Headed by Muralidaran, while current player Southee has the most for NZ.
Best innings bowling (6wi or better):
Headed by Vettori, but no good performances since 2018.
Best match bowling (includes all 9wm or more):
Herath has the best figures here, though there are no good performances since 2018.
Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):
Southee has the best bowling average and strike rate. Muralidaran has the best economy rate.
Now for Fielding:
Most dismissals (15 and above):
Headed by Watling. Williamson has the most dismissals among current players. P Jayawardene has the most stumpings, and SP Fleming the most catches as a fielder.
Best innings figures (5 dismissals or more):
Headed by IDS Smith and Watling.
Best match figures (6 dismissals or more):
Headed by Watling, followed by Lees and IDS Smith.
Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):
Headed by Tillakratne and the Bazball Man.
All-round performances:
No one has a good overall record.
Match performances:
Vettori has the best performance, followed by Vaas.
We now proceed to Bowling records for Tests between these teams.
Most wickets (25 or more):
It is not surprising to see Waqar and Wasim at the top, and that Sir Richard has the most for New Zealand.
The most 5wis are 6 by Wasim followed by 5 by Waqar. Several players have two 10wms.
Southee has the most by current players.
Best innings bowling (including all 7wi or better):
The best figures are the most recent here, 8-41 by Yasir Shah who is not currently in the team. Also note Mohammad Zahid’s 7-for on debut in 1996. The best by NZ was by the lesser-known C Pringle
Best match bowling (including all 10wm or better):
Yasir Shah’s 2018 performance also tops this list. KA Jamieson has the next best performance in recent years. Mohammad Zahid took 11 wickets on debut.
Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls bowled, all instances):
The two Ws again. Note the unusually poor average of Vettori.
The best economy rates are Pervez Sajjad and HJ Howarth.
The best strike rates are by Wasim and Waqar.
Now for Fielding:
Most dismissals (15 or more):
The most dismissals are by recent player BJ Watling, followed by current player Sarfaraz Ahmed. Sarfaraz also has the most stumpings (6) and recent player R Taylor has the most catches as a fielder (29).
Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):
Headed by Wasim Bari (7), followed by Adnan Akmal with 6.
Bari’s 7 was then a world record for innings dismissals.
Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):
Headed by Rashid Latif and BB McCullum with 9.
Best dismissal rates (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):
Headed by BJ Watling. The best by a fielder is by another recent player R Taylor.
All-round performances(Minimum 20 innings and 2000 balls):
Only Intikhab Alam makes the cut.
All-round match performances (Minimum 50 runs and 5wi):
The best performances are by Mushtaq Mohammad and MD Craig.
Mushtaq and DS Atkinson are the only ones to score a double century and take a 5wi in a match.
MD Craig’s 50/10wm was the highlight of a short career. Also note Sodhi’s performance in the latest series.
This two-test series marked an important landmark, as Bangladesh won their first Test against New Zealand in their 16th attempt. The series was drawn 1-1.
Resultsof all Tests between NZ and BD:
Overall: 17 tests: NZ lead 13-1, 3 draws
In NZ: 11 tests: NZ lead 10-1
In BD: 6 tests: NZ lead 3-0 with 3 draws.
Most runs (minimum 350):
Tamim Iqbal leads with 908, followed by Shakib (763) and newly-retired R Taylor (746).
Highest individual scores (Minimum 110):
TWM Latham’s 252 in the second Test is the highest for NZ against BD, surpassing the 202 by SP Fleming at Chattogram in 2004. Their previous best in NZ was 200* by Williamson at Hamilton in 2019. Also note that Shakib had made 217 at Wellington in 2017.
Incidentally Latham is the first player to score 252 in a Test.
While there is not enough data for meaningful batting averages, we have some strike rates:
Highest strike rates (Min 1000 balls faced, all instances):
Not surprisingly, R Taylor has the highest strike rate. Williamson and Shakib are slightly lower.
Bowling:
Most wickets (Minimum 10):
Vettori (51) is followed by the current trio of Wagner, Boult and Southee.
