Sri Lanka-Pakistan Tests-2023-Pt 1

Pakistan won both the Tests, leading 2-0.

A total of 59 Tests have been played by these teams since 1982.

Pak has won 23, SL 17 and 19 have been drawn.

In Pak, 23 Tests have been played. Pak has won 9, SL 6 and 8 were drawn.

In SL, 27 have been played. Pak has won 11, SL 8 and 8 were drawn.

On neutral grounds, Pak and SL are tied with 3-3 and 3 were drawn.

Coming to individual performances:

Batting:

Most runs (1000 or more):

Led by Sangakkara. Mathews and Karunaratne have the most by current players.

Sangakkara has the most centuries (10), followed by Younis and Aravinda with 8.

Sangakkara also has the most 50+ scores (22), followed by Younis with 14.

Highest innings (175 or more):

A lot of high scoring here, starting with Younis’s triple century.

In this series the highest scores were 208* by Saud Shakeel and 201 by Abdullah Shafique. They surpassed the record for Pak in SL by M Hafeez (196).

Batting average (Min 20 innings, 45.00):

Headed by Sangakkara with Inzamam far behind coming next. Mathews has the best by current players.

Batting strike rate (Min 1000 balls faced, 50.00):

Led by Sarfraz Ahmed followed by Dilshan. Babar Azam is also there from recent times.

Bowling:

Most wickets (25 or more):

Led by Herath followed by Murali. Saeed Ajmal has the most for Pakistan. Strangely, P Jayasuriya has the most by current players.

Best innings bowling (6wi or better):

Led by Herath and Imran. Noman’s 7-70 is the best in recent years. It is the best for Pak in SL, surpassing Yasir Shah’s 7-76 in 2022.

Best match bowling (including all 9wm or better):

Headed by Herath and Imran. No major performances in this series, though there was R Mendis’s 9-for in 2022.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, maximum 35.00):

Headed by the two Ws, with W Akram at No 1.

The most economical bowling was by Wasim Akram and Abdur Rehman.

The best strike rates were by the two Ws again, with Waqar Younis at no 1 this time.

To be continued.

Karun Nair’s Test records

You will remember the fuss about Karun Nair when he scored his triple century in his third Test at Chennai. We now look at his oddly skewed Test career after he has completed 6 Tests. This should be apparent from this sequence of scores:

He has a respectable average of 62.33. But he scored 303 of his 374 runs in one innings (81.0 %) and never made another score above 50. To be precise, his next highest score is only 26.

It is hoped that he will play at least a few more Tests and score more centuries. Until then, he holds a couple of records in all Tests. This does NOT include the highest maiden century, as Gary Sobers (365*) and Bob Simpson (311) are ahead.

Highest score by someone who scored only one century ( 150 and above):

KK Nair heads this list, ahead of England’s RE Foster who held the record for about 113 years. His 287 (on debut) was the world Test record until early 1930 when Andy Sandham made 325 (in his last Test), though Bradman crossed it with 334 later the same year.

Foster, Kuruppu, Fawad Alam, K Ibadulla, C Bannerman and A Jackson  were making their Test debuts. Gillespie made his only century in his last Test while batting as nightwatchman. There are several other current players here led by MT Renshaw with 184.

Another quirky record is the highest Test score made by someone who never made a fifty (i.e. a score between 50 and 99). This gets a bit messy due to Statsguru’s limitations, but we get these figures:

Highest score by those who scored one century and no fifty (110 and above):

Highest score by those who scored two centuries and no fifties (all cases):

And finally:

Highest score by those who scored three centuries and no fifties (all cases):

No one has scored more than three centuries without a fifty. For a short time KL Rahul shared the record with Bopara. But Rahul scored his first fifty soon after he scored his third century.

As we can see, KK Nair is the only one to score a triple century but no fifty. David Lloyd and Brendon Kuruppu are the only ones to score a double century but no fifty. And Ravi Bopara’s Test career may be over, but he also holds a record which may not be broken for a long time.

KK Nair is also the only current player with one or more centuries and no fifties.

