T20Is between India and Ireland

A total of 5 such matches have been played between these teams:

India has won all 5 of them, including the first one in 2009 which was part of the T20 World Championship.

Most of these matches were one-sided, apart from the one on Jun 28.

A quick look at major statistical achievements:

Most runs (80 and more):

Newcomer DJ Hooda has the most runs. HT Tector also did well among newcomers, and has the most runs for Ireland.

Highest innings (60 and more):

Hooda leads here as well, surpassing RG Sharma again. Tector again has the highest score for Ireland.

Most wickets (4 and more):

YS Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav lead here.

Best innings bowling (3wi and more):

Zaheer Khan still leads with his figures from the first match. From this series the best was Adair’s 3-42 in the last match.

Most dismissals (3 or more):

Four players have 3 dismissals each, Dhoni and Tucker as keepers with Dockrell and Thompson as non-keepers.

Most innings dismissals (2 and more):

Thompson and Tucker have 3 dismissals apiece, which are the highest for non-keepers and keepers respectively.

All-round (20 and 2wi in the same match):

The only instance is by MR Adair in the last match, though it was not enough to win.

More tailend heroics-2

Another aspect of great tailend recoveries is the proportion of runs added by the tailenders. Today we will concentrate on cases where the score was doubled after the fall of the 9th wicket.

There are only 6 such instances in all Tests. In chronological order, they are:

1) P Willey and RGD Willis took the score from 92/9 to 209/9. (Added 117*, which is 1.27 times the score of the first 9 wickets. Eng v WI, Oval, 24/07/1980. Drawn.

Scores: Eng 370 and 209/9 dec; WI 265.

Similarly:

2) PM Siddle and NM Lyon took the score from 21/9 to 47. Added 26, 1.24 times. A v SA, Cape Town, 09/11/2011. Lost.

Scores: Aus 284 and 47; SA 96 and 236/2. SA won by 8 wickets.

3) PJ Hughes and AC Agar took the score from 117/9 to 280. Added 163, 1.39 times. A v E, Nottingham, 10/07/2013. Lost.

Scores: Eng 215 and 375. Aus 280 and 296. Eng won by 14 runs.

4) C Overton and JM Anderson took the score from 27/9 to 58. Added 31, 1.15 times. E v NZ, Auckland, 22/03/2018. Lost.

Scores: Eng 58 and 320. NZ 427/8 dec. NZ won by an innings and 49 runs (Day-night Test)

5) GH Dockrell and  TJ Murtagh took the score from 85/9 to 172. Added 87, 1.02 times. Ire v Afg, Dehradun, 15/03/2019. Lost.

Scores: Ire 172 and 288. Afg 314 and 149/3. Afg won by 7 wickets.

6) KAJ Roach and ML Cummins took the score from 50/9 to 100. Added 50, 1.00 times. WI v Ind, North Sound. 22/08/2019. Lost.

Scores: Ind 297 and 343/7 Dec. WI 222 and 100. Ind won by 318 runs.

It is interesting that the first such instance occurred only after more than a century of Tests.

Going by the number of runs scored for the last wicket, the most is 163 by Hughes and Agar. The latter was making his debut and holds the record for the highest score (98) at no 11 in all Tests.

They also have the record for the highest ratio, 1.39.

You can also see that none of these teams won the Test. Only one managed a draw.

Next we will look at recoveries where the score was doubled after the fall of the 8th wicket. Apart from the 6 cases listed above, there are 8 others starting from 1927.

High scores at No 11

On the opening day of the first Afghanistan – Ireland Test at the new Test venue Dehradun, Ireland’s last pair of GH Dockrell and TJ Murtagh took Ireland from 85/9 to 172. They contributed 39 (No 8) and 54* (No 11) respectively.

First we look at :

High Scores at No 11:

Only 19 such instances. Murtagh is 11th in this list.

He also figures in this list in Cricinfo’s records section:

When No 11 was top scorer of the innings:

There have been only 11 such instances, 6 of them after 2000.

Murtagh has the third highest score here, after Agar and Vogler.

The partnership which lasted from 85/9 to 172 is one of the few instances where a team’s score was doubled after the 9th wicket fell.

There are only 5 such instances, and 4 of them were after 2010. More about this later.

We also add a table of the Highest 10th-wicket partnerships (85 and above):

Dockrell and Murtagh just manage to enter here.

The highest partnership involving No 10 and 11 appears to be the 128 by Higgs (63) and Snow (59*) in 1966.

The T20Is of 2017

The T20I matches of 2018 have already started. So we now look back at the matches of 2017. Not too many as there was no world championship, though there is now an increasing trend of 3-match series rather than a single match grudgingly tagged on at the end of the season.

First, the ICC ranking table at the end of the year:

This has a close bunching at the top, with 3 points separating Pakistan, New Zealand and India.

Now we look at win-loss ratios in 2017:

Pakistan and Scotland (!) at the top, with Bangladesh just above bottom-ranked PNG. Although Pakistan does top both lists, it should be remembered that the ICC rankings cover a longer period.

Now we look at individual performances. With a relatively small sample size there is not much point in finding averages and strike rates. The matches involving the World XI are not counted, even though the ICC and Cricinfo regards them as official T20Is

Batting: Most runs (150 and above):

So Evin Lewis of the West Indies leads, leaving established stars like ABD and Kohli behind. C Munro is the only one with 2 centuries, while several have three 50+ scores.

Highest innings (75 and above):

Evin Lewis leads the next in line RG Sharma by a large margin (by T20I standards).

Bowling: Most wickets (10 and above):

YS Chahal emerged with a bang, while Williams and Rashid also emerged from the fringes. Chahal is the only one with three 4wis, no one else had more than 1.

Best innings bowling (all instances of 5wi and above):

Chahal and Rashid Khan again.

Fielding: Most dismissals (8 and more):

Dhoni heads this list, although surprisingly Ireland’s GH Dockrell has the most catches as a non-keeper. In fact he has more catches than Dhoni or any other keeper!

Best innings fielding (3 or more dismissals):

While Chandimal, Dhoni and GD Philips have 4 dismissals apiece, several non-keepers have taken 3 catches.

All-round performance-overall:

See criteria below:

Seekuge Prasanna emerges as the only to one to have bowled and batted enough with some pretensions to being an all-rounder.

All-round match performances (20+ runs and 2+ wickets).

The best performances here are by Anshuman Rath (HK) and Shakib Al Hasan.