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Charles Davis: Statistician of the Year (Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians)

 

 

Who are the Fastest-Scoring (and Most Tenacious) Batsmen in Test Cricket? Click Here.

 

 

Longer articles by Charles Davis Click Here

 

 

A list of “Unusual Dismissals” in Test matches

 

Unusual Records. For Cricket Records you will not see anywhere else, Click Here

 

 

 

 

 

  

 2022 and Earlier Entries

 

FOUND: a full score of the Madras Tied Test !

A Bonus Page:

some remarkable first-class innings, re-scored.

 

Link to Travels

 

The Davis Test Match Database Online.

 

Detailed scores for all Tests from 1877 to the 2000s 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. 

 

 

In the current Test between England and India at Dharamsala, England managed to lose three wickets AND burn through three reviews, all on the same score (175). In particular, Brad Stokes' effort, utterly plumb lbw for a duck, will go into highlight reels for the most blatantly ill-advised reviews. It was the third time in his career that Stokes has been out for a duck after calling for a review and failing. The only other recognised batsman with so many failures of this type is…Jonny Bairstow!

 

 

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8 March 2024

 

In posting scores from the New Zealand/England series of 2007-08, I noticed how fast and furious the innings of 77 not out by Tim Southee was. Played at Napier, it was Southee’s first Test match. The 77, coming in 40 balls, included a sequence of 15 balls faced where Southee advanced his score from 6 to 57. I had a look for extremes of this type (most runs off 15 balls faced) and found it was rather dominated by New Zealanders paying at home…

 

Most Runs in the space of 15 balls faced in Tests

Runs

Score range

53

NJ Astle (222)

134 to 187

NZ v Eng (1), Christchurch 2001/02

51

CL Cairns (120)

59 to 110

NZ v Zim (2), Auckland 1995/96

51

TG Southee (77*)

6 to 57

NZ v Eng (3), Napier 2007/08

48

AC Gilchrist (102)

49 to 97

Aus v Eng (3), Perth (WACA) 2006/07

48

CH Gayle (80)

25 to 73

WI v NZ (2), Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 2014

47

IT Botham (118)

28 to 75

Eng v Aus (5), Manchester (Old Trafford) 1981

47

MJ Henry (72)

25 to 72

NZ v SL (1), Christchurch (Hagley) 2022/23

45

JH Sinclair (104)

55 to 100

SAf v Aus (3), Cape Town 1902/03

 

This list is from the ball-by-ball database, so it may not be complete, but I doubt if there would be many cases missed. It is a little surprising in the age of Bazball that all bar one of these instances are 10 or more years old.

 

Southee is now playing his 100th Test, but has never played another innings remotely like that debut.

UPDATE: I have found that Southee hit 48 runs in the space of 14 balls faced in the above innings, more runs than anyone else off 14 balls (or fewer). Astle and several others’ best was 47. That means that the fastest sequence of 50 runs is 15 balls, as in the above table.

 

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More on Chelmsford 1983

 

Recently (13 Feb) I wrote of the wildly wrong published Balls Faced figures for some early ODIs in the 70s and 80s. Perhaps the worst was the pivotal ODI between Australia and India at Chelmsford in the 1983 World Cup, where the total balls faced did not remotely resemble the total balls bowled. I thought that there could be little additional information to be found, but Lawrie Colliver has come up with a partial score for the Indian innings that he recorded off the radio broadcast. (Lawrie was a teenager at the time, but is score looks well-recorded.)

 

I have appended the figures from this score, which covers the first session only, to the figures found elsewhere. There are columns for 1) the ‘official’ BF originally published in Frindall 1997, 2) my own estimates based on the Over numbers of the dismissals, and 3) the exact figures from the newly found score.

 

Runs

"Official" BF

Corrected BF (Estimated)

Surviving Score BF

SM Gavaskar

9

10

20

21

K Srikkanth

24

22

40

34

M Amarnath

13

20

35

42

Yashpal Sharma

40

40

90

SM Patil

30

25

40

46

N Kapil Dev

28

32

29*

(29*)

K Azad

15

18

35

RMH Binny

21

32

27

S Madan Lal

12

15

21

SMH Kirmani

10

20

6

BS Sandhu

8

18

9

 

Sharma scored 21 off 45 balls before lunch in Colliver’s score.

* Kapil 29 balls is an exact number, from newspaper reports

 

The new figures suggest that my estimates, while not particularly accurate, were reasonably indicative of the real figures. While there is no precise figure for the whole innings of Yashpal Sharma, the pre-lunch record shows that the official figure must be way off. Sharma did not bat rapidly after lunch and was out after Kapil, contrary to the published record.

 

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24 February 2024

 

On Historical Trends in Missed Chances in Tests

 

As a matter of interest, I have posted an article of mine recently published in The Statistician, on the subject of historical trends in dropped catches in Tests. The conclusion seems to be that catching standards have improved over generations, but probably not as much as many modern commentators frequently claim. There has been evolution not revolution.

 

https://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/droppedcatcharticleACS.pdf

 

I would like to think that this study breaks new ground.

 

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Fewest Balls Bowled when an Opener Reached 100

Balls Bowled

118

DA Warner (180)

Aus v Ind (3), Perth (WACA) 2011/12

137

CH Gayle (116)

SAf v WI (3), Cape Town 2003/04

138

Majid Khan (112)

Pak v NZ (3), Karachi (National) 1976/77

142

CH Gayle (102)

Aus v WI (3), Perth (WACA) 2009/10

144

RC Fredericks (169)

Aus v WI (2), Perth (WACA) 1975/76

150

BB McCullum (202)

Pak v NZ (3), Sharjah 2014/15

153

V Sehwag (180)

WI v Ind (2), St Lucia (Beausejour) 2006

155

S Dhawan (107)

Ind v Afg (1), Bangalore 2018

155

BM Duckett (153)

Ind v Eng (3), Rajkot (Khandheri) 2023/24

158

DA Warner (184)

Aus v Pak (3), Sydney (SCG) 2016/17

160

S Dhawan (107)

Ind v Afg (1), Bangalore 2018

 

This lists the earliest in an innings that a batsman reached 100, not the balls faced by the batsman. Warner at Perth reached his century off the fourth ball of the 20th over. The list is dominated by modern Tests with ‘soft’ six-hitting. Data is missing for many early Tests, but there are no likely candidates among these. Joe Darling took about 32 overs to reach 100 at the SCG in 1897-98. Gavaskar took 35 overs at Delhi in 1983-84.

 

Wides and no balls are not included. Thanks to Shahzad for the data on Majid Khan.

 

I have added this list to the Unusual Records section.

 

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Thanks to reader Ben who alerted me to a problem with umpire names in my Test scorecards. Most Tests from mid-2006 to mid-2007 reported the wrong umpires, due to a compiling error. I believe that they have all been corrected now. Umpires’ names in the ball-by-ball files were correct.

 

********

 

 

 

 

 

13 February 2024

 

More questions on old ODI stats

 

A contact (Michael) has pointed out the poor state of the scorecard of the important India v Australia ODI at Chelmsford on 20 June 1983 (ODI# 217 or 219). The 'official' balls faced could only be described as nonsense, to the extent that Cricket Archive has deleted this data from the scorecard and appended a note explaining why (total balls faced in either innings fall way short of the number of balls bowled). The data is still up on Cricinfo, however.

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/prudential-world-cup-1983-60832/australia-vs-india-23rd-match-65086/full-scorecard

 

https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/43/43649.html

 

 

The match is especially important because if India had lost, there would have been no 1983 World Cup victory and subsequent Indian cricket history would have rather different!

 

I have uploaded a few notes on this match, and others, including my estimates of balls faced.

 

https://www.sportstats.com.au/articles/Unfortunately.pdf

 

(UPDATE: see 8 March)

 

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Jasprit Bumrah has now taken more than 150 Test wickets at an average of 20.28. He joins a select bunch who have recorded such a  combination.

 

Bowlers whose Test averages dropped below 20.30 mid-career (minimum 150 wickets)

Wkts

Bowl Av

Final Bowling average

Final Wkts

SF Barnes

189

16.43

16.43

189

RR Lindwall

154

19.88

23.03

228

AK Davidson

153

20.05

20.53

186

IT Botham

151

19.39

28.40

383

MD Marshall

286

20.29

20.95

376

Waqar Younis

180

18.78

23.56

373

SM Pollock

210

19.86

23.12

421

JJ Bumrah

152

20.28

21.21

140

 

 

The table shows bowlers who, at least one point of their career, had more than 150 wickets and a bowling average better than 20.30. None of these bowlers except Barnes finished their career with such an average. Waqar Younis held on to this average the longest: 11 matches and 45 wickets. Shaun Pollock averaged better than 20.3 at three points of his 150+ career. But perhaps the most impressive is Malcolm Marshall, who at one point had 286 wickets at 20.29.

 

 

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When one partnership outscored the entire opposition (in a completed Test)

 

Partners (wkt)

Partn.

Opponent

H Wood/R Abel (5)

105

47 & 43

Eng v SAf (2), Cape Town 1888/89

WA Brown/SG Barnes (2)

109

42 & 54

Aus v NZ (1), Wellington 1945/46

KF Barrington/JH Edrich (2)

369

193 & 166

Eng v NZ (3), Leeds (Headingley) 1965

Asif Iqbal/Mushtaq Mohammad (4)

350

156 & 185

Pak v NZ (2), Dunedin 1972/73

DR Martyn/AC Gilchrist (6)

317

159 & 133

Aus v SAf (1), Johannesburg (Wanderers) 2001/02

JA Rudolph/HH Dippenaar (3)

429

173 & 237

SAf v Ban (1), Chittagong (Aziz) 2002/03

KC Sangakkara/DPMD Jayawardene (3)

624

169 & 434

SL v SAf (1), Colombo2 (SSC) 2006

DPMD Jayawardene/KC Sangakkara (3)

311

131 & 176

SL v Ban (3), Kandy 2007

JH Kallis/HM Amla (3)

330

118 & 172

SAf v NZ (1), Johannesburg (Wanderers) 2007/08

GC Smith/ND McKenzie (1)

415

259 & 119

SAf v Ban (2), Chittagong 2007/08

SCJ Broad/IJL Trott (8)

332

74 & 147

Eng v Pak (4), Lord's 2010

M Vijay/CA Pujara (2)

370

237 & 131

Ind v Aus (2), Hyderabad (Uppal) 2012/13

SE Marsh/AC Voges (4)

449

223 & 148

Aus v WI (1), Hobart (Bellerive) 2015/16

M Labuschagne/TM Head (4)

297

214 & 77

Aus v WI (2), Adelaide Oval 2022/23

 

(Another qualification: everyone in the losing team batted.)

