Review of England-New Zealand Tests-2023 (Part 2)

Hope you have read Part 1.

Continuing with individual performances in Bowling:

Most wickets (50 or more):

Headed by Sir Richard. He is followed by three current players (Broad, Anderson and Southee) with Boult and Wagner a little further down. Sir Richard also has the most 5-fors (8).

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

None in recent years.

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

Note the top two by Underwood (and 3 of the top 4 performances).

The only recent one is Leach’s 10-for in 2022.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, 30.00 or better):

Underwood’s average is by far the best. Boult, Anderson and Broad are also seen here.

Underwood has the best bowling average, economy rate and strike rate. In second place are Willis, Illingworth and Caddick respectively.

Now for Fielding:

Most dismissals (25 or more):

Parore and Bob Taylor have the most dismissals. SP Fleming has the most by a non-keeper. TG Evans has the most stumpings. From recent years there are Blundell and Root.

Most innings dismissals (5 or more):

C Read is the only one with 6 dismissals in an innings. There is only Blundell from recent years.

Most match dismissals (6 or more):

Blundell is among the three keepers with 8 catches in a match. Allan Lamb has the most (6) by a fielder

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.700 or better):

Here, Ian Smith has the best average followed by Parore and Watling. Fleming has the most by a fielder. Latham and Root represent current players.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria in the table):

Headed by Botham, followed by Hadlee and Cairns at a distance.

Match performance (50 and 5wi):

Many entries here. Of special note are those with a century and 5wi, including Botham (1978 and 1984).

Those with a 50 and 10wm include Greig, Hadlee (1986) and Nash. Nash was the first to achieve this at Lord’s.

Shining on Test debut

Many have done well on their Test debut. Here is a brief summary of the numbers:

Century on debut : 110 players have scored 112 centuries on their Test debut. This includes LG Rowe and Yasir Hameed who each scored two centuries on debut.

Double centuries on debut: Out of the 112 centuries mentioned above, only 7 were double centuries, headed by RE Foster’s 287 of long ago and with today’s D Conway at the bottom with exactly 200.

5 wickets in an innings: 101 players have taken 5wi on debut 112 times. 11 had taken two fivers on debut. The best innings figure is 8-43 by AE Trott

10 wickets in a match: 10wm on debut has been achieved by 17 players. This includes the 11 mentioned in the entry before this, besides others with combinations like 6+4 or 7+3. The two best performances are 16-136 by ND Hirwani, followed by 16-135 by RAL Massie.

So a double century on debut is the most difficult to achieve. However, as many as 13 players have made 200 runs in their debut match, headed by LG Rowe with 314 (214 + 100*). Next is RE Foster with 306 (287 + 19).

We will look deeper into 10wm on debut shortly. This category has found it most difficult to replicate their debut feat.

Centuries in both innings of a Test-Part 2

Hope you have seen Part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/11/21/centuries-in-both-innings-of-a-test-part-1/

Going into more depth, we find there are 5 instances of players making their only two Test centuries in the same match :

1. J Moroney (Aus), 118 and 101* v SA, Johannesburg, 1950
2. Wajahatullah Wasti (Pak), 133 and 121* v SL, Lahore, 1999
3. Yasir Hameed (Pak), 170 and 105 v BD. Karachi, 2003 (on debut)
4. PG Fulton (NZ), 136 and 110 v Eng, Auckland, 2013
5. SD Hope (WI), 147 and 118* v Eng, Leeds, 2017

Points to note:

Wasti was playing in his 2nd Test.

Hope was the first to make centuries in both innings of a first-class match at Leeds, the home ground of several prolific batsmen such as Herb Sutcliffe, Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott.

Yasir Hameed made his only two Test centuries on his debut.

Apart from those listed above, here are those who made their first two Test centuries in the same match :

1. W Bardsley (Aus), 136 and 130 v Eng, Oval, 1909
2. VS Hazare (Ind), 116 and 145 v Aus, Adelaide, 1948
3. LG Rowe (WI), 214 and 100* v NZ, Kingston, 1972 (on debut)
4. GP Howarth (NZ), 122 and 102 v Eng, Auckland, 1978
5. LRD Mendis (SL), 105 and 105 v Ind, Chennai, 1982
6. PJ Hughes (Aus), 115 and 160 v SA, Durban, 2009
7. Imam-ul-Haq (Pak), 157 and 111* v Aus, Rawalpindi , 2022

Notes:

LRD Mendis was the first to make identical scores above 100 in both innings.

LG Rowe is the only one to score a century and double century on debut.

Imam-ul-Haq moved from the first list to the second list after he made his 3rd century in Dec 2022-which was also at Rawalpindi

Centuries in both innings of a Test-Part 1

It is easy to get a list of those who have achieved this using Statsguru:

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=player;qualmax1=2;qualmin1=2;qualval1=hundreds;size=100;template=results;type=batting;view=match

This has been done on 89 occasions in all Tests.

Bradman did it once. Tendulkar never did.

3 players did it on 3 occasions: SM Gavaskar, RT Ponting and DA Warner.

11 others did it on 2 occasions, including R Dravid.

58 others did it on one occasion.

This is a fairly rare occurrence, but seems to have become more frequent in recent times.

LG Rowe and Yasir Hameed are the only ones to score two centuries on their debut. Hameed never scored a century again.

There are some who have scored their only two centuries in a single Test. And some others who scored their first two centuries in a single Test.

Read more in Part 2.

