Finer points about Test captaincy-Part 1

Here we look at

1. Players who have played the most Tests
2. Players who have captained in the most Tests
3. Players who have been non-captains in the most Tests

Those who have played the most Tests (12 and more):

It is well known that Tendulkar has played the most Tests-200. The next few may not be that well remembered. Note that the number of Tests played as captain widely vary, starting from zero (see the entries for JM Anderson and his old comrade SCJ Broad) to 93 for Border-though even this is not a record, as we will see in the next section. JE Root has captained the most among current players, although he is not captain at the date of writing in late 2022.

Most Tests played as captain (50 or more):

Here we have the record by GC Smith of captaining the most times-108. The only 8 Tests he did not captain in were at the beginning of his career. Next are AR Border (93) and SP Fleming (80). Kohli is in 6th postion with 68 Tests (besides 34 not as captain).

Most Tests played not as captain (110 or more):

Tendulkar has played in 175 Tests not as captain, besides 25 as captain. Next is Kallis with 163 not as captain, and only 2 Tests as a captain. As you may guess, these were as a stand-in when the regular captain was unavailable. In third place is JM Anderson. who has played all his 160 Tests without ever being captain.

This leads us to other questions, such as:

Who have played the most Tests without ever being captain?

Is there anyone who has played all his Tests as captain?

The answers to these questions will be given in Part 2.

Actually, the #1 and #2 and the next few for the first question have already been identified, but there is no clue about the second question so far.

So please read Part 2 which will be put up within a day.

Review of Tests between England and South Africa-Sep 2022-Part 1

England won the 3-test series 2-1, with all three Tests finishing within 3 days of play. The 3rd Test at the Oval lost the first day due to the weather and the second day to the queen’s demise, but still finished soon after the start of what was the scheduled 5th day. Stokes was the last English captain of the Elizabethan era. Earlier, SA won by an innings in the first Test and England won by an innings in the second Test.

A summary of Tests between these teams:

The upper table is for all tests since the beginning. England leads by a large margin both at home and abroad. This is not surprising as SA was a weak team for many of its earlier Tests, when they only played against England and Australia.

I thought it would be more useful to look at the record after SA returned to Tests in the 1990s. Here, England still leads at home and abroad but with a narrower margin.

We now look at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (1200 and above):

As we will see in the later tables, many of the aggregate records are from the pre-1990 period. Thus Kallis has the most runs of the post-1990 batsmen but is fifth overall. Next is GC Smith (6th overall).

Kallis has the most centuries (8), followed by several others with 7.

B Mitchell has the most 50+ scores (23), followed by Hammond and HW Taylor with 20. The most by a recent player is 16 by Kallis.

Highest individual scores (180 and above):

Here, the top few scores are from recent players. None from this low-scoring series.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings and 40.00):

GC Smith has the highest average among recent players, followed by Amla. However, the highest averages are by Hammond and Hobbs from the early days.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced and 45.00):

Here Stokes leads by a good margin over de Kock. None of the pre-1990 players are here.

To be continued:

New Zealand-South Africa Tests, 2022 (Part 2)

Hope you have read Part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/03/05/new-zealand-south-africa-tests-2022-part-1/

Continuing with individual performances in

Bowling:

Most wickets (20 and above):

The current players here are Wagner and Rabada.

Steyn has the most fivers (6), followed by CS Martin and M Ntini with 4 each.

Steyn is the only one with two tenners.

Best innings bowling (including all 6wi and better):

In this series we have MJ Henry taking 7-23 in the first Test as a record for NZ v SA, surpassing JR Reid’s 6-60 at Dunedin in 1964.

Best match bowling (including all 9wm and better):

Here Henry has 9-55, which is NZ’s second best match bowling performance against SA. CS Martin’s 11-180 figured in NZ’s first home victory against SA in 2004.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls bowled, all instances):

Headed by Steyn and Tayfield. No current players here. Also note Vettori’s poor performance.

Steyn and Tayfield have the best averages.

Tayfield and Reid have the best economy rates.

