More snippets from the 3rd Test at Ahmedabad:

England’s lowest Test total against India:

You can see that England’s 81 is their lowest total against India. The previous record was 101 in 1971 where Chandrashekhar took 6-38 to set up India’s first Test win in England.

And their previous lowest total in India was 102 in 1981-82, when Kapil and Madan Lal took fivers in the 4th innings.

Most economical 5-for by a spinner in a Test innings: Root’s 5-8 is in second place after Australia’s Ironmonger if you take the criteria of the least runs conceded in a 5-for:

Only Ironmonger’s 5-6 in 1931-32 has less runs conceded.

Let us also look at the same figure for all captains (regardless of bowling styles):

Here, Root’s innings bowling is second to AER Gilligan’s 6-7. But Gilligan was clearly a medium pacer. The previous record by a captain who was a spin bowler was 5-27 by BS Bedi v NZ in 1976-77. Next is Mushtaq Mohammad with 5-28.

And finally, the Devil makes a comeback here with a score of 66/6:

Though England has also faced 666/6 against India not long ago at Chennai in 2016-17, in KK Nair’s match.

Four wickets for none

The bowling record of four wickets for no run in any international cricket match occurred recently:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-womens-world-cup-2017/engine/match/1085956.html

where SA’s captain Dane van Niekerk was instrumental in dismissing the West Indies team of 48 in an ODI in the Women’s World Cup.

There have been many cheap 4-wicket hauls in women’s ODIs:

Most of the names would be quite unfamiliar to male cricket followers. The previous record of 4 wickets for 1 run was held by an Indian bowler in an ODI against South Africa in the 2005 World Cup.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/67380.html

And few of us would have heard of the record holder Deepa Marathe .

We now look at the corresponding records for 4-wicket hauls in men’s ODIs:

The record was 4 for 3 by PV Simmons. It is interesting to note that the first few names (Simmons, Dilshan, Yuvraj and Sehwag) were all primarily batsmen whose bowling was secondary.

However, 4 for 0 has been recorded several times in first-class cricket. Bowlers who have achieved this include Lala Amarnath and, more recently, Axar Patel in 2015. More about this here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/axar-patels-feat-4-wickets-for-none-3/

This also gives details of the best 4-wicket analyses in Tests, headed by the unlikely AG Cremer of Zimbabwe.

 

Involved in all ten dismissals in an innings (updated in 2021)

If you are reading this, you would be aware that bowlers have taken all ten wickets in an innings on three occasions-Jim Laker in 1956, Anil Kumble in 1999 and Ajaz Patel in 2021.

You may have imagined that there must have been some other instances where someone took wickets and catches when added together totaled ten. This thought may have occurred to many in the Ind vs Eng Test at Chennai, when “Sir” Ravindra Jadeja took 7 wickets and 3 catches in the 3rd innings: http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-england-2016-17/engine/match/1034817.html

However, this was not so. Look at the scorecard of this innings carefully:

Jadeja took 7 wickets, missing out on Bairstow, Dawson and Rashid. He did catch Bairstow and Rashid but was NOT involved in the dismissal of Dawson. His third catch was the caught-and-bowled dismissal of Jennings. So he had a hand in 9 of the 10 dismissals.

To identify all these cases, we look at the instances of

10 wickets (no doubt)

9 wickets plus 1 or more catches

8 wickets plus 2 or more catches

7 wickets plus 3 or more catches (e.g. Sir Ravindra)

There are no instances of 6 wickets and 4 or more catches.

These cases are summarized below:

By the process used in Jadeja’s example we identify only FOUR (now FIVE)  such cases: Laker, Kumble, A. Patel, Hadlee and Tayfield where the bowler had a hand in all ten wickets. The match scorecards can be seen here:

Laker: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62814.html

Kumble: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63829.html

Hadlee: http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/engine/match/63415.html

Tayfield:http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62823.html

The cases of Laker, Kumble and Patel need no explanation.

In Hadlee’s case, he caught Lawson off VR Brown’s bowling to add to his 9 wickets.

In Tayfield’s case, he caught Insole off Goddard’s bowling to add to his 9 wickets.  His second catch was of Cowdrey (caught and bowled).

And this list does include a genuine knight in Sir Richard Hadlee, unlike the unrecognized knight from Saurashtra.

Bowling fails in ODIs

This continues the theme of the earlier post:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/bowling-fails-in-t20i-matches/

Here we look at poor performances in ODI matches. Data is correct as on 4th March 2017.

Matches involving the ICC, Asia and Africa teams are not considered.

Most runs conceded without taking a wicket (100 runs and above):

The list includes a number of players who have played a few Tests, including the “leader” MAR Samarasekara who played 4 Tests and took a few wickets in them but was singularly unfortunate in this format. KV Sharma and VRV Singh represent India here, though they did slightly better in Tests.

