de Kock’s misfortune

This refers to the 2nd Test between Pakistan and South Africa at Rawalpindi, which was played on 4-8 Feb 2021.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/south-africa-in-pakistan-2020-21-1242968/pakistan-vs-south-africa-2nd-test-1243018/full-scorecard

Needing 370 to win, SA made a reasonably good start. Things started going wrong when Markram was dismissed at 241/4. Captain Quinton de Kock came in, and was promptly dismissed first ball by Hasan Ali, becoming one of this bowler’s five victims in the innings and ten in the match.

It must be particularly mortifying for a captain to be dismissed first ball in the 4th innings of a difficult chase. Let us see how many times it has happened.

While the number of balls in an innings have not always been recorded before 2000, we presume that most golden ducks have been recorded.

Golden duck by captain in 4th innings:

This includes all cases (win, loss, tie, draw).

23 such cases ending with Q de Kock. Many prominent captains appear here, such as Sobers, Greg Chappell (twice), Atherton, Ganguly, Inzamam and more recently Kohli and Root.

What if the team won in the chase despite the captain getting a golden duck? See this list:

That was a very short list of two. And they were relatively less prominent captains.

Now see when teams have tied or drawn in the chase when the captain got a golden duck:

5 such instances. The one involving Sobers was not in the second Test which India won, but the 5th one which India came close to winning (thanks partly to Gavaskar’s 124 and 220).

And finally, cases when teams have lost in the chase when the captain got a golden duck:

16 such cases, ending with de Kock. He is in distinguished company, along with his contemporaries Kohli and Root.

Aiden Markram is back (Updated to Jan 15, 2022)

Refresh your memory here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/600498.html

As readers of this column know, Aiden Markram has the longest palindromic name among international cricketers, with the competition coming from Rangy Nanan and Arun Lal (besides Talat Ali and Naman Ojha).

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/palindromic-names-for-cricketers/

Apart from that, he had a good run at the start, with 97 on debut and centuries in his second and third Tests. (It helps if you are playing at home in South Africa against Bangladesh for two Tests followed by Zimbabwe).

Anyway, he was a sort of lucky charm for South Africa as they won in each of his first 5 Tests. India broke this spell when they won the 3rd Test of the 2017-18 series.

He had a bad tour of India in 2019, making a second-ball pair (or silver pair) in the second Test before being dropped for the third.

Anyway he holds another peculiar record in all Tests. He has played the most Tests (29) without ever seeing a draw, up to Jan 15, 2022. 18 of these matches were won by South Africa and 11 were lost.

The record was earlier held by England’s George Lohmann (18 Tests) of long ago, who saw 15 wins and 3 losses. Next is a recent player KK Jennings (Eng) with 17 (12 wins and 5 losses). Alok Kapali (BD) shares this tally of 17 (0 wins and 17 losses). Once Markram encounters a drawn Test, the record goes back to Lohmann.

I wonder if anyone has told Markram of this record. At least it sounds more impressive than being the 21st batsman to make a silver pair.

More records of the India-SA Test at Vizag

The fourth day was dominated by the second century by Rohit Sharma, where he achieved something which no other opener had done in Tests so far, by making twin centuries in the first Test where he had opened. That was something which CG Greenidge and AJ Strauss narrowly missed, and was not achieved by a galaxy of renowned openers from Hobbs and Sutcliffe to Gavaskar and Graeme Smith.

The final day appeared to be ready for a quick finish when 7 wickets fell rapidly before lunch. The batsmen finally put up some fight to take the score from 70/8 to 161/9 to 191-one of the relatively few innings where the score was doubled after the 8th wicket fell.

S Muthusamy (49*), the No 7 batsman and debutant put on 91 for the 9th wicket with DL Piedt (56, his first fifty). Finally Muthusamy put on 30 for the 10th wicket with K Rabada (18).

