Batting averages in the first and second innings of Tests-September 2021

Hope you have seen this one:

Batting averages across innings-September 2021

In the first innings alone, we have:

The cutoff here is 55.

Bradman is still at #1, with over 100. Next are current player SPD Smith and another Australian in AL Hassett.

Ross Taylor, David Warner and F du Plessis are other current players here, though not in the top 10.

Among Indian players, Tendulkar is 9th here. Others are Sehwag, Dravid and Sidhu.

The Test record of 400* by Lara was in the first innings, besides the earlier records of 364 by Hutton and 334 by Bradman.

In the second innings, we have:

The cutoff here is still 55.

Bradman yet again leads, followed by current player KS Williamson and Mohammad Yousuf.

Other current players in the top ten are JE Root (4) and V Kohli (5).

Going further down, the other current players here are SPD Smith (besides AB de Villiers and AN Cook if you stretch a little).

From India, there is Kohli followed by Sehwag, Dravid, Gavaskar and Tendulkar.

The highest score here is 374 by M Jayawardene, while the old Test records of 365* by Sobers and 336* by Hammond are also here.

Current players seem to have done a little better here than in the first innings.

Will take up the third and fourth innings next. The results are somewhat different.

More about batting averages

Here is the table showing the batting averages for all 1105 players who batted in at least 20 innings up to 25 Oct 2019:

Averages Oct 2019-Complete

The averages range from 99.94 (DG Bradman) to 2.00 (M Mbangwa).

The mean of these averages is 27.07, and those closest to it are KR Rutherford, JJ Lyons and PA Strang.

Looking at other measures of central tendency:

First quartile: 36.16 (Wasim Raja)

Median: 26.52 (PR Reiffel, RW Marsh)

Third quartile: 16.28 (RW Taylor, BL Cairns)

 

ABD: career statistics highlights-3

We close by looking at statistics for World Cup matches alone, since a fair number of high scoring rates mentioned earlier were in relatively less important or highly one-sided matches. Perhaps this would give a better idea of performance in more important matches. Perhaps the Champions Trophy matches could also be added.

We start with the highest averages in World Cup matches (minimum 20 innings):

de Villiers heads this list although MJ Clarke and IVA Richards are just behind.

Now we look as

Highest strike rates in World Cup matches (minimum 500 balls faced):

Here we have McCullum followed by de Villiers and Kapil.

Then there are links in Cricinfo’s records section for Fastest centuries in ODIs:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/211608.html

That link is constantly updated. This is what it looked like on 26/05/2018:

Note that it took over 17 years to move from Afridi’s 37-ball effort in 1996 to Anderson’s improvement to 36 balls in 2014. But de Villiers lowered the bar to 31 balls a year later.

For World Cup matches alone, the best efforts are  50 balls by KJ O’Brien in 2011, 51 by GJ Maxwell in 2015 and de Villiers  again with 52 balls in 2015.

Similarly there is a link for the fastest 50. Like in the table above, it refers to the first 50 runs in the innings although the number of balls for the second or later 50 runs may be quite different.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284095.html

This is what it looked like on 25/05/2018:

The record had been stuck at Jayasuriya’s 17 balls since 1996. de Villiers lowered it to 16 balls after almost 19 years. After that Kusal Perera and Guptill also equalled the old 17-ball record.

In World Cup matches, the fastest 50s have been in  18 balls by McCullum (2015), 19 by Mc Cullum again in 2015 and  20 by AD Mathews also in 2015.

 

Test batting performances of 2016

These tables cover all Test matches in the calendar year 2016.

This post concentrates on batting.

Most runs (500 and above):

As many as 7 with over 1000 runs (including 4 from England). Root just edged out Bairstow.

4 centuries each by V Kohli, S Smith and MM Ali.

The most scores of 50+ are 13 by JE Root and 11 by JM Bairstow. Three others have 9.

Highest innings scores (140 and above):

Headed by a newcomer KK Nair and a relative veteran in Azhar Ali. This was Nair’s maiden Test century. V Kohli had three scores of 200 and above. BA Stokes’s 258 was the highest by any No 6 batsman in Tests, surpassing KD Walters’s 250 in 1976-77.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 15 innings, 20.00 and above):

Also note the highest strike rates for a minimum of 15 innings: Warner (86.87), Sarfraz (70.33) and Stokes (66.76).

To be continued

Demonetization meets cricket

Here we have a list of players with the highest batting averages (with a minimum of 20 innings batted). This is as on 23 Nov 2016.

We all know who is No 1, but the No 2 position has changed hands now. Perhaps the No 2 will not play too many Tests in future, so he may maintain his position.

Now see this chart of the rupee-dollar exchange rate:

https://in.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDINR%3DX#symbol=USDINR=X;range=1y

A snapshot of the 6-month graph on the evening of 24 Nov 2016, when it was hitting new highs:

As you can see, this rate has gone well beyond the averages of Pollock and Voges. Let us hope it is not trying to reach Bradman’s average.

 

Cricket odds and ends-3

First, my thanks to whoever is reading this. According to alexa.com, this blog now ranks among the top million in the world and among the top 50,000 in India-not too bad in 8 months.

This is a follow-up to:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/cricket-odds-and-ends-1/                     and

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/cricket-odds-and-ends-2/

We now explore some other odds and ends. Today we look at the worst career averages by those who scored triple centuries and so on, and the best career averages by those who never got into double figures.

These figures do not include the current Test at Galle and the ICC XI-Aus Test in 2005.

Batting averages are listed only for those who batted for a minimum of 20 innings.

Highest averages for those who never made a triple century:

60.97 RG Pollock (highest 274)

60.83 GA Headley (270*)

60.73 H Sutclife (194)

Highest averages for those who never made a double century:

60.73 H Sutcliffe (194)

56.00 Mominul Haque (181)-current player

55.00 GE Tyldesley (122)

Highest averages for those who never made a century:

37.73 Asim Kamal (99)-which he scored on debut

35.28 BM Laird (92)-also on debut

33.48 KD Mackay (89)

Highest averages for those who never made a fifty:

18.38 JC White (29)

17.66 Tauseef Ahmed (35*)

17.65 MN Hart (45)

Highest averages for those who never got into double figures:

3.11 CN McCarthy (5)

2.00 M Mbangwa (8)

(No one else has played 20 or more innings without getting into double figures.)

Now for the converse cases:

Lowest averages for those who scored triple centuries:

38.76 BB McCullum (302)-current player

40.07 S Jayasuriya (340)

42.18 CH Gayle (333)-current (?) player

Lowest averages for those who scored double centuries:

18.73 JN Gillespie (201*)-his only century came as a night watchman in his last Test.

22.64 Wasim Akram (257*)

24.53 SE Gregory (201)

Lowest averages for those who scored centuries:

13.64 JE Taylor (106)-current player

14.48 Saqlain Mushtaq (101*)

16.60 Nasim-ul-Ghani (101)

Lowest averages for those who scored fifties

6.75 RW Blair (64*)

7.51 GD McGrath (61)

8.72 Ghulam Ahmed (50)

Lowest averages for those who got into double figures

2.29 JV Saunders (11*)

2.36 CS Martin (12*)

2.62 H Ironmonger (12)

In the next instalment, we take up a similar study of bowling averages.