 

 

 

 

 

More on Chinaman bowlers in Tests

This article: http://www.cricketcountry.com/news/chinaman-bowlers-kuldeep-yadav-lakshan-sandakan-tabraiz-shamsi-and-others-in-international-cricket-2-588700

gives a comprehensive history of all those who have bowled in the Chinaman style (left-hand wrist-spinner) at some point in their Test careers. I am going a little further in studying the performances of those who exclusively bowled in this style (even if they were not regular bowlers). A number of famous names including the alleged inventor Ellis Achong, Johnny Wardle, Gary Sobers and Bernard Julien bowled in various other styles.

So here are the “exclusively Chinaman” bowlers and their careers in brief. This is in chronological order:

Even the change bowlers have taken fivers and tenners.

The best innings bowling in this category is 7-75 by Lindsay Kline:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62866.html

The best match bowling is 10-106 by Paul Adams:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64028.html

There is also Michael Bevan’s tenner along with 85*, which makes him among the relatively few to score a fifty and take 10-wickets in a match:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63732.html

A few years before that Allan Border also scored 75 and took 11 wickets with his little-used left-arm spin against the West Indies:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63499.html

The full list of those who scored 50 and took 10 wickets in a match:

Sir Richard Hadlee is the only one to do this more than once, while “Sir” Ravindra Jadeja also makes an appearance.

It is interesting to see that these occasional bowlers achieved a ten-wicket haul which well-known bowlers such as Willis, Brett Lee, Kallis, Thomson and Sobers were not able to manage during their long careers:

Over 200 wickets with no 10-for:

Coming back to the Chinamen bowlers, here are the best innings and match bowling figures on debut:

The trio of PADLR Sandakan, LO Fleetwood Smith and Kuldeep Yadav have the best performances in innings as well as match bowling. Here is Sandakan’s debut:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/995451.html

We now look forward to competition between Sandakan and Yadav for being the best current Chinamen bowlers.

Footnote: Michael Bevan, who seems to have had some Indian ancestry, was soon dropped from the Test team as his batting was not good enough. He then became one of the mainstays of Australia’s ODI middle-order.

 

 

All-round fails in ODIs

Note: Data as on 25th March 2017:

Having covered batting, bowling and fielding fails in the three formats of cricket, we finally turn our attention to all-round fails in ODIs. (T20Is have already been covered.) For all-round performance we take the cases of (batting + bowling) as well as (batting + bowling + fielding).

No runs and no wickets in ODIs (2 or more matches):

There are, in fact, as many as 58 players who did not score a run or take a wicket in their ODI career. Here we have listed only the 13 who played 2 or more matches.

These include a few Test players such as T Bosch, RG Hart and KV Sharma.

No runs, no wickets and no dismissals in ODIs (complete list):

A few more Test players here, of whom the best known among current players may be PHT (Tharindu) Kaushal and Zafar Ansari. The most well-known may be the Australian pace bowler of the 60s Alan Connolly who played one ODI at the end of his career which included 29 Tests. We have already met Anwar Hussain Monir as one of the most unsuccessful Test bowlers. M Watkinson had scored 80+ in a Test against the West Indies.

Note something odd about the career of A Dananjaya? We will soon return to him.

No batting and bowling in ODIs (complete list):

Note the newcomer Zafar Ansari (3 Tests) and the forgotten Roger Tolchard (4 Tests against India in 1976-77; he was Alan Knott’s reserve but was considered a good enough batsman to displace a specialist batsman in Tests). Apart from our now familiar A Dananjaya, all of them did get to field (but not to bat or bowl).

No batting, bowling and fielding in ODIs (complete list):

We need to know more about him and his ODI career.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/574178.html

He has a nice smile.

He has played 5 T20Is and even a side 50-over match against Bangladesh a few days ago, so he may yet play more ODIs.

This explains what happened in his one ODI so far:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/582191.html

In this rain-affected match, his team did bat and got to 123/8. He was the No 10 or 11 batsman and never got to bat. And he could not bowl or field as rain prevented New Zealand’s innings from starting. Let us hope he plays at least one more ODI so that he loses this record.

