After the 1st semi-final of CWC 2019

Continuing the pretense of the IPL:

Orange Cap: RG Sharma* (648 runs), followed by  DA Warner (638) and Shakib Al Hasan* (606)

Purple Cap: MA Starc (26 wickets), followed by Mustafizur Rahman* (20), JJ Bumrah*  and LH Ferguson (18 each).

Most sixes: EJG Morgan (22), followed by AJ Finch (18) and RG Sharma* (14).

* No further part in the World Cup.

Minor records:

RA Jadeja made 77 at No 8. This is the second highest score by a No 8 batsman in the World Cup, surpassed only by NM Coulter-Nile’s 92 for Aus vs WI earlier in the 2019 WC. The previous record was 72* by HH Streak for Zim vs NZ in 2003. For India, the previous record was a mere 28 by NR Mongia  vs Zim in 1999.

MS Dhoni and RA Jadeja put on 116 for the 7th wicket, a record for the World Cup. The previous record for this wicket was 107 by A Javed and S Anwar for UAE vs Ire in 2015. For India, the record was a mere 58 by Kapil Dev and S Madan Lal vs Aus in 1983.

 

The new honors boards at Lord’s-1

The topic of honors boards at Lord’s for Tests has been covered in this blog several times.

Now the authorities have announced that they would be adding honors boards for

ODIs and Women’s matches.

We start with the centuries in ODIs at Lord’s:

Here is the entire list of 30 centuries:

A total of 30 centuries have been made here. The highest is 138* by Vivian Richards in the final of the 1979 World Cup. Next is 137 by DL Amiss which was in the very first match of the inaugural match of the World Cup, and another 137 by ME Trescothick in 2001. You can see that Trescothick is the only one to score three centuries here.

Some of the earlier matches were of 60-over duration.

While World Cup matches have been played here in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999 (including the finals), none of the Champions Trophy matches in 2004 were played here.

We now list out the centuries in the way they would be listed at Lord’s. They would be in chronological order.

First, the centuries by the home team (15):

The highest is 137 by Amiss and Trescothick. Trescothick has 3 centuries and Gooch 2.

Atherton never scored a Test century at Lord’s, with 99 being is highest in 15 Tests. He does however have a century here in 1995.

There are 4 centuries against India, headed by Amiss’s 137.

Next, the centuries by the visiting team against England (11):

The record score by Vivian Richards is the first such score here.

No one has scored more than one century here.

RT Ponting never scored a Test century at Lord’s, with a top score of 42 in 4 Tests. He does appear here.

No centuries by India here. The highest such score is 90 by SC Ganguly on 5 Sep 2004. Next is 87* by M Kaif in the tri-series final on 13 Jul 2002.

Finally, the centuries by neutral teams (4):

The first is by CH Lloyd in the World Cup final in 1975.

The next two by Mark Waugh and Neil Johnson were in the same World Cup  league match in 1999. Johnson’s 132* is the highest score here.

The highest for India was only 38 by K Srikkanth in the World Cup final on  25 Jun 1983. It was the highest score in that match. This is the only neutral ODI played by India at Lord’s.

In that match, the highest score against India was 33 by IVA Richards.

Next we will look at the 5-fors in ODIs at Lord’s. As you may guess, there are considerably less instances than centuries.

 

 

 

KL Rahul’s feat in perspective

Here is a list of all those who have scored 75 or more on their ODI debut:

It can be seen that Rahul is 11th on this list, and the only one to have scored a neat 100. Just below him is SP Patil of the UAE with 99 not out. While there have been  three 99s on Test debut, none of them were unbeaten. In fact there are no unbeaten 90s on Test debut.

SP Fleming was out in the 90s both on Test and ODI debut. Andy Flower, Desmond Haynes and Praveen Amre are among others who made a fifty-plus on both Test and ODI debut.

Note the big gap between the highest score here (148) and the next (124).

There is at least one case (Shahid Afridi, 102 in 1996) who scored a century in his first ODI innings (in the then record of 37 balls), not having batted in the first. Similarly Yuvraj Singh scored 80 in his first innings in his second ODI in 2000.

Here we see the list of  all Indian players with 40 or more on debut, which was headed by Uthappa and now by Rahul:

Patel and Wadekar scored their fifties in India’s first-ever ODI, while Ashok Mankad followed in the very next match. Sidhu is the only one here to do this in a World Cup match (1987), while PK Amre is the only one to score fifty-plus on Test as well as ODI debut. Both of them came against South Africa soon after its comeback, in an ODI in 1991-92 and a Test in 1992-93.

 

 

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.

 

Eclectic score cards for ODIs

This is a follow-up from the last post

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/eclectic-score-cards-for-tests/

Now we take up ODIs in the same way. Though others interested in cricket statistics may disagree, I have removed ODIs involving multi-national teams such as the ICC World XI, Africa XI and Asia XI.

First, the highest scores at various batting positions in all ODIs:

Interesting that Kapil’s 175* in 1983 is the oldest record standing, followed by Viv Richard’s 189* in 1984. That was the only ODI played at Tunbridge Wells, and there is no video of this match available because of a dispute with the BBC at that time.

Now for Indian players:

Interesting that the records for numbers 9 and 10 came in the same match.

Now we look at all debutants in ODIs:

Interesting that Haynes’s record of 1978 still stands.

No debutant from India in the above table. Their details are here:

Oddly enough Brijesh Patel’s 82 from India’s very first ODI in 1974 is still a record.

Some may be thinking of Yuvraj Singh’s 84 at No 5 in 2000. But that was in his second ODI, while he did not bat in the first. (Shahid Afridi’s 37-ball century had a similar story).

 

Performance in the first 25 Tests and ODIs

The learning curve can be quite steep in international cricket, although Bangladesh have now shown some signs of improvement since they started. Their performance in Tests is still quite dismal, and it is therefore worthwhile to compare how other countries fared in their first 25 Tests and 25 ODIs. It is often forgotten that India and New Zealand took some 20 and 25 years respectively to record their first Test wins. Here we see a tabulation of all Test-playing countries in their first 25 matches:

It can be seen that England (closely followed by Pakistan) lead the table. New Zealand, Zimbabwe, India and Sri Lanka had a rather unimpressive run of wins but were able to draw more consistently than Bangladesh.

Australia is the only team to win its first Test, and Zimbabwe the only one to draw its first Test. The other 8 teams all lost their first Tests.

Now let us look at the first 25 ODIs for the top 12 teams at the moment, being the 10 Test nations plus Afghanistan and Ireland. As in the case of Tests, we have removed the multinational teams. Apart from the ICC XI there are Africa XI and Asia XI to be removed.

Afghanistan and Ireland have a bit of an advantage as they played more matches against lower-ranked teams which are on the fringes of ODIs, though not good enough to dine at the high table of the main ICC rankings. As we might guess, the West Indies were the big bosses from the beginning though Afghanistan and England tie for the second place, closely followed by Australia. Zimbabwe and Bangladesh take up the bottom. Bangladesh sadly is at the bottom in both formats.

4 of these teams won their first ODI: Afghanistan, Australia, New Zealand and Zimbabwe while the other 10 lost their first matches.

It might be instructive to see how they fared in their first 50 Tests and 50 ODIs.