More snippets from the 3rd Test at Ahmedabad:

England’s lowest Test total against India:

You can see that England’s 81 is their lowest total against India. The previous record was 101 in 1971 where Chandrashekhar took 6-38 to set up India’s first Test win in England.

And their previous lowest total in India was 102 in 1981-82, when Kapil and Madan Lal took fivers in the 4th innings.

Most economical 5-for by a spinner in a Test innings: Root’s 5-8 is in second place after Australia’s Ironmonger if you take the criteria of the least runs conceded in a 5-for:

Only Ironmonger’s 5-6 in 1931-32 has less runs conceded.

Let us also look at the same figure for all captains (regardless of bowling styles):

Here, Root’s innings bowling is second to AER Gilligan’s 6-7. But Gilligan was clearly a medium pacer. The previous record by a captain who was a spin bowler was 5-27 by BS Bedi v NZ in 1976-77. Next is Mushtaq Mohammad with 5-28.

And finally, the Devil makes a comeback here with a score of 66/6:

Though England has also faced 666/6 against India not long ago at Chennai in 2016-17, in KK Nair’s match.

Bowling fails in ODIs

This continues the theme of the earlier post:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/bowling-fails-in-t20i-matches/

Here we look at poor performances in ODI matches. Data is correct as on 4th March 2017.

Matches involving the ICC, Asia and Africa teams are not considered.

Most runs conceded without taking a wicket (100 runs and above):

The list includes a number of players who have played a few Tests, including the “leader” MAR Samarasekara who played 4 Tests and took a few wickets in them but was singularly unfortunate in this format. KV Sharma and VRV Singh represent India here, though they did slightly better in Tests.

Most balls bowled without taking a wicket (90  balls and above):

Samarasekara again heads this list, and many of those on the first list are here as well. A couple of bowlers from East Africa’s World Cup team of 1975 are here, including DJ Pringle, father of England player Derek Pringle.

Most innings bowled without taking a wicket (4 and above):

Samarasekara yet again! We may as well learn more about him:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/India/content/player/50421.html

A few prominent batsmen who bowled a bit can be found here, such as David Boon, Salman Butt and VVS Laxman. They were probably called upon to bowl a few overs in a few ODIs.

Most matches without taking a wicket (150 and above):

As one may expect, the higher positions are mainly occupied by wicket-keepers (Sangakkara, Boucher and Gilchrist) who rarely bowled, although there are also some non-keepers who rarely bowled. From the above list we can see Atapattu, Gibbs and Rhodes near the top. It is worthwhile to draw up this list again for non-keepers:

Most matches without taking a wicket (100 and above) for non-keepers:

Quite a number of prominent batsmen here. A special mention for Gibbs, Tharanga and Morgan who never bowled a single ball in their long ODI careers.

And finally, we look at the best economy rates of these bowlers.

Best economy rates for those who never took a wicket and bowled 90 or more balls:

This is headed by JM Patel (the same initials as those of Jasu Patel!) of Canada and includes largely unknown players, some of whom played a few Tests. The names of Samarasekara, KV Sharma and Abul Hasan should be familiar by now.

A similar analysis of Test bowlers will follow soon.

 

 

 

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/

 

Ken Higgs R.I.P.

Ken Higgs, who played 15 Tests for England in the mid-1960s, died on September 7 aged 79. Highlights of his career can be seen here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/14189.html

He played a role in what may be called one of the greatest fightbacks in Test cricket.

In 1966 the all-conquering West Indies team captained by Gary Sobers had won 3 of the first 4 Tests (two by an innings, another by over a hundred runs). When Brian Close was pulled out of near-oblivion as captain, the 5th Test started predictably.

In reply to WI’s 268, England got to 166/7. Then followed one of the greatest tail-end recoveries in all Tests:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62995.html

Graveney and JT Murray put on 217 for the 8th wicket, while the no 10 and 11 (K Higgs and JA Snow) scored fifties apiece in a stand for 128 for the 10th wicket, bringing the total up to 527. Stung by this unexpected resistance, West Indies made 225 and lost by an innings and 34 runs.

Higgs also held the record for the best 4-wicket analysis in Tests jointly with Pervez Sajjad from the mid-60s onwards. Their 4-5 was surpassed by Graeme Cremer’s 4-4 a few years ago. Here are the best 4-wicket innings analyses in all Tests:

Anyway, Higgs could enjoy his joint world record for over 47 years.