Review of Ind vs Aus Tests (2023)-Part 2

Hope you have read Part 1.

We now proceed with Bowling:

Most wickets (50 or more):

Led by Lyon, closely followed by Ashwin. Both of them surpassed Kumble’s record in this series.

Kumble has the most 5wis (10). Harbhajan has the most 10wms (3), while Lyon took 2 in recent years.

Best innings bowling (including all 7wi and better):

Lyon’s 8-50 came in 2017, and 8-64 in this series. These are the two best innings figures for Aus against India.

Best match bowling (including all 10wm and better):

The best in recent years is Lyon’s 11-99 in this series.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, maximum 30.00):

Benaud has the best average and economy rate, while Jadeja has the best strike rate.

Now for Fielding:

Most dismissals (25 or more):

Led by Gilchrist. Dhoni has the most stumpings, and Dravid the most catches by a fielder.

Best innings fielding (5 or more):

Led by Haddin and Pant. Srikkanth has the most by a fielder.

Best match fielding (7 or more):

Led by Pant.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):

Led by Haddin and Gilchrist. M Waugh and Simpson have the best by a fielder.

All-round performance (overall):

Note the criteria in the table:

Led by Jadeja with a large margin. Kapil is the only other one with respectable figures.

All-round match performances (5wi and 50 in a match):

The best performances would be by Surti and Cummins. Jadeja’s performance came in this series.

Review of Ind vs Aus Tests (2023)-Part 1

India won the series 2-1. This was their 4th consecutive series win against Australia.

A total of 106 Tests have been played between these teams.

Australia leads 44-32 with 1 tie and 29 draws.

Both sides do much better at home:

In Australia, Aus lead 30-9 with 13 draws.

In India, Aus trail 14-23 with 1 tie and 16 draws.

We now look at individual records, staring with Batting:

Most runs (1000 and more):

Tendulkar leads by a lrge margin, followed by Ponting. Pujara, Kohli and Smith lead among current players.

Highest innings (175 and above):

While there are many large scores here (including VVSL’s legendary 281), the highest scores from this series are 186 by Kohli and 180 by Khawaja.

The most centuries are 11 by Tendulkar.

The most 50+ scores are 27 by Tendulkar and 20 by Ponting.

Highest batting average (Minimum 20 innings, 40 and above):

The unexpected leader is David Boon, ahead of Steve Smith. Bradman is not here because he did not play enough. Smith, Kohli and Pujara represent current players.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced, 50 and above):

Headed by Gilchrist and Sehwag. Warner, Hayden and Bradman are next. Warner, S Smith and Kohli have the highest strike rates among current players.

To be continued.

The 4th innings in Brisbane

As you know, India needs 328 to win and has made 4/0 at the close of the 4th day.

The weather prospects on Tuesday, 19th January are not great. See this or any similar site:

https://www.bbc.com/weather/2174003

Now we look at past performances in the 4th innings at Brisbane, going back all the way to 1931.

Here we have all 4th innings scores above 100.

The highest to win is 236/7 by Australia in 1951-52.

The highest to win against Australia is 170/3 by England in 1978-79 (when Australia a weak Packerized team and lost the series 5-1).

The highest to draw is 278/6 by England in 1962-63

There is also a tie by Australia who made 232 against WI in 1960-61.

The highest to lose is 450 by Pakistan in 2016-17 (lost by 39 runs). Then there is 370 by England in 2006-07 (lost by 277, chasing 648). Then there are two losses by India in 1967-68 (355, lost by 39) and in 1977-78 (324, lost by 16).

So it is not impossible to make 300+ in the last innings. It may be possible to grind out a draw (although Vihari and Ashwin are not here now). For anything else either Australia has to bowl exceptionally well or India’s first 5 have to bat exceptionally well (to make 324 in less than a day).

A rain-ruined draw is the most likely outcome.

Review of Tests in 2020-Part 1

After Covid had done its worst, only 22 Tests were played in 2020 (i.e. Tests starting in the calendar year 2020). The corresponding figures were 48 in 2018 and 40 in 2019-and the latter was a World Cup year.

A quick summary of Test results:

All 4 of India’s Tests were away (2 vs NZ and 2 vs Aus) and that meant that their results were poorer than usual. England and New Zealand are clear leaders here.