The most 5wi are 5 by Vettori and 3 by Wagner.
The only 10wm is by Vettori.
Best innings bowling (including all 6wi):
Shakib has BD’s best innings figure of 7-36 at Chattogram in 2008. In this series, Ebadot took 6-46 which is BD’s best innings figure in NZ. The previous best for BD in NZ was 5-166 by Rubel Hossain at Hamilton in 2010.
Best match bowling (7wm and above):
Vettori’s 12-170 at Chattogram is the best performance here.
Ebadot’s 7-121 is BD’s best match figure in NZ. The previous record was 5-88 by Mashraf Mortaza at Dunedin in 2008.
There is not enough data for meaningful bowling averages etc, as Vettori is the only one with over 2000 balls bowled.
Fielding:
Most dismissals (Minimum 8):
McCullum (28) and Watling (26) have the most dismissals.
Watling (26) and McCullum (24) have the most catches by a keeper.
Mc Cullum (4) has the most stumpings.
R Taylor (17) and Sinclair (12) have the most dismissals by a fielder.
Most innings dismissals (Minimum 4):
Imrul Kayes has the most catches by a keeper in an innings (5)
During this series Shadman Islam and TWM Latham both took 4 catches as fielders.
Most match dismissals (Minimum 5):
Watling (7) has the most dismissals by a keeper in an innings (all caught). Next is McCullum with 6.
The most catches by a fielder is 6 by Latham in this series. Next are Sinclair and Shadman with 5.
All-round performance:
50+ and 5wi in a match:
Vettori’s 55*, 76 and 9-133 at Chattogram in 2008 is clearly the best. If he had taken one more wicket, he would have become one of the only five players to score 100 runs and take 10 wickets in a test (The others are Davidson, Botham, Imran and Shakib).
Here we look at the best fielding performances in the fourth innings for the winning team.
Most dismissals: (15 and above):
Headed by Gilchrist, Haddin and Healy, who kept for Australia for most Tests between 1989 and 2015.
Current players include de Kock, the just-retired Watling, Bairstow, Paine and Pant.
India’s players are headed by Pant, followed by non-keeper Kohli, Dhoni and another non-keeper Dravid.
Most dismissals in an innings (5 and above):
Watling is the only one with 6 dismissals, followed by many with 5. Apart from GC Smith, no non-keeper has taken more than 4 catches. Healy appears here twice.
Of special note is KS More’s 5 stumpings. This is the world record for stumpings in an innings. 4 of these were off debutant Hirwani.
Most dismissals per innings (Minimum 15 innings):
Headed by de Kock, closely followed by Haddin.
The best by current players are by de Kock, Bairstow, Buttler and Stokes.
For India, the best are by Dravid and Kohli-both non-keepers. Indian keepers (apart from More) do not seem to have done well in winning matches in the fourth innings.
Led by Buttler and Watling. The most catches by a fielder are 14 by Root and Stokes.
From India, Pant has 12 catches as a keeper.
The most stumpings is 3 by Dickwella.
Innings dismissals – 4 and above:
5 dismissals by 4 players, including a non-keeper in Stokes. He also gets a share in the world record of 5 catches held by several players. Pant has 4 catches in an innings.
Match dismissals – 5 and above:
Dominated by de Kock and Watling. Among non-keepers, Stokes and Pope have 6 catches each.
All-round match performances (50 and 5wi):
Broad achieved the rare double of a fifty and 10wm. The next best performance was by Sikander Raza with 100+ runs and 8 wickets.
In Part 3, we will look at the performances of debutants in 2020.
When all-round records are tabulated in statistical articles, they invariably refer to feats of batting and bowling.
Here we look at feats of batting and fielding in the same match.
First, for wicket-keepers:
Century and 5 dismissals in an innings:
This did not occur in Tests until 1966. The best match performance would appear to be by de Villiers with a century and 11 dismissals in a match. Also consider Lindsay and Prior.
