Review of NZ-India ODIs-1

New Zealand won the series 3-0, the first such whitewash for India in ODIs for a long time.

We start with a listing of match results since the beginning of 2019:

India did win 4-1 in New Zealand just over a year ago. Then they lost to them in the World cup semi-final, and then the 3 matches in Feb 2020.

Here is the overall record of ODIs between these teams:

India still has an overall lead of 55-49 and 26-8 at home, while NZ leads 25-14 at home and marginally leads 16-15 at neutral venues. Certainly a strong home advantage on both sides. But India had won there in 2019.

Now for individual records, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

Taylor and Kohli are now in 2nd and 3rd place, though well below the first-placed Tendulkar. Williamson and Guptill are the other current players here.

Sehwag has the most centuries (6) followed by Tendulkar, Kohli and Astle with 5 apiece. The most scores of 50+ are 13 by Kohli and Tendulkar,  followed by 11 by R Taylor.

Highest innings (110 and above):

Tendulkar has the two highest scores made a decade apart. Kohli’s 154* is the highest score by current players. But this series had fewer large individual scores, the highest being 112 by KL Rahul.

Highest batting averages (Min 20 innings, 30.00):

Kohli has the highest average here, with Dhoni (?) and Taylor the next highest among current players. Williamson and Rohit Sharma are also here.

Highest batting strike rate (Min 500 balls faced, 75.00):

The first two, Sehwag and Kapil, are at some distance from the next few. Kohli, Latham and Taylor lead among current players. Guptill and other current players are also seen here.

To be continued.

 

Review of India-Australia ODI series-1

As you know, India won the series of January 2020 by a 2-1 margin.

Here are the results of ODIs between these teams since January 2019:

India won 2-1 in Australia in Jan 2019

Aus won 3-2 in Ind in Mar 2019

Ind won 1-0 in the World Cup in Jun 2019

Ind won 2-1 in Ind in Jan 2020

On the whole India has done better in the past year.

We also look at the results of all ODIs between these teams:

Australia still leads 78-51 overall but only 30-29 in India.

We now look at the individual performances in batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

RG Sharma and Kohli continue to move up though they have some distance to go to reach Tendulkar’s record. Finch and Dhawan are among the other current players here.

Tendulkar has the most centuries (9) followed by Kohli and Sharma with 8.

Tendulkar also has the most scores of 50-plus (24) and is predictably followed by Kohli and Sharma with 16.

Highest innings (125 or more):

Note that RG Sharma has the highest overall score in this series (209) as well as India’s highest in Australia (171*).

However, Smith (131) and Warner (128*) made the highest scores in this series.

Highest batting average (Min 20 innings, 35.00):

Sharma and Kohli are the top two. Dhawan and Finch are among the other current players here. Smith and Warner have not played enough to qualify.

Highest strike rate (Minimum 500 balls faced, 80.00):

Now you can see why Australian fans want Maxwell back in the team.

Dhawan and SPD Smith have the best strike rates among those who played in 2020.

To be continued:

 

 

Review of India-Sri Lanka T20Is

India won this series 2-0 after the first match was washed out.

Here is the record of all T20Is between these sides:

Of the 18 completed matches:

India lead 13-5 overall

In India, they lead 8-2

In Sri Lanka, they lead 4-1

In neutral venues, India trail 1-2

From the above list, we see that the only bilateral series of 3 matches was in India in Dec 2017, which India won 3-0. Earlier in Sri Lanka that year, India won all the Tests and ODIs plus the sole T20I.

Now for individual records, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (115 or more):

The Indian top 4 in white-ball cricket are the top 4 here.

RG Sharma is the only one with a century. Kohli has the most (4) scores of 50+.

Highest individual scores (50 and above):

This was a low-scoring series as the highest score was just 57 by DM de Silva.

Most wickets (6 or more):

YS Chahal and Ashwin lead here, along with K Yadav, Bumrah and others who played in this series.

Best innings bowling (3 wickets or more):

The top positions are of those who have not played for a while. The best in this series was SN Thakur’s 3-23.

Most dismissals (5 or more):

Dhoni expectedly leads, although HH Pandya is a bit of  a surprise here. He also has the same dismissal rate as Dhoni.

Most innings dismissals (3 or more):

An one-man show.

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

Yuvraj Singh’s performance was clearly the best. Also note Thakur’s performance in this series.

 

The ODIs of 2019-1

Here is the summary of all the ODIs of 2019:

Win-Loss ratios for all teams:

This isn’t very useful as the Netherlands and Namibia come out on top.

