It was interesting to see New Zealand saving a Test against India with the last-wicket pair being of Indian origin. While AY Patel was born in Bombay in 1988, R Ravindra was born in New Zealand in 1999. There are a few others with Indian-sounding names who were born in New Zealand.
Here we attempt to enumerate the members of 2 categories
1. Born in India (including pre-partition India):
FT Badcock (Abbottabad, 1897)-presumably British-7 Tests
AY Patel (Bombay, 1988)-10
N Puna (Surat, 1929)-3
JA Raval (Gujarat, 1988)-24
IS Sodhi (Ludhiana, 1992)-17
2. Indian-sounding name, not born in India:
DN Patel (Kenya, 1958)-37
JS Patel (New Zealand, 1980)-24
R Ravindra (New Zealand, 1999)-1
Those of Gujarati origin just outnumber the others. Badcock, Sodhi and Ravindra are the exceptions.
Among these players, it was Nairobi-born Dipak Patel who played the most Tests for New Zealand. He was a member of the 99 Club, and finished with 1200 runs and 75 wickets. Next are JA Raval and JS Patel who played 24 Tests each.
Yet another Test which was saved by the last-wicket pair. This has happened more often than you might think. The last 2 instances were in the last few weeks.
Here is the complete list of these instances, ending with the Aus-Eng Test at Sydney (Jan 2022):
There are some interesting stories here, including cases where the batting side came close to winning (Eng vs WI in 1963 and Ind v WI in 2011).
The first such instance was by India in 1946, when the long-forgotten pair of Sohoni and Hindlekar put on 14 for the last wicket. More recently, Dhoni and Sreesanth put on 19 in 2007.
India have been thwarted by the last wicket thrice: by WI in 1978 and 2006, and by NZ in 2021. In 2011, India ended needing 1 run to win with 9 wickets down.
There have been only two such instances in Ashes Tests: Australia surviving at Manchester in 2005, and England doing the same at Sydney in 2022.
Shreyas Iyer was the third Indian player and 40th overall to make two 50+ scores on debut:
Earlier Dilawar Hussain (59 & 57 in 1934) and SM Gavaskar (65 and 67* in 1971) had achieved this.
From the above table, we can also see that Shreyas was the first Indian player and 16th overall to score a century and a fifty+ on debut. This 16 included the special cases of LG Rowe and Yasir Hameed who scored twin centuries on debut.
CG Greenidge (93 & 107 in 1974) and AN Cook (104 & 60* in 2006) did so against India.
Now we look at the most runs made in debut Test (this is not the same as the above chart, as some would not have made 50+ in both innings.
Here the cutoff is 160 runs.
Iyer made 105 + 65 =170.
This is the third highest for India (after S Dhawan’s 187 and RG Sharma’s 177) and 28th overall. J Neesham also made 170 on debut, but is ranked above Iyer as his performance was earlier.
Also note CG Greenidge’s 200 (93 and 107) J Neesham’s 170 (33 & 137*), MJ Clarke’s 168 (151+ 17), AN Cook’s 164 (60 & 104*), DL Houghton’s 162 (121 & 41*) and CH Lloyd’s 160 (82 & 78*) against India
Another curiosity is that of the forgotten BM Laird’s 167 runs, which is the highest match total on debut by someone who did not score a century. Next are CH Lloyd and Fakhar Zaman both with 160.
And finally:
New Zealand was set to score 284 in the 4th innings to win this Test.
Guess what the highest winning chase at this venue was?
This doesn’t mean much as the Green Park has had many drawn matches, and is probably the most batting-friendly pitch among India’s older Test centres
This is rarer than you might imagine. It is not listed in Statsguru or any of the common reference books on cricket oddities. It has happened only three times in Tests, the third instance being in the ongoing Test between India and New Zealand at Kanpur.
A full list of instances in first-class cricket is given here:
TWM Latham was dismissed for 95 in the first innings.
KS Bharat had not played Tests earlier. Besides the stumping, he also took 2 catches as a substitute.
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See Steve Lynch’s comments in his column on 30 Nov 2021:
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Note:
These are the only 3 cases in Tests when the wicket-keeper was not a member of the playing XI.
There are numerous other instances where members of the playing XI acted as wicket-keepers when the nominated keeper became unfit. There are as many as 54 instances when these substitute keepers took catches. And 16 instances where they took stumpings:
Interestingly, the only two Indian players here are Manjrekar senior and junior.
Here we see the table of those who scored the most centuries in the first innings:
Ponting (21) is followed by Kallis and Tendulkar with 20. Next are the two Steves, Smith and Waugh with 17. From India, others with 10+ centuries are Dravid (15), Gavaskar (11), Pujara (10) and Sehwag (10).
Current players with 10+ centuries are SPD Smith (17) and Pujara (10).
Those who loved the first innings:
JM Bairstow (Eng) made all his 6 centuries in the first innings.
AF Rae (WI) and Wasim Raja (Pak) made all 4 of their centuries in the first innings.
