Addlepated in Adelaide

This is the sort of headline the British tabloids would have had when their team did badly at that venue. Surprising that no Indian publication used it after the “winter of ’36”.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addlepated

Let us see where India’s Test victories in Australia have been. There were only 7 so far:

3 at Melbourne, 2 at Adelaide and 1 each at Perth and Sydney. None at Brisbane or the smaller venues.

Adelaide has had some high points for India, as in 2018 where India won the first Test of a series for the only time. And in 2003, when Agarkar recorded his only 5-for (in fact a 6-for).

India’s best tailenders

Ishant Sharma’s heroics and his maiden Test fifty reminded us of the importance of having tailenders who can score some runs. Or, failing that, at least stay around long enough for other batsmen to score some more runs. Ishant was perhaps more of the second type.

We have a quick look at the best performers at 8-11 in the three formats.

For Tests and ODIs  a cutoff of 20 innings is used. For T20Is it is 10 innings.

Test batting averages at 8-11:

RA Jadeja’s average is now above Kapil Dev’s. Remember that both of them and a few others like Nadkarni scored centuries up to No 7 as well.

Kapil, Ashwin and Harbhajan have two centuries here. Others with centuries are Kirmani, IK Pathan, Kumble and Agarkar.

Here Agarkar has the lowest average by a century-maker and Ishant the lowest by a fifty-maker.

The lowest average here is by Maninder Singh, followed by Chandrashekhar and Doshi which most would have guessed.

In ODIs, we have:

The highest averages are by Pathan and Chetan Sharma. Sharma has scored a century batting lower.

Pathan and Agarkar are the only ones here with 2 fifties. The lowest average by a fifty-scorer is by Praveen Kumar.

The lowest average is by Sreesanth, followed by Ishant Sharma and Nehra.

For T20Is, no one has 20 innings so we take the cutoff of 10 innings instead.

Ashwin and Harbhajan are the only ones who qualify here. Neither has scored a fifty.

 

Indian cricketers on the Lord’s honours boards (August 2021)

This is revised whenever India plays a Test at Lord’s

Here we continue our focus on Lord’s with the list of Indian batsmen and bowlers who figure on the honors boards there.

First, batting:

Some points of interest:

Mankad’s century came along with a five-for. He and Ian Botham are the only ones to score a century and take a five-for in the same match at Lord’s.

Dilip Vengsarkar is the only visiting batsman from any country to score 3 Test centuries at this venue.

Ganguly’s 131 came on his Test debut. It was the highest innings score by anyone making his Test debut at this venue, until D Conway made 200 earlier in 2021.

Agarkar made his only Test century here-all the more remarkable as his next highest score was 41. Now you know the answer to the old quiz question “What batting feat was attained by Agarkar and not by Gavaskar and Tendulkar?”

No instance from 2018.

Now we come to the bowling boards, listing all Indians who have taken 5 wickets in an innings here:

No one from 2018 or even the win at 2021. A fair cross-section of Indian bowlers over the years. Ishant Sharma now holds the record with 7-74, surpassing the record of 6-35 by Amar Singh in 1936. Mohammed Nissar’s fiver came on his Test debut which was also India’s first Test.

There is also an honors board for 10-wicket hauls, in which no Indian appears. There are some performances by English bowlers against India, notably Alec Bedser’s 11-wicket haul on his debut in 1946.

Tail piece: After the 2021 Test, England and India had played 19 Tests there. England lead 12-3 with 4 draws. India’s victories were in 1986, 2014 and 2021.