Steyn and CS Martin have the best strike rates.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (12 and above):

Headed by Waite and Boucher, who are far ahead of the others. Boucher has 49 catches to Waite’s 47, although Waite has the most dismissals.

No current players here. GC Smith (18) has the most catches by a fielder.

Most innings dismissals (5 and above):

de Kock appears twice, while several other keepers have 4 dismissals in an innings. No fielder has more than 3 catches in an innings.

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

Several keepers have made 7 dismissals in a match. The best by a current player is 6 by Blundell. GC Smith took 5 catches as a fielder.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.40):

Waite heads this list by a large margin, followed by Boucher. GC Smith has the best rate for a fielder.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria in table):

With these criteria, JR Reid has the best overall performance, far ahead of Vettori.

Match (fifty and five-for):

Only two instances, and MJ Henry’s performance is the best here. His fifty came at No 11.

New Zealand-South Africa Tests, 2022 (Part 1)

The series was drawn 1-1 after NZ’s unexpected win in the first Test. It was only the second Test win for them at home. The previous win was in March 2004 at Auckland. They have never won a Test series against SA, though some have been drawn. Their best performance was probably the 2-2 draw in SA in 1961-62.

Summary of all Tests between these teams:

We can see that SA has historically done better.

Now for individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

Led by Kallis, while Williamson is the only current player here.

Kallis has the most centuries-6

Kallis also has the most 50+ scores (12) followed by Amla (11).

Highest innings (125 and above):

While there are several large scores from the past, the highest from this series was 136* by SA newcomer K Verreynne. Williamson is also in this list although he did not play in this series.

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

Headed by DJ McGlew from the past. No current players here.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced, all instances):

Headed by GC Smith. This list also includes Williamson and Elgar.

To be continued at https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/03/06/new-zealand-south-africa-tests-2022-part-2/

Review of Tests between India and South Africa-2

Hope you have read part 1:

Review of Tests between India and South Africa-1

Continuing with individual performances in

Fielding:

Most dismissals (12 or more):

Boucher leads by a large margin (60) followed by de Villiers (40).

de Villiers has the most catches by a fielder (25) besides 15 catches as a keeper. Next among fielders is Kallis with 23. Note that K Verreyne has 14 in just 2 Tests.

Current players here include Saha, de Kock, Pujara and Rahane.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Saha (twice), de Kock and newcomer Verreyne represent the current players.

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

Saha has the most, with 5 catches in each innings. Other current players are de Kock, Pant and Verreyne.

Most dismissals per innings (Minimum 20 innings, 0.60 or more):

Boucher leads by a large margin over Dhoni.

Apart from the “hybrid” de Villiers who played both as a keeper and fielder, GC Smith has the highest dismissal rate among fielders.

Rahane is the only current player here.

Finally: All-round performance:

Overall performance (see criteria in table):

Only SM Pollock can be called a genuine all-rounder. Kallis is not here as he bowled less than 2000 balls against India.

Match performance (at least 50+ and 5wi+):

The best of these match performances seems to be by N Boje.

Tail piece:

AK Markram has now played 29 Tests. 18 of them were won by SA and 11 were lost. None were drawn. He thus continues to hold the record for playing in the most Tests without a draw. Next is England’s GA Lohmann of long ago who played in 18 Tests (15 wins, 3 losses).

Kings of the fourth-innings chase (Revised-Sep 2021)-Pt 3

This continues from https://abn397.wordpress.com/2021/09/25/kings-of-the-fourth-innings-chase-revised-sep-2021-pt-2/

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.

Kings of the fourth-innings chase (Revised-Sep 2021)-Pt 1

The fourth-innings chase is often regarded as the ultimate challenge for a batter. Let us see who have done the best in successful chases.

Most runs: (400+):

GC Smith is the clear leader here. He also has the most centuries (4) and most 50+ scores (10, followed by contemporaries Hayden, Ponting and JL Langer with 7). Also note CG Greenidge’s 214*.