Most balls bowled without taking a wicket (90  balls and above):

Samarasekara again heads this list, and many of those on the first list are here as well. A couple of bowlers from East Africa’s World Cup team of 1975 are here, including DJ Pringle, father of England player Derek Pringle.

Most innings bowled without taking a wicket (4 and above):

Samarasekara yet again! We may as well learn more about him:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/India/content/player/50421.html

A few prominent batsmen who bowled a bit can be found here, such as David Boon, Salman Butt and VVS Laxman. They were probably called upon to bowl a few overs in a few ODIs.

Most matches without taking a wicket (150 and above):

As one may expect, the higher positions are mainly occupied by wicket-keepers (Sangakkara, Boucher and Gilchrist) who rarely bowled, although there are also some non-keepers who rarely bowled. From the above list we can see Atapattu, Gibbs and Rhodes near the top. It is worthwhile to draw up this list again for non-keepers:

Most matches without taking a wicket (100 and above) for non-keepers:

Quite a number of prominent batsmen here. A special mention for Gibbs, Tharanga and Morgan who never bowled a single ball in their long ODI careers.

And finally, we look at the best economy rates of these bowlers.

Best economy rates for those who never took a wicket and bowled 90 or more balls:

This is headed by JM Patel (the same initials as those of Jasu Patel!) of Canada and includes largely unknown players, some of whom played a few Tests. The names of Samarasekara, KV Sharma and Abul Hasan should be familiar by now.

A similar analysis of Test bowlers will follow soon.

 

 

 

Steve O’Keefe’s records

Here are some of the unusual statistical achievements of Steve O’Keefe . He and Lall Singh may be the only Test players born in Malaysia. He does not seem to be related to Kerry O’Keeffe  who played 24 Tests in the 1970s. Anyway their names are spelt differently.

This was Steve’s 5th Test, and his best innings analysis up to this Test was 3-53.

He now has the best match figures for Australia vs India:

The previous best was Alan Davidson’s 12-124 in 1959-60; unfortunately for Australia that was also Jasu Patel’s match.

His innings bowling is, however, not very near the top performances in Aus-Ind matches:

The unfortunate JJ Krejza continues to hold the record of 8-215 which came on his debut. He only played one Test after that.

Finally, one curiosity is that his 6-35 in each innings is the best performance where the two innings are identical. The previous “record” was held by India’s BS Chandrashekhar with two 6-52s against Australia in 1977-78. This topic is covered in more depth here (in this post from 2016):

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/same-bowling-figures-in-both-innings/

 

Test bowling performances of 2016

This applies to all Tests during the calendar year 2016.

Most wickets taken (20 and above):

Ashwin is far ahead of the runner-up Herath. Ashwin also has the most fivers (8) followed by Herath (5). Ashwin yet again has the most tenners (3) followed by Herath and Yasir Shah with 2 apiece.

Best bowling (innings): All instances of 6 or more wickets.

Bishoo has the best innings figures for the year but his side lost that Test. Interestingly, RA Jadeja has the best innings figures for India.

Best bowling (match): All instances of 8 or more wickets

Ashwin’s and Herath’s names keep recurring here.

Bowling averages: (Minimum 1500 balls):

Herath tops this list followed by the less heralded Wagner and then Starc.

Jadeja has the  best economy rate of 2.27, followed by Anderson (2.46) and Herath (2.61)

The best strike rate is by Rabada (36.6) followed by Starc (39.0) and Herath (43.4)

Though Ashwin took the most wickets, he did not score very well on these parameters.

To be continued.

 

 

Ken Higgs R.I.P.

Ken Higgs, who played 15 Tests for England in the mid-1960s, died on September 7 aged 79. Highlights of his career can be seen here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/14189.html

He played a role in what may be called one of the greatest fightbacks in Test cricket.

In 1966 the all-conquering West Indies team captained by Gary Sobers had won 3 of the first 4 Tests (two by an innings, another by over a hundred runs). When Brian Close was pulled out of near-oblivion as captain, the 5th Test started predictably.

In reply to WI’s 268, England got to 166/7. Then followed one of the greatest tail-end recoveries in all Tests:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62995.html

Graveney and JT Murray put on 217 for the 8th wicket, while the no 10 and 11 (K Higgs and JA Snow) scored fifties apiece in a stand for 128 for the 10th wicket, bringing the total up to 527. Stung by this unexpected resistance, West Indies made 225 and lost by an innings and 34 runs.

Higgs also held the record for the best 4-wicket analysis in Tests jointly with Pervez Sajjad from the mid-60s onwards. Their 4-5 was surpassed by Graeme Cremer’s 4-4 a few years ago. Here are the best 4-wicket innings analyses in all Tests:

Anyway, Higgs could enjoy his joint world record for over 47 years.