Review of West Indies-Bangladesh Tests (June 2022)

West Indies won this series 2-0.

Here is a summary of all Tests between these teams:

Note the exact symmetry: WI leads BD 7-2 with one draw both at home and away. In 2009 Bangladesh won because of the absence of many WI players. These were the first two Tests won by Bangladesh away from home. They also won 2-0 under normal circumstances in 2018.

Looking at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (350 and more):

Brathwaite, Tamim and Shakib are bunched together at the top.

Chanderpaul has the most centuries (4), while Shakib has the most 50+ scores (10, but with no centuries). Bratwaite has 8 including 3 centuries.

Highest innings scores (120 and more):

Sarwan and Samuels are far ahead of the others. Mayers scored 210* on debut in a 4th-innings chase which his team won. The highest for Bangladesh is 136 by Mahmudullah.

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

Led by Brathwaite, but Shakib is close behind.

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

Headed by Shakib by a large margin over second-placed Tamim. DM Bravo has the best for WI.

Now for Bowling:

Most wickets (12 and more):

Led by Shakib, Roach and Miraz.

Roach has the most 5-fors (4) while only Miraz and Holder have taken a 10-for.

Best innings bowling (includes 6wi and more):

Miraz is the only one on either side to take a 7-for. Lawson’s 6-3 is the best for WI, and the best 6-for in any Test.

Best match bowling (includes 8wm and more):

Headed by Miraz and Holder. Lawson appears at the bottom of this list.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

Shakib is the only one who has bowled enough.

Now for Fielding:

Most dismissals (8 and more):

Headed by Mushfiqur and Ramdin. The most by a fielder is 13 by DJG Sammy.

J Da Silva has the most dismissals (16) among current players.

Most innings dismissals (4 and more):

While several WI players have taken 5 in an innings, Khaled Mashud is the only one from BD to take 4. DM Bravo is the only fielder with 5 catches.

Most match dismissals (5 and more):

Led by three WI players with 7 in a match. The best for BD is 5 by Nurul Hasan twice. DM Bravo has the most by a fielder (6).

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, all cases):

Headed by Mushfiqur, while Brathwaite has the best by a fielder. Apart from Mushfiqur, no keeper has fielded for 20 innings.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Shakib is the only one to have batted and bowled enough.

Match (50+ and 5wi):

Only three instances, all by Shakib. His best performance was in 2009, where he narrowly missed a century and 5wi.

Review of SL-WI Tests-2

Hope you have read Part 1:

Review of SL-WI Tests-1

Next we consider Bowling:

Most wickets (15 and above):

The most 5-fors were 9 by Murali and 4 by Vaas.

The most 10-fors were 3 by Murali. No one else took more than 1.

The most wickets by current players are 32 by Roach and 27 by Lakmal.

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

The best by current players is 6-70 by RTM Mendis.

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

Note RTM Mendis with 11-136 among current players.

Best bowling average (Minimum 2000 balls bowled):

Only these two make the cutoff. It is interesting that Vaas has a better average than Murali.

Most dismissals (10 and above):

The most by a keeper is 26 by Ramdin, and most by a fielder is 19 by M Jayawardene.

The most by current players are 21 by keeper N Dickwella and 16 by fielder DM de Silva.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Note 5 by current player J Blackwood. He has a share in the world record of catches in an innings by a fielder. Also 5 by another current player N Dickwella (a wicketkeeper).

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

Note 7 by N Dickwella among current players.

Highest dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings):

It is interesting that fielders have the highest dismissal rates. Wicketkeepers of both sides have not got extended runs.

All-round performance (fifty and 5wi):

JO Holder’s performance would be the best.

Test captains compared-bowling

Continuing the study of how Test captains have performed in the bowling field.

There are relatively few bowlers who have been long-term captains. And several of them could better be classified as all-rounders.