Watling appears here 3 times (twice in Wellington) along with Prior and Bairstow (twice each).
India has been on the receiving end twice: SAR Silva in 1985 and BJ Watling in 2014.
For non-keepers:
Century and 4 dismissals in an innings:
Bowling efforts have also been added where relevant.
We can see that Kallis’s feat in 2012 is clearly the best here, as he is the only double centurion here. Next would be Woolley.
Weekes did this against India in 1953, and was followed by fellow West Indian Viv Richards in 1989. Rahane did this for India against Sri Lanka in the course of the 3-0 sweep in Sri Lanka in 2017.
Next, we will look at career all-round performance for batting and fielding.
Australian captain Paine leads by a large margin over the next, de Kock.
The best by a non-keeper was 25 by Root, England’s captain.
M Rizwan took over as Pakistan’s keeper from former captain Sarfaraz Ahmed.
Buttler and Hope played some (but not all) of their matches as keepers.
The most stumpings were 4 by JL Bairstow.
Most innings dismissals (4 and above):
de Kock is the only one with more than 5 dismissals.
Klaasen took 4 dismissals on debut. Other new faces here are RR Pant and Mohammad Rizwan.
Root, Warner and SPD Smith took 4 catches apiece as non-keepers.
Most match dismissals (6 or more):
Sarfaraz Ahmed took 10 dismissals before he lost his captaincy as well as his place in the team. Paine and de Kock were next with 8. New faces here include GC Wilson, RR Pant and Mohammad Rizwan.
Warner and SPD Smith took 6 catches as non-keepers.
Best dismissal rate (Min 15 innings, 0.500):
Paine has by far the best dismissal rate (2.521), followed by Watling.
The top scorer here is M Labuschagne who had made his debut in 2018 with little impact, but he soon showed his class. The returning SPD Smith came second, while his former deputy Warner did not fare so well.
Others in this list who had made their Test debuts in 2018 or 2019 are RJ Burns, MA Agarwal, TM Head and JL Denly.
Several players made 3 centuries. Labuschagne had the most 50+ scores (10) and the next highest was 7.
Labuschagne scored the most 4s (129) while RG Sharma scored the most 6s (20).
SCJ Broad had the most ducks (5) followed by three others with 4.
Highest innings (125 or more):
One triple by Warner and 6 doubles, including 2 by newcomer Agarwal and one by the rejuvenated RG Sharma. Labuschagne’s highest was 185, but he made a double at the beginning of 2020. The longest innings was 473 balls in Watling’s 205.
Sharma and Smith made centuries in each innings:
Sharma’s 13 6s in the match is anew Test record. The previous record was 12 by Wasim Akram in a single innings:
Highest batting averages (Min 15 innings, all instances):
Labuschagne yet again, with Head and Warner following at a distance.
There are even a couple of single-digit averages by tailenders. This seems to show that Broad’s batting is now negligible.
Highest batting strike rates (Minimum 750 balls faced, all instances):
de Kock leads by a distance over Babar Azam, who also has a large lead over R Taylor. And Watling showed that a low overall strike rate does not prevent one from scoring a double century.
Mominul Haque became the latest captain to make a pair. Also remember the double act by du Plessis and Sarfaraz last year.
While the balls faced in an innings were not always recorded before 2000, we know that the only unusual pairs by captains were the “queen pairs” or silver pairs by Bedi and de Villiers.
Highest scores by wicketkeepers:
BJ Watling’s double century is the highest score by a wicketkeeper from New Zealand, but there are many other keepers with high scores:
Scores above 175 by wicketkeepers:
Mushfiqur Rahim is the only keeper with two double centuries.
Highest totals in Eng-NZ Tests:
New Zealand’s 615/9 dec against England was the highest in ANY Test between these teams:
Lowest scores against India:
Bangladesh’s 106 in 30.3 overs is not really the worst innings score against India. But it is the lowest score (both by runs and balls faced) in the first innings against India.
You can also see how Afghanistan fared in their first Test, against India in June 2018. They have picked up well after that.
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