Review of Pakistan-England Tests (Dec 2022)-Part 2

Hope you have read Part 1.

Now we look at individual performances in

Bowling:

Most wickets (35 and above):

Qadir and Anderson share the record with 82 wickets. Anderson had played in part of this series. His long-term partner Broad is next with 67.

Best innings bowling (including7wi or more):

Led by Qadir and Botham, the latter taking 8-34 at Lord’s. The best in this series was 7-114 by Abrar Ahmed who was making his debut.

Best match bowling (including 10wm or more):

Led by Underwood and Qadir who each took 13 wickets. In this series Abrar Ahmed took 11-234 on debut

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

The best bowling averages are by Anderson followed by Broad. The best economy rates are by Iqbal Qasim and DA Allen. The best strike rates are by Waqar Younis and Anderson.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (20 and above):

Headed by Wasim Bari, followed by Kamran Akmal and Knott. Bari and Sarfraz Ahmed have the most stumpings with 4. Root has the most catches by a fielder with 25.

Best innings fielding (5 or more dismissals):

Sarfraz Ahmed took 5 dismissals on 2 occasions, while GO Jones did so twice. No fielder took more than 4 catches.

Best match fielding (7 dismissals or more):

Wasim Bari and Kamran Akmal took 8 dismissals in a match. No fielder took more than 6.

Dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):

Led by Knott and RW Taylor, followed by Wasim Bari. Root has the best rate for fielders.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Broad and Botham have the best performances.

Match performances

50+ and 5wi in the match

Of these, the best would be Botham’s century and 8wi, and Qadir’s 61 and 10wm. Honourable mention to Imran Khan’s 100 runs and 8wm in 1982.

Records of the T20I World Cup (2007-2022): Part 2

Hope you have seen the first part:

Records of the T20I World Cup (2007-2022): Part 1

Continuing with Bowling statistics:

Most wickets (20 or more):

Shakib leads by a large margin over Shahid Afridi (the original one). From India, the best is 32 by Ashwin.

Best innings bowling (including all 5wi and over):

BAW Mendis and Herath have much better innings analyses than others including Umar Gul and Sam Curran. Curran’s 5-10 was the best in 2022. For India, the best is 4-11 by Ashwin in 2014

Best bowling averages (Minimum 500 balls bowled, all instances):

Only 7 bowlers have bowled enough to qualify. S Ajmal is closely followed by Ashwin, who is the only Indian player here. Next is Shakib.

Summing up this table:

Best averages: Ajmal, Ashwin

Best economy rates: Ashwin, S Afridi

Best strike rates: Ajmal, Ashwin.

Next we come to Fielding statistics:

Most dismissals (12 and above):

The most dismissals are 32 by ABD and Dhoni. AB de Villiers has 9 dismissals as a keeper and 23 as a fielder, while all of Dhoni’s 32 dismissals are as a keeper.

Kamran Akmal is next with 30 dismissals as a keeper, including the most stumpings at 18.

de Villers has the most catches as a fielder (23) followed by DA Warner with 20.

Most dismissals in an innings (4):

Nobody reached this level in 2022. Dhoni is the only one from India, and the only one to appear here twice. Also note the 4 stumpings by Kamran Akmal and Ramdin. DJG Sammy is the only fielder here.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):

The best here is by the “hybrid” AB de Villiers with 1.066. Next are Dhoni and Kamran Akmal with 1.000.

The best by a “pure” fielder is 0.678 by MJ Guptill followed by current player GJ Maxwell (0.666)

Finally, we come to all-round performances:

Overall: Minimum 20 innings batted and 500 balls bowled:

Only 3 qualify here, with only Shakib having a creditable performance.

However, we get another viewpoint here:

Best match performance (Minimum 30 runs and 3 wickets):

The best performances here would be by DJ Bravo (66* and 4-38), followed by SR Watson’s 72 and 3-34 and Shakib’s 46 and 4-9. The best for India is by HH Pandya in 2022. Also note CR Brathwaite’s 34* which included 4 successive 6s in the 2016 final.

Differences between home and away batting averages

A common topic of discussion among cricket’s number-crunchers is the difference between home and away batting averages.

Here, we consider the differences for the 534 players who have batted in at least 20 innings both in home and away/neutral Tests.

The full list of Home average-Away/Neutral average can be seen in this spreadsheet.

Home-away main display

This is for Tests up to Oct 25, 2019. The 2005 Test involving the ICC XI is not included.

However, you may find it simpler to look at the top 40, whose home average has the greatest positive difference  with the away/neutral average. Or those who derive the greatest advantage from home conditions.

Note that some prominent players such as RG Sharma do not feature here as they have not completed 20 innings in one of the two categories.

Many of the current Pakistani players are not here because they have played few or no Tests at home.

The top positions are the unlikely trio of VS Hazare, Kamran Akmal and Mominul Haque-all from the Asian teams. Next come Rowe and Walcott from the West Indies. Warner, Khawaja and Clarke are the highest among Australians, Compton and May from the English, HP Tillakratne from Sri Lanka, HW Taylor from South Africa, McCullum from New Zealand and GJ Whittall from Zimbabwe.

