Review of Pakistan-England Tests (Dec 2022)-Part 1

England inflicted a rare 3-0 victory in an away series when they defeated Pakistan in this series.

This was the only time Pakistan has lost a home series by 3-0 or more. Only Australia and India have avoided clean sweeps at home by 3-0 or more.

Looking at the overall records of Tests between England and Pakistan:

Total Tests 89, England lead 29-21 with 39 draws

In England: 56 Tests, England lead 24-12 with 20 draws

In Pakistan: 27 Tests, England lead 5-4 with 18 draws

Neutral venues: 6 Tests, England trail 0-5 with 1 draw

Looking at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs, minimum 800:

Led by Cook and Inzamam. Root and Azhar Ali are there from this series, which marked the latter’s retirement from Tests. The most centuries are 6 by M Yousuf, followed by Cook and Inzamam with 5. The most 50+ scores are 15 by Inzamam.

Highest innings, minimum 175:

Nothing in the past few years except Crawley’s 267 in 2020.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings and 40.00):

Headed by M Yousuf and Saleem Malik, with AJ Stewart having the best average for England. Root represents current players.

Best batting strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced, SR above 50):

Headed by Pietersen, Root and Inzamam. Root represents current players.

To be continued:

Batting averages in the third and fourth innings of Tests-September 2021

Hope you have seen these:

abn397.wordpress.com/2021/09/20/batting-averages-in-the-first-and-second-innings-of-tests-september-2021/

We now proceed to the third innings:

The cutoff here is 50.00

The first surprise here is that Bradman does not appear. Perhaps he did not bat enough in the third innings.

The leading batsman PBH May is a bit of a surprise. He is followed by JH Kallis and DCS Compton.

No current player appears in the top 10. The only players from recent times are K Sangakkara who retired in 2015 and HM Amla (2017). Batting in the third innings must have become more difficult in recent times.

From India there are M Amarnath and VVS Laxman.

Now for the fourth innings:

The cutoff here is 40.00.

Headed by Boycott, Gavaskar and Hobbs.

Current players here are KS Williamson (at 7), Kohli (at 8) besides recent player Younis Khan (at 9).

Other current players include AD Mathews (has he retired from Tests?), DA Warner, DM Bravo, Shakib Al Hasan, Asad Shafiq and R Taylor.

From India there are Gavaskar and Kohli in the top 10, followed by Dravid and Laxman.

It would seem that recent players have coped better with the fourth innings than with the third innings.

Another interesting topic to study would be the batters and bowlers who have done best in the fourth innings.