODIs had been rather dreary,
producing less than 190 runs per innings even though most were played over 55
overs. The New Zealand/Australia matches were limited to 35 eight-ball overs,
and included cricket that was of a different quality. One imagines also that
the matches were not taken too seriously – a ‘picnic’ atmosphere. Press
reporting of the matches was limited, and Wisden offered
only potted scores. New
Zealand’s 194 in the first match in far-off Dunedin looked much like earlier
ODIs, but Australia broke the mould by chasing the runs down in only 24.3
overs. Ian Chappell’s 83 off 68 balls was something of a pioneering innings;
the first ODI innings that looks impressive by modern standards, and bear in
mind that there were no fielding restrictions, and
‘wide’ bowling was allowed. The
Australian innings included what was almost certainly the first ODI over to
produce more than 20 runs: 22 by Chappell and Stackpole (44441401) off Bevan
Congdon. It was an 8-ball over, but there were 21 off the first 6 balls. (The
first known 6-ball over with 22 runs was in 1978.) The
Australians continued in this fashion in the second match in Christchurch,
with Ian Chappell this time scoring 86 off 67 and Australia reaching 265 in
their 35 overs (164 minutes). This was scoring rarely, if ever, seen in Test
cricket history up to that point. Congdon was clobbered again, conceding 11
runs per over. Not to be outdone, New Zealand gave it a good shot, reaching
234. Ken Wadsworth scored the first run-a-ball century, reaching 100 off 96
balls and out for 104 off 98. The real potential of limited-overs cricket was
being explored. Progressive
Fastest Centuries in Early ODIs
A
thank you to Colin Clowes at Cricket NSW, who found the New Zealand scores. ******** Statistics
of Test fours since 2009
In
India, there have been over 5000 fours since 2009; only two of them were
all-run without overthrows. Both were at Nagpur in 2010; there have been none
since. (I am rather relying on reliability of the Cricinfo texts here.) Since
2009 there have been 20 all-run fours without overthrows at the Gabba and 19
at the MCG, 17 at Lord's and 9 at Adelaide. The very long square boundaries
in Brisbane and Melbourne are more conducive to this than the straight
boundaries in Adelaide, where fieldsmen are more likely to be lurking. Brisbane
and Melbourne were both originally classic ovals, longer than they were wide.
However, the pitches faced east-west. When this was altered to the more
normal north-south (many many years ago) the boundary points were not
changed, so the straight boundaries became rather short and the square
boundaries very long. ******** A
couple of milestones have been reached in posting the Davis Test data online.
I have completed the 1960-65
section, and I have also updated all interwar Tests (1920-39)
with new information including locations of catches and names of scorers
where known. I will start posting Tests from 1965 onward before long, and
begin updating existing scorecards from 1946 to 1960. ******* |
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Fergie’s Monopoly:
Legendary Australian scorer Bill Ferguson was an official scorer of every
Test played in the world from mid-1935 to 1939 – 33 consecutive Tests.
Nineteen of these Tests did not actually involve Australia. After the War,
Ferguson missed one Test (NZ v Aus in 1946, which was only accorded Test
status in 1948) but then scored the next 17 Tests, giving him 50 out of 51
Tests. Ferguson travelled by ship to England seven times in this period, and
twice to South Africa. Fergie toured England with
the 1935 South African team, then South Africa with the 1935-36 Australians.
He went back to England to score for the 1936 Indian team, then Australia and
New Zealand with the England team in 1936-37. He accompanied the team back to
England, where he served as scorer for the 1937 New Zealand tourists. His
wife accompanied him on some of these tours; perhaps it was the only way of
getting to see him. ******** The New
Zealand Herald reported that in the Lahore Test of 1965 between
Pakistan and New Zealand, there were at least 17 catches dropped in the
match, and only 13 taken. In my surveys of almost
700 21st Century Tests, I have found only one Test with more
dropped catches than this. At Mumbai in 2005-06 (India v England), 19 catches
were dropped, although 28 were taken. ********
|
17 April 2018
At
the Last Gasp
Here
is a list of Test matches completed with very little time left (up to 3 overs
or 10 minutes remaining). This is actually tricky to research. Readers might
let me know of omissions or errors.