 

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There was quite the controversy at The Oval in the final Ashes Test in 2023 when a ball was changed after 36 overs, and the replacement ball had completely different bounce and swing properties to the old one. In fact, this ball was so helpful to bowlers that no new ball was taken after 80 overs. The innings lasted 94.4 overs without the fielding side requesting a new ball, the longest such innings in the last 200 Test matches (since Afghanistan took no new ball in 104.5 overs at Bangalore in 2018).

 

Nowadays almost all teams take a new ball within a couple of overs of it becoming available. There were only three cases of a second new ball taken later than 95 overs in 2023.

 

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The record-rich stats of the South Africa v India Test at Cape Town have been reported in detail at various websites. I was pleased to see, though, that Charles Bannerman’s 1877 records still hold, although given a good shake by Aiden Markram’s 106 out of 176 in South Africa’s second  innings. Next highest score was Dean Elgar’s 12. Markram's ratio of 8.83 (106/12) between top score and second-top score is second all-time to Bannerman's ratio of 9.17 (165/18).

 

I would add that the six wicket in eleven balls collapse by India was by far the fastest such collapse in Tests, as reported elsewhere. It was also reported that the previous record was six wickets in 27 balls, but this overlooked the six wickets in 23 balls way back in the original 1882 Ashes Test (England’s second innings).

 

 

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Shamar Joseph’s dismissal of Steve Smith with his first ball in Test cricket got me looking at the batsmen who have been dismissed in such circumstances. Nearly all such batsmen have made low scores – this because a bowler’s first ball will likely be early in an innings – with the highest being 26 by Marvan Atapattu when he was dismissed by Nilesh Kulkarni in 1997 (Sri Lanka went on to make 952 with Kulkarni finishing with 1 for 175.)

 

The batsman with the highest average on the list is Eddie Paynter on 59.2. He was dismissed by HD Smith’s first ball in 1933 in New Zealand. However, Paynter’s average was only 43 at the time. Steve Smith’s average of 58 at Adelaide is the highest ‘active’ average of batsmen falling in this way.

 

Note that Kumar Sangakkara is on the list; he was memorably dismissed by Nathan Lyon’s first ball. Sangakkara finished with an average of 57.5 and was averaging over 55 at the time. Steve Smith’s average is at some risk of dropping below Sangakkara’s 57.5 before long.

 

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22 January 2024

 

Warner bows out

 

David Warner it seems had two parallel careers in Tests, a brilliant career at home and a much inferior career elsewhere. His great home record, it seems, repeatedly came to the aid of Warner being selected for tour after tour where he underperformed. I don't know of any non-captain who was so coddled and protected by selectors for so long. His supporters in Australia are probably little aware of how bad his stats away from home have been.

 

In his last 12 Test tours from 2015, Warner scored exactly two centuries, and both of those were in Bangladesh more than six years ago. On those 12 tours he batted 74 times and averaged 28. After the Bangladesh centuries he averaged 22.7 with a highest score of 68 in 41 innings. In the 2019 Ashes he scored 95 runs in ten innings, but it was Usman Khawaja who was dropped. Warner’s 2019 stats are the worst ever by an opener in a five-Test series.

 

By contrast, Khawaja since his return in 2022 has scored four centuries and a couple of 90s on tour, and averaged 59, with nine scores higher than Warner's 68.

 

Here are the most extreme contrasts between home and away performance for batsmen with more than 5000 Test runs.

 

Test

HOME

AWAY

H/A

Matches

Runs

Av

Av

Av

Ratio

DA Warner

112

8786

44.6

57.9

32.5

1.78

DB Vengsarkar

116

6868

42.1

55.6

32.7

1.70

D Elgar

86

5347

37.9

47.0

27.9

1.69

DL Haynes

116

7487

42.3

56.1

33.5

1.67

DCS Compton

78

5807

50.1

60.0

36.9

1.63

Zaheer Abbas

78

5062

44.8

58.2

36.9

1.58

MJ Clarke

115

8643

49.1

62.1

39.5

1.57

BB McCullum

101

6453

38.6

47.9

31.1

1.54

M Azharuddin

99

6215

45.0

55.9

36.4

1.54

DPMD Jayawardene

149

11814

49.8

59.7

39.7

1.50

 

The bar of 5000 runs is quite high, but there are now more than 100 batsmen who qualify. Among other current batsmen, Rohit Sharma (3737 runs) has a ratio of 2.00, but he will have future opportunities to correct that imbalance.

 

 

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Where Chances are Missed; Comparing Formats

 

Here is some data comparing the distribution of dropped catches between formats. The raw data for this chart was supplied by a third party; I don’t record missed chances in ODIs or T20 myself.

 

The chart compares dropped chances by fielding position; not surprisingly, there are significant difference between Test and the shorter formats.

 

The percentages are relative to the total dropped catches in that format, so the bars in each colour will add up to 100 per cent.

 

Attacking fielding position like slips and short leg see a lot more misses in Test than limited overs, as one would expect. By contrast, the ‘permanent’ positions of bowler and keeper are quite similar across the formats.

 

It is curious to see far more chances going to third man and fine leg in T20 than in ODI; I suppose that ramp shots must be used much more in the former. The difference between misses at mid-on and midwicket in T20 is a bit of a mystery; it should be remembered that this data depends on the accuracy of ball-by-ball descriptions.

 

If I have calculated correctly, the percentage of chances dropped are similar in Tests and ODIs, about 23 per cent and 22 per cent respectively. The T20 data used in the above chart is rather patchy and I haven’t attempted to calculate an overall percentage for that format.

 

Shortly, I will be preparing a report of missed catches in Tests in 2023, from my own data.

 

 

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Sreeram reports that telecasts of three of the Tests of the India/Australia series in 1979-80 were prevented, fully or in part, by order of the Government. The rationale was that too many people watching the cricket would be bad for the economy. The Janata Party, “a bunch of bores”, were in power at the time.

 

 

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An unusual pseudo-double-hat-trick, in the Big Bash at Albury. Melbourne were six down with four balls to play, which went W, W, run out, W.

 

The run out means there was no official hat-trick, but the bowler Sams actually received a credit for the run out and so was responsible for all four wickets.

 

The #11 batsman, Haris Rauf, was, not surprisingly, caught unprepared, and went to the wicket for the last ball without pads on. Possibly fearful of being timed out! Thanks to the run out, he was at the non-strikers end.

 

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23 December 2023

 

ODI Score Curiosities

 

Online scores for ODIs (Cricinfo, Cricket Archive) contain a complete set of balls faced for all batsmen, going back to the beginning. I have often wondered how this was done, given that so many original scoresheets for early matches have been lost, and balls faced figures for many such matches were never published in any form (that I am aware of) when they were played. Some of the scoresheets that do survive do not list the balls faced anyway. How were the figures obtained?

 

Recently I was sent a set of ten ODI scoresheets from 1983 to 1986, that I had not previously seen, played in the subcontinent and West Indies. I endeavoured to re-score these into ball-by-ball form but there were problems. Some scores had missing pages and other pages were almost unreadable. Even so, I found scoring anomalies in the majority of the innings that I was able to study. Here is a quick review…

 

 

WI v Aus 19 Apr 1984, Match 3.

In the WI innings, only two bats had BF recorded in the scoresheet, Greenidge and Richardson. Their figures were reproduced exactly on re-scoring ball-by-ball. However, the online BF figures for the other batsmen (which were absent from the score) could not be reproduced even though the scores and the scoring stroke sequences for those batsmen were reproduced exactly. I got 121 balls faced for Haynes, quite different from the 142 balls online, and Logie faced 34 not 21 balls in his 52 minute innings. If they were not on the surviving score, where did those online figures come from?

 

 

WI v Aus 26 Apr 1984, Match 4.

Parts of this score were nearly unreadable. However, it is clear that online figures in the WI innings are problematic, because the total Balls Faced by the batsmen fall well short of the balls bowled (272 v 289). The problem appears to lie once again with Haynes’ innings. I get 119 balls faced as against 102 balls faced in online scores.

 

 

Ind v Aus, 9 Sep 1986, Match 2

Innings 1. Bowling figures in the scoresheet disagree with ‘official’ figures. Innings 2 bowling page not available.

 

 

Ind v Aus, 24 Sep 1986, Match 3

Innings 1. Balls faced figures are not given in the scoresheet, but the re-score produces significant BF differences with online figures, even though runs and scoring strokes are reproduced. Innings 2 not available.

 

 

Ind v Aus, 2 Oct 1986, Match 4

Innings 2: India total given as 241 and SP Davis runs conceded 26 – differing from online scores (242 and 28).

 

 

Ind v Aus, 7 Oct 1986, Match 6

Innings 1: bowling figures in score disagree with official figures. Innings 2 not available.

 

 

All this is from a set of just ten ODI scores received, four of which were incomplete. The ten also included two scores by Geoffrey Saulez (Sri Lanka v Australia in 1983). These two presented no problems at all when re-scoring. Saulez had a bit of a reputation for lack of neatness, but in general the quality of his scores is much superior to the scores from India and West Indies in this period.

 

 

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For many years, batsmen running the winnings run(s) have been limited to the minimum ruins required. If one is needed and two are run, only the first run counts. An exception applies to boundaries: all runs are counted unless the target is first reached by running.

 

However, in the past, there have been cases of batsmen running more than the runs needed to win the match, but it is rare:

·      In the second Test of 1876-77, two leg byes were run when only one was needed.

·      1878-79 Test, Bannerman hit a three when two runs were needed

·      Adelaide 1884-85, Shrewsbury hit two when one was needed. Strangely, the surviving score records the last over as " 2.. "

·      Lord's Test of 1890, a hit for two by JM Read when one was needed.

·      SCG 1928-29, JC White hit two when one was needed.

There are several other possible cases, but there is no scorebook and the information may not be certain. There are three in the 1800s, and three in Pakistan in the 1950s. There are no known cases anywhere since 1960.

 

There are a few Tests where I don't know what the winning hit was worth.

 

 

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Best first bowling by players who did not bowl on debut…

 

Ian Johnson did not bowl in his first two Tests but then took 6/42 and 2/92 at SCG in 1946-47.

 

Simon Katich took 0/25 and 6/56 in his second Test, having not bowled in his first.

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It appears that the attendance for the World Cup final of 92,413 at Ahmedabad fell just short of the 2015 (MCG) World Cup record of 93,015. (Another blow for Indian pride?)

 

 

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7 December 2023

 

Some curious new scores

 

A contact in Pakistan, Shahzad, has kindly provided copies of a few more Test scores along with a number of ODI scores that I did not have. One of the scores, Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka 1st Test in 1994-95, is interesting, albeit in a statistical sense only. It was left drawn after four days without completing the teams’ first innings, but it featured a mind-numbing partnership of 217 between Asanka Gurushinghe and Sanjeeva Ranatunga. On re-scoring, this stand amounted to 691 balls in 467 minutes. Among partnerships of 200 or more, the scoring rate is the fourth slowest all-time. In runs per hour, it is the second slowest, by a narrow margin, after a notorious stand by McGlew and Waite in 1957-58.

