Low Test scores against India-and India’s bowlers

While much has been said about 36 all out in recent days, it should not be forgotten that Indian bowlers have also now become capable of dismissing Test teams for two-digit scores. This did not happen before 1981, and the lowest by anyone against India is 79.

Here we list all Test scores by teams which are 100 or less, and 8 to 10 wickets down.

Note the 80/8 was not an all-out score, but probably would have ended under 100.

We give below details of the Indian bowlers involved, plus other features of interest.

Starting from the top:

SA 79 in 2015-16; I Sharma 0-4, Ashwin 5-32, Jadeja 4-33, A Mishra 1-9

NZ 80/8 in 1964-65; Desai 1-18, Jaisimha 1-4, Chandrasekhar 3-25, Durani 2-16, Venkataraghavan 1-10.

(NZ narrowly escaped defeat after they had dismissed India for 88 and made them follow on. But Sardesai had other ideas and made his maiden century of 200*)

SL 82 in 1989-90; Kapil 1-14, Prabhakar 1-27, V Raju 6-12, G Sharma 1-26.

(The only Test played at Chandigarh).

Aus 83 in 1980-81; Ghavri 2-10, S Patil 0-5, Doshi 2-53, Kapil 5-28)

(The first time an Indian team dismissed the opposition in a Test for under 100, and they squared the series with this unexpected win. India’s next win in Australia came in 2003-04.)

SA 84 in 2006-07; Zaheer 2-32, Sreesanth 5-40, VRV Singh 1-8, Kumble 2-2

(Probably the high point of Sreesanth’s Test career. This was India’s first win in SA).

BD 91 in 2000-01; Srinath 3-19, Zaheer 1-20, Agarkar 2-16, S Joshi 3-27, M Kartik 1-1

(Bangladesh’s first Test. However, they had made 400 in the first innings).

Aus 93 in 2004-05; Zaheer 1-14, Harbhajan 5-29, M Kartik 3-32, Kumble 1-5

(Australia failed to chase 107, though India won a dead Test and lost the series 2-1.)

NZ 94 in 2002-03; Zaheer 5-29, Yohannan 0-16, Nehra 2-20, Bangar 0-4, Harbhajan 2-20

(India still lost this Test. They had made 99 in the first innings.)

NZ 100 in 1980-81; Kapil 4-34, R Binny 2-26, Shastri 3-9, S Patil 1-12, K Azad 0-5

(India lost this Test. Shastri took 3-9 on debut, which included 3 wickets in 4 balls.)

WI 100 in 2019; I Sharma 3-31, Bumrah 5-7, Jadeja 0-42, Shami 2-13.

(India reduced WI to 50/9 before Roach (38) and M Cummins (19*) doubled the score.)

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.

Review of India-Australia ODI series-2

Continuing with our study of individual performances. Now for bowling.

Most wickets (20 or more):

Jadeja and Shami have the most wickets among current players. Cummins has the most among current Australian players.

Best innings bowling (includes all instances of 5wi):

The first two places are occupied by now-forgotten players. There is nothing from this series, although YS Chahal took 6-42 early in 2019. Cummins also had a fiver in 2019.

Best bowling averages (Min 1000 balls, all instances):

Brett Lee has a much better average than the second-placed Johnson. However Jadeja at 17th place has the best average among current players.

Kapil and McDermott have the best economy rates, and Lee and Agarkar (!) the best strike rates.

Now for fielding:

Most dismissals (15 or more):

Gilchrist and Dhoni are far ahead of the others, including Tendulkar who has the most catches by a non-keeper. Dhoni has the most stumpings. Kohli and Maxwell are the only current players here.

Most innings dismissals (4 or more):

Gilchrist and Dhoni again. Clarke is the only non-keeper with 4 catches.

Best dismissal rate (Min 20 innings, 0.500):

Gilchrist and Dhoni lead, with Maxwell having the best average for a non-keeper.

