The Lord’s triple honours list

You know about the honours boards at Lord’s: one for scoring a century, one for 5wi and one for 10wm. (Then there are separate boards for home, visitors and neutral players. Ignore that for now).

How many players do you think qualify to be on all three boards? One of them joined the club during this Test.

An elite group of all-rounders, with only one visitor (Miller) among them.

CR Woakes scored a century in this match. He had earlier taken 5wi and 10wm in 2016.

He really seems to like Lord’s, as we see from his record here:

Of those who appear on two or more boards. Vinoo Mankad and Ian Botham are the only ones to have taken a century and 5wi in the SAME match.

No one has scored a century and taken 10wm in the same Test at Lord’s. This has been achieved only three times in all Tests, by Botham, Imran and Shakib.

As an afterthought, here are the only two who have scored a fifty and taken 10wm in the SAME Test at Lord’s:  they would be duly listed for their 5wi and 10wm, but not for their fifty.

A similar piece from Cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24350452/chris-woakes-lord-love

Tail piece: Some readers seem to be unsure about the existence of the 10wm boards. Maybe they are a relatively recent innovation. However, we have some pictures to verify this:

Part of the 10wm board.

Also, when someone gets 10wm with two fivers, both fivers are mentioned on the fiver board. If he gets one fiver and another haul of less than 5 wickets in the match, both are mentioned (and marked) as you can see here:

And finally, one of the obscure boards for neutral Tests:

These were set up in 2010 and so far cover only two Tests, Aus v SA in 1912 and Aus v Pak in 2010.

 

 

Shakib Al Hasan’s all round feat

Bangladesh’s first Test victory against Australia came in their fifth attempt, having lost all four of the previous Tests. Two were in Australia and two were at home.

The main architect of this victory was Shakib Al Hasan with a fine all-round performance, which we will look at in more detail:

While the feat of a century + fiver is well documented, the “converse” of a fifty and ten wickets is not. But it can easily be got from Statsguru.

Fifty and ten wickets in a Test:

Only 28 such instances in all Tests. The only ones who have done this on more than one occasion are Sir Richard Hadlee (3 times) and now Shakib Al Hasan (twice). Kapil and India’s false knight also make appearances (while R. Ashwin does not). Moeen Ali was the last entry before Shakib.

Kapil and Jadeja are the only ones from India.

If you take the still rarer feat of a fifty and two five-fors:

Only 14 instances-including two by Sir Richard and two by Shakib. None from India.

While we are at it, let us take the analogous case of two fifties and one five-for:

Only 14 instances, including four from India. Mankad, Umrigar and Surti could not save their team from defeat, while B. Kumar’s neglected batting helped in a draw.

No one has achieved this more than once.

No one has scored two fifties AND two five-fors in a Test. From the above we see that the nearest approaches were by Davidson in 1960 (44, 80, 5wi and 6wi) and Vettori in 2008 (55*, 76, 5wi and 4wi).

There have, however been four instances of 100 runs and 10 wickets in a match-in which Shakib figures again:

The other Test all-rounders-1

We start with the scorecard of the  England-South Africa Test at Lord’s:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-south-africa-2017/engine/match/1031437.html

Moeen Ali achieved the double of a fifty and 10 wickets in the match.

Now, the standard definition of a good all-round performance in a Test is a century and a fiver. Cricinfo provides this as a direct link: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282793.html

There are 32 such instances at the time of writing.

The achievement of a fifty and 10wm is somewhat less common though the instances can be easily be got from Statsguru:

Fifty and 10 wickets in a Test (as on Jul 11, 2017)

27 entries here, the most recent entrants here being Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja and Dilruwan Perera. Sir Richard Hadlee is the only one to do this 3 times. No one else has done it more than once.

Also note that Alan Davidson was the first to score a hundred runs and take 10 wickets in a match (though without a century). This was in the Brisbane tied Test of 1960. He held this record for over 19 years. It was not until 1980 that Botham became the first to score a century and take 10 wickets in a match. Imran repeated this a few years later and Shakib followed much later.

