When the tail wagged against India

Indian bowlers have often been frustrated by lower-order batsmen. This happened in the first Test of this series as well as the first innings of the second Test.

Here we list all scores in Tests of 70 and above from No 8-11 (sorry, 12) against India:

This includes several debut scores (including 137* by Neesham, 105 by BR Taylor, 103* by Samaraweera to begin with) as well as career-best scores of 173 by IDS Smith, 137* by Neesham, 107 by Christiani and numerous others such as MA Starc, MD Marshall, TT Bresnan and even Anderson and Muralitharan. The most recent entry is KA Maharaj with 72.

We also look at the averages (with a minimum of 10 innings) for those who batted at 8-12 against India:

Vettori, Broad and Starc have scored the most runs here. Starc, JO Holder and Broad have done well in recent years.

Finally, partnerships of 90+ from the 8th wicket onward against India:

Ironically the highest such partnership is for the last wicket, when Anderson scored his only Test fifty. From the current series we have Maharaj and Philander with 109 for the 9th, and Muthusamy and Piedt with 91 for the 8th.

 

 

The Lord’s triple honours list

You know about the honours boards at Lord’s: one for scoring a century, one for 5wi and one for 10wm. (Then there are separate boards for home, visitors and neutral players. Ignore that for now).

How many players do you think qualify to be on all three boards? One of them joined the club during this Test.

An elite group of all-rounders, with only one visitor (Miller) among them.

CR Woakes scored a century in this match. He had earlier taken 5wi and 10wm in 2016.

He really seems to like Lord’s, as we see from his record here:

Of those who appear on two or more boards. Vinoo Mankad and Ian Botham are the only ones to have taken a century and 5wi in the SAME match.

No one has scored a century and taken 10wm in the same Test at Lord’s. This has been achieved only three times in all Tests, by Botham, Imran and Shakib.

As an afterthought, here are the only two who have scored a fifty and taken 10wm in the SAME Test at Lord’s:  they would be duly listed for their 5wi and 10wm, but not for their fifty.

A similar piece from Cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24350452/chris-woakes-lord-love

Tail piece: Some readers seem to be unsure about the existence of the 10wm boards. Maybe they are a relatively recent innovation. However, we have some pictures to verify this:

Part of the 10wm board.

Also, when someone gets 10wm with two fivers, both fivers are mentioned on the fiver board. If he gets one fiver and another haul of less than 5 wickets in the match, both are mentioned (and marked) as you can see here:

And finally, one of the obscure boards for neutral Tests:

These were set up in 2010 and so far cover only two Tests, Aus v SA in 1912 and Aus v Pak in 2010.