New line between Chhota Udepur and Alirajpur

Scheduled passenger services have commenced between Chhota Udepur (Gujarat) and Alirajpur (MP). Timings of the single passenger train can be seen in the links below. It originates at Pratapnagar in Vadodara:

https://erail.in/trains-between-stations/chhota-udepur-CTD/alirajpur-ARPR?train=59121

https://erail.in/trains-between-stations/alirajpur-ARPR/pratap-nagar-PRTN?train=59120

The narrow gauge branch between Pratapnagar at Chhota Udepur via Dabhoi was converted to broad gauge some years ago.

A map of existing and proposed lines in this area:

https://indiarailinfo.com/station/map/alirajpur-arpr/10950

This line will be extended to Dhar, which is on the line from Dahod to Mhow. These lines may take a few years to complete.

More about bowling averages

Ever wondered about the average of Test bowling averages?

If we take all Tests up to Oct 25, 2019 and disregarding the Test involving the ICC XI in 2005, and a cutoff of 2000 balls bowled:

There are 613 bowlers fitting this criteria. A full statement:

Bowling averages-final

The bowling averages range from GA Lohmann’s 10.75 to EAR de Silva’s 129.00, which is the only 3-figure bowling average.

The average or mean bowling average is 34.45, which corresponds to that of JE Taylor and KD Mackay.

Looking at other measures of central tendency:

First quartile: 28.24 (SP Jones, RJ Sidebottom, HC Griffith)

Median: 32.92 (BL Cairns, L Amarnath)

Third quartile: 38.59 (AMB Rowan).

We also have the Economy Rate, which ranges from 1.31 runs/over for W Attewell to 4.16 for Shahadat Hossain.

The average is 2.75 (DK Lillee, RM Hogg)

And the Strike Rate, which ranges from 34.10 balls/wicket by GA Lohmann to 291.00 by EAR de Silva. Remember that they have the best and worst bowling averages as well.

We may as well have a closer look at them:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/16337.html

http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/48456.html

The average is 76.10 by Iqbal Qasim.

Next we will take up the difference between home and away bowling averages, as was done for batting averages in a recent post.

 

 

More about batting averages

Here is the table showing the batting averages for all 1105 players who batted in at least 20 innings up to 25 Oct 2019:

Averages Oct 2019-Complete

The averages range from 99.94 (DG Bradman) to 2.00 (M Mbangwa).

The mean of these averages is 27.07, and those closest to it are KR Rutherford, JJ Lyons and PA Strang.

Looking at other measures of central tendency:

First quartile: 36.16 (Wasim Raja)

Median: 26.52 (PR Reiffel, RW Marsh)

Third quartile: 16.28 (RW Taylor, BL Cairns)

 

Differences between home and away batting averages

A common topic of discussion among cricket’s number-crunchers is the difference between home and away batting averages.

Here, we consider the differences for the 534 players who have batted in at least 20 innings both in home and away/neutral Tests.

The full list of Home average-Away/Neutral average can be seen in this spreadsheet.

Home-away main display

This is for Tests up to Oct 25, 2019. The 2005 Test involving the ICC XI is not included.

However, you may find it simpler to look at the top 40, whose home average has the greatest positive difference  with the away/neutral average. Or those who derive the greatest advantage from home conditions.

Note that some prominent players such as RG Sharma do not feature here as they have not completed 20 innings in one of the two categories.

Many of the current Pakistani players are not here because they have played few or no Tests at home.

The top positions are the unlikely trio of VS Hazare, Kamran Akmal and Mominul Haque-all from the Asian teams. Next come Rowe and Walcott from the West Indies. Warner, Khawaja and Clarke are the highest among Australians, Compton and May from the English, HP Tillakratne from Sri Lanka, HW Taylor from South Africa, McCullum from New Zealand and GJ Whittall from Zimbabwe.

We now go to the other extreme, those who have the greatest negative difference, or those who derive the strongest advantage from away and neutral conditions.

Unlike in the first table, the first few positions are from a wider variety of teams.

BC Broad (Eng) has the only such difference less than -30. While he had a reasonable career as a batsman, his bowler son Stuart Broad is better known.

Then other leaders from their teams are DM Bravo (WI), S Wettimuny (SL), M Amarnath (Ind), PA Strang (Zim), WR Endean (SA), JW Burke (Aus), JR Reid (NZ), Saleem Yousuf (Pak). Perhaps it is understandable that there is no one from Bangladesh in the top 40. The best from BD is Javed Omar (102nd with -2.83).

The median difference among the 534 players is 3.14, matched by RJ Shastri and GG Arnold. That might imply that most batsmen would be expected to average 3 runs more at home than away/neutral.

Those closest to a zero difference (whose batting averages are practically the same home and away) are Waqar Younis (-0.04) along with HM Amla (0.09 ) and Intikhab Alam (-0.10)

In case you are wondering, DG Bradman is 457th out of 534, being one of those who did better away. His difference is 98.22-102.84 = -4.62.

 

 

The slowest ducks

The diamond ducks represent the quickest ducks, where the batsmen did not get to face a single ball. Here we look at the slowest ducks both by balls faced and by batting time.