Centuries in both innings of a Test-Part 2

Century on Test debut and no fifty ever again

Continuing on the theme of this post: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/11/16/century-on-test-debut-and-never-again-oct-2022/

Here we look at the cases of those who scored a century on Test debut but never made a fifty after that:

Note the special case of AG Ganteaume who scored a century in his only Test (in fact his only Test innings). Perhaps this list should also include RE Redmond who scored 107 and 56 in his only Test in 1973. However, his son AJ Redmond played 8 Tests with a top score of 83.

The longest spell of tolerance by the selectors was for van Zyl (12 Tests) and DR Smith (10).For India there was Pataudi Sr (3 Tests for India, all as captain) and Shodhan (also 3 Tests).

The highest scores here are by Kuruppu (201*) and Ibadulla (166) besides the first of these unfortunates C Bannerman (165*)

Century on Test debut and never again (Oct 2022)

Many players have score2 centuries on Test debut, starting with Charles Bannerman in the very first Test in 1877. But a significant number have never made a century again. This even includes one who made 2 centuries on debut (Yasser Hameed).

A total of 110 players have made 112 centuries on Test Debut. Lawrence Rowe accompanies Yasser Hameed in making 2 centuries on debut. But 39 of these (over 35% ) never scored another century. Here is the list:

You can also see that some did not even cross fifty after their debut. They will be tabulated next.

Footnote: Fawad Alam was stuck on this list for over 11 years from 2009 to 2020 before he scored his second century and a few more.

World record defeat in first-class cricket

Mumbai beat Uttarakhand by 725 runs in the Ranji quarter-final which concluded today:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/ranji-trophy-2021-22-2022-1280196/mumbai-vs-uttarakhand-2nd-quarter-final-1313304/live-cricket-score

This is the highest margin of defeat by runs in all first-class matches, surpassing the 685 runs margin for NSW v Qld in 1929-30 at Sydney. The existing records can be seen here:

Note that the 675-run margin for England vs Aus in 1928-29 at Brisbane is next on the list.

It can be seen that the Mumbai team included only two (fringe) international players in Prithvi Shaw and Dhawal Kulkarni. The main scorers and wicket-takers are relatively unknown.

In fact, the cricket grounds at Alur are situated at a rather remote part of greater Bengaluru, near Chikkabanavara:

Zeroes and big scores in Tests

In the first Test at Chittagong, Angelo Mathews became the first to score a zero and 199 in the same Test.

There are also a number of batsmen who scored a zero and double century in the same Test.

Here is the list for scores of 150 and above:

There are also 190s by GB Legge of long ago and SP Fleming. However, the record here is by Shoaib Malik with 245. Next is Ponting’s 242 which is the highest score by anyone in a losing Test side.

From India, the highest scores include 163* by ML Apte and 152 by NR Mongia. (Also GR Viswanath’s 0 and 137 on debut).

There are several cases of 0s and 99s.

Here is the full list of zeroes and scores between 95 and 99:

There are 6 cases of 0 and 99, including Pankaj Roy and (most recently) Misbah-ul-Haq and Babar Azam.

Some, like van der Dussen and WV Raman did not make a Test century. The former still has time to rectify this.

T20I performances of 2021 – Pt 1

A review of team and individual performances in T20Is in the calendar year 2021.

As discussed here, for any meaningful comparison, we should not consider all T20Is but only those of a reasonable standard (i.e. those who have or had Test or ODI status in the past). These are:

1. Afghanistan
2. Australia
3. Bangladesh
4. Bermuda
5. Canada
6. England
7. Hong Kong (HK)
8. India
9. Ireland
10. Kenya
11. Namibia
12. Nepal
13. Netherlands
14. New Zealand (NZ)
15. Oman
16. Pakistan
17. Papua New Guinea (PNG)
18. Scotland
19. South Africa (SA)
20. Sri Lanka (SL)
21. United Arab Emirates (UAE)
22. United States of America (USA)
23. West Indies (WI)
24. Zimbabwe

We first look at the performance of teams:

Among the teams which have played at least 10 matches, Pakistan has the best W/L ratio followed by South Africa and England. Zimbabwe brings up the tail with Ireland just above it.

Now for individual performances, starting with Batting

Most runs (300 and above):

Note that Mohammad Rizwan has by far the most runs, with his team-mate Babar Azam in second place. No one has scored more than one century. Rizwan has the most 50+ scores (13), followed by Azam (10).

The most runs by an Indian player are 424 by RG Sharma, in the middle of the table above.

Highest innings (80 and above):

Led by Babar Azam (122). The best for India is 80* by V Kohli.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Inevitably headed by Rizwan, whose average is almost double that of the runner-up Azam. Nobody from India has played enough.

Highest strike rate (Minimum 250 balls faced, all instances):

Here WI’s E Lewis leads, followed by RG Sharma. No one else from India. The Pakistani pair of Rizwan and Azam are in the middle.

To be continued.

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.

1000 runs in Tests without a fifty

For a long time, Waqar Younis was the only who had crossed this barrier. Later. “GOAT” Lyon caught up, and now Kemar Roach:

There are as many as 54 Test players who have made 1000 runs without scoring a century. Some have managed a century practically at the end of their Test career (e.g. Kumble, Vaas).

Today there are three players with 2000 runs and no centuries:

Warne’s 3000+ looks safe here, unless Dickwella plays long enough without a century. He does hold the record of 18 fifties without a century, ahead of Chauhan with 16.

The best scores at different batting positions in Tests

First, for all Tests:

For all Tests by India. None of them are world records. However Nos 5 and 9 above were against India.

For all Tests on debut:

Note that Nos 4 and 8 were against India.

For all Tests on debut for India. Note No 9: