The Test debutants of 2018

The last of a series of reviews of Test cricket in 2018. Here we identify the good performances on Test debut.

Batting:

40 runs or more in an innings:

3 centuries headed by PP Shaw, and numerous other 50s.

There are several instances of 40+ in both innings, with Fakhar Zaman with 50+ in both innings. This will be seen more clearly here:

80 runs or more in match:

Fakhar Zaman’s 160 shares the second place among those who made two scores between 50 and 99 on debut.

The most is by the lesser-known BM Laird with 167 (Aus v WI, 1979-80) followed by CH Lloyd with 160 (WI v Ind, 1966-67).

Bowling:

3 or more wickets in an innings:

5 instances of fivers, led by Bilal Asif and L Ngidi. Vihari and Bumrah took 3-fors for India. Ireland has TJ Murtagh and SR Thompson in their debut Test, while Yamin Ahmadzai represents Afghanistan on their debut.

6 or more wickets in match:

Dananjaya’s 8-44 is the best for Sri Lanka on debut. The previous record was 8-132 by BAW Mendis (SL v Ind, 2008). Ireland has TJ Murtagh in their debut Test. Bilal Asif took 6 in the first innings and none in the second.

Fielding:

2 or more dismissals in an innings:

RR Pant leads here. His 5 dismissals equaled the record for India, though Yajurvindra Singh was a non-keeper. 3 Indian keepers made 4 dismissals in an innings on debut, all in the 1950s.

3 or more dismissals in a match:

RR Pant leads again with 7 dismissals. No one else has more than 3. MA Agarwal is one of those who took 3 as a non-keeper

Pant’s 7 dismissals equaled the Indian record with non-keeper Yajurvindra Singh. Several Indian keepers took 5 on debut, along with non-keepers RR Singh (only Test) and SS Das.

All-round performances:

30 runs and 3 wickets in match:

3 instances, with probably SR Thompson’s being the best.

30 runs and 3 dismissals:

3 instances, with Foakes being the only keeper and MA Agarwal having the best by a non-keeper. Also note MS Harris’s 26 and 26.

“He did nothing in the Test”

Following the second Test at Lord’s, there were some snide remarks directed at Adil Rashid who did not bat, bowl or take a catch in the match. He had however scored a few runs and took 3 wickets in the first Test.

It is fairly common to end a match without runs, wickets or dismissals, particularly when rain affects a large portion of the match. In 2018 alone six Test players have experienced this, including Kuldeep Yadav and Murali Vijay in the same Test.

An afterthought: Lakmal was captain in that Test. Probably we should exclude captains from a listing like this.

Is there anyone who never scored a run, took a wicket or made a fielding dismissal in his entire Test career? Yes, more than you may guess.

A total of 21 players, of whom only TAP Sekhar played 2 Tests and the rest never got another chance.

The only one who did not bat or bowl at all was JCW MacBryan in 1924, who was a victim of a badly rain-affected Test where his side never got to bat and the opponents also got less than a day to bat.

What of those who never batted or bowled in their career but at least made one dismissal?

There is only one instance:

This was wicketkeeper V Rajindernath who made 4 stumpings (but took no catches) in his only Test.

In ODIs and T20Is there are more such cases. One instance related to the current Sri Lankan player Akila Dananjaya who did not bat, bowl or field in his first ODI (mainly as he never came into bat before rain prevented the opponents from batting). Still, he is now one of his team’s key players in Test and limited-overs matches.

This was the scorecard of his debut ODI:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/12294/scorecard/582191/sri-lanka-vs-new-zealand-5th-odi-new-zealand-tour-of-sri-lanka-2012-13

 

Review of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests in Feb 2018-1

With the premature conclusion of the 2nd Test at Mirpur (Dhaka), Sri Lanka won the 2-Test series 1-0. The last series between these teams was less than a year ago when Bangladesh drew 1-1 in Sri Lanka.

20 Tests have been played between these teams. Sri Lanka leads 16-1 with 3 draws.

In Bangladesh, Sri Lanka has played 8 Tests and lead 6-0 with 2 draws.

In Sri Lanka, the 12 Tests have resulted in the hosts leading 10-1 with 1 draw.

Batting records:

Most runs (500 and above):

Sangakkara has the most centuries (7) followed by M Jayawardene and Ashraful with 5 each. For scores of 50+, Sangakkara again leads with 14, followed by Dilshan (8) and M Jayawardene, Mushfiqur and Samaraweera with 7 each.