The ICC rankings on Dec 31 are more meaningful:

Here we have the four semi-finalists of the World Cup at the top.

Next we move to the individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (600 or more):

RG Sharma, V Kohli and SD Hope lead by a big margin.

Sharma has the most centuries (7) followed by Kohli (5).

The most scores of 50+ were by Sharma (13) followed by Kohli and Hope with 12 apiece.

Highest innings scores (120 or more):

Led by the relatively lesser-known JD Campbell. There are several other scores above 150.

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

Hope, Babar Azam and Kohli are close together at the top.

Highest strike rates (Min 500 balls faced, 90.00):

Here we have some other names at the top such as JJ Roy, who is considerably ahead of EJG Morgan. While Kohli is here, others who scored the most (RG Sharma and SD Hope) did not score fast enough. There is one player (N Zadran) from Afghanistan.

To be continued:

ODIs between India and the West Indies-1

India’s 2-1 win in the series in December is the 3rd successive win for them in bilateral series against the West Indies. India had won 3-1 at home in 2018-19 and 2-0 away in 2019 before this.

The overall results:

India now have a slender 64-63 lead overall and similarly 29-28 at home. They also lead 19-15 at neutral venues and trail WI 16-20 in away matches.

We now look at individual performances:

Batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

Kohli has now scored far more runs than anyone else, including present players such as RG Sharma and CH Gayle.

Kohli also has the most centuries (9) and 50+ scores (20).

Highest innings (110 and above):

During this series high scores were recorded by RG Sharma (159) and SO Hetmyer (139).

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

Again, Kohli is far ahead of anyone else starting with his team-mate RG Sharma. We see that Srikkanth, Kapil and Shastri have lower averages than we may expect.

Highest batting strike rates (Min 500 balls, 60.00)

Headed by Sehwag, Viv Richards and Kohli. Other current players near the top are Dhoni and Dhawan.

To be continued:

Test captaincy updates-3

Coming back to records up to 3 Dec 2019:

A total of 334 players have captained in Tests. Here are those who have captained in the most, along with their win/loss/draw records:

Kohli is now 12th on this list, somewhat ahead of Root and Steve Smith. He needs 8 more Tests to overtake Dhoni (besides other recent captains such as Cook and Misbah).

Some simple parameters for ranking include the percentage of wins and the win/loss ratio.

We consider these for the 157 who were captains in at least 10 Tests.

Ranked by percentage of wins:

Headed by Australia’s “Big Ship” Warwick Armstrong, who led the team to successive 5-0 and 3-0 Ashes wins after the Great War. Virat Kohli is 4th, after Steve Waugh and Don Bradman. Other current or near-current captains here are Kane Williamson (#12), Faf du Plessis (#18), SPD Smith (#19) and Joe Root (#30). The next from India is Dhoni (#40) and 45.00%.

At  the very bottom are M Ashraful (13 Tests and no wins) along with Ian Botham (!) and Khaled Mashud (12 Tests and no wins). Just above them are SA’s Alan Melville and Zimbabwe’s Tatenda Taibu (10 winless Tests).

We can also look at the ranking by Win-Loss Ratio for the same set of 157 captains:

Note that Armstrong has 8 wins and 2 draws with no losses, and thus has an undefined win-loss ratio. Everyone else with at least 10 Tests has at least one loss, starting with the second-ranked Douglas Jardine (born in Bombay).

Kohli is 9th here, ahead of all other contemporaries. Next is Williamson (#18), GC Smith (#33) and SPD Smith (#35). The next from India is Ganguly (#42) and 1.62

At  the bottom are the same quintet listed above, with Ashraful logically at the bottom with 0 wins in 13 Tests followed by Botham and the others.

Among those who captained in less than 10 Tests, a notable performance was that of England’s Brian Close (7 Tests, 6 wins and 1 draw).

 

 

 

Test captaincy updates-1

It is easy enough to get updated tables like this:

(All these tables are updated to Dec 3, 2019):

Most Tests (120 and above)

Current players with the most Tests are Anderson (149), Broad (134) and Amla (124).

Another table which is easy to create:

Most Tests as Captain (40 and above):

Kohli is the only current player here. He has captained in 53 Tests and has still to overtake Dhoni (60). He overtook Ganguly (49), Gavaskar and Azharuddin (47) not long ago.

But this one needs a little more work with Excel:

Most Tests NOT as Captain (105 and above):

Current players here are Anderson (149), Broad (134) besides recent retirees de Villiers (111) and Amla (110). Note that some, like Tendulkar and Kallis, have captained for a few Tests but others such as Anderson and Broad have never captained. More about these cases shortly.