* One day lost. ** 3 days lost. Contrived
result; match fixing (Cronje) Two
drawn Tests have finished with scores tied: Bulawayo
1996 (Zim v Eng) Mumbai
2011 (Ind v WI) There
was also a Test in Pakistan in 1955-56 (Lahore) that some sources say Pakistan
won on the last possible ball. This is probably in error; other sources say
there were 18 minutes to go. The
lack of matches before 1934 is partly because Tests in Australia were played
to a finish. There was never a “last possible over”. It is a little
surprising, however, that no early Tests in England went ‘down to the wire’. ***UPDATE:
Alastair Lynch has alerted me to the following additions:
I
had flagged these as tight finishes, but in my notes I had incorrectly added
one over to each, and so they missed the cut. ******** Sustained
Impact
100
runs in a match: most consecutive Tests
Faulkner
and Nourse are the only players to score 100 runs or more in every Test of a five-Test
series. ******** Here
is Garry Sobers’
entire ODI batting career, as recorded by scorer Irving
Rosenwater. A six-ball duck at Leeds in 1973. ******* An
article of mine has appeared in Cricket Monthly online, on the subject of the
trends in scoring speeds, and the fastest scorers of all time. It can
be found here.
I will post it on this website in due course. |
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In the Auckland Test, England was out for 58 in the first
session, and in reply Kane Williamson reached 59 at the end of the second
session (dinner, not tea, this being a day/night match). He was the first
batsman, batting second, to outscore his opponents before the end of the
second session of a Test match. At Cape Town in 2013, Alviro Peterson of South Africa was 45 at
tea after New Zealand was bowled out for 45. At Lord’s in 1912, South Africa
was bowled out before tea for 58 after there was no play before lunch. RT
Spooner was not out 67 at stumps. The most runs before tea by a batsman batting second is 67 by
Sanath Jayasuriya at Colombo SSC against Bangladesh in 2001. Bangladesh was
out for 90. ******** At Trent Bridge in 1935, South African bowler Bob Crisp came in
to bowl the first ball of the series, and the first of Crisp’s Test career,
only to fall over. He was not injured, but ended up on his backside, with
ball still in hand, next to the stumps. ******** |
28 March 2018
Statistician
of the Year 2017
I
have just returned from a flying visit to Britain that included receiving an
award: the “Statistician of
the Year 2017” from the Association of Cricket Statisticians
and Historians. The award was made at the AGM of the Association, held in
Derby. I was treated as an honoured guest. It was also terrific to meet up in
person with various contacts who have helped me with my work in the past. Only
one Australian has previously won the award, which has been awarded annually
for over 30 years. That was Ray Webster. ******** |
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At Johannesburg in 1994-95, Aamir Nazir was called for as a Pakistan
replacement but had to fly in from Pakistan. He arrived at the ground 36
minutes after the match had started. The South African captain had permitted
a substitute while Pakistan fielded. Nazir broke down and was unable to
finish an over twice on this first day. It is the only case I have on record
(up to 2015) of a bowler breaking down and not finishing an over twice in one
Test match. CORRECTION: Boyd Rankin was unable to complete an over twice in
one innings at the SCG in 2013-14. It was his only Test match (UPDATE, until
Ireland’s first Test). ******** GC ‘Jackie’ Grant was appointed captain of the West Indies team
to Australia in 1930-31 without ever having played first-class cricket in the
West Indies. His cricket had been in England, mostly in university matches.
Nevertheless, he was a considerable success as captain. He did not return to
the Caribbean with the team, but sailed to Rhodesia to work as a missionary.
Grant did not play f-c cricket in the West Indies until 1934-35, when he
captained the team again, against the touring England side. ******** A little statistic finally confirmed... There were 60 Tests played on matting wickets. I can confirm
this after correspondence with cricket historian Rollins Howard in the West
Indies. Previously I was unsure of some Tests there. The only Tests in West Indies played on matting were at Port of
Spain. The last was in 1954 (v England). There were 42 such Tests in South Africa (the last in 1931), 10
in Pakistan (including some in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh), 6 in West
Indies and 2 in India. The last Test played on matting was at Karachi in 1959
(Pakistan v Australia). ******** |
8 March 2018
Here's
a funny little discovery... For
the 4th Test of England's tour of New Zealand in 1929-30, one of the official
scorers was a "Miss A
Hall". Hall scored the match with Bill Ferguson
("WF"), the Australian who was doing duty as the tour scorer for
the English team. As
far as I know, this would be the earliest case of a woman being official
scorer of a Test, previously thought to be Shirley Crouch at the Brisbane
Tied Test in 1960-61. Jamie
Bell of NZ Cricket Museum tells me that a Miss A.W. Hall was chair of the New
Zealand Women's Cricket Council in 1937-38. Almost certainly the same person, and they may be able to come up with more
information. That
4th Test in Auckland had been organised in a rush, after the
3rd Test a few days earlier had been ruined by rain. The 3rd Test
had been scored by someone else (TSC Haig, with Ferguson). Perhaps Haig was
not available at short notice, and Hall filled in. Sreeram
reports that a young woman named Margaret Platts was the scorer in the Essex
v Worcestershire match in 1939 under unfortunate circumstances (a car
accident involving multiple players). It was discussed in the ACS list in
2014 as the first fc match involving a woman scorer. So this discovery has precedence.