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

The first two (or three) would not generally be considered leading all-rounders, although they have done well in these contests.

All-round match performances (30 runs and 3 wickets):

The best performance here would be by Tendulkar, followed by Kapil and Watson (5 Nov 2009).

The fastest micro-innings batting

As we have seen here https://abn397.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/umesh-yadavs-batting-record/

The fastest score of 25+ was 31/10 balls, with a strike rate of 310.00

For 50+, it is 54/25 balls and 216.00

For 100+, it is 110*/58 balls and 189.65

Now let use see about the highest strike rates for innings lasting for one to six balls.

There is no record of anyone scoring more than a zero off zero balls, though it may be theoretically possible under some obscure rule.

Here you have only 0* and 0, the latter being diamond ducks.

Now for 1-ball innings:

There is only one such innings involving a six, and it is fittingly by Jayasuriya with an SR of 600. Next is Ishant Sharma with 5 (a single plus 4 overthrows) and 500. Then there are those who scored a 4 or 3 off one ball. Ishant Sharma appears again. At least half of the batsmen here are tailenders. Even the famous batsman CS Martin has scored 4 off one ball! So has NM Lyon.

2-ball innings:

There are four batsmen (all tailenders) who have made 7 off two balls. They would have made a 6 and a single, apart from Muralitharan who made a 4 and a 3. Then there are 6s and 5s. Here we do not meet a recognized batsman until Sir Richard Hadlee (?) and AL Logie. The only current players are Wafadar of Afghanistan and India’s Mohammed Shami.

3-ball innings:

The highest off 3 balls is 12* by Misbah, including two sixes and a dot. Murali has 6,4 and dot while Shami has two fours and a two. Others have made 6 runs with one four. Muralitharan appears three times here. The proportion of recognized batsmen is more here, including current players Mushfiqur and Malan along with Shami.

4-ball innings:

The maximum here is 12, either by 3 fours (de Villiers and Warner) or 2 sixes (Henry). Warner, Henry and M Marsh represent the current players.

5-ball innings:

The best here is by Southee (another expert tailend slogger) with 3 sixes in his 20. He has also made 13 to be in second place with Pietersen.

6-ball innings:

The highest here is 17* which is less than the 20 in 5 balls. Ntini made his 16* with 4 fours. KMA Paul’s 12 included 3 fours.

Having come so far, we can also see

Most successive sixes:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284014.html

Kapil’s 4 successive sixes came when averting the follow-on with No 11 at the other end. The No 11 (Hirwani) was out just after the follow-on was averted. There are numerous current players here (such as Southee) besides old-timers such as Hammond.

And finally,

Most successive fours:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284011.html

All 6 balls by Jayasuriya, Sarwan and Gayle (although Sarwan had a no-ball interspersed after 4 sixes. DW Hookes hit 5 fours on his debut, which came in the Centenary Test of 1977. So did RE Redmond, a staple of quiz questions.

India’s best tailenders

Ishant Sharma’s heroics and his maiden Test fifty reminded us of the importance of having tailenders who can score some runs. Or, failing that, at least stay around long enough for other batsmen to score some more runs. Ishant was perhaps more of the second type.

We have a quick look at the best performers at 8-11 in the three formats.

For Tests and ODIs  a cutoff of 20 innings is used. For T20Is it is 10 innings.

Test batting averages at 8-11:

RA Jadeja’s average is now above Kapil Dev’s. Remember that both of them and a few others like Nadkarni scored centuries up to No 7 as well.

Kapil, Ashwin and Harbhajan have two centuries here. Others with centuries are Kirmani, IK Pathan, Kumble and Agarkar.

Here Agarkar has the lowest average by a century-maker and Ishant the lowest by a fifty-maker.

The lowest average here is by Maninder Singh, followed by Chandrashekhar and Doshi which most would have guessed.

In ODIs, we have:

The highest averages are by Pathan and Chetan Sharma. Sharma has scored a century batting lower.

