Most and least wins in Test matches

These are for all Tests up to 30 Sep 2022 (except the ICC XI v Aus Test in 2005).

A total of 1888 players have played in 5 or more Tests.

It is easy enough to see who have seen the most wins. That is given in the next table. Naturally, this depends on how many Tests the player got to play in.

The first 4 are from the great Australian teams of the mid-1990s to the 2000s, headed by RT Ponting with 107. Next is SK Warne with 91.

The best by a current player is JM Anderson in 6th place with 78, followed by his partner SCJ Broad in 8th/11th place with 72.

The best by an Indian player is also 72 by SR Tendulkar (sharing the 8th/11th position with Broad, Gilchrist and Mark Waugh).

But it is more interesting to see those who did the best on a percentage basis, as we will see below.

These are those who have seen wins in all of their Tests.

It is a short list with only 4 names. The first name may not be familiar to many cricket followers of today.

Eldine Baptiste, who played in a strong West Indies team of the 1980s, saw wins in all 10 of his Tests. There are three others with 100% records in 5 Tests, and they are not particularly well-known.

GJ Bailey was more successful in limited-over matches than in Tests, and had captained Australia in 29 ODIs. His only Tests were in the Ashes whitewash of 2013-2014.

KA Archer is the elder brother of the better-known RG Archer.

Lord Hawke was a rather undistinguished batsman but got Test opportunities mainly because only amateurs could captain England in those days.

Now we look at a longer list of 38 players who saw wins in at least 75% of their Tests:

Note current players such as AR Patel and J Yadav who have 5 wins and 1 draw, giving a win percentage of 83.33 %. The only other Indian player with 5/6 is KK Nair.

And what about those who saw the least wins ?

A total of 165 players did not see any win in their careers of 5 Tests or more.

Here we list those who played 12 or more Tests without seeing a win:

The first name of B Sutcliffe of New Zealand is rather unexpected, as he was probably NZ’s best batsman for most of his 42-Test career. NZ did win a few Tests during his career, although he missed those matches. After him there is BC Strang of Zimbabwe who played in 26 Tests.

No current player here. The most Tests by an Indian player are 18 by BK Kunderan followed by 12 by PG Joshi.

Next we will take up the cases of most and least losses, followed by the cases of most and least draws.

Analyzing Test captaincies – 5

Today we look at captains whose tenure included:

Only wins

Only losses

Only draws.

Only wins (complete list):

16 instances here. Bacher and Lord Hawke had the best stretches of 4 wins out of 4. In the former case all 4 wins came in a single series against Australia. In the latter case they were part of 5 wins out of 5 in his Test career, although he was a specialist (?) batsman with a single-figure batting average.

Those with 2 wins out of 2 are mainly stand-ins (Rahane and Jacobs) in recent times. Similarly for those who won their only Tests as captain (eg Shastri, Harvey, WA Brown).

Rahane is the most recent player here.

Only losses (2 or more):

Headed by the Bangladeshi duo of Khaled Mashud (12) and Khaled Mahmud (9) in their team’s early years.

However, there is also KC Brathwaite (5) from WI in recent years along with Porterfield who has led Ireland in all 3 of its Tests. DK Gaekwad, now India’s oldest living player, has 4 losses. (In that series Pankaj Roy captained for 1 Test, which was also lost).

Some other well-known players found here are AJ Lamb, AR Morris, JE Emburey and RS Madugalle.

And FL Reifer, captaining the WI third XI against Bangladesh at home. When he talked of winning the series, local journalists asked “Are you smoking something # which sounds like your name?”

# Reefer, a term for marijuana or ganja

Only draws (complete list):

The list of 21 is headed by Srikkanth (all 4 in a single series against Pakistan in Pakistan). Majid and Saeed also drew all 3 Tests in a single series.

There is no one here since BA Murphy (1 Test in 2001). Well-known players not mentioned so far include DL Murray, G Kirsten, GA Headley, MA Butcher, RR Lindwall and TW Graveney. Practically all of the 1 or 2-Test captains were stand-ins.

Srikkanth and Adhikari are the only ones from India. This did not help Srikkanth much as he was promptly replaced by Azharuddin. And Adhikari stopped a sequence of 3 heavy losses with a draw where his team narrowly escaped defeat.