Captains in one Test-May 2021

There are as many as 45 Test captains who were captain in exactly one Test:

From this we come to

Captains who won their only Test:

Only 10 of the 40, the most recent being Mashrafe Mortaza. Even in his case, he was injured soon after the match started and Shakib Al Hasan was the effective captain. This was Bangladesh’s first Test win abroad, though it was against what was virtually a 3rd XI of the West Indies.

Shastri is the only such captain from India. Perhaps India’s performance in the late 80s may have been better if he had captained.

CA Smith was playing in his only Test. Later he was better known as a Hollywood actor.

Captains who lost their only Test:

Not surprisingly, the 19 members here are almost twice the number of those who won their only Test. The latest was Ben Stokes, who was substituting for Joe Root.

India has two prominent players in Borde and Pankaj Roy.

DB Carr played only in 2 Tests overall. This loss was India’s first win in any Test, which oddly enough coincided with the death of King George VI. The captain appointed for that series was the equally undistinguished ND Howard who played his only 4 Tests in that series.

AR Richards, JH Anderson and N Betancourt were playing in their only Tests.

Captains who drew their only Test:

The most recent was BA Murphy in 2001. From India there is HR Adhikari. Prominent players here include DL Murray, G Kirsten, RR Lindwall and TW Graveney.

Taberer was playing his only Test.

Review of Pakistan-South Africa Test series-1

After this series was won 2-0 by Pakistan, this is the summary of the 28 Tests played between these teams:

This is only the second time Pakistan has won a Test series against South Africa. The previous occasion was in 2003-04, where the captains were Md Yousuf (win) and Inzamam (draw) vs Graeme Smith.

And Pakistan lost 3-0 when they last toured SA in 2018-19. Sarfraraz Ahmed was then the captain.

Babar Azam’s Test captaincy started with two wins.

The overall record:

Next we look at individual records.

Most runs (500 and above):

Azhar Ali is the only current player here.

The most centuries are 6 by Kallis and 4 each by de Villiers, Smith and Younis Khan. And the most 50+ scores are 14 by Kallis and 12 by Amla.

Highest individual scores (125 and above):

de Villiers has the best performance here. No one from the current series.

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

As in the earlier table, de Villiers leads by a distance. Azhar Ali is the only current player.

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

Similarly, led by de Villiers with Azhar Ali the only current player.

To be continued.

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.

 

Another record for Brendon McCullum (Revised in Sep 2017)

As we all know, Brendon McCullum recorded the fastest ever Test century in the Christchurch Test when he crossed 100 in 54 balls.

He also became the only Test player to score a century in the last test of his career, while captaining his country. This is what you get from Statsguru:

Naturally, Smith can be discounted as we know he has not retired. So McCullum is the only one who qualifies.

This seemed a bit odd, so I repeated this check to identify those who scored a fifty in the last test of their career, while captaining their side. We get this:

This live link may be more useful: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?captain=1;class=1;debut_or_last=2;filter=advanced;opposition=1;opposition=2;opposition=25;opposition=3;opposition=4;opposition=5;opposition=6;opposition=7;opposition=8;opposition=9;orderby=start;qualmin1=1;qualval1=fifty_plus;team=1;team=2;team=25;team=3;team=4;team=5;team=6;team=7;team=8;team=9;template=results;type=batting

As many as 34 names here. But it includes some whose Test careers are not over, essentially everyone from Mushfiqur Rahim downwards excluding McCullum and now Misbah. So we remove Mushfiqur, Kohli, Mathews, AN Cook and SPD Smith.

So we are left with 29 who scored a fifty in their last Test when they were captaining. In some cases their retirement was known in advance, in other cases they may not have known they were playing their last Test.

McCullum has scored the most runs in the match (170) among these, though a few others have crossed 100 without making a century. The WI player RK Nunes is the only one to score two fifties in this category.

We may as well see the list of all those who scored centuries in the last Test of their career, regardless of captaincy:

This live link may be more useful: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282931.html

Here we have a total of 42. We remove current players who are likely to keep playing for a while: Hafeez, Rahane, SE Marsh, Amla, SC Cook, de Kock, Burns and SPD Smith. This leaves 34 who scored centuries in their last Test (unless McCullum makes a comeback). In contrast, 100 players scored 102 centuries on debut (Remember Rowe and Yaseer Hameed).

Naturally our old friends AG Ganteaume and RE Redmond are there, as their first and last Tests were the same. Others who scored centuries on debut and last Tests are Duff (104 & 146), Ponsford (110 & 266), Greg Chappell (108 & 182) and Azharuddin (110 & 102). In case SE Marsh does not play another Test he will also join this club with 141 & 182.

Centuries in their last Test include those by Sandham (325, the first Test triple century) and double centuries by Ponsford, Nurse, Aravinda de Silva (last f-c match) and (strangest of all) night-watchman Gillespie making his only Test century.

CAG Russell is the only one to score centuries in both innings of his last Test. He was the first English player to score centuries in both innings of a Test.