Most wickets-25 and above:

A significant number have taken more than 100 wickets as captain. And most have been all-rounders. The highest number of wickets by a “pure” bowler is 106 by Bedi followed by 85 by Walsh. Kapil did only slightly better with 111.

Holder and Shakib lead among current players.

Most 5wi (2 and above):

As in the first table, Imran leads. Bedi has the most for India (8). Holder (7) and Shakib (4) lead among current players.

Most 10wm (all instances):

Imran and Intikhab are the only ones with more than one 10-for. Bedi and Kapil represent India, with Holder and newcomer Rashid Khan among current players.

Now for Bowling Averages (minimum 2000 balls bowled, all instances):

Fazal Mahmood, who captained in relatively few Tests has the best average followed by Imran.

The best by India is by Bedi and Kapil, with Holder and Shakib again leading among current players.

At the bottom we have some like Hooper and Richards who did not bowl in many of their Tests.

For Economy Rates, the best are 1.68 by TL Goddard and 1.86 by HB Cave.

For Strike Rates, the best are 40.3 by Waqar Younis and 45.6 by Bob Willis

History and statistics of day/night Tests-2

Hope you have read the first part: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/history-and-statistics-of-day-night-tests/

We continue with Bowling records.

Most wickets-10 and above:

Note Ashwin and Axar Patel, the latter with only one Test.

Best innings bowling (includes all cases of 6wi and above):

AR Patel is here along with I Sharma.

Best match bowling (includes all cases of 8wm and above):

AR Patel now has the best match bowling figures, surpassing the 10-62 of PJ Cummins.

Best bowling average (Min 1000 balls bowled, all instances):

Cummins heads this list. Yasir Shah is the only non-Australian here.

Cummins also has the best economy rate, while Starc has the best strike rate.

Fielding records:

Most dismissals-(8 and above):

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Australians dominate as expected. Note that Kusal Mendis has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most match dismissals (5 and above):

de Villiers leads here. Note 5 catches by non-fielders BKG Mendis and SPD Smith.

Dismissal rate (Min 10 innings, all cases):

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria below):

Starc and Holder have the best records. Would they be the true masters of pink-ball cricket?

Match performances (Min 50 and 5wi):

Holder again!

AND FINALLY:

Lowest team innings (under 100 runs all out):

No prizes for guessing which team has the lowest score.

Highest team innings (300 and above):

Many tall scores here (notably Pakistan’s 450 in the 4th innings). India needed only 300-odd to win against Bangladesh, and less than 150 more recently.

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 statistics for 2018-2

Now for bowling:

Most wickets in 2018 (25 or more):

JJ Bumrah took 48 wickets in the calendar year of his debut, coming 3rd after Alderman (54 in 1981) and Ambrose (49 in 1988). The previous record for India was 40 by Doshi in 1979. A Dananjaya took 27 wickets in his debut calendar year.

The most fivers were 4 by Taijul and Miraz of Bangladesh and Holder of the West Indies. No one took more than one tenner.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 6wi and above):

The best effort by Maharaj was in a losing cause.

Best match bowling (including all instances of 9wm and above):

Maharaj also figures here with a 12-wicket haul when his side lost. Yasir Shah’s 14-wicket haul was the best in the UAE. He and Imran Khan are the only Pakistani bowlers to have taken 14 wickets in a match.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

Bumrah has the best average and strike rate, while Anderson has the best economy.

Fielding:

Most dismissals (15 or more):

de Kock and Paine lead, although Dickwella has the most stumpings. Kusal Mendis has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most innings dismissals (5 or more):

Newcomer Pant is the only one with 6 dismissals. SPD Smith has the most catches by a non-fielder, making him one of several to share this record in all Tests. Saha took 5 catches in each innings of a match.

Most match dismissals (6 or more):

Pant with 11 dismissals shared the world record with Russell and de Villiers. Earlier in the year Saha had an Indian record with 10 dismissals.

The most by a non-keeper was 7 by Rahul, in the only Test which India won on that series. Smith made 6 catches before being disgraced.

Dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.500):

de Kock and Paine at the top, leading the others by a large margin. Kusal Mendis has the best by a non-keeper.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Not a good year for all-rounders, as Cummins is the only one to make the cut with these relatively modest standards.

Match (50 and 5wi):

More good performances, with Cummins’ last-gasp performance at the end. Holder also has two entries here.

 

Best performances by losing captains-2

Hope that you have read part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/best-performances-by-losing-captains/

We look at other performances by captains in tests lost by their team. We will see that India is well represented here.

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

Kapil is the only captain who has taken more than 7 wickets here. BS Bedi, Imran Khan and Courtney Walsh have multiple appearances. Current players include Shakib Al Hasan (multiple appearances), Graeme Cremer and Jason Holder.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

Kapil again heads this, from that same match in 1983. Bedi is the only other one with a 10-for. Current players include Jason Holder and Graeme Cremer.

Best innings fielding (5 dismissals):

Includes a few current players such as Mushfiqur, SPD Smith and Sarfraz. Sammy and Smith are the only non-keepers here.

Best match fielding (6 dismissals):

Current player Sarfraz Ahmed tops this list along with AC Gilchrist, while MS Dhoni and SPD Smith also appear. SP Fleming and SPD Smith (twice) are the only non-keepers. Gilchrist was a “regular” stand-in captain.

Best all-round performance (50 and 5wi):

Holder and Shakib from the present, while Imran Khan has two appearances from the same series in 1982. The best performances would by by Imran (July 1982) and Holder.

 

Review of the World Cup qualifying tournament-2018

Afghanistan defeated West Indies in the final. These two teams qualified to participate in the World Cup in 2019. Here is a summary of the table (though it does not include the final):

Also: 7th Netherlands, 8th Nepal, 9th PNG, 10th Hong Kong

Individual performances are given below. Matches involving Netherlands and Nepal did not have ODI status at the time of the tournament, and are thus excluded from Statsguru’s database and are not included in the tables below.

However, from now onwards Netherlands, Nepal, Scotland and UAE have ODI status while Hong Kong and PNG do not. A further reshuffle will be done in a process which will end about 4 years from now.

Most runs in ODIs (150 and above):

No one scored more than one century, while Rahmat Shah was the only one with three 50+ scores. Note that BRM Taylor scored the most runs, far ahead of CS MacLeod.

Highest innings in ODIs (90 and above):

Note that the two highest scores were by relatively lesser known players.

Most wickets in ODIs (8 and above):

No one took 5wi more than once. 3 players took two 4wis apiece.

Best innings bowling in ODIs (4wi and above):

Note that the top two performances were almost identical ( 5-27 and 5-28).

Most dismissals in ODIs (6 and above):

NJ O’Brien was by far the leading keeper. The best by a non-keeper was 8 by N Zadran.

Most dismissals in an innings in ODIs (3 and above):

While NJ O’Brien and McKechnie took 4 dismissals as keepers, 4 non-keepers took 3 catches each.

All-round overall performance in ODIs (see criteria below):

Holder, followed by Mustafa were clearly the leading all-rounders of the series.

Best all-round match performances (minimum 30 runs and 3 wickets):

A number of good performances.

And finally, the ICC ranking tables after the final got over on 25th March:

It can be seen that in the long run Zimbabwe and Ireland did not do well enough to claim themselves in the top ten.

 

Test all-round performances of 2017

Overall performance (see criteria below):

Nothing out of the way. Moeen Ali and Jason Holder are the best of a weak field.

Ali did however achieve the relatively rare feat of a fifty and 10 wickets in a match. More on that below.

Match performances (Fifty and 5wi):

The 9 instances include two each by Jadeja and Ali. While Ali and Shakib achieved the 50/10wm double, there were no instances of 100/5wi. But Sikandar Raza’a two 80s and a 5wi may rank among the best all-round performances in a losing cause. Something like a lite version of Vinoo Mankad at Lord’s in 1952.