It may well be that Miss Hall had already scored first-class cricket in
Auckland. Grace
Morgan scored in the first four women's Tests and is named in Cricket Archive
scorecards. ******** There
are 30 or more bowlers who have taken wickets with both their first ball and
their last ball in a Test match. I haven't checked them all. Possibly the
first was RO Schwarz in 1905, and the most recent was Mitchell Starc at Galle
in 2016. Two
bowlers have done it twice, Maurice Tate and (amazingly) JP Duminy. Duminy
did it at Dubai in 2103, and at Johannesburg in 2010, where he bowled only
1.5 overs in the match and took just two wickets. ******** |
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In 1962, Subhash Gupte was excluded from the Indian team on
disciplinary grounds. His ‘offense’ was being the room-mate of AG Kripal Singh,
who had had the temerity to ask a woman (a hotel receptionist) out on a date
during a Test match. “Gupte was accused of failing to control his room mate's
behaviour.”(!) Gupte was the best bowler in the Indian side, but was not
selected for the tour of the West Indies. India lost the series in the West Indies 5-0, having also lost
the previous tour abroad 5-0 (in England). The team did not tour abroad again
for more than five years. ******** |
25 February 2018
More
Test match Database!
I
have begun to extend the Test Match
Database into the 1960s, and I have reached 1962 so far.
Series will be added progressively. At the same time I am progressively
upgrading scorecards from 1920 to 1960 to include a little more information
including the fielding locations of catches. The official scorers of Tests
are being identified wherever possible. ******** Eight
Wickets in Fewest Balls (individual bowlers, where known)
The
records for five wickets, six wickets and eight wickets in fewest balls (by
an individual bowler in a single Test) have all been set against Bangladesh. Bangladesh
does occasionally have some good matches, but their capacity for ridiculous
collapses is tiresome. ******** Sole
Run out credits in ODI
There are another three run
outs where Rhodes was fielding but no run out credit is recorded. Sole
Run out Credits in Tests (where known)
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An odd coincidence: long delay before first boundary in an ODI
(teams). In an ODI at Perth 6 Dec 1991, India (all out 126 with two
fours) hit the first boundary off the LAST ball of the 26th over against West
Indies. The score was 53. One year later – to the day – Australia (160) hit the first
boundary off the FIFTH ball of the 26th over, on the same ground against the
same team, with the score on 52. There is an unconfirmed report of no boundaries in the first 38
overs of an India/SriLanka ODI in 1986 (Austral-Asia Cup). UPDATE: Steve Pittard records the following cases… In the 1975 World Cup qualifier,West Indies
v Australia, the first boundary was hit in the 27th over
(Clive Lloyd). At Lord’s in 1988, there were no boundaries until the 31st over
(Graham Gooch). ******** Last time ODIs were played in the middle of a Test series
(between the same teams). Looks like the 2002-03 Ashes tour, where ODIs were played between
the 3rd and 4th Tests. ODIs were played in India between Tests in 2017, but they did
not involve the Indian team (Afghanistan v Ireland). In 1992-93 an ODI in Zimbabwe was actually played in the middle
of a Test, in a never-repeated experiment. The Test in Harare was on Dec 7,
9, 10, 11, 12 with the ODI on the 8th. ******** Origin of Abdominal Protectors.
They were advertised as "Private Guards" as early as 1855. There
was an earlier cryptic 1851 reference to a "cross-bar india rubber
guard". It is said that Jack Gregory batted without one, even when
facing Larwood. The story seems to originate with Jack Fingleton writing in
1973. It is known that Gregory often batted without gloves, as did Herbie
Collins (both were WWI veterans, if that is relevant). Eric Rowan of South Africa also sometimes batted without one.
