The Test debutants of 2018

The last of a series of reviews of Test cricket in 2018. Here we identify the good performances on Test debut.

Batting:

40 runs or more in an innings:

3 centuries headed by PP Shaw, and numerous other 50s.

There are several instances of 40+ in both innings, with Fakhar Zaman with 50+ in both innings. This will be seen more clearly here:

80 runs or more in match:

Fakhar Zaman’s 160 shares the second place among those who made two scores between 50 and 99 on debut.

The most is by the lesser-known BM Laird with 167 (Aus v WI, 1979-80) followed by CH Lloyd with 160 (WI v Ind, 1966-67).

Bowling:

3 or more wickets in an innings:

5 instances of fivers, led by Bilal Asif and L Ngidi. Vihari and Bumrah took 3-fors for India. Ireland has TJ Murtagh and SR Thompson in their debut Test, while Yamin Ahmadzai represents Afghanistan on their debut.

6 or more wickets in match:

Dananjaya’s 8-44 is the best for Sri Lanka on debut. The previous record was 8-132 by BAW Mendis (SL v Ind, 2008). Ireland has TJ Murtagh in their debut Test. Bilal Asif took 6 in the first innings and none in the second.

Fielding:

2 or more dismissals in an innings:

RR Pant leads here. His 5 dismissals equaled the record for India, though Yajurvindra Singh was a non-keeper. 3 Indian keepers made 4 dismissals in an innings on debut, all in the 1950s.

3 or more dismissals in a match:

RR Pant leads again with 7 dismissals. No one else has more than 3. MA Agarwal is one of those who took 3 as a non-keeper

Pant’s 7 dismissals equaled the Indian record with non-keeper Yajurvindra Singh. Several Indian keepers took 5 on debut, along with non-keepers RR Singh (only Test) and SS Das.

All-round performances:

30 runs and 3 wickets in match:

3 instances, with probably SR Thompson’s being the best.

30 runs and 3 dismissals:

3 instances, with Foakes being the only keeper and MA Agarwal having the best by a non-keeper. Also note MS Harris’s 26 and 26.

The ODIs of 2017

With the conclusion of ODIs on Dec 26, these were the ICC rankings for this date:

We see that South Africa leads with India just a point behind. As they are to play a 6-match ODI series in January 2018, the top position may well change hands.

We now survey ODI performances in 2017, starting with overall win-loss rations for all ODIs from starting between Jan 1 and Dec 31. All later tables are also in this time frame.

Win-Loss ratios:

This cannot be expected to tally exactly with the ICC rankings since the latter takes into account a longer time span. And this table cannot be taken too seriously as it has Hong Kong in 2nd position, as it mainly plays with the lower-ranked teams. Among the regulars, we have England followed by India, South Africa and Pakistan. And the West Indies is at the very bottom, with its fellow wooden – spooners Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea.

We now move on to individual performances, starting with batting.

Most runs (500 and above):

Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Tharanga scored the most runs. The two Indians also have the most centuries (6 apiece) and most 50+ scores (13 and 11 respectively).

Among those who batted for 20 innings and above, the highest averages are for Kohli (76.84) followed by Rohit Sharma.

Among those who faced at least 500 balls, the highest strike rates are by de Villiers (116.94) followed by KM Jadhav (!) and Ben Stokes.

Now for the highest innings (115 and above):

RG Sharma has the only double century (208*) while du Plessis and Guptill are some distance behind.

Now for bowling:

Most wickets (15 and above):

The table is led by rising stars Hasan Ali and Rashid Khan, with Bumrah and Plunkett a little behind. Hasan Ali is the only one with three fivers, while Rashid Khan and Plunkett each have four 4+s.

Best innings bowling (including all 5wis):

Rashid Khan and TA Boult were the only ones with 7-wicket hauls. An interesting feature here is A Dananjaya (SL) with a 6-wicket haul besides 18 wickets overall. A year ago, he was an interesting oddity as his ODI career of 1 match saw him neither batting, bowling nor fielding.

To save space, there is no table for bowling averages. Taking a minimum of 1000 balls bowled, we see:

JJ Bumrah has the best bowling average of 26.25, followed distantly by B Kumar.

B Kumar has the best economy rate of 5.05, followed closely by JJ Bumrah.

And JJ Bumrah has the best strike rate (30.6) followed by HH Pandya .

An Indian monopoly-as Indian players are practically the only ones who have bowled enough overs. JO Holder is the only other one to have crossed 1000 balls.