 

Slowest Double-Century Stands

Partn.

Deliv.

R/100b

R/hr

Batsmen (wkt)

231

894

25.8

27.4

DJ McGlew/JHB Waite (3)

SAf v Aus(3), Durban (Kingsmead) 1957/58

212

752

28.2

39.8

C Washbrook/RT Simpson (1)

Eng v WI(3), Nottingham (Trent Bridge) 1950

262

883

29.7

45.3

DR Jardine/WR Hammond (3)

Aus v Eng(4), Adelaide Oval 1928/29

217

691

32.3

27.9

S Ranatunga/AP Gurusinha (2)

Zim v SL(1), Harare 1994/95

214

649

33.0

30.0

M Azharuddin/RJ Shastri (5)

Ind v Eng(3), Kolkata 1984/85

 

The fastest 200 stand, as it happens, is the most recent (at the time of writing). Zac Crawley and Joe Root put on 206 off 186 deliveries at Old Trafford this year. At 115.7 runs/100 balls, it is faster than the 233 off 203 balls by Hayden and Gilchrist against Zimbabwe in 2003-04. Crawley and Root faced 183 deliveries for the first 200, but Hayden and Gilchrist reached 200 off 170. No balls and wides are included in the delivery counts.

 

 

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The other two scores that Shahzad sent had curious endings...

 

Karachi 1978-79: Pakistan target 164 against India. The next day multiple  published reports had them scoring 165-2. However it was realised that the winning shot had been for 2 runs, so only the first run counted. The corrected score of 164-2 is in Wisden and later reports.

 

Karachi 1985-86: Pakistan target was 98 v Sri Lanka. The surviving score has Pakistan reaching 98 on the first ball of the 17th over but then continue batting for three balls ending in a single. These three balls are circled and apparently crossed out.

 

Note that this is not an 'official' score, but was made by a scorer for Pakistan TV and other journalists.

 

But it is complicated. Mudassar scored 56* in the score but is given 57* in published scores and Wijesuriya concedes 8 runs in the score but 9 in published scorecards. Did someone delete the superfluous single from the team but not delete the run from batsman and bowler?

 

The published scorecard has been balanced by having one, not two, no balls. I think that the simplest resolution would involve this issue. If there really were two no balls but one was missed by the official scorers, then Mudassar’s score would be 56 and the last three balls would be deleted. If one of the no balls did not occur, but was mistakenly recorded in the surviving score, then the extra three balls would stand and Mudassar has 57. I would tend to favour the former, since it is easier to miss a no ball call than to insert a false one, and there are seven deliveries recorded in both the overs with the no balls.

 

I have attached a screenshot of this innings. If anyone can suggest a resolution let me know.

 

 

 

 

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Sreeram has found reports of ‘singular’ Man of the Match Awards being made in the 1974-75 India v West Indies series. A very good find. I am disappointed that I overlooked this, as it is mentioned in places in my collection of reports. I consulted my collection and came up with a full list from that series…

 

Bangalore CH Lloyd

Delhi (FSK) IVA Richards

Kolkata GR Viswanath

Chennai (Chepauk) GR Viswanath

Mumbai (Wankhede) CH Lloyd

 

The awards were decided by a panel of three judges. There is mention of Lloyd being "player of the series" after Mumbai but it is unclear whether this was the just the journalist's opinion or an actual award.

 

This predates the regular MoM awards made in the 1975-76 Australia v West Indies series, previously thought to be earliest.

 

I do have a note in my MoM file that there were awards in India of some kind from 1969-72. In 1966-67 there were separate awards for batsmen and bowlers; at Kolkata, Sobers won both, so technically he was a singular MoM. All the match awards that I have seen in England in the 1960s were separated (batsmen/bowler, teams), although John Edrich won a single Player of the Series in 1968.

 

 

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In the two-Test series between Sri Lanka and South Africa in 2006, famous for its 624-run partnership between Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene at the Colombo SSC, Jayawardene won the Player of the Match awards in both Tests. It seems very strange, then, that the Player of the Series went to Muttiah Muralitharan.

 

 

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27 November 2023

 

Disrupted Careers of the 1970s

 

In the 1970s, there were a couple of major disruptions to international cricket. The first was the exclusion of South Africa from Test cricket from 1970; the second was the World Series Cricket tournaments from 1977 to 1979, which took a large number of players out of Test cricket until late 1979.

 

This curtailed the careers of quite a number of important players. But as it happens, some substitute matches were played; there were two five-match series involving a ‘World XI’, in 1970 and 1971-72, and of course the Packer World Series matches. There were 16 five-day Packer ‘Supertests’ played, eleven in Australia and five in the West Indies.

 

I have gathered the scores of these matches, combined them with players’ Test records and produced the following combined averages…

 

 

Some Careers Incorporating ‘World XI’ and WSC Matches (batting)

Tests

Other Internationals

Combined Matches

Test av

Other Int. Av.

Combined Av

Test 100s

Combined 100s

GS Sobers

93

10

103

57.8

61.9

58.2

26

29

RG Pollock

23

8

31

61.0

35.3

54.3

7

9

IM Chappell

75

19

94

42.4

46.3

43.2

14

19

CH Lloyd

110

20

130

46.7

40.5

45.7

19

22

RC Fredericks

59

10

69

42.5

34.5

41.3

8

8

BA Richards

4

10

14

72.6

57.9

62.8

2

4

GS Chappell

87

17

104

53.9

63.4

55.6

24

31

AW Greig

58

12

70

40.4

20.4

37.2

8

8

CG Greenidge

108

13

121

44.7

35.9

43.7

19

20

IVA Richards

121

14

135

50.2

55.4

50.9

24

28

DW Hookes

23

12

35

34.4

36.7

35.2

1

2

BM Laird

21

13

34

35.3

25.2

31.3

0

3

 

There are some whose batting averages improved when these matches are incorporated, including Sobers, Ian Chappell and Viv Richards. The most striking is Greg Chappell, who made seven centuries in his 17 ‘other’ Internationals, lifting his average to 55.6 in 104 matches. Among players who have played more than 100 Tests, only Kumar Sangakkara and Steve Smith have higher averages. In terms of average, Chappell has a clear advantage over any of his contemporaries with the exception of Sobers.

 

Another point of interest is the performances of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock. Pollock’s performances in the additional matches were somewhat moderate, and this takes his average from 61 in 23 Tests down to 54 in 31 matches. This is a case of ‘regression to the mean’, experienced by nearly every batsman who had an average over 60 after 20 Tests. Richards performed very well in the additional matches, keeping his average above 60, but his total of 14 matches is still too small for reasonable statistical interpretation.

 

I haven’t prepared a table of bowlers, but two cases are particularly interesting. Dennis Lillee took no fewer than 91 wickets in 18 additional matches, including a famed spell of 6 for 0 at the WACA. This takes him to 446 wickets at 24.2 at this level, which would vault him above Kapil Dev and Richard Hadlee in the wickets list. Lillee’s average of 5.07 wickets per match surpasses any other pace bowler with more than 200 Test wickets.

 

There is also the case of Mike Procter, who played in seven additional matches and took 41 wickets at 15. This is even better than his 29 wickets at 20 in his 9 Tests. The total comes to 70 wickets at 17.1 in 16 matches; this is still not enough for statistical rigour, but it certainly highlights what a loss to international cricket he was. Procter took 1417 wickets at 19.5 in first-class cricket.

 

 

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I might add a little table concerning regression to the mean. Among those who played 50 Tests of more, there are ten batsmen whose batting averages exceeded 60 after 20 Tests. Every one experienced a fall in average by the time they played 50 Tests…

 

20-Test average

50-test average

DG Bradman

111.9

99.9

MEK Hussey

84.8

52.2

H Sutcliffe

68.8

61.7

JC Adams

68.7

45.2

KD Walters

67.5

50.9

Javed Miandad

67.3

57.6

FMM Worrell

64.7

50.0

IJL Trott

64.2

45.4

DCS Compton

64.2

50.9

WR Hammond

61.9

56.0

 

Although they lost a little of their early pace, Bradman and Sutcliffe held onto their very high averages quite well, while others lost a lot of ground.

 

Jack Hobbs had a 20-Test average of 57.1, the highest by anyone who increased his average in his next 30 Tests (to 61.3 after 50 Tests). Viv Richards also increased his average, from 55.6 after 20 Tests to 57.7 after 50.

 

 

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During the World Series (Packer) season in 1977-78, Dennis Amiss became the first batsman to don a helmet in a senior cricket match. I had thought that this had happened in the aftermath of a serious injury to David Hookes in a match against the West Indies XI on 16 Dec 1977. However, Amiss had already been using his helmet (a modified motorcycle helmet) in warm-up games, starting with a match against West Indies on 24 Nov 1977. On the first day of that 4-day match, Amiss scored 81.


After the injury to Hookes, the helmets became much more popular in WSC. Barry Richards, Tony Greig, and others including Hookes,  used them regularly later in the season.

 

The first use of a helmet in a Test match was by Graham Yallop  at Bridgetown on 17 Mar 1978. Yallop scored 47.

 

That first use by Amiss had been in a match at Football Park, Adelaide; apparently the match was not televised. There is a video online of Amiss, wearing an early helmet, facing Andy Roberts; perhaps that was in a later game.

 

 

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24 October 2023

 

A Brief History of the New Ball

 

More than a decade ago I wrote a review of new ball use in Tests. I am repeating it here, but with a few updates/corrections…

 

The very early Tests seem to have used a single ball for each innings regardless of length. New balls could be called for if the condition of the ball deteriorated severely: this happened after 207 overs in the Adelaide Sydney Test of 1891-92. During the epic Australian innings at The Oval in 1884 of 311 four-ball overs, the ball was replaced after 225 overs, reportedly “a very rare occurrence”. Brodribb in Next Man In (1952) records that in Australia the idea of taking a new ball when 200 runs had been scored was introduced in 1901. However, there is also evidence that a new ball at 200 runs was applied in 1894-95, including the first Test, but was not used in all Tests.

 

England followed in 1907. The 200-run trigger appears to have been kept in use until 1945.

 

It wasn’t entirely satisfactory. Sometimes, to avoid a new ball, teams reduced scoring before 200 runs were up. In 1946 the MCC introduced an over limit. Strangely, they settled on 55 overs, an extremely low number that favoured pace bowlers. In Australia, the 200-run limit remained in place in 1946/47, but was switched to 40 (eight-ball) overs in 1947/48. This was of no help to the touring Indian side facing Lindwall and Miller.