While the list of those who scored a century and 5wi is mostly populated by the better-known all-rounders ranging from Sobers to Botham to Ashwin, the second list has a few unexpected names. These include bowlers who were not considered recognized batsmen but somehow managed a fifty: e.g. JK Lever (on debut), Abdul Qadir, DW Steyn and PS de Villiers. Then there are non-regular bowlers (notably AR Border and MG Bevan) who were not regular bowlers but somehow managed a ten-wicket haul.

In several cases these were the only fifties or ten-fors the player achieved in their Test careers. The strangest case may be that of JK Lever, who is the only one to score a fifty and take ten wickets on his debut. He did not achieve either of these again in his 21-Test career.

Test all-round performances of 2016

This refers to all Tests in the calendar year 2016.

Overall all-round performance (see criteria below):

Ashwin deservedly leads this list, followed closely by Stokes.

All-round performance in matches (at least one fifty and one five-for):

The list of 6 instances includes 2 by Ashwin and 2 by Jadeja. Chase made a match-saving century and took a fiver in his 2nd Test. Dilruwan Perera and Jadeja performed the less common double of a fifty and 10 wickets in a match. Jadeja was the only one of the 20-odd of these players (who took 50/10wm) to take more than 2 catches.

Over to 2017.

Jadeja and Nair’s record feats

It was clear that deciding the Man of the Match for this Test would be somewhat difficult. Finally the Crown Prince won at the expense of the Knight. We look at their records in this Test.

Highest innings by Asian batsmen against England (200 and more):

KK Nair’s 303* is the highest by any Asian batsman against England, surpassing the 274 by Zaheer Abbas in 1971. That remains the record for the highest by an Asian batsman in England. For India, the record is 221 by Gavaskar in 1979.

Nair’s 303* is also the highest for India vs England, surpassing the 235 by Virat Kohli earlier in this series and the 224 by VG Kambli in 1992-93.

Nair also became the third to make a triple century as his maiden century.

These are the highest maiden centuries (250 and above):

A dynamic link for all such scores of 200 and above:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/230132.html

More detailed accounts of the innings of Sobers and Simpson can be seen here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple-part-2/

We now move on to Ravindra Jadeja’s all-round feat.

Here we have a complete list of those who scored a fifty and took 10 wickets in a Test:

This has been achieved on 26 occasions by 24 players. Jadeja is the only one to take 3 or more catches as well. The only other Indian to have scored a fifty and taken 10 wickets in a match is Kapil Dev. Only Botham, Imran and Shakib have scored a century and taken 10 wickets in a match. Earlier Davidson scored over 100 runs and took 10 wickets, but did not score a century.

The other main all-round feat is a century and five wickets in an innings, which is slightly more common. It has been achieved on 32 occasions by 25 players, including Mankad, Umrigar and Ashwin (twice).

On only three occasions have these players taken 3 catches as well: Mushtaq (1973), Botham (Feb 1978) and Kallis (2002).

Now for a few other contrived all-round records. Jadeja took 10 wickets in the match and 4 catches (of which one was a c & b). He is one of only 5 to achieve this:

10 wickets and 4 catches in a match:

And he is also part of a small group of 15 players who had an innings tally of 10 or more wickets and catches put together. 5 players have 11.

They are GA Lohmann, JM Noreiga, HJ Tayfield, AE Trott and LC Braund. 10 others including Jadeja have 10.

In Jadeja’s case, the one c & b meant he had a hand in 9 of the 10 wickets which fell. Only Dawson (b Mishra) evaded him.

Tail piece: While Karun Nair is nominally from Kerala, he was born in Jodhpur and has lived mainly in Bangalore.

Arise, Sir Ravindra!

When we write about the exploits of Sir Ravindra Jadeja, we would later have to describe the exploits of Baron Ravichandran Ashwin, Lord Cheteshwar Pujara, the Honourable Virat Kohli and Prince Ajinkya Rahane (not to forget the evil Duke Rohit Sharma).

Today, however, we take up the all-round feat of scoring a fifty-plus and a five-plus in the same Test. This is not such a big deal, as it has been achieved on 197 occasions in all Tests, and several players including most of the famous all-rounders have done it more than once.

For the moment, we look at the 22 occasions where this was achieved by India in Tests:

Virtually every Indian all-rounder of note is there, including Kapil (4 times), Ashwin (3) and Bhuvaneswar Kumar (2). Also note the gallant efforts by Vinoo Mankad (1952) and Umrigar (1962) which did not prevent defeat. Note who is the most recent entrant.