 

 

 

 

Kuldeep Yadav’s debut-innings figures

Kuldeep Yadav, classified as a slow left-arm Chinaman bowler, took 4-68 in his first Test innings. Let us see where this performance stands.

If you are not clear as to what type of bowling this is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-arm_unorthodox_spin

More details of similar bowlers in Test history: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/310734.html

There are a few others such as Roy Fredericks who rarely bowled-but he did take a few Test wickets including AD Gaekwad of India.

However, Statsguru’s database does not list Chinaman as a class of bowlers. We can only segregate left-arm spinners.

The following tables have data up to the evening of 25 March 2017.

Best innings bowling by Indian bowlers on debut:

Here Kuldeep Yadav is 15th on the list of those who took 4 or more wickets in an innings on debut. Hirwani’s twin 8-wicket hauls head the list. There does not seem to be any known Chinaman bowler here. In fact, there is only one other slow left-arm spinner here. Back to this later.

Now we look at

Best innings bowling by slow left-arm bowlers on debut:

Here Kuldeep Yadav is 22nd of the 29 who took at least 4 wickets in an innings.Note Abdur Rehman’s 4-105 in both innings which is the best case of the same bowling analysis in both innings on debut. And R Berry took 5wi and 4wi in the first of his two Tests; perhaps he was overshadowed by fellow debutants Ramadhin and Valentine.

LO Fleetwood-Smith and the current Sri Lankan player PADLR (Paddler?) Sandakan appear to be the only other bowlers classified as  Chinaman bowlers:

Finally we look at the best innings figures for Indian slow left-arm bowlers on debut:

And Dilip Doshi was an orthodox left-arm spinner. (He is also supposed to be the only Jain to have played Tests for India).

So it appears that Kuldeep Yadav’s innings bowling figures on debut may be among the best for those classified as Chinaman bowlers. Let us see how his match figures turn out.

 

 

All-round fails in T20Is

Note: Data as on 25th March 2017:

Having covered batting, bowling and fielding fails in the three formats of cricket, we finally turn our attention to all-round fails in T20Is. For all-round performance we take the cases of (batting + bowling) as well as (batting + bowling + fielding).

No runs or wickets in T20Is (2 or more matches):

Mostly lesser-known players here except for MS Sinclair, who was a prominent Test batsman who was at the end of his career when he turned to T20Is. Other Test players include current SL player Nuwan Pradeep and earlier player Ruchira Perera whose bowling action was generally under a cloud. The popular heavyweight Dwayne Leverock is also here.

As you can see, several of the players listed above took catches and stumpings. We now look at those who did not manage any fielding dismissals besides runs and wickets.

No runs or wickets or dismissals in T20Is (2 or more matches):

A shorter list, but still including a handful of Test players. At least they did get to field. Note that the Irish player GJ McCarter has the record to himself. Later we will see some who never got a chance to field in their T20I careers.

No batting or bowling in T20Is (complete list):

Several wicketkeepers here, including Ambrose, de Saram and Vilas who played several Tests for England, Sri Lanka and South Africa respectively. Note the special cases of Mol and Schoonheim, which are covered below:

No batting, bowling or fielding in T20Is (complete list):

These two players were scheduled to play in a T20I which was completely rained off. But the toss had taken place, and under ICC guidelines the match is included in player records. Not all statisticians will agree with this guideline, which has covered a few more matches (including one between India and Scotland at the first T20I world championship in 2007).

While Mol did play a few ODIs, Schoonheim did not represent his country on any other occasion.

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

Patel: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/1278675.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.

The first 100 Tests

With the conclusion of Bangladesh’s Test at the PSS ground at Colombo, all Test-playing countries have completed 100 Tests. It is interesting to see how the teams have fared during the first 100 Tests.

You might think that Australia did the best in its first 100 Tests? Wrong. And which team recorded the least wins in its first 100 Tests? Bangladesh? Wrong again.

There are various ways in which we can look at team performance. First we start with the raw data, in which the abandoned Tests with no play are not counted.