Slowest ducks by balls faced:

GI Allott’s 77-ball duck  was in the first innings when New Zealand was facing a large score of 621/5 dec by South Africa. Allott helped CZ Harris put on 32 for the last wicket. New Zealand had to follow on but saved the match easily.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/15856/scorecard/63834/new-zealand-vs-south-africa-1st-test-south-africa-tour-of-new-zealand-1998-99

JM Anderson’s 55-ball duck was more tragic. He was known to be a stubborn batsman and it was not surprising that he hung on for 55 balls and 81 minutes, putting on 21 for the last wicket with MM Ali (who made a century in his second Test). However, Anderson was dismissed with one ball left:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/11718/scorecard/667901/england-vs-sri-lanka-2nd-investec-test-sri-lanka-tour-of-england-and-ireland-2014

Sri Lanka thus won the 2-Test series 1-0. What was more ironic was that they had drawn the first Test with the last pair at the wicket, although the last man N Pradeep only needed to survive 5 balls.

From recent times we have ML Cummins (45 balls) vs India in 2019.

Slowest ducks by minutes batted:

Allott and Anderson head this list as well. Here we have a couple of older instances where the number of balls faced is not known.

From recent times we have India’s JJ Bumrah (52 minutes, 14 balls). and WI’s AS Joseph (51 min, 22 balls). It appears that most tailenders are capable of such innings once in a while, even if they do not score runs.

To round this off we have these tables which include unbeaten zeroes:

Slowest zeroes and unbeaten zeroes by balls faced:

Slowest zeroes and unbeaten zeroes by minutes batted:

The slowest unbeaten zero is by AP Sheahan (52 minutes, 44 balls). This came in a follow-on after Australia had been dismissed for 78 in a rare collapse. Sheahan was a regular batsman unlike the tailenders mentioned above.

Australia saved this match while the series was drawn. Like most Ashes series of the 1960s, it was marked by slow batting.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/17293/scorecard/63024/england-vs-australia-2nd-test-australia-tour-of-england-1968

There are no long-drawn out unbeaten zeroes in recent years.

 

 

Diamond ducks in Tests

After looking at fast scoring, we look at the lack of scores. Different kinds of ducks and pairs have been enumerated in various posts. We now concentrate on diamond ducks, where a batsman is dismissed without facing a ball. This usually happens when he is run out at the non-striker’s end. Less often, it could be when he is stumped or run out off a wide.

The number of balls faced in a batsman’s innings was not always recorded in the past. These are the undisputed cases of diamond ducks up to Oct 25, 2019:

The only one to have two of these ducks is CS Martin, sometimes considered as the worst ever batsman in Tests. Ken Rutherford, Umar Gul and Nuwan Pradeep are the only ones to score diamond ducks on debut. Rutherford got a pair including this duck, but went on to become a successful batsman. Many years later his son Hamish Rutherford made 171 on debut.

Umar Gul and Younis Khan batted the longest-7 minutes each.

There is no case of a diamond pair. The closest approach to one appears to be that of Taufeeq Umar who scored a pair with innings of 0 and 2 balls, thus scoring 0 in two innings with 2 balls which is the equivalent of a “king pair” or dismissal off the first ball of each innings.

Also note: There have been 152 diamond ducks in ODIs. The last were by AU Rashid and MA Wood, who were the last two batsmen dismissed in the World Cup final between England and New Zealand on July 14, 2019.

There have also been 50 diamond ducks in T20Is.

Celebrate Goebbels Jayanti on Oct 29

As students of Whatsapp University and Quora know, many people in India feel that the Nazi way of doing things is a good idea, starting with concentration camps.

Much of the success of the Nazi party was due to the well organized propaganda largely run by Joseph Goebbels. Thus, if you are going to celebrate Hitler Jayanti on April 20, you should also celebrate Goebbels Jayanti on October 29.

If you need to refresh your memory, see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

Some points of interest: He was indeed Hitler’s chosen successor, as he became Chancellor after Hitler’s death on April 30, 1945. This was only for about 24 hours as he committed suicide the next day.

More precisely, he and his wife Magda committed suicide after they had killed all their six children. Only one son of Magda by her previous husband survived, as he was in a POW camp at that time.

He was one of the better-educated Nazi leaders, with a PhD from the then famous University of Heidelberg.

The first few minutes of this video are interesting viewing:

Here he listens to a long question (in English) from an American journalist and immediately gives a long answer in German. Apparently he understood English quite well, like some of his colleagues (but not Hitler who knew only a little French apart from German).

Some of his “achievements” involved motivating film-makers like Leni Riefenstahl to produce films like “Triumph of the Will” and the documentaries about the 1936 Olympics, still recognized as trend-setters in propaganda and sports documentaries. They can be seen on Youtube.

Unlike her mentors, she led a long life and died in 2003 at the age of 101.

The fastest micro-innings batting

As we have seen here https://abn397.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/umesh-yadavs-batting-record/

The fastest score of 25+ was 31/10 balls, with a strike rate of 310.00

For 50+, it is 54/25 balls and 216.00

For 100+, it is 110*/58 balls and 189.65

Now let use see about the highest strike rates for innings lasting for one to six balls.