 

In 1949 some common sense returned and the trigger was lifted to 65 six-ball overs or 50 eight-ball overs for the next few years. By 1954/55 this had been abandoned in Australia and the 200-run trigger returned. All the recorded new balls of the 1954 and 1955 series in England were taken over 200 runs, but an over limit seems to have been reintroduced soon after; 75 in combination with 200 runs, whichever came first. By 1962 new balls in England were being taken at 200 runs or 85 overs.

 

There is also some uncertainty about this period in other countries. In the West Indies, 75 overs seems to have been used when the MCC toured in 1960, but 200 runs when India toured in 1962. The known record for use of an old ball is 185 overs at Bridgetown in 1962, but since India scored only 187 runs in that innings, the use of the old ball was not a matter of choice. Some other Tests may have used a combination of runs or overs, whichever came first. In the Australian tour of West Indies in 1965, some new balls came at 200 runs and others at 75 overs, but when England toured in 1968 no new balls were taken before 75 overs, even when the score was over 200.

 

In India, new balls up to 1965 were generally after 200 runs. There were some exceptions in India and Pakistan when matting wickets were used, with mention of new balls at 150 or 165 runs. The switch to 75 overs was probably in 1965.

 

In 1965, the runs scored standard in England and Australia fades away and the MCC established a standard in England of 85 overs, or 65 eight-ball overs in Australia (and other countries). This remained in use for many years in these countries, but again other countries had local variations. New Zealand and South Africa followed the MCC standard, but 75 overs seems to have been the norm in the West Indies and the subcontinent.

 

Finally in 1995, all countries lined up with the same standard, with the new ball available after 80 overs; this remains in place.

 

 

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Bowlers taking 2 wickets in an over most times (Tests).

 

M Muralitharan

44

A Kumble

35

GD McGrath

35

NM Lyon

32

SK Warne

32

Wasim Akram

31

 

There is some uncertain data before 1999, but I think I have covered just about all cases for bowlers like Wasim Akram. The prominence of spin bowlers reflects the fact that spinners are more likely to harvest tailend wickets than pace bowlers.

 

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 Best bowling average of career coming in their last Test…

 

Perhaps surprising, but there are more than 150 such bowlers who have played multiple Tests, including RGCE Wijesuriya, who finished with a bowling average of 294.0 (he took his only wicket in his last Test).

 

Among those who played 20 or more Tests and took 10 or more wickets there is only

 

FS Jackson (24 wickets @ 33.3)

RF Surti (42 wickets @ 46.7)

EJ Barlow (40 wickets @34.1)

Bhuvneshwar Kumar (63 wickets at 26.1)

 

Not including players whose careers are continuing.

 

 

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21 September 2023

 

Finally, a Complete Picture of the Madras Tied Test

 

Gulu Ezekiel in India has now sent to me high-quality scans of a complete score of the Tied Test in Madras/Chennai in 1986: a score previously missing, as I have mentioned often enough over the years. Gulu obtained the scans through S. Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath, the authors of From Mumbai to Durban (2016). The original score resides in the office of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association.

 

I have completed the re-scoring of the score into ball-by-ball form. (Previously this was available only for the final innings, and much of that was based on an inferior copy.) The re-score mostly went well – but only mostly.

 

A summary of the findings follow. Note, this is an analysis of the score, not a match review. [The short version – the re-score agrees with the final result, but not with absolute certainty.]

 

The score format is one innings per page, containing conventional recording of batting strokes, bowling analyses and Falls of Wicket. There is also a table giving the score at the end of each over (this is very useful but, frustratingly, sometimes inaccurate). In the bowling section, ends of bowling spells are marked (again, not 100% accurately) and byes and leg byes are not marked, so their location has to be inferred. Overs are not numbered, so when a bowling spell ends, identifying the next bowler often requires trial and error, guided by the over-by-over score and upcoming strokes in the batting section.

 

The handwriting changes between the pages; there appear to be two different hands. The scorers are named as G. Ganesh and Chittibabu. The latter is named only for the teams’ second innings. K.S. Mani is also believed to have scored the Test, but his name is absent; perhaps he was making another score.

 

The pages list the batsmen’s Balls Faced (mostly but not always accurately, and they vary from the Australian published data). BF data cannot be easily gleaned from a conventional score. A linear score is needed; this suggests that the score may be based on additional material of this type. The implication is that the score may be a re-copy from a linear original, or maybe the scorer was writing both types of score, or maybe one scorer was using a linear method while the other made a traditional score.

 

The score also allows full identification of session scores (lunch and tea). Some of this data was previously unknown; the reporting style at the time, even when quite detailed, tended to dispense with such niceties.

 

Some comments on the re-scoring each innings…

 

Innings 1, Australia 574-7 decl. A long innings that eventually yielded a sensible re-score. The only final sticking point was just before tea on the first day, when Boon and Jones were batting. A single by Boon off Yadav does not fit unless moved slightly, and is preceded and followed by leg byes. This preserves the batsmen’s scoring strokes; either that, or the single was credited to the wrong batsman, and Boon actually scored 121 and Jones 211. Some small areas of the page were obscured or indistinct.

 

UPDATE: Sreeram has suggested a better resolution of this problem that avoids moving strokes around. It does presume errors for a few overs in the over-by-over score section of the scoresheet, but it also produces balls faced figures in the re-score that are more consistent with the scoresheet.

 

 

Innings 2, India 397. The score of 397 was preserved, but there were problems. After tea on the third day, two overs by Bright, his 13th and 14th, are marked as ending a spell. As written, these overs do not fit with the batsmen’s scoring strokes and throw the innings ‘out of kilter’. Eventually, I found that if the next over by Bright, his 15th and ostensibly from his next spell, was inserted before his 13th  over, then the innings clicked back together neatly (it felt like suddenly solving a Rubik’s Cube). Here is a screenshot of the overs in question. Bright is the fourth bowler.

 

A close-up of a table

Description automatically generated

 

 

To make the re-score work, Bright’s Over 15, it appears, should be placed before Over 13. Curiously, Over 15 is written using a different pen to all of Bright’s other overs.

 

A second problem is seen in Kapil Dev’s innings of 119. While the score does indeed say 119, Kapil’s scoring strokes actually add up to 121 !

 

A close up of a paper

Description automatically generated

 

The re-score of the bowling also produces 119 runs for Kapil; there are two extra singles in the batting scoring strokes that cannot be found in the bowling, including the last single. In the above screen shot, Kapil’s intermediate scores of  50, 67 and 93 are correct; the problem occurs toward the end of the innings, which should read 2111221 not 211112211.

 

There are no missing singles from the other batsmen. Re-scoring preserves both Kapil’s 119 and the total of 397, which is important in such a supremely close Test match. However, the existence of errors like this is unsettling.

 

Innings 3, Australia 170/4 decl. This innings is written less neatly than the others. While the given score can be reproduced, a few overs suffer from readability problems and require a certain amount of ‘interpretation’ to preserve this. In the score, Greg Matthews is given 49 balls faced. This is impossible: the actual number from the re-score is 25. Once again, an unsettling error. (The Australian report gives Matthews 25 BF.)

 

Innings 4, India 347. With the improved-quality scan now available, a couple of minor problems with the earlier re-score can be resolved. These occurred in the first few overs, and the innings now hangs together pretty well. The final session is based on Lawrie Colliver’s analysis of the surviving video. A couple of minor observations with this innings:

 

The scoresheet gives the fall of the 2nd wicket as 159, not 158. The re-score agrees with the ‘official’ 158. The scoresheet has balls faced figures that differ from the Australian version (this is true of all four innings). Contrary to what I wrote last year, Greg Matthews did not bowl his 39.5 overs unchanged. His marathon spell was interrupted by one over, the last before lunch, bowled by Steve Waugh. Strangely, the score gives a total innings time of 342 minutes, but this is not possible. A time of 409 minutes, in published reports, is much closer to the mark.

 

Finally, a comparison of balls faced figures from the final innings: the Australian source, the score and the re-score. Only the re-score adds up correctly to the number of balls bowled (523).

 

Madras Tied Test: Final innings balls faced, by source

Australian Source

Scoresheet

Re-score

SM Gavaskar

168

170

166

K Srikkanth

49

52

50

M Amarnath

113

113

113

M Azharuddin

77

77

79

CS Pandit

37

39

39

N Kapil Dev

2

2

2

RJ Shastri

40

36

36

Chetan Sharma

38

25

25

KS More

1

1

1

NS Yadav

6

8

8

Maninder Singh

4

4

4

535

527

523

 

A link to the revised series page in the Database is here.

 

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A bowler called Shehan Mudushanka (DSM Kumara) of Sri Lanka took a hat-trick with his last three balls in his only ODI, at Mirpur on 27 Jan 2018.

 

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The term ‘Chinaman’, referring to an unusual left-arm googly, is said to refer to Ellis Achong, who played for West Indies in the 1930s, the first Test cricketer of known Chinese descent.  However, the term predates Achong, and was used in England and Australia in the 1920s, including by Cardus in 1926. Historian Roland Bowen wrote the following:

 

"This ball, by the way, was not named after the West Indian Chinese bowler, E. Achong, who used it; the term arose much more crudely in the more arrogant days of the past when it was the custom to make snide remarks about foreigners and Asiatics and orientals. 'Chinamen' as they were called, were thought to be 'wrong 'uns' and this delivery is the left-hander's 'wrong 'un' in cricket parlance, and hence the term.".

 

I have seen the term mentioned in relation to Roy Kilner, a left-arm orthodox spinner for Yorkshire in the 1920s. He sometimes bowled wrist-spin.

 

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A note in Bill Frindall’s score of the Lord’s Test of 1995: “Female streaker – vaulted both sets of stumps – 2 bouncers”. (West Indies 2nd innings, 99th over: the wicket of PJ Martin fell next ball)

 

 

 

9 September 2023

 

The Luck of Labuschagne

 

One thing said about the career of Marnus Labuschagne has related to good fortune: he seems to benefit from dropped catches more than most. I have taken a closer look at this, and come up with some odd results.

 

I have updated my dropped Test catch data to include the recent Ashes (this data now goes back more than 20 years). So how does Marnus look? We I can confirm that for much of his career his rate of catches and stumpings missed off his batting has been well above average. Said average is typically 25-30 per cent chances missed: Marnus is around 33 per cent. It was more extreme early in his career. Here is a list of Labuschagne’s miss rate by calendar year…

 

Miss

OUT CGT/ST

% Miss

Runs gained

2018 & 2019

5

9/1

33%

322

2020

5

5/0

50%

169

2021

5

7/0

42%

247

2022

6

11/1

33%

232

2023

2

11/1

14%

2

 

At the end of 2022 the Marnus miss rate stood at an extreme 38 per cent, higher than the whole-career leader Virender Sehwag on 37. In 2023, however, there was a sign of regression to the mean. Marnus has been missed only twice in 16 innings so far this year, and gained a mere two runs from the chances. At Delhi he was dropped on 33 but out soon after on 35. At Headingly, he was also dropped on 33 but did not make another run.