"Made me concentrate" he said. (Research by Gideon Haigh and David Studham, found in Haigh’s
book Silent Revolutions.) It would seem that abdominal protectors were introduced only a
few years after the first gloves and pads, which first appear in
illustrations in the late 1840s. ******** At Hamilton in 1996-97, Kumar Dharmasena was bowled by Daniel
Vettori, but the Pakistani umpire Mahboob Shah, confused by the wicketkeeper Adam
Parore taking off the other bail, ruled the batsman not out. Video review,
which showed the incident clearly, was not available to the umpires. On a related issue, I came across an English newspaper report of
a Test match in South Africa in 1999. It is a reminder of how obsessed
reports and commentary could be about umpiring, in the days when there was
abundant video but before DRS. http://www.sportstats.com.au/pe99.pdf I don't know how much of it is justified, but I would say that
some of the disputation in the report is really just the reporter's opinion.
There is substantial agreement in other reports, however, and it appears that
the players went out of their way to try to intimidate the umpires. I also came across a Test report in the Guardian in March 2001
with a headline “Bitterness Mars England’s Progress” followed by sub-headings
“Uproar over Jayasuriya dismissal” and “Umpiring falls to pieces under
pressure”. ********* |
2 February 2018
Bowlers
Taking Three Wickets in Four Balls: Some Issues.
Cricinfo
has a list of bowlers taking three wickets in four balls in Tests here.
The list starts as follows:
There
are some problems with this list. I would mention these: · Spofforth, The Oval 1882:
this is not correct; it is actually three wickets in eight balls. I think
this came from a misreading of the original score, which has an odd way of
presenting the bowling. · Gregory, Nottingham 1921:
the scorebook gives Gregory 3 in 5 balls WW[new
over]00W. · Mitchell, Johannesburg
1935-36: again the scorebook has 3 in 5 balls WW01W. I
would also add these confirmed instances to the list prior to 1997-98
The
Cricinfo list is also a bit misleading. It basically stops in 1997-98 but
adds a single instance in 2015. There are actually more than two dozen other
cases in the intervening period. ******** Here
is some info that might be worthy of further investigation. Some commentators
seem almost obsessed with the idea of ‘rotating the strike’. It occurred to
me that there is virtually no evidence on the effectiveness of this, one way
or the other. So I took a look at the incidence of singles in partnerships of
different sizes (in the last five years or so). I kind of expected to find no
effect, but there is something here. Per
Cent Singles in Test Partnerships
There
is some trend, and it is fairly consistent albeit rather weak. Higher
partnerships tend to have a higher incidence of singles. Since a higher
incidence of singles will tend to rotate the strike, maybe there is some
benefit after all. ******** Here
is something so arcane that I doubt if any list has been seen before… Fielders
taking catches off consecutive balls in different fielding positions.
I
know of about 20 cases of fielders taking catches off consecutive balls,
usually in the same position. Dilip Vengsarkar once took three catches in
four balls at short leg, in one over by Ravi Shastri at Wellington 1980-81. ******** |
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In the first Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 1997, Ijaz
Ahmed was given out, run out, on a score of 98 early on the second day. There
was initial confusion over which batsman was out (Ijaz or Salim Malik). The
decision against Ijaz was given by TV umpire KT Francis, who nevertheless
continued to review the video. The disconsolate Ijaz was back in the dressing
room by the time Francis decided to change his decision, and informed
on-field umpire David Shepherd that Ijaz was to be recalled and Salim Malik
was the one out (for 58). Ijaz went on to a score of 113. This echoes an incident from Don Bradman’s career when he was
run out and left the field, only to be recalled and Stan McCabe given out
instead. ******** Fewest runs conceded by a bowler in taking his first ten wickets
in Tests: 39 runs by Ernie Toshack. JK
Lever conceded 70 runs. Both bowlers bowled a few no balls, which weren't
counted against bowlers in those days. Charles Turner conceded 75 runs in
taking his first ten wickets in the 1880s, with no no balls. ******** Until this season the slowest century by an Australian, in
minutes batted, was by Justin Langer against Pakistan in 1999-2000, at 388
minutes. But now Steve Smith has exceeded this twice, with two centuries, at
Brisbane and Melbourne, weighing in at an identical 416 minutes. There are more than 40 centuries by batsmen from other countries
that are slower than Smith’s, and about 70 that are slower than Langer’s.
