Review of NZ-India ODIs-2

Hope you have seen Part 1.

Continuing with individual performances in Bowling:

Most wickets (20 and above):

The Karnataka pair of Srinath and Kumble lead.

No one has more than one 5-for. Srinath and Southee have two 4-fors.

Southee (30) and Boult (24) have the most wickets amongst current players.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 5wi):

SE Bond has the best figures of 6-19, during his relatively short career. No good individual performance in this series, although Boult had 5-21 in 2019.

Bowling averages (Min 1000 balls, all instances):

Southee is the only current player here, though close to the bottom.

Srinath and Hadlee have the best bowling averages.

Hadlee and Kapil have the best economy rates.

Srinath and Nehra (!) have the best strike rates.

Fielding records:

Most dismissals (12 and above):

The forgotten NR Mongia has the most dismissals (36) and most stumpings (12).

However McCullum (25) has the most catches by a keeper, followed by Mongia and Dhoni with 24 each.

R Taylor (19) has the most catches by a fielder, followed by SP Fleming (18).

Most dismissals in innings (4 and above):

The record is 5 dismissals, while a number of fielders have taken 4 catches. The only such instance recently was KD Karthik’s 4 catches as a keeper in 2019.

Best dismissal rate (Min 20 innings, 0.500):

NR Mongia leads again. Vengsarkar (!) has the highest dismissal rate among fielders.

Overall all-round performance (see criterion in table):

While notable all-rounders such as Kapil, Hadlee and Vettori have played in these matches, the only one with a creditable record is the “bits-and-pieces” all-rounder CZ Harris.

All-round match performance (Min 40 runs and 4 innings):

Another surprise: the only such performance is the unheralded K Srikkanth, whose bowling ability seems to have been a well-kept secret. His 70 and 5-27 back in 1988-89 was probably India’s best all-round feat in ODIs against all countries at that time.

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:

 

 

The ODIs of 2019-2

Hope that you have read Part 1

Continuing with the individual performances in ODIs for the calendar year 2019:

Bowling:

Most wickets (20 or more):

Led by M Shami and TA Boult.

However Mustafizur Rahman and MA Starc are the only ones with two fivers.

Starc is also the only one with 4 hauls of 4+wi.

Best innings bowling ( including all fivers):

Newcomer SS Afridi has the best figures here, followed by YS Chahal.

Also note the remarkable 5-13 off 8 overs by JN Frylinck of Namibia.

Best bowling averages (Min 1000 balls, all instances):

Shami has the best average as well as strike rate and Boult the best economy rate.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (10 or more):

Carey, Hope and Latham lead here although Hope has the most catches by a keeper. Kohli has the most catches by a non-keeper and Dhoni the most stumpings.

Most dismissals in an innings (4 or more):

There is an unfamiliar name (ZE Green of Namibia) among those who made 5 dismissals in an innings. CR Woakes and CS Macleod took 4 catches as non-keepers.

Best dismissal rate (Min 20 innings, 0.5):

Carey and Hope have the highest dismissal rate, while the third-placed Root has the best by a non-keeper.

Overall All-round performance:

(See criteria below):

Mohammad Nabi and Imad Wasim have almost the same difference rate.

All-round match performance: (30 runs and 3 wickets):

The best performance would be by Khawar Ali followed by that of AL Phehlukwayo and Soumya Sarkar. Perhaps Khawar Ali’s performance should be downplayed as it was against one of the weaker teams.

 

 

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:

The jinx in India-Pakistan matches (updated in June 2019)

It is often said that India dominates Pakistan in ICC tournaments. Hence the “Mauka Mauka” ads which aired at the beginning of the 2015 and 2019 World Cups.

Let us see take a closer look at the history of these encounters. First, the World Cup:

Note the two matches at Manchester separated by 20 years. In 1999 the mini-war in Kargil was in progress.