 

Based on the numbers of runs gained, Marnus’ average would drop from 53.4 to 39.8 if he had never benefited from a missed chance. Of course, this is not realistic: everyone gets dropped from time to time. But if Marnus was dropped 25 per cent of the time (something that happens to quite a few batsmen) instead of 33 per cent, his batting average would drop to about 50, from 53.4.

 

Marnus has been having an indifferent year by his standards, 718 runs @ 38. The absence of runs gifted through dropped catches may well have contributed to that.

 

The ‘odd’ data mentioned earlier cropped up when I compared Labuschagne’s career to Steve Smith and David Warner. Turns out that the other two are dissimilar in terms of missed chances. Smith remains even higher than Labuschagne at 34-35 per cent, while Warner is down at 23 per cent. Why is Smith dropped far more often than Warner? In fact, why is Smith dropped so often? Well… I don’t rightly know.

 

A large part of the difference appears to be dropped catches by wicketkeepers.

 

Three Australian batsmen - dismissals by keepers

 

Dropped

Caught

% drop

DA Warner

3

43

7%

SPD Smith

12

36

25%

M Labuschagne

7

16

30%

 

As I said, I don’t rightly know the explanation for this. Part of it might be random variation, part of it might be more batting to spinners by Smith and Labuschagne; the rate of keepers dropping catches standing up to the stumps is greater than when standing back. Perhaps Smith is better at playing with ‘soft hands’, which can make edged chances lower and more difficult.

 

Another oddity adds to this: Warner has only ever been stumped once in Tests, but I have recorded seven instances of a missed stumping, as described by Cricinfo’s commentaries. Smith and Labuschagne by contrast have been stumped seven times and missed five times.

 

The drop rate for all three is far more similar when it comes to slips and gully catches – drop rates for all three are in the range 29 per cent to 33 per cent.

 

The usual caveats apply when doing stats on missed chances. The data is prepared by me; others might get different results, although I hope not significantly so.

 

 

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Many thanks to Gulu Ezekiel for locating and sending a copy of the entire score for the Tied Test in Chennai/Madras in 1986-87. I have been seeking this for decades – literally. More on this when I have finished re-scoring the score into ball-by-ball form.

 

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I have been doing some repair work on some ball-by-ball records in my Test match database, specifically for the years 2003 to 2005. The problems lay in the identification of extras, almost always restricted to the 101st over of an innings, which was due to an old glitch in a data conversion spreadsheet. I had repaired this glitch for many Tests some years ago, but apparently I had only done so up to Tests in 2003, and had forgotten continue forward. The actual runs scored by teams and individuals was not affected; only the identities of extras was sometimes wrong.

 

 

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John Campbell of the West Indies has played 20 Tests. Remarkably, considering the Windies often weak recent efforts, Campbell has managed to hit the winning run five times. Only five players have hit the winning run more times in Tests, led by Ricky Ponting with nine. Each of those five leaders played 75 Tests or more.

 

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By my count, Steve Smith has now scored 577 runs off Stuart Broad’s bowling, thus passing 571 by Pujara off Lyon for the most ‘head to head’. Broad has got Smith 11 times so the batting average of 52.4 is respectable for both players.

 

I have updated the list in the Unusual Records section. I have also added a list of the most ball bowled head-to head, which is (perhaps) surprisingly different. Less surprisingly, the list is dominated by Ashes Tests, since these have always been the most common Tests between two teams.

 

Lyon bowled only three balls to Pujara in the Oval Test in June, conceding one run.

 

 

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4 August 2023

 

Going Out with a Bang

 

There has been discussion about Stuart Broad, who has become the first player in Tests to both hit the last ball he faced for six, then take a wicket with his last ball bowled. The former feat is much rarer than the latter; only Wayne Daniel of the West Indies is a clear-cut precedent for a six off his last ball. Glen Maxwell is also on the list, although he could conceivably play again, as could Broad (very unlikely, though).

 

The number of bowlers finishing bowling careers with a wicket is much longer, and probably a lot longer than most people would expect. There are more than 130 names currently. I have attached a link to a list of those bowlers that I know of.

 

Why is the list longer than might be expected? Remember that most Tests won by runs or by an innings margins will have at least two bowlers who take a wicket with their last ball, and sometimes this will prove to be their last match. For most bowlers on the list, it was not known in advance that this would be their last ball. We remember the relative few who announced a retirement in advance – Lillee, McGrath, Murali, Broad – but don’t notice so much the ones who get dropped or otherwise never bowl again.

 

The first list is up to 2020 and I think is fairly secure. There is a possibility that a few may yet play again.

 

There is a second list from 2020 to present. The majority of these will play again; I will leave it to readers to decide who might or might not. Even Broad could conceivably play again (to my annoyance he was certainly bowling well enough to continue).

 

There is a possibility that some have been missed. For Tests with no scorebooks, there may be some who took a wicket with the final ball of their last over, but the innings continued.

 

Not all bowlers did this in their last Test. The strangest is Mark Boucher who played 63 Tests after taking his one and only wicket.

For some of these the ball was also the last ball in first-class or senior cricket. I may work that out some day. I know that Alan Davidson also took a wicket with his last ball in a non-Test first-class match – Sobers no less.

 

A few years ago I worked out that only Gerry Hazlitt of Australia and Godfrey Lawrence of South Africa took wickets with their last two balls in Tests. Hazlitt took 5 for 1 off his last 17 balls.

 

I wouldn’t guarantee every last detail of these lists.

 

 

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Most runs before a new ball was taken

 

608/7

(91.3 ov)

Eng v Pak (1), Rawalpindi 2022/23

527/3

(105 ov)

Ind v SL (3), Mumbai (Brabourne) 2009/10

508/5

(153 ov)

WI v NZ (2), Georgetown, Guyana 1985

497/9

(152 ov)

Eng v SL (2), Birmingham (Edgbaston) 2002

496/2

(115.1 ov)

SL v Ire (2), Galle 2022/23

488/7

(173 ov)

NZ v Pak (1), Wellington 1984/85

471/4

(91.1 ov)

Eng v Aus (4), Manchester 2023

 

England declared at 524-4 in 82.4 overs against Ireland earlier this year with no new ball being taken.

 

Highest score at the end of the 80th (six-ball) over is 529/5 by England in the above match against Pakistan.

 

In the past I have seen lists (including my own) of the most overs bowled without a new ball, but I don’t think anyone has published a list of the most runs scored. As can be seen, there is a lot of variation in the scoring rates in the table, with ‘Bazball’ rather revolutionising this aspect.

 

 

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Some best-forgotten all-round performances by captains in Tests

 

Pat Cummins had a lousy match in the Old Trafford Test, but just how bad was it?

Bat

Match Bowling

BS Bedi

4,0*

1/132

Ind v Pak (3), Karachi (National) 1978/79

IT Botham

0

1/132

Eng v Aus (1), Lord's 1980

A Kumble

5

0/160

Ind v Aus (1), Bangalore 2008/09

AG Cremer

8,1

1/206

Zim v NZ (2), Bulawayo (Queen's) 2016

HMRKB Herath

9

1/193

SL v Ind (1), Galle 2017

PJ Cummins

1

1/129

Aus v Eng (4), Manchester 2023

 

Qualification: batted and bowled in the match. Fewer than 10 runs scored in the match and 0 or 1 wickets taken for 120+ runs.

 

None of these players took a catch. It’s hard to rank the above so they are listed chronologically. Botham is the only captain to score fewer runs and have worse match bowling figures in the same Test than Cummins’ recent effort. (Courtney Walsh once took 0 for 123 in a Test but did not bat.)

 

 

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Longest innings by Australian batsmen who failed to reach double figures

 

9 off 86 balls

AC Bannerman

Aus v Eng (1), The Oval 1882

8 off 101 balls

AIC Dodemaide

Aus v Pak (1), Karachi (National) 1988/89

9 off 82 balls

M Labuschagne

Aus v Eng (5), The Oval 2023

 

NB: First Innings only. (Extremely slow innings are more common in match-saving second innings situations.)

 

Dodemaide was batting at #9, trying to support his batting partner on an extreme turning pitch.

 

The longest such first innings on record is 8 off 124 balls by Bill Edrich against West Indies at Lord’s in 1950. Terry Jarvis’s 9 in 123 minutes at Chennai in 1964-65 may have topped this, but balls faced is not available.

 

Other batsmen have been slower in reaching double figures, but I am restricting this to batsmen who did not make it to ten.

 

 

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/

11 July 2023

 

More on the Madras Tie!

I have commented before on the frustration of being unable to find original scorebooks for the two Tied Tests, in Brisbane (1960) and Madras/Chennai (1986). Sustained efforts by myself and others to find these have drawn a blank.

 

Last year there was a breakthrough. A video of the final session of the Chennai match was obtained by Lawrie Colliver. Lawrie re-scored this ball-by-ball, as reported on this blog.

 

Now another advance. It turns out that a facsimile of a score of the final innings at Chennai was published in a book in India in 2016! Contacts Gulu and Sreeram alerted me to this. The book is From Mumbai to Durban: India’s Greatest Tests by S Giridhar and VJ Raghunath, who had obtained the score from the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. When I asked around, I could not locate this book in Australia – the biggest collections in the country were unable to help – but Amazon had one copy available, so I bought it.

 

The image of the score was in colour but quite small (11 cm x 8 cm), and barely readable. Like most pictures in books, it was printed in halftone, creating a confusing pattern under magnification. I was able to descreen and sharpen a high-resolution scan to improve the readability. Another problem was that the writing was not particularly neat – there was no fixing that. On the upside, there was a section of the score that gave the score after the end of each over, not always readable but quite useful. The following shows a magnified version of a small part of the page, from the high-resolution scan

 

http://www.sportstats.com.au/bloghome_files/image008.jpg

 

 

 

Eventually I was able to re-score the first two sessions of this innings, which could then be attached Lawrie’s score for the final session. There were various difficulties, and a few uncertainties remain. An example would be the first ball of the innings, which is no more than a blob in the score but which must represent two runs, to preserve the known scoring. The batting section for Gavaskar and Srikkanth is also indistinct. Also note the third ball of Matthews’ sixth over. It is not a 6, but a “C” for caught (Srikkanth).

 

However, in the final analysis the re-score holds together quite well with minimal fudging. I can say with ‘partial’ confidence that the final score of 347 is accurate, and while apparent errors can be found, there no clear errors that affect the final score. The rumours of errors in the scoring are not supported, at least in this innings. The teams would have known throughout the day how things stood in relation to the target (presuming that the scoreboard was up to speed).

 

My contacts are endeavouring to get hold of a better copy of the score, including the other innings. There could even be other Tests from that source, since a number of Chennai Tests from the 1980s and 90s are not represented by surviving scores.