While India won by 203 runs, there were a number of statistical highlights by the South African batsmen:

Highest score by No 8-11 batsman against India in the 4th innings:

Piedt’s 56 is the highest such score in India. The only other tailend fifty in India was NJ Astle’s 51* in 2003. Also note Griffith’s 40* which helped WI force a draw in 1967.

Then we look more carefully at S Muthusamy’s 33* (at no 8) and 49* (at no 7). He also took Kohli’s wicket.

Highest totals without a dismissal on debut:

His 82 is in the middle of this table. AG Kripal Singh and RG Nadkarni are also here.

Highest totals with two not out innings on debut:

He is in 5th position here. Azhar Mahmood is the only one with an unbeaten century AND fifty on debut, and GC Grant the only other one with two unbeaten fifties on debut. Muthusamy’s 82 is the highest such total against India, ahead of CM Old’s 50 in 1972. AE Trott also took 8-43 on his debut

Highest totals on debut without a fifty:

Muthusamy is in 6th place here, though the topper LK Germon (89) and AJ Pycroft (85) scored more against India. The best by India is 74 by M Vijay followed by 73 by Akash Chopra.

Highest total in all Tests without a fifty:

This was, predictably, headed by someone with two 49s. No debutant reached 90 without a fifty, the record being 89 by Germon listed above.  G Kirsten of SA is second here.

Finally we look at the highest scores by No 10 against India:

Piedt is 4th on this list and the highest in the 4th innings. His 56 is higher than Verity’s 55* in the first innings.

All-round match performances in the World Cup

Here is a list of all instances of 40+ runs and 4+ wickets in World Cup matches from 1975 up to June 24, 2019:

While some of these figures seem impressive, most of them have come against weak teams (if not minnows, teams which did not go beyond the first round). The exceptions are Flintoff (E v Ire), and Russell (WI v E). We already know that Afg will not be in the second round in 2019.

The only instances of 50/5wi are by Yuvraj Singh (I v Ire, 2011) and Shakib Al Hasan (BD v Afg, 2019).

Both of them have had impressive all-round performances throughout the tournament. Yuvraj was Man of the Series in 2011, when India won. Yuvraj had 362 runs and 15 wickets in 2011. Shakib has (at the time of writing on June 24) 471 runs and 10 wickets. He and David Warner (447 runs) seem to be main contenders for Man of the Series now.

In 1999, L Klusener had 281 runs and 17 wickets which earned him the Man of the Series award. His team lost narrowly in the semi-final.

 

Review of SA-SL Tests-2

Hope you have read Part 1.

We now move on to Bowling:

Most wickets (10 wickets and more):

Muralitharan is far ahead of the others, while Steyn leads current players with Philander close behind.

Muralitharan has the most 10-wicket hauls (4) while no one else has more than 1. He also has the most 5-fors with 11, when no one else has more than 3.

Best innings bowling (6wi and above):

Maharaj has the best analysis which came in the last series between these teams. There is nothing from the current series.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

While there are a few performances from the 2018 series here, there are none from this series.

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

Expectedly it is headed by Muralitharan. The best economy rate is also by him, while Steyn has the best strike rate.

Now for fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Boucher heads this list by a large margin. He has the most stumpings and catches by a keeper. Kallis has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Boucher heads this again, while Kallis has the most by a non-keeper.

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

de Kock heads this list, while Kallis again has the best by a non-keeper. de Kock is also the only current player here.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.400):

Headed by Boucher and Kallis. Amla is the only current player here.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Only SM Pollock makes the cut.

Match performance:

No one has a fifty and five-for in the same match. However, we can find some who have made 50 runs and taken 5 wickets in a match:

Pollock and Kallis would have the best performances here.

 

 

 

Review of SA-SL Tests-1

Sri Lanka won the series 2-0 and thus became the first Asian country to win a Test series there. Neither have New Zealand or the West Indies won there yet.

