Review of India-New Zealand T20Is-January 2023

India continued its run of successes in white-ball cricket at home, winning the series 2-1 after losing the first match.

A total of 25 T20Is have been played between these teams.

India leads 12-10 with 3 ties.

In India, India leads 7-4

In NZ, India leads 5-4 with 3 ties

On neutral grounds, India trail 0-2. Both these losses came in World Cup matches.

Looking at individual performances, starting with Batting:

Most runs (250 or more):

Headed by RG Sharma with C Munro some distance behind Munro. S Gill and SA Yadav are the only other ones with centuries. RG Sharma has the most fifties (six).

Highest innings (75 or more):

S Gill now has the highest score in this series, overtaking Yadav’s 111* a short time ago. Munro’s 109* is the best for NZ.

Highest strike rates (minimum 250 balls faced):

This time Munro is ahead of RG Sharma.

Now for Bowling:

Most wickets (8 or more):

New Zealand bowlers dominate this list, starting with Sodhi (25) and Southee (20). The most for India is Bumrah’s 12.

Best innings bowling (including all 4wi or more):

DJ Hooda, not a frontline bowler, has the best innings figures followed by Santner and Pandya.

Most dismissals (8 or more):

Southee has the most dismissals (13). The most by a keeper is 9 by Dhoni.

Most innings dismissals: Several players have made 3 dismissals in an innings.

All-round match performance (20 runs and 2 wickets):

HH Pandya appears to have the best match performance, which came in India’s win in the final T20I.

More about bowling averages

Ever wondered about the average of Test bowling averages?

If we take all Tests up to Oct 25, 2019 and disregarding the Test involving the ICC XI in 2005, and a cutoff of 2000 balls bowled:

There are 613 bowlers fitting this criteria. A full statement:

Bowling averages-final

The bowling averages range from GA Lohmann’s 10.75 to EAR de Silva’s 129.00, which is the only 3-figure bowling average.

The average or mean bowling average is 34.45, which corresponds to that of JE Taylor and KD Mackay.

Looking at other measures of central tendency:

First quartile: 28.24 (SP Jones, RJ Sidebottom, HC Griffith)

Median: 32.92 (BL Cairns, L Amarnath)

Third quartile: 38.59 (AMB Rowan).

We also have the Economy Rate, which ranges from 1.31 runs/over for W Attewell to 4.16 for Shahadat Hossain.

The average is 2.75 (DK Lillee, RM Hogg)

And the Strike Rate, which ranges from 34.10 balls/wicket by GA Lohmann to 291.00 by EAR de Silva. Remember that they have the best and worst bowling averages as well.

We may as well have a closer look at them:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/16337.html

http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/48456.html

The average is 76.10 by Iqbal Qasim.

Next we will take up the difference between home and away bowling averages, as was done for batting averages in a recent post.