BE Congdon

Review of India-New Zealand Tests-2

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Hope you have seen Part 1.

We now proceed to Fielding records:

Most dismissals (15 and above):

Headed by Watling with 39. Dhoni has the most stumpings. R Taylor (23) has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 and above):

Kirmani, Dhoni and Watling jointly hold the record with 6.

Most dismissals in a match (5 and above):

Watling again with 9 dismissals

Highest dismissal rate (minimum 20 innings):

FM Engineer has the highest dismissal rate, and SP Fleming the highest by a fielder. R Taylor and Kohli have the most by current players.

All-round performances

Overall (Minimum 15 innings batted, 1500 balls bowled, one fifty, one 4-for):

This leads to the surprising result of Harbhajan Singh and BS Bedi leading this table, ahead of Sir Richard Hadlee.

Fifty-plus and five-for in the same match:

The best performances here are by BR Taylor (on his Test debut), BE Congdon and JG Bracewell.

Stumped by a substitute-a rare occurrence.

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This is rarer than you might imagine. It is not listed in Statsguru or any of the common reference books on cricket oddities. It has happened only three times in Tests, the third instance being in the ongoing Test between India and New Zealand at Kanpur.

A full list of instances in first-class cricket is given here:

https://stats.acscricket.com/Records/First_Class/Overall/Batting/Stumped_by_a_Substitute.html

The instances in Tests are:

  1. SJ Snooke (SA) st (sub) NC Tufnell (Eng) b G Thompson, SA v Eng, Durban, 1909-10
  2. Pervez Sajjad (Pak) st (sub) BE Congdon (NZ) b BW Sinclair, Pak v NZ, Lahore, 1964-65 and now
  3. TWM Latham (NZ) st (sub) KS Bharat (Ind) b AY Patel, Ind v NZ, Kanpur, 2021-22.

More notes on these occurrences:

The first instance: https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-tour-of-south-africa-1909-10-61690/south-africa-vs-england-2nd-test-62502/full-scorecard

SA’s captain SJ “Tip” Snooke was dismissed by substitute NC Tufnell for 53 in their second innings.

Simla-born Tufnell had not played in Tests yet. He played his only Test later in the series. His only dismissal was a stumping.

The second instance: https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-tour-of-pakistan-1964-65-62109/pakistan-vs-new-zealand-2nd-test-62975/full-scorecard

Pervez Sajjad was dismissed for 16 in the second innings.

The substitute BE Congdon had played 6 Tests earlier. He played a total of 61 Tests (including 17 as captain).

And finally:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-in-india-2021-22-1278658/india-vs-new-zealand-1st-test-1278674/live-cricket-score

TWM Latham was dismissed for 95 in the first innings.

KS Bharat had not played Tests earlier. Besides the stumping, he also took 2 catches as a substitute.

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See Steve Lynch’s comments in his column on 30 Nov 2021:

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Note:

These are the only 3 cases in Tests when the wicket-keeper was not a member of the playing XI.

There are numerous other instances where members of the playing XI acted as wicket-keepers when the nominated keeper became unfit. There are as many as 54 instances when these substitute keepers took catches. And 16 instances where they took stumpings:

Interestingly, the only two Indian players here are Manjrekar senior and junior.

Pakistan’s Mohammad Wasim appears twice.