First we see this table with teams arranged in order of wins in their first 100 Tests:

England is a little ahead of Australia here. And Bangladesh won more Tests than New Zealand did. Zimbabwe is just ahead of India, which is in 8th place.

Then they can be arranged in order of Win/Loss Ratio:

England is still on top, while the West Indies is just ahead of Australia. Beyond Australia, there are wide gaps though it is interesting to see Zimbabwe ahead of New Zealand and Bangladesh. Older cricket literature (prior to the 1960s) is often quite dismissive of New Zealand’s Test teams. India is in 7th place here.

For Percentage Score, we consider a win earning one point and a draw earning half a point.

Hence Australia with 42 wins, 40 losses and 18 draws has a score (or percentage score for 100 Tests) of 42 + 0.5 * 18= 42 + 9 = 51.0

So here is the table in order of Percentage Score:

We consider Australia ahead of the West Indies as they had more wins (42 against 35).

After Australia and the West Indies there is a fairly wide spread, with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh at the bottom. India is in 6th place.

Looking back at the different tables we can see that South Africa, New Zealand and India did not win many Tests in their early years but were somewhat more successful in drawing matches when compared to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. And Australian performances were not consistent until part of the 20th century had elapsed. On the whole, Pakistan and Sri Lanka picked up faster than India. In fact Pakistan has the most draws among the teams, followed by India.

 

 

 

A landmark win for Bangladesh

Bangladesh has now completed 100 Tests. They marked the 100th Test with their 9th Test victory. Here are the 9 Test victories in chronological order:

This can be summarized as:

Won 1-0 at home vs Zimbabwe in 2004-05

Won 2-0 away vs West Indies in 2009

Drew 1-1 away vs Zimbabwe in 2013

Won 3-0 at home vs Zimbabwe in 2014-15

Drew 1-1 at home vs England in 2016-17

Drew 1-1 away vs Sri Lanka in 2016-17

Today’s win was their first Test victory against Sri Lanka (and in Sri Lanka).

At this point we can review the performances of Bangladeshi players in these 9 Test victories.

Runs: 100 and above:

Tamim, Shakib and Mushfiqur played in 8 of the 9 wins. They only missed the one in 2004-05. Tamim scored 4 centuries and 2 fifties in these matches, as you can see in the table below.

Highest innings (90 and above):

Bowling (5 or more wickets):

Shakib far ahead of the others with Taijul as a surprise second, with newcomer Miraz rapidly moving up.

Best innings bowling (5wi and above):

The one-Test heroes Taijul and Enamul head the list. Otherwise there is mainly Shakib, but do not forget Mahmudullah’s fiver on debut as well as the emergence of MH Miraz.

Best match bowling (7 or more wickets):

Headed by Miraj and Shakib. Shakib scored a century in the same match.

Most fielding dismissals (5 and above):

Headed by Mushfiqur who kept in all but the 2005 match. Khaled Mashud was the keeper then. Mahmudullah and Mominul have the most catches as non-keepers.

Innings fielding dismissals (3 or more):

Mainly Mushfiqur, though Soumya Sarkar has the most (4) catches by a non-keeper.

Match fielding dismissals (4 or more):

As above, headed by Mushfiqur for keepers and Soumya for non-keepers.

All-round performance (minimum 250 runs and 5 wickets):

Shakib followed by Mahmudullah (who was dropped for the current match).

All-round performance in match (fifty and five-for):

Includes M. Rafique, the only all-rounder in the early Tests and two efforts by Shakib. This includes the century and ten wickets at Khulna, which puts him on the same level as Botham and Imran.

You can also see this piece written at the time of the victory over England a few months ago:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/bangladeshs-greatest-test-win/

Fielding fails in T20Is

(Data correct as on 14 Mar 2017)

After looking at batting and bowling fails in all three formats, we turn our attention to those who failed to make any fielding dismissal in their careers.

Here we have these players arranged in order of innings fielded:

Amir Hamza of Afghanistan leads by a large margin over the better known Rangana Herath, currently the Sri Lankan Test captain and the only current Test player who made his debut in the 1990s.