Tendulkar, Dravid and Sehwag have the most runs for India.

Williamson and Karunaratne are the only current players here, with Amla, Cook and Younis from recent years.

Bradman is not here (but when he batted, a fourth innings chase was often not needed by Australia).

Highest scores in these cases (115 and above):

A total of 76 centuries have been scored here.

Only two double centuries, with KR Mayers scoring his on debut. The next highest in recent years was 153* by K Perera in 2019. There are Morris and Bradman in the same Test at Leeds in 1948, which was the only successful 400+ chase until India followed in 1976. (Years later, MA Butcher emulated Bradman’s 173* at Leeds).

The highest from India are not in the above list.

Viswanath (112) and Gavaskar (102) made their centuries in the same match in 1976, while Tendulkar and Laxman have made 103*.

Highest averages (Minimum 15 innings):

These 21 entries are the only ones with 15 or more innings. GC Smith leads here as well, with Ponting close behind.

From the recent past there are Cook and Amla. Tendulkar, Dravid and Sehwag represent India.

Kisrsten and Dravid are among those who did not score a century, although Hutton has a 98*.

We will take up bowling in 4th-innings wins in the next part.

Test captains with the most wins, losses and draws

Most wins (15 and above):

GC Smith has the most Tests, so it is not surprising that he has the most wins (53) Next are Ponting (47) and S Waugh (41). One can see (from the last column) that S Waugh, Bradman and Ponting have the highest win percentage.

The most wins by Indian captains are 36 (Kohli, 5th overall), 27 by Dhoni (10th ) and 21 by Ganguly (19th).

Current captains here are Kohli (36), Root (26), and Williamson (22).

Most losses (13 and above):

GC Smith again heads this list, closely followed by SP Fleming and Lara who led relatively weak teams.

The highest by Indian captains are 19 by Pataudi (11th overall), 18 by Dhoni (12th) and 15 by Kohli (19th). Also 14 by Azharuddin and 13 by Ganguly.

Current captains here are Root (19), Kohli (15) and BRM Taylor (13).

Most draws (13 and above):

Headed by Border (39), Gavaskar (30) and GC Smith (27).

For India the highest are 30 by Gavaskar (2nd overall), 23 by Kapil (8th) and 19 by Azharuddin (11th). Also 15 by Ganguly.

No current captains here. The most recent is AN Cook (13) who finished his term of captaincy in 2016.

Test captains compared-fielding

We now look at the fielding figures for Test captains. This includes both keepers and non-keepers.

Most dismissals (35 and above):

Led by Dhoni (211) followed by non-keepers GC Smith (152) and Fleming (132) and current keeper Paine (101)

Fine-tuning:

A Flower and AJ Stewart had captained both as keepers and as non-keepers. Sangakkara and AB de Villiers never captained as a keeper.

Most catches by WK: 187 by Dhoni, almost double the next (97 by Paine).

Most stumpings: 24 by Dhoni, followed by Sherwell (16 from long ago)

Most catches by non-keeper: 152 by GC Smith, 132 by Fleming. The highest for India is 59 by Kohli

Most dismissals in an innings (5 and above):

Rashid Latif and Dhoni have the most dismissals (6).

Among non-keepers, the highest is 5 by VY Richardson, Fleming, GC Smith, Sammy and SPD Smith.

5 is still the world record for catches by a fielder in an innings. It is shared by several others. VY Richardson was the first to achieve this. He is better known as the (maternal) grandfather of the Chappells.

Most dismissals in a match (7 and above):

Here the record is 10 by Sarfaraz Ahmed, who had a relatively short spell as captain.

For non-keepers, it is 7 by Fleming. This was a share in the world record until AM Rahane took 8 catches.

And the most stumpings appear to be 3 by Dhoni in 2010.

Highest dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, and 0.65):

Here the results are a little surprising: Paine (2.244) followed by Sarfaraz (2.200) and Alexander. Dhoni is next.

Among fielders, the leader is SPD Smith(1.187) followed by DJG Sammy (1.075). Dravid (0.702) has the most for India.

