Review of England-West Indies Tests-2020-II

Hope that you have seen part 1 ( https://abn397.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/review-of-england-west-indies-tests-2020-i/ )

We now look at Bowling figures.

Most wickets (60 or more):

The top two were contemporaries at a time when WI were declining from their peak. Broad is the only current player.

The most 5-fors were by Ambrose (8) and Gibbs (7), while several (including Broad) had two 10-fors.

Most wickets in an innings (8wi and above):

The only one from recent years was Chase’s 8-60 in 2019.

Most wickets in a Test (11wm and above):

Broad’s 10-67 is the best in recent years.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, maximum 30.00):

While Garner and Ambrose lead the averages, Valentine and Ramadhin have the best economy rates and Marshall and Holding the best strike rates. An equitable distribution of work.

Now for Fielding statistics:

Most dismissals (25 or more):

Buttler is the only current player here.

The most stumpings were by Ames (11), the most catches by a keeper by DL Murray (90) and the most by a non-keeper by Lara (45)  and Sobers (40).

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

Best dismissal ratio (Minimum 20 innings and 0.750)

Only Root from recent times. The best by a non-keeper is 0.916 by Hammond and 0.863 by Constantine. Also see the figures for the “hybrids” Stewart and Walcott.

All-round performances (see criteria below):

Minimum 20 innings batted, 2000 balls, 3+ fifties, 3+ 4wi:

Sobers is far ahead of the others. Oddly enough Holding is in second place. Botham did not perform well against WI.

Match performances (Minimum one fifty and one 5wi):

Most of the famous names are here, with Stokes, Chase (2) and Broad in recent years.

The double of 100/5wi was reached by Sobers and Greig, while the double of 50/10 wm was reached by Boyce and Broad.

Review of England-West Indies Tests-2020-I

England won the series 2-1, leading to this points table for the WTC:

England gained 80 points and WI 40 points in this series.

The record for Tests between these countries:

England extended its lead for matches at home, although WI still lead overall.

We now look at Batting records:

Most runs-1200 and above:

The most centuries (10) are by Sobers, followed Richards and Headley  with 8.

The most scores above 50 are 23 by Richards and Sobers, followed by Chanderpaul with 21.

Note the absence of any current players in this list. The most recent is Cook.

Highest innings (200 or more):

Here the only score by a current player is at the bottom (202* by Holder). Note the 1-2 by Lara, both world records at the time.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 40.00):

Hutton and Headley are far ahead of the others. Stokes and Cook are the only ones here from the past few years.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls, 55.00):

While No 2 is predictable, No 1 is not. He had scored a century on debut against WI.

Blackwood and Stokes represent the current players.

Continued in https://abn397.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/review-of-england-west-indies-tests-2020-ii/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other double: 50 + 10 wkts in a match

Most of those who follow Test cricket know about the double of a century and 5wi in a match. This has been done 32 times, with the last occasion being the present WI player Roston Chase in 2016.

The lesser-known double is that of 50 and 10wm, which is slightly rarer and has been done on 30 occasions. Stuart Broad joined this list in the 3rd Test against West Indies in 2020.

This seems to be a little harder to achieve compared to the other double. Sir Richard Hadlee is the only one to do it 3 times and Shakib Al Hasan the only one to do it twice. Kapil, Botham and Imran duly appear here. “Sir” Jadeja is the only other player from India here.

In a mirror of Bruce Taylor’s 100 + 5wi against India on his debut in 1965, only one player John Lever has  managed 50 + 10 wm also against India in 1976. Oddly enough S Venkataraghavan was in India’s team on both occasions.

There are some odd cases here involving players who were not generally considered all-rounders, such as Qadir, Border, Bevan and Steyn. And others who had short careers such as Lever, Nash and Craig. But most of the big names of the past few decades are there.

The elite group with a century and 10-for includes Botham, Imran, Shakib and honorary member Davidson with 100 runs and 10-for.

Broad achieved this in the nick of time, taking the last wicket of the match to complete his tenner.

Multiple changes in station signs

There are some stations whose names have changed twice in the last few years.

We start with Karnataka, where we have:

And the better known:

Over to Uttar Pradesh:

Given a chance, there will be many more in the future.

Going a little further back:

Olavakkot Jn -> Palghat Jn -> Palakkad Jn

Palghat Town -> Palakkad Town

Or this trio from Vidarbha:

Wardha East Jn -> Sewagram Jn

Sewagram -> Varud

Paunar -> Seloo Road

From Jaipur:

Sanganer -> Sanganer Jn -> Getor Jagatpura

Sanganer Town -> Sanganer Town Jn -> Sanganer

(And these two locations are more than 10 km apart)

And now Sanskrit on station signs

There are a number of unusual languages which you could see on station signs in India, ranging from Dogri to Maithili to “Manipuri” to Ol-Chiki, which you can read about here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2019/11/26/unusual-languages-on-signboards-in-india/

But there were no signs in Sanskrit until now.

A little background first. Uttar Pradesh has had Hindi as well as Urdu as official languages for a long time. They had the status of co-official languages since 1989.

Sanskrit has been declared an official language in Uttarakhand as well as Himachal Pradesh. The latter state does not seem to have done much about introducing Sanskrit in signs, but Uttarakhand has.

Official languages in different states can be seen here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status_in_India#List_of_scheduled_languages_of_India

And this news item from Uttarakhand:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/sanskrit-to-replace-urdu-at-uttarakhand-stations/articleshow/73365137.cms

The replacement of Urdu by Sanskrit in station signs has started. We first look at the state capital:

And another important town:

Rishikesh goes a step further. First the original sign:

A new station will be opened shortly as part of the proposed new line to Karnaprayag. The original name was planned to be New Rishikesh:

But it is now going to be:

Not sure if Yogi Adityanath has anything to do with it, although he was originally from Pauri Garhwal district in Uttaranchal. Anyway, this is what the new station looks like.

And this new design of a station sign seems to use more material and space.

Another interesting point is that the Sanskrit inscription is on top unlike in the signs of Dehradun and Haridwar.

It is the normal practice to have the main local language on top followed by English and Hindi, as you can see here:

Does it mean that Sanskrit has more importance than Hindi in Uttarakhand? However, one can see that there is a lot of inconsistency in such matters.

There are numerous examples of places in India which carry languages of other states:

5 languages in this one in Karnataka:

Also in Telangana:

Numerous examples of signs with 4 languages, which include those of neighbouring states:

In Kerala-Tamil in the second row.

In Tamil Nadu-Malayalam on the right side.

In Bihar -Urdu still has official status, with Bengali also there:

Jharkhand -includes Odiya and Bengali

Also in Jharkhand, with Urdu and Bengali

Also in Jharkhand: Bengali was in the old sign but not in the new sign.

Do you see any consistency 🙂

Finally, Himachal Pradesh also has Sanskrit as its official language. But they are not interested in changing the signs. And they have not deleted any language which was already there:

The “official” version can be seen in this news report. But the Sanskrit signs have appeared anyway before the writer noticed them:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-how-indian-railways-names-stations-and-decides-on-languages-to-use-6505315/