Amir Hamza is an useful bowler but not much of a batsman either. But he is a regular for ODIs and T20Is at the moment.

A number of other somewhat well-known international players appear here, including some Test players.

You can see that the results would be virtually the same if you arrange them in order of matches played.

Now we look at wicket-keepers who have failed to dismiss anyone:

A number of Test and ODI players here, who have at least made some dismissals at those levels. The leader here is Regis Chakabva (9 Tests, 9 dismissals) followed by Carlton Baugh  (no less than 21 Tests, 43 catches and 5 stumpings). NV Ojha has played one Test and one ODI and has made dismissals in both.

Finally, we look at those who never fielded in their T20I career:

Nothing profound here. These two players from Netherlands were involved in a washed-out game against Ireland in 2008. As the toss was made, ICC rules state that this match counts in their career records. (Statisticians may disagree; as some disregard matches involving the ICC XI and their like, perhaps these matches should also be disregarded).

While Mol did play several ODIs, Schoonheim did not play for his country on any other occasion.

Bowling fails in Test matches

Continuing the thread from here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/bowling-fails-in-odis/

Here we consider the bowlers who failed to take a wicket in their Test careers. They do include some specialist bowlers who lost their Test place quickly, but are more likely to be batsmen with limited bowling ability who sometimes bowled a few overs to give some rest to the regular bowlers. There are even some wicket-keepers who bowled a little.

We start with the most runs conceded without taking a wicket (90 runs and above):

We can see that there are some specialist bowlers with short careers as well as well-known batsmen (notably GA Headley, Habibul Bashar and K Srikkanth). Srikkanth was more successful in ODIs where he took two fivers. But it is the forgotten AH Monir of Bangladesh who heads this list.

Now for the most balls bowled without taking a wicket (150 balls and above):

JL Hopwood was close to the top in the first table and heads this table. He had the misfortune to bowl against a strong Australian lineup with Bradman and friends. Headley comes next followed by Monir. As above, there is a mix of specialist bowlers and part-timers.

Most innings bowled without taking a wicket (6 and above):

Srikkanth heads this list-perhaps he and Headley can be considered as the most determined of the part-timers. Many others like Bradman and Gavaskar bowled on rare occasions but did take at least one wicket. So did some keepers such as Boucher and Kirmani (not to forget AF Lyttleton’s 4-wicket haul). Some current players such as Kohli and Voges have so far been unsuccessful.

Most matches played without taking a wicket (75 and above):

Sangakkara and Stewart (who kept wicket in most of their Tests) head this list, though there are also non-keepers like Lara, Strauss, Inzamam and Vengsarkar near the top. And there are some who never bowled throughout their long Test careers. More about them later. For now, we look at

Most matches played by non-keepers without taking a wicket (75 and above):

Note Fleming and Strauss who played the most Tests without ever bowling. We look into this category further:

Most matches played without ever bowling (50 and above):

Many keepers in this list, so we look at the non-keepers.

Most matches played by non-keepers without ever bowling (50 and above):

SP Fleming heads this list, followed by Strauss and Misbah.

While wicketless players do not have a bowling average or a strike rate, they do have an economy rate. We close with

Best economy rate for those who never took a wicket (150 balls and above):

Oddly enough this is headed by Australian RJ Quiney who is not a regular bowler in domestic cricket. A few other part-timers (LS Darling and Roope to begin with) have better economy rates than the specialist bowlers. We have already met AH Monir who is the most expensive here. We may as well learn more about him:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh/content/player/56235.html

The Test debutants of 2016-2

We complete this review with a look at the fielding and all-round performances of those who made their Test debut in 2016.

Of the 44 debutants, only one, PJ Moor of Zimbabwe, was a wicket-keeper. He took precisely one catch on debut. So whatever we have here is applicable to non-keepers.

Most dismissals in an innings (2 or more):

Most dismissals in a match (4 or more):

Hameed and Raval have the best performances here, as well as in batting and fielding (see below). The South Asian diaspora seems to be coming along well.

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

All-round performances (at least 30 runs and 3 dismissals in match):