India and Pakistan never met in the World Cups of 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1987. They were somehow always drawn in different groups so they could have met only in the semi-finals or finals.

It was not until 1992 that they met in the World Cup. In that tournament (as in 2019) all teams played each other in the round-robin knockout stage.

They met in the quarter-finals in 1996, Super Six in 1999, and a pool match in 2003. India won all these matches so the feeling of a jinx over Pakistan kept growing.

In 2007, both India and Pakistan were jinxed and failed to proceed beyond the pool stage, being displaced by Bangladesh and Ireland respectively.

In 2011, India won in the semi-final, repeated this in a pool match in 2015 and again in a round-robin match in 2019.

This makes it 7 out of 7.

If you want to see the scorecards, open this link and click on the blue square on the extreme right.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;opposition=7;orderby=start;team=6;template=results;trophy=12;type=team;view=results

Now we go to the T20 World Championship. We will come back to the Champions Trophy at the end.

The teams met twice in the inaugural championship in 2007. Though the match in the pool stage was a tie, India got the winner’s points as they won in the bowl-out which was then the method used to determine the winner of a tied match.

Then India won against Pakistan in the final. The teams did not meet in 2009 and 2010. India won the next three encounters in 2012, 2014 and 2016. All of these were in the group stages and not the semi-final or final. Thus India leads 5-0 (including the tie) in the World T20 Championship.

You can see the scorecards from this link:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=3;filter=advanced;opposition=7;orderby=start;team=6;template=results;trophy=89;type=team;view=results

For details of the bowl-out in the first match in 2007, see the commentary section rather than the scorecard.

But the story in the Champions Trophy is somewhat different:

India and Pakistan did not meet in 1998, 2000 or 2002 (when India shared the trophy with Sri Lanka). Pakistan won the first encounter in 2004 in the group stage. They did not meet in 2006. Pakistan won in 2009, also in the group stage. India finally won in 2013, in a group match on their way to the trophy.

In 2017, India won the group match but lost in the final.

So the jinx on Pakistan in ICC tournaments does not apply to Pakistan in the Champions Trophy, where they lead India 3-2.

See the scorecards here:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;opposition=7;orderby=start;team=6;template=results;trophy=44;type=team;view=results

 

 

Preview of the Asia Cup 2018

Hong Kong won the qualifying tournament, and will join the regular teams India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan in cricket’s Asia Cup 2018

The odd thing is that Hong Kong is not a regular ODI team now, as it had lost its status in April 2018. They qualified ahead of Nepal and UAE who do have ODI status. (That is why the Nepal v UAE match was the only official ODI among the qualifying matches). The other matches had only List A status.

It is understood that Hong Kong will get ODI status for the Asia Cup matches. This temporary membership has happened before for various teams in the World Cup and Asia Cup.

For more details see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Day_International#Teams_with_ODI_status

For the Asia Cup matches, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Asia_Cup

International cricket at the lower levels-WCL Division 4 in 2018

As in most major sports, it is a long grind from the lower levels to the top levels. Afghanistan has made the transition from Division 5 to Test status in about a decade, so there is hope for others. Here is a summary of the Division 4 championships in 2018. Note that only matches in WCL 2 and above are given List A status.

In some cases, Wikipedia’s summaries are better than those of Cricinfo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_ICC_World_Cricket_League_Division_Four

Although playoffs for 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th and 5th/6th were scheduled, they were cancelled due to rain and the rankings were determined by the league stages. These were the results:

Team[29] v t e	Pld	W	L	T	NR	Pts	NRR	Status
Uganda	5	4	1	0	0	8	+1.175	Promoted to Division Three for 2018
Denmark	5	3	2	0	0	6	+0.349
Malaysia	5	3	2	0	0	6	+0.322	Remain in Division Four
Jersey	5	2	3	0	0	4	+0.044
Vanuatu	5	2	3	0	0	4	–0.677	Relegated to Division Five
Bermuda	5	1	4	0	0	2	–1.065