Pathan and Agarkar are the only ones here with 2 fifties. The lowest average by a fifty-scorer is by Praveen Kumar.

The lowest average is by Sreesanth, followed by Ishant Sharma and Nehra.

For T20Is, no one has 20 innings so we take the cutoff of 10 innings instead.

Ashwin and Harbhajan are the only ones who qualify here. Neither has scored a fifty.

 

Review of India-West Indies Tests (2019)-2

Bowling:

Most wickets (25 or more):

Kapil has the highest tally here, while Ashwin and I Sharma have the highest among current players.

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

While Kapil has the best performance here, spare a thought for JM Noreiga who played only in 4 tests but still had the best innings performance for the West Indies in all Tests.

Ashwin (2016) and Bumrah in this series have the best figures among current players.

Best match bowling (All instances of 9wm or more):

Hirwani’s match figures are the best for India in all Test. UT Yadav (2018) and I Sharma (2019) have the best figures among current players.

Best bowling average (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

Hall and Walsh have the best bowling averages, while Ashwin and I Sharma have the best among current players. It can also be seen that GE Gomez and Gibbs have the best economy rates, and that Hall and Roberts have the best strike rate.

Fielding:

Most dismissals (15 or more):

Dujon has the most dismissals and catches, Dhoni the most stumpings and Richards the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most dismissals in an innings (4 and more):

WP Saha is the only one with 6 dismissals in an innings.  SD Hope made 5 dismissals in this series. DJG Sammy has the most catches by a non-keeper with 5 in 2013, which is a share in the world record. Also note KS More’s 5 stumpings which is a world record.

Most dismissals in a match (6 and more):

Dhoni has the most dismissals here (8) while More’s 6 stumpings is a world record. Both his records came in Hirwani’s record bowling performance. The most catches by a non-keeper are 6 by ED Solkar, in India’s first victory against WI in 1971.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.500):

Dhoni has the best rate here followed by Dujon. While CL Walcott played some of his Tests as a keeper, the best rate by a non-keeper is 0.800 by Azharuddin.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Sobers has by far the best record here, followed by Ashwin who is again far ahead of Kapil. JO Holder and Chase have the best record among current players, while Mankad had a relatively poor record against WI.

Match performance (50 and 5wi):

This includes the century/5wi double by OG Smith, Umrigar, Sobers, Ashwin (twice) and Chase.

 

Best performances by losing captains-2

Hope that you have read part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/best-performances-by-losing-captains/

We look at other performances by captains in tests lost by their team. We will see that India is well represented here.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 5wi and above):

Kapil is the only captain who has taken more than 7 wickets here. BS Bedi, Imran Khan and Courtney Walsh have multiple appearances. Current players include Shakib Al Hasan (multiple appearances), Graeme Cremer and Jason Holder.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

Kapil again heads this, from that same match in 1983. Bedi is the only other one with a 10-for. Current players include Jason Holder and Graeme Cremer.

Best innings fielding (5 dismissals):

Includes a few current players such as Mushfiqur, SPD Smith and Sarfraz. Sammy and Smith are the only non-keepers here.

Best match fielding (6 dismissals):

Current player Sarfraz Ahmed tops this list along with AC Gilchrist, while MS Dhoni and SPD Smith also appear. SP Fleming and SPD Smith (twice) are the only non-keepers. Gilchrist was a “regular” stand-in captain.

Best all-round performance (50 and 5wi):

Holder and Shakib from the present, while Imran Khan has two appearances from the same series in 1982. The best performances would by by Imran (July 1982) and Holder.

 

Best bowling figures in defeats

Keshav Maharaj’s 9-129 and match figures of 12-283 (along with Theunis de Bruyn’s maiden century) were South Africa’s only saving grace in their loss in the second Test at Colombo (SSC). We now look at the best bowling figures by losing teams in Tests.