A couple of minor comments. The scoresheet gives the fall of the 2nd wicket as 159, not 158. However, my re-score agrees with the ‘official’ 158. The scoresheet has balls faced figures that differ from the online version (that derives from a tour report published by Cricket
Australia). My re-score largely confirms the scoresheet in this respect, not the online version. The final session started at 2:30 and Maninder was out at 5:19, a bit earlier than suggested by earlier accounts. Contrary to what I wrote last year, Greg Matthews did not bowl his 39.5 overs unchanged. His marathon spell was interrupted by one over, the last before lunch, bowled by Steve Waugh.

 

Strangely, the score appears to give an innings time of 342 minutes, but this is not possible. A time of 409 minutes, found elsewhere, is much closer to the mark.

 

I have posted an updated article on this final day here.

A full version of the scan is here. Remember that the original image is only 11 cm by 8 cm.

The updated data page, with the ball-by-ball re-score, is here.

 

 

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Most runs in an over without a boundary:

 

There were a couple of cases of 15 runs in the days of eight-ball overs. At SCG in 1936-37, O'Brien and Fingleton hit 2,0,3,1,3,0,2,0,1,3 off Sims, including two no balls that were scored off. That would count as 17 runs in modern counting.

 

At SCG in 1963-64, Lawry and O'Neill hit a Pollock over for 0,3,2,3,3,0,2,2.

 

For s six-ball over, there was Tavare and Botham off Holding at The Oval in 1984 3,1,wide,3(no ball),0,2,3,1 = 14 runs or 15 by modern counting.

 

This is a ‘where known’ record.

 

 

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In the Test at The Oval, Pat Cummins bowled the first ball and also hit the winning runs. There are only 15 other Tests where the same player did both, and the Cummins instance is the first where both balls went for four.

 

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In the Women’s Ashes Test, England lost the match in spite of having a double-centurion (Beaumont 208) and a bowler with 10 wickets (Ecclestone). There is no parallel for this in Men’s Tests. At Old Trafford in 1896, Ranji scored 62 and 154* and Tom Richardson took 13 wickets, but England lost by 3 wickets.

 

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28 June 2023

 

Oval Declaration Goes Pear-Shaped

In the Oval Test, Ben Stokes declared England’s first innings at 393 for 8 on the first day – a first in a five-day England/Australia Test – even though his best bat, Joe Root, was on 118 and in full flight. The theory is that putting the opposition in late in the day (to face 10 overs in this case) stresses the batsmen and creates an advantage greater than the runs foregone. So I’ve done a little study...

 

Question: does having to start a team innings just before stumps harms that team's performance?

 

I looked at 1000 recent Tests, match innings 2 or 3 only. From this, I filtered out 2 sets:

 

A.  Teams that started the innings 10 overs or less before stumps, in days that lasted more than 75 overs. (188 instances)

B.   Teams that started the innings in the first 10 overs of a day (239 instances).

I calculated the scores, runs per wicket and 1st wicket partnerships for the two sets and compared them.

 

 

Findings (outcomes).

Average final score

Runs per wicket

Average opening partnership

A (late start)

280

31.57

32.4

B (morning start)

284

31.64

32.8

 

 

Conclusion: there is no statistical difference between these cases; any differences are negligible. In fact the two datasets are so similar that it is almost spooky.

 

There is no statistical disadvantage in being forced to start an innings late in the day. However much openers dislike having to start late in a day, it does no real harm.

 

I did not distinguish between innings starting as a result of team dismissal or declaration, but I don’t think that it would make any difference.

 

Anyway, England’s ultimate losing margin of two wickets speaks for itself.

 

 

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A couple of comments about the colour of cricket balls…

 

Red balls are centuries old, and probably predate any published scores.

 

There was an experimental night cricket game on a football field under lights in England in August 1952, using a ball painted white, in a Testimonial match for Jack Young. Apart from that, white balls were first used in a World Series (Packer) One Day match at VFL Park in Melbourne on December 14, 1977.

 

There were a couple of experiments with 'mustard' coloured ball in day/night Sheffield shield matches in 1994-95. A pink ball was first used in a day/night Shield match at the Adelaide Oval in March 2014 (South Australia v NSW). (There had been a pink ball, possibly painted, used for a charity promotion in a women's daytime match in 2009).

 

There is an article that says that a white ball was used in a World Series one-day match in Adelaide in November 1977 (prior to the Melbourne match). It was at the end of a 4-day ‘make work’ match for Packer players who were not involved in Packer’s main weekend match. The match finished a day early, so they played a fill-in one-dayer on the final day. However, the article gets both the ground (it was at Football Park not Adelaide Oval) and the date wrong, and newspaper reports from the time do not mention any white ball or night play. The reports do mention, however, that fielding circles were used for the first time in that match.

Another article says that the light towers at VFL Park were erected specifically for that December match. This is not the case; they were already in place for football games from May 1977. Packer did have light towers built at the SCG for the first official day/night ODI on 28 November 1979 (which I attended).

 

 

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I was away on holidays in central Asia for a while (returning with a broken ankle!). I will still post from time to time, perhaps with decreasing frequency.

 

I am continuing to post updates to my Test match database, which has reached 2005. Who knows how far it will go, even 2010 seems a long way off.

9 June 2023

 

The Fastest Pair of Ducks

Years ago, there was entry in record books like the Wisden Book of Cricket Records on the subject “fastest pair of ducks”, meaning the shortest elapsed time between two ducks by a batsman in a Test match. Neil Harvey at Old Trafford in 1956 was high on the list. The fastest was a pair by MEZ Ghazali in 1954.

At the suggestion of Sreeram, I looked into the King Pair by Tommy Ward at Old Trafford in 1912. Ward was the last victim in each of Jimmy Matthews’ famous two hat-tricks in a day.

Unfortunately the Ferguson linear score of this tour, which still existed 20 or so years ago, has now been lost. Colin Clowes did make some notes from it once, which I used in my scoresheet.

 

Newspaper reports have the first innings ending at 4:25 and the second innings at 6:25. Ward would have been out for a second time about 10-12 minutes before the latter, making his ducks about 108-110 minutes apart, including the break between innings. (The newspaper clock times would be to the nearest 5 minutes only.)

 

It appears that after Ward was out the second time, the last 25 runs were scored very quickly in about 3 overs. The hat-trick over was WWW044 and Matthews' next and last over was 230400. Kelleway took the last two wickets, in the 3rd last and the last overs.

Curiously, when added to Frindall’s list, it means that the four fastest pairs were all at Old Trafford (also Pankaj Roy in 1952).

I also did a search for the shortest interval between two dismissals of the same batsman, regardless of score. The record here was 11 minutes’ play, plus 16 minutes between innings by Percy Sherwell in the 5th Test of 1910-11 (SCG). Sherwell batted #10 in the first innings and was last out. He kept the pads on and opened when the follow-on was enforced, and was first out. There is also the case of Joe Darling at the SCG in 1901-02. Darling was 9th out in the first innings and first out on following-on. His elapsed time was probably closer to 30 minutes than Sherwell’s 27 minutes (there is no surviving score for this Test). Farook Engineer, in a Test in 1964-65, was also out twice in a very short span, probably just over 30 minutes.

 

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A few comments on long sixes, to add to my 2016 article

 

Possibly the longest six at the SCG was by Alan Davidson for NSW v MCC in 1954-55. Hit forward of the left-hander’s square leg, it struck high on the roof of the old Brewongle Stand. In an article in The Cricketer in the 60, Ray Robinson gave a figure of 113 yards, plus 40 feet off the ground, measured with a steel tape. Perhaps 125 yards or more, given a 45 degree descent angle. However, there is a description of this shot in the Sydney Morning Herald from that time, and it does add that the wicket position was slightly on the western side of the ground, and so favoured Davidson. Checking with Google Earth does suggest that Robinson’s figure may be a slight exaggeration. I would say 115 metres, with 120 metres unlikely.

 

The longest six in the 2023 IPL was 115 metres by Faf du Plessis. It is intriguing that the seven longest sixes in the IPL (>117m) were all hit prior to 2014. What has happened to the 120-metre hits?

 

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Ashley Chandrasinghe batted all day for 46 runs in 90 overs on the first day of the Sheffield Shield Final in Perth, raising the question of who has scored the fewest runs in a complete day’s play. It may be in the Sheffield Shield (no one seems to have suggested any alternatives) but in England Hashim Amla of all people went from 0 to 37* on the 4th day of Hampshire v Surrey quite recently in July 2021. Wisden doesn't mention any interruptions, and there were 96 overs bowled. Amla faced 278 balls.

 

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I get 13 instances of left-right combinations in all 10 partnerships of an innings, most recently the West Indies 2nd innings against India at St Lucia in 2016. Curiously it first happened in 1884 at The Oval, when there were fewer left-handed batsmen. On that occasion Scotton, a left-hander, batted through most of the innings with the right-handers, with the only other leftie, Emmett the tailender, coming in for the final partnership when Scotton was out.

 

 

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In the final Tests at Ahmedabad, Ravi Ashwin, a spinner, bowled the first ball of Australia’s second innings to Matthew Kuhemann, normally a specialist spinner. In the I thought this must be unique until I found Pallekele 2018 where Jack Leach opened facing the bowling of Dilruwan Perera, in a very similar situation.

 

There were also a few early Tests where it is possible, but bowling styles can be difficult to unravel. Hugh Trumble opened facing Len Braund in a Test in 1902 (4th Test SCG), which seems to be fairly clear-cut.

 

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In the Christchurch Test against Sri Lanka, New Zealand scored 257 runs without a break in play on the final day, after the first two sessions had been washed out. This is the most runs in a session by a single team, even if it stretches the definition of a 'session'.

 

The session lasted about 230 minutes, which is just a little short of the 241 minutes for the final session at Melbourne in 1998-99.

 

At the Oval in 1884, there were 259 runs after lunch on the final day. Back then there were no formal tea breaks on most days, including this one; there was a change of innings though, which lasted about 17 minutes.

 

The most in a more conventional session is 249 by South Africa against Zimbabwe in 2005, a 155-minute session. The most in a 2-hour session is still 236 by Australia at Johannesburg in 1921.

 

The Christchurch Test was only the second to reach a decisive result on the last possible ball, the other being the first Test at Durban in 1948-49. By coincidence, England also needed 8 runs off the last over (although it was an 8-ball over) of that match, and they won the match by 2 wickets with an extra off the last ball. It was a four-day match.

 

Two matches have been won with one ball to spare - Port of Spain 1934-35 (West Indies def England by 217 runs) and Leeds 2014 (Sri Lanka def England by 100 runs). The two Tied Tests also finished with one ball to spare. Two other Tests have been left drawn with the scores level at the end of the match.