Here is the summary of Tests between these teams:

Until now, Sri Lanka had won only one Test in SA, which was at Durban in December 2011. That was part of a 2-1 series loss.

This time, Sri Lanka won the first Test at Durban by one wicket and the second at Port Elizabeth by the more respectable margin of 8 wickets.

Sri Lanka also leads 6-3 for Tests at home.

We now move to individual performances, starting with batting:

Most runs (500 runs and above):

The old firm of Jayawardene and Sangakkara at the top. Amla heads the current players including Karunaratne, the only one from SL.

Jayawardene (6) has the most centuries followed by Cullinan with 5.

Sangakkara (10) has the most scores of 50+ followed by Cullinan and Sangakkara with 8.

Highest scores (110 and above):

The same old firm monopolizes the first four positions. MDKJ Perera’s match-winning 153* is now the best for SL in SA, surpassing TT Samaraweera’s 115* in 2012. Note Cullinan’s three centuries at the bottom.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Almost inevitably it is the same pair at the top. Amla is the only current player here.

Highest strike rate (Minimum 1000 balls faced, all instances):

Here we have Jayasuriya leading with ABD in second place. Karunaratne leads the current players.

To be continued.

Clean sweeps in away Test series (Updated in Nov 2022)

Clean sweeps of Test series of 3,4 and 5 matches are not as rare as one may think. Here is Cricinfo’s listing:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283942.html

India has recorded clean sweeps at home earlier (and have faced 5-0 sweeps against England and the West Indies as well, but never at home). India had already won against England 3-0 in 1992-93, against Sri Lanka 3-0 (all by an innings) in 1993-94, against Australia 4-0 in 2012-2013, against New Zealand 3-0 in 2016-17, 3-0 against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and now 3-0 against South Africa in 2019-2020.

That was not, however, the first time India have won 3 Tests in an away series. They defeated New Zealand 3-1 in 1967-68, achieving India’s first Test and series win outside India. This series is often forgotten, probably because of New Zealand’s low standing at that time and also because India had just endured a 3-0 loss in England followed by a 4-0 loss in Australia.

There were also mini-sweeps (2-0) by India in Bangladesh (2004-05 and 2009-10), in Zimbabwe (2005-06) and in the West Indies (2019). Similarly India lost 2-0 to South Africa at home in 1999-2000.

The 2016-17  series included wins by 304 runs followed by two innings wins (though the first Test was effectively an innings defeat as the total of Sri Lanka’s two innings was less than India’s first innings total). Again, this is not new as India had won all 3 Tests by an innings at home against the same opposition in 1993-94. Other examples of this kind include the West Indies losing all 3 Tests by an innings in their first series against England in 1928.

West Indies is the only team to win 4-0 or 5-0 away. They won 5-0 against England in England in 1984, and followed this with 5-0 at home in 1985-86 against the same opponents.

There was a tinge of black humor in reportage of these West Indies victories in the 1980s. Earlier the term “whitewash” was commonly used for a clean sweep, so it was but natural that a 5-0 victory by the West Indies would be called a “blackwash”, as in 1984 and 1985-86. By 1988 England had improved a bit and lost the 5-Test home series 4-0. This was dubbed a “dark grey wash”.

Then there was India’s “brownwash” of England in 1992-93.

3-0 sweeps away from home are not too common. An updated list as of Dec 2022:

Eng in NZ, 1962-63

Aus in NZ, 1999-2000

Aus in SL, 2003-04

Aus in SA, 2005-06

Ind in SL, 2017

Eng in SL, 2018-2019

Eng in Pak, 2021-2022

And in neutral venues:

Aus v Pak, 2002-03

Pak v Eng, 2011-12.

There have been many near-clean sweeps of 4-0 and 4-1 in 5-Test series. In the 6-Test series which were played between the 1970s and 1990s, we have two examples of 5-1 margins:

Aus v WI in Aus, 1975-76

Eng v Aus in Aus, 1978-79