You may also like to see this, which has the same dateline in May 2021.

Wicket-keepers who captained in Tests (Revised in May 2021)

Test captains compared-batting

The first of a series comparing Test captains by their basic skills rather than captaincy.

Data up to May 15, 2021. The ICC XI Test of 2005 is not included.

Most runs (2500 and above):

After all, Graeme Smith has played the most Tests as captain.

Kohli is in 4th position, the best for Indian players as well as current players. Root and SPD Smith are some distance behind, and Gavaskar still further behind.

Most centuries (6 and above):

Graeme Smith again. Kohli is in second place here and will probably overtake him. SPD Smith is next among current players. Gavaskar with 11 is next among Indian players.

Fifty-plus scores (18 and above):

Here is Graeme Smith yet again. Kohli is in 8th position here, which is the highest both for Indian players and current players. Root and Gavaskar are some distance behind.

Highest individual scores (225 and above):

Led by Lara with his world record 400*. Kohli with 254* is the first among Indian players and current players. Williamson (251) and Karunaratne (244) are next among current players. Kohli’s 243 is the second highest for Indian captains.

Highest batting average (Min 20 innings, 50.00):

Bradman’s 101.51 is far ahead of the next, who is SPD Smith with 70.36. Williamson (62.81) and Kohli (58.60) are the next among current captains. Tendulkar and Gavaskar are further down.

Highest strike rates (Min 1000 balls faced, 50.00):

Exact figures for balls faced are lacking for some who played before 2000. However, it should be clear that Kapil Dev would have the highest strike rate.

Shakib Al Hasan has the highest among current players, although he may not captain his side again. Even SPD Smith may come back.

Kohli can be said to have the highest strike rate among undisputed present captains.

Analyzing Test captaincies – 6

Finally we look at captains with the most wins, most losses and most draws.

Most wins (14 and more):

Here, and in the rest of the post, we will see that the toppers will generally be those who captained in the most Tests. GC Smith with 53 wins had captained in the most Tests (108). RT Ponting is next with 47 wins.

Among current players, V Kohli has the most wins (33). That is also the most by an Indian captain.

Most losses (12 and more):

Unsurprisingly, it is also headed by GC Smith with 28 losses. Next is SP Fleming with 27.

Among current captains, JO Holder has the most losses (19). For India, MAK Pataudi leads with 19.

Most draws (12 and more):

For a change, this is headed by another captain AR Border with 39 draws (including 1 tie). Next is SM Gavaskar with 30. He was well known for his defensive captaincy. Like Border, he had a weak Test team most of the time. GC Smith is third with 27.

Among recent captains, AN Cook leads with 13 draws.

Test captaincy updates-1

It is easy enough to get updated tables like this:

(All these tables are updated to May 15, 2021):

Most Tests (120 and above)

Current players with the most Tests are Anderson (160) and Broad (146).

Another table which is easy to create:

Most Tests as Captain (40 and above):

Kohli is the only current player here. He has captained in 60 Tests and has equalled Dhoni (60). He overtook Ganguly (49), Gavaskar and Azharuddin (47) not long ago. Root is on 50.

But this one needs a little more work with Excel:

Most Tests NOT as Captain (90 and above):

Tendulkar and Kallis lead. The most by current players are 161 by Anderson and 146 by his team-mate Broad.

Now what about those who played the most Tests without ever captaining their sides (90 and above)?

Led by Anderson and Broad, who recently surpassed the long-standing record of Warne.

VVS Laxman (134) has the highest for India which will probably stand for a long time..

Other current players are Ishant Sharma (101) and NM Lyon (100).

Finally, those who played all their Tests as captains (all cases):

Most of them are from the olden days, except LK Germon (12). Perhaps there was an acute shortage of captaincy talent in New Zealand in the mid-90s. And there is Porterfield who captained Ireland in the only 3 Tests which they have played.

Note the 5 at the bottom who played only one Test, in which they were captain.

There are a fair number of the glorious amateurs and their counterparts like Vizianagaram.