 

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3 April 2023

 

Bowler v Batsman ‘Hat-Tricks’

Here is a list of 15 cases of bowlers who dismissed a batsman with three consecutive balls that he bowled to that batsman. The scores by the batsmen are given …

 

Bowl

Bat

RR Lindwall

AV Bedser 11(24), 2(11), 1(7)

1951-1953

CM Old

BS Bedi 0(4), 0(1), 0(2)

1974-1976

Intikhab Alam

DR Hadlee 16(45), 0(1), 0(2)

1969-1973

DK Lillee

J Garner 7(10), 0(1), 1(5)

1981-1982

VA Holder

JR Thomson 6(8), 0(2), 0(1)

1976-1978

J Garner

KJ Hughes 34(37), 0(1), 0(1)

1984

AR Caddick

CEL Ambrose 3(5), 0(1), 0(1)

2000

Waqar Younis

HH Streak 2(14), 0(1), 0(1)

1993

PAJ DeFreitas

KR Rutherford 37(83), 0(1), 7(18)

1994

J Srinath

PR Adams 1(7), 0(1), 1(4)

1996

SM Pollock

SK Warne 1(8), 12(28), 0(1)

1997-1998

SJ Harmison

Mashrafe Mortaza 0(3), 0(1), 1(5)

2005

MM Ali

Mohammed Shami 0(4), 19(22), 0(1)

2014-2018

Taijul Islam

TL Chatara 4(6), 1(4), 0(1)

2014-2018

MDK Perera

Usman Khawaja 11(44), 0(1), 11(29)

2016-2019

KA Jamieson

RL Chase 6(19), 0(1), 0(7)

2020

 

 

There are probably more cases. The first that I found, Ray Lindwall dismissing Alec Bedser, was spread across 2 series, so Bedser played quite a number of innings in between without facing Lindwall. Most recent is Kyle Jamieson dismissing Roston Chase in 2020-21.

 

Some of these 'hat-tricks' do not involve any golden ducks. Even those that do are complicated. In 2000 Andy Caddick got Curtley Ambrose three balls in a row that he bowled to him, the last two being first ball, but in between those ducks Ambrose played innings of 36* and 1 without facing Caddick.

 

Surprisingly perhaps, Ajit Agarkar is the only batsman in Test history to make 3 consecutive golden ducks. He went on to a fourth consecutive golden duck, and five dismissal in six balls, but he does not appear on the list because different bowlers were involved.

 

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At the other end of the scale, here is the updated list of the most runs scored by a single batsman off a single bowler. Pujara off Lyon now leads, a sign of the relatively high frequency of India/Australia Test matches in recent times. Although the number of runs is very high, the contest can be regarded as rather even, given that Lyon has now taken Pujara’s wicket 13 times. Steve Smith may have a chance to challenge this total in the upcoming Ashes, although he will have to bat well even if Broad get to play most of the Tests.

 

Individual Batsman v Bowler: Most Runs, all Tests

 

Bat

Bowl

Inns

Wkts

Balls

Runs

Av

R/100 b

CA Pujara

NM Lyon

33

13

1293

570

43.8

44

KC Sangakkara

Saeed Ajmal

22

4

1224

531

132.8

43

SPD Smith

SCJ Broad

40

9

1015

520

57.8

51

GA Gooch

N Kapil Dev

33

11

960

517

47.0

54

H Sutcliffe

CV Grimmett

28

7

1748

515

73.6

29

V Kohli

NM Lyon

31

7

1002

511

73.0

51

AR Border

IT Botham

41

12

1245

506

42.2

41

AR Border

JE Emburey

36

5

1189

504

100.8

42

JB Hobbs

AA Mailey

21

9

813

501

55.7

62

BC Lara

SK Warne

28

7

774

501

71.6

65

L Hutton

RR Lindwall

38

9

1070

499

55.4

47

DPMD Jayawardene

Harbhajan Singh

21

4

755

494

123.5

65

DG Bradman

WR Hammond

29

3

876

493

164.3

56

DI Gower

GF Lawson

33

14

874

485

34.6

55

WR Hammond

CV Grimmett

25

6

1232

483

80.5

39

 

All the above figures are reasonably exact. The highest total where estimates are necessary is Javed Miandad v Kapil Dev, estimated at 470.

 

The relevant section of the “Unusual Records” section has been updated.

 

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I have started working again on the Test Match Database, continuing (slowly) Test series from 2003. I hope one day to get the database up to about 2010.

 

 

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Cheteshwar Pujara has now scored more thqn 560 runs off the bowling of Nathan Lyon in Tests matches, taking the #1 position for a batsman off a single bower. I will update the list when the current Test in Ahmedabad is over.

 

 

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I have completed a rather large project – to scan and digitise all the paper scores for Test matches that I have collected, over 20 years or more. There are scores from more than 1550 Tests in the collection; quite a few of these Tests are represented by more than one score, and there are 30 more represented by ball-by-ball records from other sources.  Ball-by-ball records from Cricinfo and other online compilers are not included.

There may well be more than 2000 scores in the collection, running to 20,000 pages or more, and amounting to more than 25 GB. My wife’s A3 double-sided scanner has done sterling work to this end.

 

I plan to make copies so the material can be preserved in other hands. There are even a few scores in there for which the originals have gone missing since the copies were made, including the oldest one of all, the 1880 Test at the Oval. When I visited the Oval a few years ago, that score could not be found.

 

 

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7 March 2023

 

A Quick Visit to DRS

 

While I have it in front of me here are some broad stats on DRS, up to Jan 2023...

 

Tests with DRS: 447

DRS called on: 4795 times

Umpire decision overturned: 1285 times = 2.87 per Test

 

LBW:

303 not out decisions overturned by DRS, out of 1935 reviews.

511 OUT decisions overturned out of 1638

 

CWK:

181 not out decisions overturned out of 608  

161 OUT decisions overturned out of 273

 

Overall, there are more umpire decisions overturned in favour of batsmen than bowlers. However, the net effect is fairly small, averaging about one less dismissal every 2.4 Tests.

 

Conclusion: although DRS can have a major effect on individual innings, and on close matches in critical situations, its broad effect on statistics is not great.

Michael Jones commented that it is remarkable how many CWK OUT reviews, which are initiated by batsmen, are NOT overturned. You would think that the vast majority of batsmen would know when they have hit the ball. It shows that many reviews are desperation ploys, hoping somehow that a decision will be reversed without knowing how or why the reversal should apply. The figures also show that in many instances the players have little idea what is going on. Remember all those tantrums, before DRS, by bowlers and batsmen when a decision went against them? Well, much of the time they really had little idea whether the decision was right or wrong.

 

 

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My opinion of the pitches being produced in India for the Test matches, particularly the Indore pitch…

Imagine a part-time amateur groundsman in a small country town in the Australian outback, during a drought. If he produced a pitch like the Indore pitch he would be embarrassed and apologising.

 

Pitches don’t have to be like this. In ODIs in India, teams regularly get 350 in 50 overs (4 times in 6 matches in this season alone). It shows that respectable pitches can be made in India, although in some cases it goes too far the other way, in favour of batsmen. There is also plenty of big scoring in Indian first-class cricket – some of the pitches must be ok.

 

Test pitches have long favoured spinners in India; that’s all right, but this season it is going much too far. When Hayden scored plenty of runs in 2000-01, he played lots of sweep shots as I recall; it negated the spin. Now that is impossible because of the variable bounce.

 

Anyway, India was hoist on its own petard at Indore. Perhaps we will see an end to such extremes in the future.

 

I took a screenshot of a closeup of the pitch after the first day at Indore, from the TV broadcast. Martin Briggs wondered if it had been taken by Neil Armstrong on the moon. More like Mars, I think.

 

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Most ducks by a team in a first-class match…

In the famous MCC v Australians match at Lord's in 1878, lasting only one day, MCC (33 & 19) suffered 13 ducks. This was topped by "Muslims" versus "Europeans" at Poona in 1915, with Muslims (21 & 39) suffering 14 ducks.

 

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4 March 2023

 

A Player of the Series in 1951

 

At the end of the 1950-51 Ashes series, Len Hutton was given an award as best player, calculated using a runs/wickets/catches formula. The award, sponsored by the Vok liquor company, was worth one thousand pounds. Such a sum was big money in cricket in those days, when Australian Test players were lucky if they could make ten pounds per day. (The winner of The Open golf championship in 1950 won £300). Apparently, when the existence of the award had been announced earlier in the series, the players unanimously decided to share the prize equally, and this is what Hutton did.

 

Still, the award as it stood was effectively a Player of the Series award. I don’t know of any similar (single player) awards being made until John Edrich won Player of the Series in the 1968 Ashes; and even then the concept did not come into regular use until the late 1970s (Ian Botham in 1978). There were other Player of the Series awards in England in the late 60s, generally one for each team. Curiously, England returned to the double-award approach in 1986, and this continues, but in other countries the award is usually to a single player.

 

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A small breakthrough. I found a full score for the 4th Test of 1881-82 (Melbourne), and it was online! Years ago, someone had told me that this Test score was included in the 1882 Australian England tour book, which survives at Lord’s, and he sent me a copy, but only the first innings of the match. I assumed that that was all that was available. It turns out that the whole match score exists in that source, and a microfilm version was copied for a project for the National Library of Australia. Digitised versions are online here. And here.

 

This is the oldest surviving Test match score from Australia. I have re-scored the whole match now and posted corrected versions of the match data. As with many early scores, re-scoring this one was a bit of a struggle, but I hope the rendering is reasonable.

 

The 1882 team had already assembled in Melbourne by the time of that 1881-82 Test, and they sailed only three days after the match. Perhaps because of the imminent departure, the match was left drawn even though it had been scheduled as timeless. It was the last drawn Test in Australia until 1946-47.

 

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Harry Brook’s diamond duck in England’s one-run loss at Basin Reserve had me looking for cases of ‘first ball’ diamond ducks, that is batsmen run out without facing a ball, and from the first ball bowled after they came to the crease. Most Diamond duckers were at the wicket for a few balls before being run out, so the list is quite short…

 

“First Ball” Diamond Duck

W Attewell

Eng v Aus (3), Sydney (SCG) 1884/85

CA Walsh

WI v Eng (3), Birmingham (Edgbaston) 1995

Mohammad Asif

Pak v SL (2), Kandy 2005/06

Harbhajan Singh

Ind v Aus (1), Melbourne (MCG) 2007/08

JJ Bumrah

Ind v Eng (4), The Oval 2021

HC Brook

Wellington 2023

 

Brook is the first batsman to score a century and diamond duck in the same match. Brook has now scored 809 runs off 819 balls, and is well on track for the fastest first one thousand runs in Tests, in balls faced. Tim Southee is currently the fastest with 1132 balls, ahead of Colin de Grandhomme second.