We now go to the other extreme, those who have the greatest negative difference, or those who derive the strongest advantage from away and neutral conditions.

Unlike in the first table, the first few positions are from a wider variety of teams.

BC Broad (Eng) has the only such difference less than -30. While he had a reasonable career as a batsman, his bowler son Stuart Broad is better known.

Then other leaders from their teams are DM Bravo (WI), S Wettimuny (SL), M Amarnath (Ind), PA Strang (Zim), WR Endean (SA), JW Burke (Aus), JR Reid (NZ), Saleem Yousuf (Pak). Perhaps it is understandable that there is no one from Bangladesh in the top 40. The best from BD is Javed Omar (102nd with -2.83).

The median difference among the 534 players is 3.14, matched by RJ Shastri and GG Arnold. That might imply that most batsmen would be expected to average 3 runs more at home than away/neutral.

Those closest to a zero difference (whose batting averages are practically the same home and away) are Waqar Younis (-0.04) along with HM Amla (0.09 ) and Intikhab Alam (-0.10)

In case you are wondering, DG Bradman is 457th out of 534, being one of those who did better away. His difference is 98.22-102.84 = -4.62.

 

 

Review of Tests between the West Indies and Pakistan-2

Continuing our review of all Tests between these teams, after the conclusion of the recent series.

Bowling-20 or more wickets:

Imran and Akram top the list, with Walsh having the most wickets for the West Indies. Among current players there are Yasir Shah (46), Bishoo (36) and Gabriel (25). The most 5wi are 6 by Imran and 5 by Yasir Shah. No one has taken 10wm more than once.

Best innings bowling-all cases of 6wi and above:

While Croft and Imran have the best innings figures for their teams, Yasir Shah’s 7-94 and 6-63, Mohammad Amir’s 6-44 and Gabriel’s 5-11 are from the just-concluded series. The second best figures of 8-49 were by Bishoo in the series in the UAE last year.

Best match bowling-all cases of 9wm and above:

Gabriel and Yasir Shah recorded 9-wicket hauls in this series, although the overall record of 12-100 was set by Fazal Mahmood long ago. Bishoo and Yasir Shah had  10-wicket hauls last year in the UAE.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls)-all instances:

Croft has the best bowling average with Marshall and Wasim Akram close behind.

Of current players, Yasir Shah and Bishoo can be seen here.

The best economy rates are 2.05 by Gibbs and 2.36 by Fazal Mahmood.

The best strike rates are 39.6 by Waqar Younis and 41.7 by Croft.

Fielding: 12 or more dismissals:

The record of 29 dismissals was set by Alexander long ago, though Kamran Akmal and Moin Khan are second with 25. The most stumpings is by Imtiaz Ahmed (8) and most by non-keepers 23 by Viv Richards and Younis Khan. Dowrich and Sarfraz Ahmed are slowly moving up.

Best innings fielding: 4 or more dismissals:

The record of 5 is shared by DL Murray, Moin Khan and Kamran Akmal (twice). The most by non-keepers is 4 by Mathias, Logie and Taufeeq Umar.

Best match fielding: 5 or more dismissals:

The much-maligned Kamran Akmal has the record of 9 dismissals, while Imtiaz Ahmed holds the record of 3 stumpings. The most catches by non-keepers is 5 by Logie, Taufeeq Umar and Younis Khan. Younis achieved this in the 2nd Test of this series.

Best dismissal rate (20 or more innings):

No wicket-keepers figure in this list as none of them played enough. The best dismissal rate is by Younis Khan followed by Viv Richards.

All-round performance (see criteria in table):

Even with these modest criteria, only Imran Khan qualifies with a respectable total of 775 runs and 80 wickets.

All-round match performance (fifty and 5wi in match):

Oddly enough, Imran did not achieve this but the then captain Mushtaq Mohammad’s all-round performance is one of the finest for Pakistan. And we are reminded of Gayle’s lesser-known bowling capability.

 

 

 

Tests between Pakistan and the West Indies-2

Continuing the review. Hope you have seen the first part.

Looking at fielding:

Dismissals (10 and above):

Imtiaz Ahmed has the most stumpings (8), Alexander the most catches by a keeper (25) and Viv Richards the most catches by a non-keeper (23) followed by Greenidge with 19. No current players here other than Younis Khan.

Most catches in an innings (4 and above):

No recent instances. The much-maligned Kamran Akmal did do his share of catching.

Most catches in a match (5 and above):

As above, no instance after 2005 but Kamran Akmal tops the list. Note Imtiaz Ahmed’s consistency.

Highest dismissal rates (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Oddly enough no specialist wicketkeeper appears here as none of them played enough. Richards, Majid and Richardson top the list. You can however see their dismissal rates in the first table above, with Kamran Akmal having  a rate of 2.777 in 9 innings.

All-round performance (overall):

Only these two played enough to meet this modest target.

All-round performance in a match (50 and 5wi):

Gayle’s forgotten all-round ability appears here.