However, only 7 of these efforts resulted in an Indian victory:

and you can see who the latest entrant was.

Now let us see the list of these performances in India-New Zealand Tests:

Only 5 occasions, 3 by NZ and 2 by India. And how many of these resulted in victory?

Only 2 such occasions, one featuring the nearly forgotten John Bracewell (who nevertheless brought New Zealand its second and last Test win in India). And Sir Jadeja, who got the man of the match award to go along with his knighthood.

 

All-round feats at Lord’s

You would have heard of the honours boards at Lord’s. A summary can be seen here.

The “neutral” boards are dealt with at more length here  towards the end of the post.

Basically these boards list all instances of i) centuries ii) five wickets in an innings and iii) ten wickets in a match at this ground. Here we look at instances of all-round performances.

Only two have scored a century and taken a five-for in the same Tests. They are among the all-time greats:

Then there are others who have scored centuries and taken five-fors at Lord’s, but not necessarily in the same Test. The full list (which includes the pair listed above) is:

If you remove Mankad and Botham, you still have Allen, Miller, Illingworth, Flintoff and Broad who have scored centuries as well as five-fors at Lord’s. None have scored more than one century at this venue, though there are some instances of multiple five-fors.

There have been only three instances of centuries and ten-fors in the same Test, and all of them have occurred in Asia. We can find a few who have achieved centuries and ten-fors at Lord’s, but not in the same Test:

Incidentally Allen and Broad scored their only Test centuries at Lord’s.

Let us now look at all-round performances at Lord’s which go beyond the honours boards.

A fifty and ten wickets in the match:

Only one instance. If we “stretch” this to 50 or more runs and ten or more wickets, we get:

Miller and newcomer Woakes are added here.

And finally, 100 or more runs and five or more wickets in the match:

Additions to the original pair of Mankad and Botham (1978) are Morkel, Kapil, Botham (1984) and Mark Butcher. The earlier Morkel does not seem to be related to Albie and Morne. The instance of Botham in 1984 was the time when West Indies made 344/1 to win the match. And Butcher was an occasional bowler who took only 15 wickets in his Test career.

 

 

 

Summing up the one-match players

This is to provide links to a few posts in the last few days, for those who are interested in the obscure byways of cricket history. These deal with the best performances of those who had only one match (or innings) in the three formats of international cricket:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/making-the-most-of-limited-chances-batting/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/making-the-most-of-limited-chances-bowling/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/making-the-most-of-limited-chances-fielding/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/making-the-most-of-limited-chances-allround-performances/

Making the most of limited chances-Allround performances

We conclude this series with a look at those who put in a good all-round performance in their only opportunity in international cricket. We will look at batting + bowling as well as batting + fielding in the three formats of the game.

We start with Tests:

30-plus runs and 3-plus wickets in their only Test:

Heading the list is MF Malone, one of the Packermen who was given a chance in the final Test of a series which Australia had already lost. It would clearly be the best all-round performance for someone who played only one Test. Next would come that of JP Faulkner. He is a key member of Australia’s current limited-overs teams and will probably play a few more Tests.

30-plus runs and 3-plus dismissals in their only Test:

Again, some relatively lesser-known players. Ronchi and Ojha can be expected to play again. L Ronchi’s performance, for the moment, is the best for any keeper who played in only one test. NV Ojha would be next.

Passailaigue is the only non-keeper here. He put on 487* for the 6th wicket with George Headley in 1931-32 which is still the world first-class record for this wicket.

Now for ODIs:

10 or more runs and 1 or more wicket in their only ODI:

After scraping the bottom of the barrel, we have these 8 ODI players. India’s leading spinner of the 70s is there along with a few other Test players such as AV Mankad, ADG Roberts and JR Hammond. Fittingly Chandrashekhar has the best bowling here, while AV Mankad has the highest score.

10 or more runs and 1 or more dismissal in their only ODI:

ADG Roberts appears in both of these lists. Other famous names are Bill Lawry and the now-familiar Phil Emery.