We now look at individual performances. The number of matches is not enough to make meaningful comparisons of averages, strike rates and the like.

Batting-Most runs (250 and above):

Stokes and newcomer Sibley are at the top. India does have one representative (Rahane) near the cutoff of 250 runs. Stokes and Sibley were the only ones with 2 centuries, while Pope made 5 scores above 50. 4 others made 4 scores above 50.

Highest innings scores (90 and above):

Here you see all the centuries made along with the near misses (a 98 and 2 95s). Newcomer Crawley and (inevitably) Williamson have the only 250+ scores.

There is only one score here from India (Rahane’s 112 at Melbourne).

Bowling- 8 or more wickets:

Broad and Southee lead at a distance. Bumrah and Ashwin lead for India.

There are two 10-fors (Broad and Lyon) and four players have taken two 5-fors (Anderson, newcomer Jamieson, Lyon and Southee).

Best innings bowling (5wi and above):

While the best innings bowling is by Sikandar Raza of Zimbabwe, Broad and Holder also have 6-wicket hauls. Ishant Sharma has the only fiver for India.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

After Broad and Lyon, there are several with 9wm. There is no Indian bowler here.

To be continued:

Steve O’Keefe’s records

Here are some of the unusual statistical achievements of Steve O’Keefe . He and Lall Singh may be the only Test players born in Malaysia. He does not seem to be related to Kerry O’Keeffe  who played 24 Tests in the 1970s. Anyway their names are spelt differently.

This was Steve’s 5th Test, and his best innings analysis up to this Test was 3-53.

He now has the best match figures for Australia vs India:

The previous best was Alan Davidson’s 12-124 in 1959-60; unfortunately for Australia that was also Jasu Patel’s match.

His innings bowling is, however, not very near the top performances in Aus-Ind matches:

The unfortunate JJ Krejza continues to hold the record of 8-215 which came on his debut. He only played one Test after that.

Finally, one curiosity is that his 6-35 in each innings is the best performance where the two innings are identical. The previous “record” was held by India’s BS Chandrashekhar with two 6-52s against Australia in 1977-78. This topic is covered in more depth here (in this post from 2016):

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/same-bowling-figures-in-both-innings/

 

Cricketing coincidences-2

A well-known one pertains to the very first Test at Melbourne in March 1877 and the Centenary Test a hundred years later. In both cases Australia won by 45 runs.

See the scorecard of 1877:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62396.html

and of 1977:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63189.html

Although the story-lines of the two Tests are somewhat different, the end result was the same. Note that one performance in the 1877 Test remains a Test record even today.

Now here is another lesser-known one involving two brothers-Tony Greig (58 Tests) and the lesser-known Ian Greig (2 Tests). Tony had one of the best all-round debuts including 4-53. His brother also took 4-53 on debut.

Tony: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63084.html

Ian:   http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63317.html

Finally another one including two Tests, which had somewhat more similarities than the two Tests at Melbourne.

Our story begins at the India-Australia Test at Kanpur in 1959-60, which you will remember as India’s first victory over Australia:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62869.html

Jasu Patel’s figures of 9-69 and 14-124 stood as records for a long time. The first one was bettered only by Anil Kumble in 1998-99, and the second was bettered only by Narendra Hirwani in 1987-88.

Other points to note are:

1. India won by over 100 runs after conceding a first-innings lead
2. An Australian left-arm pace bowler (Davidson) took 12 wickets (5 and 7)

Almost 20 years passed. Kanpur saw 7 drawn Tests in succession, and got the reputation of being the deadest Test pitch in the world. These Tests were generally dull draws, with some highlights like GR Viswanath’s duck and century on debut in 1969-70 and India’s then highest total of 644/7 in 1978-79. Then came another Australian team in 1979-80, admittedly a rather weak team without the Packer players.

This was the result:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63243.html

There was no record-breaking bowling like that of Jasu Patel, but still

1. India won by over 100 runs after conceding a first-innings lead
2. An Australian left-arm pace bowler (Dymock) took 12 wickets (5 and 7)

Add to this the fact that both Australian bowler’s names started with a D, and there are certainly more coincidences than in the better-known Tests at Melbourne.

India and Australia have met only three times in Tests at this venue, in 1959-60, 1969-70 and 1979-80 but the 10-year cycle was broken in the next decade.