 

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Four instances in ODIs of a pair of batsmen reaching  a century off consecutive balls…

 

RS Dravid SC Ganguly Ind v SL, Nagpur 22-Mar-1999

 

SR Waugh MG Bevan Aus v SAf, Docklands Stadium 16-Aug-2000

 

G Gambhir V Kohli Ind v SL, Kolkata 24-Dec-2009

 

KC Sangakkara TM Dilshan Sco v SL, Hobart 11-Mar-2015

 

It is curious that there are no known instances in Tests, given that there are two cases of a century and double century off consecutive balls. At Durban in 1999, Gary Kirsten reached 200 off CJ Adams and Mark Boucher reached 100 off the next ball. At Adelaide in 2012-13, Michael Clarke reached 200 off Imran Tahir, and Mike Hussey reached 100 off the next ball.

I found 14 cases in Tests of batsmen reaching century milestones in the same over.

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Batsmen who batted both left-handed and right-handed in a Test innings…

Salim Malik, Faisalabad 1986-87 (right-handed to left-handed)

Talat Ali, Adelaide 1972-73 (left-handed to right-handed)

Both batsmen had hand/arm injuries.

Also Joe Root at Rawalpindi in 2022. Not sure why he did this, but he was dropped off the second ball that he faced left-handed, and reverted to type immediately thereafter.

 

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A reminiscence triggered by Australia losing two batsmen retired hurt in the Melbourne Test against South Africa…

 

I was at the ground the day that the three West Indians went RH. There were 53,000 at the SCG, what a day. My brother and I got there an hour before the start of play, but had to sit on the steps of the stand, which was already full. The noise was immense, peaking as Thomson bowled the ball; it sounded like baying for blood. I greatly admired the concentration of Lawrence Rowe, scoring 67 without helmet or much of the modern protection. Thomson (3-117) was dangerous but inaccurate.

 

Funnily, my memory says that Thomson inflicted all three injuries, but, on checking, Holding was actually hit by Greg Chappell's bowling! Holding retired on the last ball of the day. The next morning Holding wanted to return, but was disallowed. Julien instead returned to the crease, which was not permitted at the time, but the umpires overlooked that.

 

I also went to the fourth day of that match. We sat side-on to the wicket. When Thomson (6-50) was bowling, I simply could not see the ball once it left his hand.

 

Thomson also took a great outfield catch on the first day,

 

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9 February 2023

 

Dropped Catches Report for 2022

 

I have done a search for Test match dropped catches (and missed stumpings), along the lines of previous years, using the Cricinfo ball-by-ball texts. This study now spans back more than 20 years. For 2022, the analysis was assisted by Garry Morgan, who kindly sent me his list of dropped catches.

I don’t know how much there is to say about the overall figures. After some years of a very gradual if slow improvement in catching, the 2022 rate rose again to close to the long-term average.

 

2022

2021

2016-2020

2010-2015

South Africa

21%

18%

21.4%

21.7%

Australia

31%

18%

22.6%

21.3%

New Zealand

23%

15%

19.8%

20.9%

Sri Lanka

29%

29%

24.6%

27.7%

India

23%

21%

24.9%

28.0%

England

18%

25%

23.1%

24.9%

Zimbabwe

25%

28.9%

32.4%

Pakistan

33%

29%

21.4%

31.4%

West Indies

20%

23%

23.8%

25.7%

Bangladesh

31%

29%

32.6%

33.9%

All

24.6%

23.3%

24.3%

25.4%

 

Certainly the most striking thing about 2022 was the poor catching of Australia, rising from 18% missed in 2021 to 31% in 2022, which is by far the worst single-year performance recorded for Australia in this century. I had picked up 52 misses by Australia, so many that I went back and checked them all, but all of them seemed reasonable. The only caveat is that 34 of the 52 misses were regarded as difficult chances, which is a higher proportion than normal (which is around half). There were 26 % drops off Australian batsmen in the same set of Tests.

The missed chances include three missed stumpings by Alex Carey, who has yet to complete a successful stumping in Tests.

 

For batsmen, what they say about Marnus Labuschagne seems to be true; he gets dropped more than almost anyone else. Labuschagne has been dropped off 38% of the chances that he has offered, more than anyone who has played over 30 Tests, except for Taufeeq Umar (also 38%). Virender Sehwag saw 37 % of his chances dropped; that at least could be explained by the fact that he hit the ball harder than anyone else. The explanation for Marnus eludes me. If the drop rate for Marnus had been normal, he would lose three or four runs off his batting average.

England’s value of 18% is the team’s best performance for any single year in this dataset.

 

There is a ‘tussle’ at the top of the bowler’s list, with Stuart Broad retaking the lead over Jimmy Anderson. Broad has had 136 chances dropped to Anderson’s 132: surprising, perhaps. Note that this is 21st Century data; we don’t have complete numbers for the likes of Muralitharan or Warne. Next after Anderson is Harbhajan on 99 misses, but again data is not complete here, since Harbhajan started out in 1998. However, it is possible to extrapolate the missing data to produce an estimate of 115 missed chances in total for Harbhajan.

 

 

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Who attended the most Test matches in person?

 

In 2003, Richie Benaud said he had attended 486 Tests. We don't know the exact number after that but the total will be around 550. That is around 25% of all Tests up to the time of his death, or 31% of Tests that were played while he was actively attending them.

 

No one is particularly close to Benaud in number of Tests. Pakistani journalist Qamar Ahmed has over 450, while John Woodcock, who died last year, was also well over 400.

 

Bill Ferguson scored 204 of the first 382 Test matches. His scoring career extended from WG Grace to Garfield Sobers. There had been 443 Tests played when he died.

 

 

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At the Gabba, South African bowler A Nortje bowled two deliveries in one over that went for 5 wides. I can only find one precedent (including 4 wides): Neil Johnson of Zimbabwe against England at Trent Bridge in 2000, in the 104th over.

 

Johnson is only debited with 2 wides in that innings, but both went to the boundary.

 

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Thinking about king pairs, I wondered if there was a bowler’s equivalent, that is a bowler taking a wicket with his first ball in each innings of a Test.

 

Turns out to be a very short list and rarer than a king pair.

 

MC Bird       Eng v SAf (1), Johannesburg 1909/10

Z Khan         Ind v Ban (2), Dhaka (Mirpur) 2007

AR Patel       Eng v Ind (3), Ahmedabad (Patel) 2020/21

 

Zaheer Khan’s effort was as an opening bowler, inflicting a king pair on Javed Omar.

 

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The last time a Test finished in 2 days and had more than 33 wickets, as in the Gabba Test v South Africa, was Port Elizabeth 1895-96 (40 wickets). Two other Tests lasting 2 days had 40 wickets: The Oval 1882 (the Ashes Test) and Lord's 1888. The Oval 1890 had 38.

 

One of the Tests of 1912 had 37 wickets on the first 2 days, but it went into a third day.

 

These Tests were all limited to 3 days.

 

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Seeing two batsmen retiring hurt on the same day (Warner and Green) in the South Africa MCG Test had me reminiscing about the day that three West Indians retired hurt in 1976…

 

There were 53,000 at the SCG, what a day. My brother and I  got there an hour before the start of play, but had to sit on the steps of the stand. The noise was immense, peaking as Thomson bowled the ball; it sounded like baying for blood. I greatly admired the concentration of Lawrence Rowe, scoring 67 without helmet or much of the modern protection. Thomson was dangerous but erratic.

 

Funnily, my memory says that Thomson inflicted all three injuries, but, on checking, Holding was actually hit by Greg Chappell's bowling! Holding retired on the last ball of the day, mid-over. The next morning Holding wanted to return, but was disallowed. Julien instead returned to the crease, which was not permitted at the time, but the umpires overlooked that.

 

I also went to the fourth day of that match. We sat side-on to the wicket. Even though we were in the front row on the fence. when Thomson (6-50) was bowling, I simply could not see the ball.

 

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31 December 2022

 

What is a Fair Qualification?

 

When comparing player careers and many other stats, it is routine to place qualifications on the data, particularly minimum matches or runs or etc. List the highest career batting averages, and Kyle Patterson (144.0 in two Tests) is at the top, ahead of Andy Ganteaume, but apply a reasonable minimum and the list comes out rather differently.

 

But what is a reasonable qualification for such stats? I have seen lists of highest batting averages that variously have players like CS Dempster, SG Barnes, RG Pollock, and GA Headley right near the top (below Bradman of course). On the other hand, I have seen qualifications so high that even Bradman is excluded.

 

I looked at the question by taking the population of recognised batsmen (about 90 of them) who have played 80 or more Tests and looked at their career progression in terms of ‘average average’ and standard deviation at different stages of their careers. The aim here is to look at how the spread of the stats levels out as careers get longer – it is not necessary to include shorter careers with this aim in mind.

 

 

Chart, line chart

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Batting average in general is relatively steady, but with an upward trend probably due to those great players who had very long careers, and were still reaching their peak after they had played 50 Tests.

 

Of greater interest is the standard deviation of the batting average. Early on, averages are quite variable, but as careers progress, there is ‘regression to the mean’, the lesser batsmen tend to improve (those who don’t get dropped and don’t play 80 Tests) while the high flyers come back to the pack. After ten Tests, TT Samaraweera had an average of 83.0 and Mushfiqur Rahim 16.2. They finished their careers with averages of 48 and 38 respectively.

As careers progress, the standard deviation flattens out, with little change after 35 Tests. The populations of averages after 35 Tests look rather similar to those much further along the career path. I would suggest that it takes a minimum of 30 Tests (selecting a round number) to get a reasonable handle on a player’s status, and that is where I would set the minimum for career comparison.

 

This has the effect of excluding some notables like Graham Pollock (60.97 in 23 Tests) and George Headley (60.83 in 22 Tests). I think that that these careers were just a bit too limited to get a clear fix on their abilities. Chances are that they would have regressed towards the mean if they had enjoyed longer careers.

Can this effect be estimated? I looked at all batsmen who played 50 Tests or more. Some 36 of them, out of 200, had averages of over 50 after 20 Tests (ten of them were over 60). Only six of the 36 still had averages over 50 after 50 Tests, and only four had actually improved on  their 20-Test average by the end of their careers (Hutton, Sobers, Gavaskar, Sangakkara). This suggests that the chances are very high that Pollock’s and Headley’s averages would have declined if they had had opportunity to play 50 Tests or more. I estimate that their decline would most likely be from around 61 to around 53, based on the experiences of the others who had extremely high averages after 20 Tests and went on to long careers.

This can only be an estimate. Some batsmen have greatly improved, from a low base, after their 20th Test. The shining example is Steve Smith, whose average was only 40 after 20 Tests but had exceeded 60 in his 50th Test, and remains there after 90 Tests. Steve Waugh almost doubled his 20-Test average by the end of his career.


Only three other batsmen held an average of over 60 after 50 Tests: Bradman, Sutcliffe, and Hobbs. Hobbs’s average dropped to 56 when he retired after 61 Tests.

 

 

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