Finally we move to T20Is:

10 or more runs and 1 or more wicket in their only T20I:

Famous names include Tendulkar (in India’s first T20I), Rafique (Bangladesh’s first genuine all-rounder) and Gillespie. The list is headed by Scott Borthwick who also played one Test and two ODIs.

Gillespie scored the most runs (!) while Hitchcock is the only one to take 2 wickets.

10 or more runs and 1 or more dismissal in their only T20I:

12 in this list, and some of them like Tendulkar, Borthwick and Fayyaz appear again.

Dinesh Mongia, like Tendulkar, made his only T20I appearance in India’s first ODI. He has the highest score here,while no one has more than one dismissal. Nixon is the only one to make a stumping.

There are a number of Test players here including Read, Nafees, Tendulkar, Key, Reifer and Kieran Powell.

This concludes our series on those who did well in their only opportunity in international cricket.

 

Shane Watson’s Test career

Although Shane Watson‘s Test career was not extraordinary, he fulfilled the role of a batting all-rounder for some years. His contribution to limited overs cricket was more striking, as he holds the record for Australia’s top score in ODIs (185*) and second highest in T20Is (124*).

Leaving out the Test against the ICC XI, he played 58 Tests, scoring 3697 runs and taking 75 wickets. If we compare his all-round performance in those of other Australians who had a minimum of 1000 runs and 50 wickets, it is above average but not outstanding (9th out of 22). The only other Australian of that time who might be called an all-rounder was Mitchell Johnson, who was a considerably better bowler but certainly a worse batsman.

However, Watson does have one claim to fame in that he is one of only 4 players to feature on the “neutral” honours board at Lord’s. More about the honours boards here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord’s_honours_boards

Only two neutral Tests have been played here. One was between Australia and South Africa as part of the experimental triangular Test series of 2012:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62391.html

Australia easily defeated South Africa by 10 wickets. In general it was felt that the triangular Test series was a bad idea and it was not repeated. The nearest revival it got was the interlocking tours of England and West Indies to Australia in 1979-80.

Then there was the Test between Australia and Pakistan in 2010:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/426394.html

The neutral honours boards thus have these entries:

Batting:

Bowling:

(There is also a board for ten wickets in a match, which does not have any entries yet).

The actual board being “unveiled” with the new entries:

This Test marked the Test debuts of Steve Smith (1, 12 and 3-51) and Azhar Ali (16 and 42). Watson got the first of his three fivers  while North got his only one here. This match marked Shahid Afridi’s only Test as captain; after this he retired from Tests altogether.

In the second neutral Test at Leeds, Salman Butt’s ill-fated captaincy began with a 3-wicket victory over Australia.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/426395.html

Watson recorded his career-best 6-33 in this Test, while the two As (Asif and Amir) combined to bowl Australia out for 88.

 

 

Summary statistics of T20 2016 World Championship

 

For 2016 alone:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=3;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;size=200;spanmin1=24+Feb+2016;spanval1=span;template=results;trophy=89;type=allround

For all matches in this World Championship since 2007:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=3;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;size=200;template=results;trophy=89;type=allround

Those who are familiar with Statsguru should be able to extract various parameters such as total runs, batting averages, strike rates etc. from the output of these links.

Lies, damn lies and statistics in cricket

It has been said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. And Test cricket is a good place to check this out.

After the conclusion of the India-South Africa series we ask Statsguru a few questions. The answers will not be what you expect.

Q1: Who is the best opening bowler in Tests in the 2010s?

A1: Consider all those who bowled at No 1 or 2 since 01 Jan 2010 and took at least 50 wickets while doing so, and rank them by their bowling averages.

Didn’t realize it was a spinner, did you?

Q2: OK, something more conventional. Who is India’s best opening bowler of all time?

A2: Consider all Indian bowlers who bowled at No 1 and No 2, and took at least 50 wickets while doing so. Rank them by their bowling averages.

Probably you should have seen that coming.

Q3: OK, but wasn’t Kapil Dev India’s greatest all-rounder?

A3: Let us consider all Indians who scored the double of 1000 runs/100 wickets, and rank by them by the difference between their batting average and bowling average. This measure is as good as any other means for ranking all-rounders.

Well, you should have seen that one coming too.

It is up to you to decide how seriously you take these figures.