There is no record of anyone scoring more than a zero off zero balls, though it may be theoretically possible under some obscure rule.

Here you have only 0* and 0, the latter being diamond ducks.

Now for 1-ball innings:

There is only one such innings involving a six, and it is fittingly by Jayasuriya with an SR of 600. Next is Ishant Sharma with 5 (a single plus 4 overthrows) and 500. Then there are those who scored a 4 or 3 off one ball. Ishant Sharma appears again. At least half of the batsmen here are tailenders. Even the famous batsman CS Martin has scored 4 off one ball! So has NM Lyon.

2-ball innings:

There are four batsmen (all tailenders) who have made 7 off two balls. They would have made a 6 and a single, apart from Muralitharan who made a 4 and a 3. Then there are 6s and 5s. Here we do not meet a recognized batsman until Sir Richard Hadlee (?) and AL Logie. The only current players are Wafadar of Afghanistan and India’s Mohammed Shami.

3-ball innings:

The highest off 3 balls is 12* by Misbah, including two sixes and a dot. Murali has 6,4 and dot while Shami has two fours and a two. Others have made 6 runs with one four. Muralitharan appears three times here. The proportion of recognized batsmen is more here, including current players Mushfiqur and Malan along with Shami.

4-ball innings:

The maximum here is 12, either by 3 fours (de Villiers and Warner) or 2 sixes (Henry). Warner, Henry and M Marsh represent the current players.

5-ball innings:

The best here is by Southee (another expert tailend slogger) with 3 sixes in his 20. He has also made 13 to be in second place with Pietersen.

6-ball innings:

The highest here is 17* which is less than the 20 in 5 balls. Ntini made his 16* with 4 fours. KMA Paul’s 12 included 3 fours.

Having come so far, we can also see

Most successive sixes:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284014.html

Kapil’s 4 successive sixes came when averting the follow-on with No 11 at the other end. The No 11 (Hirwani) was out just after the follow-on was averted. There are numerous current players here (such as Southee) besides old-timers such as Hammond.

And finally,

Most successive fours:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284011.html

All 6 balls by Jayasuriya, Sarwan and Gayle (although Sarwan had a no-ball interspersed after 4 sixes. DW Hookes hit 5 fours on his debut, which came in the Centenary Test of 1977. So did RE Redmond, a staple of quiz questions.

50-plus on Test debut and never again

We have already considered the case of those who scored a century on Test debut and never again:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2019/09/26/century-on-debut-and-never-again/

and

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2019/09/27/century-on-debut-and-not-even-a-fifty-again/

Here we look at the cases of those who scored 50+ on debut and never again.

There are 117 players who scored 123 scores of 50+ on debut-see the list below.

Fifty plus on debut and never again

The only double century here is by DSBP Kuruppu, and there are several other centuries.

Also note the cases of those who scored 50+ in both innings, but never again.

 

 

The Novels of Larper Hee

She first became famous for this one in 1960:

Many years later there came this sequel:

But this was unauthorized. It was actually called “Go Watch a Set Man”.

200+ scores for and against India

RG Sharma made the 54th score of 200 and above in a Test for India. These include 3 of 300+ and 51 from 200-299. Kohli has the most such scores (7), although Sehwag has the highest scores both inside and outside India. Outside Asia, we go quite far down until we reach Tendulkar’s 241* at Sydney.

The first such score was Umrigar’s 223 in 1955, equalled in the next month by Mankad and then surpassed by him with 231 which remained the record until Gavaskar’s 236* in 1983.This was surpassed by VVS Laxman’s 281 in 2001, Sehwag’s 309 in 2004 and again by him in 2008.

The highest in a win is 309 by Sehwag, in a loss 201* by Sehwag and in a draw 319 by (who else) Sehwag. An unique triple.

Now we see who did the same against India:

4 triple centuries and 47 from 200-299.

McCullum and Ponting have each done this 3 times against India.

The highest score here is Jayasuriya’s 340, the highest outside Asia is Gooch’s 333 and the highest in India is M Jayawardene’s 275.

The best in a victory is 333 by Gooch, in a defeat 242 by Ponting and in a draw 340 by Jayasuriya. In fact, Ponting’s 242 is the highest in any Test defeat.

Umesh Yadav’s batting record-1

Guess who has scored the fastest ever 25+ score in Tests:

(Actually the fastest ever 30+)

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284192.html

Other things you can observe here:

Highest strike rates for 50+ scores:

JH Kallis, 54 off 25, 216.00

DW Steyn, 58 off 28, 207.14

DA Warner, 55 off 27, 203.70

TG Southee, 77* off 40, 192.50

IVA Richards, 110* off 58, 189.65

And then to

Highest strike rate for centuries:

IVA Richards, 110* off 58, 189.65

BB McCullum, 145 off 79, 183.54

Misbah-ul-Haq, 101* off 57, 177.19

AC Gilchrist, 102* off 59, 172.88

BB McCullum, 195 off 134, 145.52