Also note SP Fleming (NZ) who made 8 of his 9 centuries in the first innings. And KC Wessels (Aus/SA) made 5 of his 6 centuries in the first innings.
Those who hated the first innings:
Taufeeq Umar (Pak) made 7 centuries but none in the first innings.
WW Armstrong (Aus) similarly had 6 centuries, and MG Burgess (NZ) had 5.
The fact is that Toba Tek Singh was not a joke (as some may think) and is now a district town in Pakistani Punjab. It was part of Faisalabad (ex-Lyallpur) district earlier.
It is, indeed, named after a Sikh who lived there long ago and is still remembered.
The Test season gets under way with Sri Lanka hosting the West Indies at Galle from Nov 21. There are also series between India/New Zealand and Bangladesh/Pakistan coming up, not to forget the Ashes starting in December.
Here we look at a summary of the centuries made by the highest century-makers, with a breakup across innings:
Note that this does not include the ICC XI vs Aus Test in 2005, which means that ML Hayden’s century in that Test is not counted.
As we will see, a closer look at the centuries in the different innings reveal some odd facts. From the sample above we can see that Steve Waugh and Steve Smith have the most centuries without ever making one in the fourth innings. And can you guess which current player has the distinction of making all his 6 centuries in the first innings? More to come in the next few days.
We now continue with individual performances in Bowling.
Most wickets (20 or more):
Shakib Al Hasan took over the record from Shahid Afridi in this edition.
Bravo, Ashwin and Starc are the next among current players. Ashwin and Jadeja are the only Indian players here.
Best innings bowling (includes all 5wi and above):
None of the top performance were from this edition, the best being A Zampa’s 5-19 and Mujeeb’s 5-20. Adil Rashid’s 4 wickets for 2 runs against the West Indies is almost as startling as Rangana Herath’s 5-3 against New Zealand in 2014. Also note 4-9 both by Shakib and Rashid Khan
Best bowling averages (minimum 500 balls bowled, all instances):
Shakib and Bravo are the only current players here.
S Ajmal and Shakib have the best averages.
Shakib and Afridi have the best economy rates.
S Ajmal and Shakib have the best strike rates.
As you can see, Indian players do not figure in the last two lists.
Now for Fielding.
Most dismissals (12 and above):
de Villiers and Dhoni share the top position here, while Mushfiqur, Guptill and Warner have the most dismissals among current players.
Some points of interest: de Villiers’s dismissals came both as keeper and non-keeper (7 catches as keeper, 2 stumpings and 23 catches as non-keeper).
Dhoni’s 32 dismissals is the most for a keeper (including 21 catches and 11 stumpings). However, Kamran Akmal (18) and Sangakkara (14) have more stumpings).
de Villers has the most (23) catches as a non-keeper. Next are Guptill and Warner.
Most dismissals in an innings (4 and above):
12 players have made 4 dismissals in an innings, MH Cross of Scotland being the only one in 2021.
Note the 4 stumpings by Kamran Akmal and D Ramdin.
D Sammy is the only one with 4 catches as a non-keeper.
Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.60 and above):
Mushfiqur has the best by a current player.
The “hybrid” de Villiers has the best average here.
Dhoni and Kamran Akmal share the best average for a keeper.
GJ Maxwell, Guptill and Warner have the best averages for non-keepers. They all played in the final of the 2021 edition.
Finally, All-round performance:
Overall (note the conditions in the table):
Shakib has by far the best performance here, with Shahid Afridi a distant second.
Bravo and Mohammad Nabi also represent the current players.
Match performance (30 runs and 3 wickets):
The best performances would be by Bravo, Watson (28 Sep 2012) and Shakib (21 Oct 2021).
There is also Hasaranga de Silva among current players.
No good performances by Indian players in this category.
The W/L ratio is headed by Nepal (!) who won 2 of their 3 matches.
Among those who played 10 or more matches, the highest W/L ratios are by Sri Lanka (1.80), India (1.77) and South Africa (1.69). The 2021 finalists are a little lower: Australia (1.57) and New Zealand (1.33)
Now for individual performances in Batting:.
Most runs (500 and above):
Gayle might still be there in 2022 to overtake MJ’s record aggregate. The next highest among the current players are RG Sharma (847), V Kohli (845) and DA Warner (762).
Highest innings (90 and above):
Gayle is the only one with 2 centuries.
In 2021 there was one century (Buttler) and a 90 (van der Dussen).
Raina is the only Indian player who has made a score above 90.
The most 50+ scores are 10 by Kohli (no centuries), 9 by Gayle (including 2 centuries) and 8 by RG Sharma (no centuries).
Batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):
Buttler now heads this table. Next among current players are RG Sharma, Gayle and Shoaib Malik. Kohli is not here as he has played only 19 innings.
Strikerates (Minimum250 ballsfaced, 125.00 and above):
Afridi leads by a large margin over the runners-up Pietersen and Buttler. Other current players here are Gayle,Warner and RG Sharma.
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