Smith’s ‘slowness’ is really an indication of slow over rates; at 259 and 261
balls faced, neither was a particularly slow scoring rate. Contrast the minutes vs ball rate with Bill Woodfull’s century in
1929, where he faced 372 balls but batted only 322 minutes. I think that the fact that Smith set records also reflects
Australia’s dominance during most of the era of slow over rates; Australian
batsmen since 1975 (the era of slow over rates) have played far fewer really
defensive centuries than batsmen from other countries. ******** Steve Smith missed two catches off Alastair Cook (244*) in the
MCG Ashes Test. As it happened, this deprived him of a record. Smith took no
catches in the match, having taken at least one catch in each of his 26
previous Tests. The record for catches in consecutive Tests
(non-wicketkeepers) is 27 by Bob Simpson in 1961-64. ******** On 21 December 1998, New Zealand and India played an unofficial
One-Day game in Dunedin. It was a day-night game, yet a red ball was used and
the players were in whites. Curious. ******** |
7 January 2018
A
Dull Session, a Mind Wanders
While
I was sitting (at the ground) watching Mitch Marsh score ten runs in a
complete session, on the last day of the drawn Boxing day Test, I resolved to
update my list of fewest runs in
a full session by an individual batsman. I restricted myself
to ten runs or fewer in a session, in the last 20 years. Fewest
runs in a 2-hour session (individuals) since 1998.
2-hour sessions with at least
24 overs. Among
Australians, Marsh’s 10 runs in a session is ‘unsurpassed’
going back decades. Mitch’s father Geoff, scored
just nine in the opening session of the MCG Test against Pakistan in 1989-90.
In 1988-89, Allan Border (75) scored nine in a full session – all in singles
– against the West Indies at the SCG. For Australians in Ashes Tests, Mitch’s
effort is at the extreme. Alec Bannerman scored eight in a session at the MCG
in 1891-92, but that may have been a bit short of two hours (there were 45
overs though). [In
some recent extreme defensive sessions, such as Peter Nevill and Steve
O’Keefe and others at Pallekele in 2016, no one actually batted through a
complete session.] There
are also the following cases from sessions with at least 24 overs but which
were interrupted or shortened…
The
Tendulkar and Misbah sessions were curtailed when matches were called off.
Wagner’s session had a 20-minute rain interruption. ******** Curious
goings on at the Faisalabad Test of 1997-98, Pakistan
v South Africa on the first day. The report is from Dawn (Karachi)
reproduced in the Cricinfo Archive. The
second session belonged to South Africa as the pitch eased and the ball softened. The
veteran Symcox attacked with relish, hitting two sixes, and outpaced his
senior partner. Symcox
must have realised the force was with him when, on 56, he played inside Mushtaq. The
ball went between off and middle stumps, nudging them on the way.
They parted, then came back into place without disturbing the
bail. A
grinning Symcox, a wistful Mushtaq and the rest gathered round the offending
set and it transpired that the bail was not properly cut, allowing it to stay in
place as the stumps moved. Both sets were later replaced. If that
was perplexing, Kirsten's extra run was in the classic mystery mould. Symcox was
eventually bowled for his Test highest score of 81, only his
second fifty, and Kirsten was left - so we thought - on 91 when last man Paul Adams
joined him. The
scoreboard registered his century, brought up with a single, and the player rightly
rejoiced in a quality innings. Adams was out next ball and then
it was discovered that two sets of scorers had the opener on 99. Kirsten
said: "I heard there were some doubts when I got back to the dressing room. It is
official, isn't it?" The official
scorer put his seal of approval on the innings, saying a leg bye had been missed
somewhere. There were some nods and winks, but it stands. I
would add that I have a score for this innings, a linear score kept for
Pakistan TV. In the 58th over with Kirsten on 85, it has
recorded a leg bye, but added a note “leg bye but official scorer given run”.
So the TV scorer knew this to be a leg bye, but has registered it this as a
run, perhaps to conform to the official score. The run, taking Kirsten to 86,
is necessary to give Kirsten his 100. It would appear almost certain that
Kirsten’s score was really 99 not out. A contact who has met the scorers
confirms this. He said that the scorers were quite open about fudging the
score to give Kirsten his 100. ******** Players
on the field throughout a Test These
are really the cases of openers who batted through their respective team’s
innings, usually by carrying their bats when their team batted only once. In most
cases it is uncertain whether or not the players were substituted in the
field at any stage. Alastair
Cook’s recent effort at the MCG is the longest Test (in time) featuring on
this list, at 1714 minutes. However, MC Atapattu’s Test at Galle in 2000-01
was longer in terms of balls bowled (2520 to Cook’s 2325).
*Haynes was last
out in both innings but did not field throughout Minimum: play occurred on four
days. In
addition to the above, there are 14 cases of a player on-field throughout in
3-day Tests (including another one for Cook), and another 19 cases in one- or
two-day Tests (generally, severely weather-affected). Haynes,
Tharanga, and Brathwaite are the only batsmen on any of the lists who batted
twice in the match. ******** |
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