Best innings bowling in defeats (including all instances of 8wi and above):

Maharaj’s 9-129 is the fourth-best performance here in a list headed by Kapil Dev’s 9-69. It may be recalled that Noreiga’s 9-95 is the best for WI in all Tests, and that it came in India’s first Test win over the West Indies.

The previous best for South Africa was Hugh Tayfield’s 7-23 in 1950, which can also be seen above.

Valentine and Krejza were making their debuts. Krezja played only in one more Test. Valentine made his debut with Ramadhin, and the two ensured that England lost the remaining 3 Tests of the series.

Best match bowling in defeats (including all instances of 11wm and above):

Here Maharaj’s 12-283 is somewhat down the list which is headed by Srinath’s 13-132 in 1999. The previous best for South Africa was AE Hall’s 11-112 in 1923, which can also be seen above.

Krejza, Hall, Burke and Valentine were making their debuts. Only Valentine got an extended run.

When India held over half the ODI partnership records

At the turn of the century, Indian batsmen held more than half the ODI partnership records. To be precise, the partnerships for the first five wickets plus the 9th wicket.

On 31 December, 1999, these were the partnership records for ODIs:

1st: SC Ganguly and SR Tendulkar, 252 vs SL, Colombo (Premadasa), 07/07/1998

2nd: SR Tendulkar and R Dravid, 331 vs NZ, Hyderabad (Deccan), 08/11/1999

3rd: R Dravid and SR Tendulkar, 237* v Ken, Bristol, 23/05/1999

4th: M Azharuddin and A Jadeja, 275* v Zim, Cuttack, 09/04/1998

5th: M Azharuddin and A Jadeja, 223 v SL, Colombo (Premadasa), 17/08/1997

The other record ODI partnerships on that date were:

6th: MO Odumbe and AV Vadher, 161, Ken v SL, Southampton, 30/05/1999

7th: TM Odoyo and AO Suji, Ken v Zim, 119, Nairobi (Aga), 16/10/1997

8th: PR Reiffel and SK Warne, 160, Aus v SA, Port Elizabeth, 04/04/1994

9th: Kapil Dev and SMH Kirmani, 126*, Ind v Zim, Tunbridge Wells, 18/06/1983

10th: IVA Richards and MA Holding, 106*, WI v Eng, Manchester, 31/05/1984

Note that the 4th and 10th wicket records mentioned above are still the world ODI records at the time of writing (29/10/2017).

Indian cricketers on the Lord’s honours boards (August 2021)

This is revised whenever India plays a Test at Lord’s

Here we continue our focus on Lord’s with the list of Indian batsmen and bowlers who figure on the honors boards there.

First, batting:

Some points of interest:

Mankad’s century came along with a five-for. He and Ian Botham are the only ones to score a century and take a five-for in the same match at Lord’s.

Dilip Vengsarkar is the only visiting batsman from any country to score 3 Test centuries at this venue.

Ganguly’s 131 came on his Test debut. It was the highest innings score by anyone making his Test debut at this venue, until D Conway made 200 earlier in 2021.

Agarkar made his only Test century here-all the more remarkable as his next highest score was 41. Now you know the answer to the old quiz question “What batting feat was attained by Agarkar and not by Gavaskar and Tendulkar?”

No instance from 2018.

Now we come to the bowling boards, listing all Indians who have taken 5 wickets in an innings here:

No one from 2018 or even the win at 2021. A fair cross-section of Indian bowlers over the years. Ishant Sharma now holds the record with 7-74, surpassing the record of 6-35 by Amar Singh in 1936. Mohammed Nissar’s fiver came on his Test debut which was also India’s first Test.

There is also an honors board for 10-wicket hauls, in which no Indian appears. There are some performances by English bowlers against India, notably Alec Bedser’s 11-wicket haul on his debut in 1946.

Tail piece: After the 2021 Test, England and India had played 19 Tests there. England lead 12-3 with 4 draws. India’s victories were in 1986, 2014 and 2021.