Now for fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Dhoni is far ahead of the second-placed Buttler. They do have the same number of catches though Dhoni has more stumpings. Several non-keepers have 12 catches.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Latham is the only one with 5 dismissals. GJ Maxwell is the only non-keeper with 4 catches.

Dismissals per innings (minimum 20 innings):

Dhoni (1.392) is followed closely by SD Hope with 1.238.

Among non-keepers Kusal Mendis has the highest with 0.571.

All-round performance (overall, see criteria in table):

Ironically, only Rashid Khan has respectable figures here- as he can bat a bit to go along his excellent bowling average.

All-round match performance (minimum 40 runs and 4 wickets):

Dominated by players from the lesser-ranked teams, with Stirling and Mustafa having the best performances.

 

 

All-round fails in ODIs

Note: Data as on 25th March 2017:

Having covered batting, bowling and fielding fails in the three formats of cricket, we finally turn our attention to all-round fails in ODIs. (T20Is have already been covered.) For all-round performance we take the cases of (batting + bowling) as well as (batting + bowling + fielding).

No runs and no wickets in ODIs (2 or more matches):

There are, in fact, as many as 58 players who did not score a run or take a wicket in their ODI career. Here we have listed only the 13 who played 2 or more matches.

These include a few Test players such as T Bosch, RG Hart and KV Sharma.

No runs, no wickets and no dismissals in ODIs (complete list):

A few more Test players here, of whom the best known among current players may be PHT (Tharindu) Kaushal and Zafar Ansari. The most well-known may be the Australian pace bowler of the 60s Alan Connolly who played one ODI at the end of his career which included 29 Tests. We have already met Anwar Hussain Monir as one of the most unsuccessful Test bowlers. M Watkinson had scored 80+ in a Test against the West Indies.

Note something odd about the career of A Dananjaya? We will soon return to him.

No batting and bowling in ODIs (complete list):

Note the newcomer Zafar Ansari (3 Tests) and the forgotten Roger Tolchard (4 Tests against India in 1976-77; he was Alan Knott’s reserve but was considered a good enough batsman to displace a specialist batsman in Tests). Apart from our now familiar A Dananjaya, all of them did get to field (but not to bat or bowl).

No batting, bowling and fielding in ODIs (complete list):

We need to know more about him and his ODI career.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/574178.html

He has a nice smile.

He has played 5 T20Is and even a side 50-over match against Bangladesh a few days ago, so he may yet play more ODIs.

This explains what happened in his one ODI so far:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/582191.html

In this rain-affected match, his team did bat and got to 123/8. He was the No 10 or 11 batsman and never got to bat. And he could not bowl or field as rain prevented New Zealand’s innings from starting. Let us hope he plays at least one more ODI so that he loses this record.

 

 

 

 

Fielding fails in ODIs

Data correct as on March 14, 2017

In the previous post on fielding fails in T20Is, we saw that the “leader” Amir Hamza had played in many more matches and innings than the second-placed Rangana Herath. We see the same trend here in the list of those who failed to make a fielding dismissal in their ODI career (10 or more innings):

We have here some fairly well-known Test players including New Zealand captain Bevan Congdon, Jermaine Lawson and Clayton Lambert (who added a few ODIs for the USA after he had finished with the West Indies). But the leader here is Ata-ur-Rehman who played 13 Tests for Pakistan in the mid-90s, supplementing the bowling of the two Ws. His career ended in disgrace after the match-fixing scandal earned him a life ban from cricket in 2000. The ban was lifted in 2006 although he could not do much afterwards. However, he does have this record of 30 ODIs and 30 innings fielded without a dismissal, which is considerably more than the second-placed HP Rinke of Zimbabwe, with a mere 18 ODIs and innings. Jermaine Lawson had a brief Test career but still holds the Test innings record of 6 wickets for 3 runs.

We now look at wicket-keepers who failed to make a dismissal:

This is a complete list of all such instances. Here there are a few Test players such as David Boon (who kept in one ODI without success), JA Maclean and XM Marshall. Like Boon, Xavier Marshall was not a regular keeper but failed in the one match where he kept.

There is the unfortunate FS Crockwell of Bermuda (who became a homicide victim in 2016) and JJ Dawood of Canada, who never got to field in the match where he was the designated keeper. He did field in one other ODI when he was not the keeper, but did not take a catch there either.

Finally, we look at those who never fielded in their ODI career:

A short list indeed. Akila Dananjaya did not get to bat in Sri Lanka’s innings which was ended by rain which also washed out the entire New Zealand innings. He did however play some T20Is in which he took one catch. If he had become better known, cricket writers would have had to become more familiar with his full name of MKPAD Perera:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/574178.html