Highest individual scores (125 and above):

Sangakkara scored 319 and 105 in the same Test, becoming only the second (after Gooch) to score a triple century and century in the same Test. In this series we also saw Mominul Haque scoring 176 and 105, becoming the first from Bangladesh to score centuries in both innings of a Test. His 176 was the highest by Bangladesh against Sri Lanka at home, surpassing the 136 by Ashraful in 2006. However Mushfiqur’s 200 at Galle in 2013 remains the highest for Bangladesh against Sri Lanka.

Batting averages (Minimum 20 innings):

Sangakkara has an average more than double that of runner-up Ashraful.

Batting strike rate (Minimum 1000 balls faced):

However, Dilshan and M Jayawardene have the highest strike rates, with Dilshan having a much higher figure than the runner-up.

Bowling figures:

Most wickets (15 and above):

Muralitharan leads followed by Herath and then Shakib, with the first two far ahead of the rest. MDK (Dilruwan) Perera and a few other current players also figure on this list.

As you may expect, Muralitharan has the most 10-fors (4) and 5-fors (11). Herath is the only other one with a 10-for.

Best innings bowling ( 5wi and above):

Note Muralitharan’s dominance here. From the current series we only have Dananjaya who was making his debut.

Best match figures (7wm and above):

Muralitharan dominates this list as well, while Dananjaya has the best match figures by a debutant for Sri Lanka. Taijul’s 8-159 is the best for Bangladesh against Sri Lanka, surpassing the 6-154 by Shakib at Colombo in March 2017. The best for Bangladesh in Bangladesh was 6-204 by Shakib at Chittagong in Dec 2008. His absence in this series seems to have made a lot of difference.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls):

Muralitharan has the best bowling average, economy rate and strike rate. Herath and Shakib follow at a distance.

To be continued.

 

The ODIs of 2017

With the conclusion of ODIs on Dec 26, these were the ICC rankings for this date:

We see that South Africa leads with India just a point behind. As they are to play a 6-match ODI series in January 2018, the top position may well change hands.

We now survey ODI performances in 2017, starting with overall win-loss rations for all ODIs from starting between Jan 1 and Dec 31. All later tables are also in this time frame.

Win-Loss ratios:

This cannot be expected to tally exactly with the ICC rankings since the latter takes into account a longer time span. And this table cannot be taken too seriously as it has Hong Kong in 2nd position, as it mainly plays with the lower-ranked teams. Among the regulars, we have England followed by India, South Africa and Pakistan. And the West Indies is at the very bottom, with its fellow wooden – spooners Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea.

We now move on to individual performances, starting with batting.

Most runs (500 and above):

Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Tharanga scored the most runs. The two Indians also have the most centuries (6 apiece) and most 50+ scores (13 and 11 respectively).

Among those who batted for 20 innings and above, the highest averages are for Kohli (76.84) followed by Rohit Sharma.

Among those who faced at least 500 balls, the highest strike rates are by de Villiers (116.94) followed by KM Jadhav (!) and Ben Stokes.

Now for the highest innings (115 and above):

RG Sharma has the only double century (208*) while du Plessis and Guptill are some distance behind.

Now for bowling:

Most wickets (15 and above):

The table is led by rising stars Hasan Ali and Rashid Khan, with Bumrah and Plunkett a little behind. Hasan Ali is the only one with three fivers, while Rashid Khan and Plunkett each have four 4+s.

Best innings bowling (including all 5wis):

Rashid Khan and TA Boult were the only ones with 7-wicket hauls. An interesting feature here is A Dananjaya (SL) with a 6-wicket haul besides 18 wickets overall. A year ago, he was an interesting oddity as his ODI career of 1 match saw him neither batting, bowling nor fielding.

To save space, there is no table for bowling averages. Taking a minimum of 1000 balls bowled, we see:

JJ Bumrah has the best bowling average of 26.25, followed distantly by B Kumar.

B Kumar has the best economy rate of 5.05, followed closely by JJ Bumrah.

And JJ Bumrah has the best strike rate (30.6) followed by HH Pandya .

An Indian monopoly-as Indian players are practically the only ones who have bowled enough overs. JO Holder is the only other one to have crossed 1000 balls.

Now for fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Dhoni is far ahead of the second-placed Buttler. They do have the same number of catches though Dhoni has more stumpings. Several non-keepers have 12 catches.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Latham is the only one with 5 dismissals. GJ Maxwell is the only non-keeper with 4 catches.

Dismissals per innings (minimum 20 innings):

Dhoni (1.392) is followed closely by SD Hope with 1.238.

Among non-keepers Kusal Mendis has the highest with 0.571.

All-round performance (overall, see criteria in table):

Ironically, only Rashid Khan has respectable figures here- as he can bat a bit to go along his excellent bowling average.

All-round match performance (minimum 40 runs and 4 wickets):

Dominated by players from the lesser-ranked teams, with Stirling and Mustafa having the best performances.

 

 

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.