Review of England-India Tests, 2021-2022 (Pt 1)

The series was drawn 2-2 with 1 draw. India however retained the Pataudi trophy by virtue of their win in India in early 2021.

This is only the second drawn series for India in England, the first being 1-1 in 2002. They had won only in 1971, 1986 and 2007.

The jinx at Birmingham continued, as India have lost 7 and drawn 1 at this venue.

The overall summary:

Note England’s strong home advantage, although India is coming up.

Proceeding to individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (800 and more):

JE Root has come within a whisker of overtaking Tendulkar’s total of 2535, and has overtaken Gavaskar. Kohli and Pujara are next among current players.

Root has the most centuries (9) followed by Cook, Dravid and Tendulkar with 7.

Gavaskar and Tendulkar have the most 50+ scores (20), followed by Root with 19.

Highest innings scores (180 and more):

The highest score in recent years was 218 by Root in early 2021.

Spare a thought for KK Nair who made India’s highest against England but played only 6 Tests overall. This was his only Test score more than 50.

Highest batting averages (Min 20 innings, 35.00):

Root is in second place, after Barrington. Kohli and Pujara are next among current players.

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

Pant has the best strike rate among current players, after Kapil and Sehwag. Buttler and Ashwin are a little below, followed by Bairstow. Many of the higher strike rates are from recent years.

Next we take up

Bowling:

Most wickets (40 and more):

Anderson leads by a large margin over Chandrashekhar. Ashwin and Broad are next among current players.

Chandra has the most 5-fors (8) followed by 6 by Anderson, Ashwin and Botham.

Bedser is the only one with 2 10-fors, which came in his first 2 Tests.

Best innings bowling (includes all 7wi and above):

Nothing much from recent years. The 3 best performances were 50 or more years ago.

Best match bowling (includes all 10wm and above):

While there a few from recent years, such as Ashwin’s 12-for in 2016, we can also note AR (Axar) Patel’s 11-for in 2021 which is the best in any pink-ball Test. Note Bedser’s twin 11-wicket hauls at the start of his career. And JK Lever’s 50 and 10-for on debut.

Best bowling average (Minimum 2000 balls bowled, maximum 35.00):

The bowling averages are headed by Illingworth and JK Lever,

The best economy rates are by Illingworth and Nadkarni

The best strike rates are by JK Lever and Willis.

To be continued.

The highest lone century

There are players who score several Test centuries. And some score only one. Here we look at the highest innings by players who scored exactly one century:

Led by KK Nair’s 303*, and followed by RE Foster’s 287 on debut and Z Crawley’s recent 267.

Apart from Foster, Mayers, Kuruppu and Conway have the highest lone centuries on debut.

From India, KK Nair is accompanied by ML Apte and NR Mongia.

You can also see that some of them (starting with KK Nair and D Lloyd) never made a score between 50 and 99.

What about those who made only one score above fifty?

This list is still headed by KK Nair, with the next being D Lloyd and B Kuruppu.. They all made full use of their opportunities once they crossed fifty.

Nair’s second highest score is only 26. For Lloyd it is 49 and for Kuruppu 46. Lloyd started off with 46 and 214* against India’s weak 1974 team, and thus temporarily had a Test average of 260.00 which dipped sharply during the Ashes tour later that year.

There are a few debutants here: Kuruppu, Bannerman, SC Griffith and Hartigan among others.

In recent years there have been Nair, Patterson and Yasir Shah.

From India, Nair is accompanied by A Ratra, RH Shodhan, Agarkar and Pataudi (Sr)

As we will see, Agarkar made only one score above fifty (and made it a century) and only one four-for (which was a 6-for).

Note that the above list includes relatively few lower-order batters. Most are recognized batsmen who got few opportunities. (Ganteaume’s single Test and a few others who played less than 5 Tests.)

Afterthought: KK Nair may well have the record for the highest ratio of highest and second-highest scores: 303/26 = 11.65

Apart from Nair, Sobers (365*) and RB Simpson (311) made their first century a triple. Unlike him, they scored many more centuries after that.

More snippets from the 3rd Test at Ahmedabad:

England’s lowest Test total against India:

You can see that England’s 81 is their lowest total against India. The previous record was 101 in 1971 where Chandrashekhar took 6-38 to set up India’s first Test win in England.

And their previous lowest total in India was 102 in 1981-82, when Kapil and Madan Lal took fivers in the 4th innings.

Most economical 5-for by a spinner in a Test innings: Root’s 5-8 is in second place after Australia’s Ironmonger if you take the criteria of the least runs conceded in a 5-for:

Only Ironmonger’s 5-6 in 1931-32 has less runs conceded.

Let us also look at the same figure for all captains (regardless of bowling styles):

Here, Root’s innings bowling is second to AER Gilligan’s 6-7. But Gilligan was clearly a medium pacer. The previous record by a captain who was a spin bowler was 5-27 by BS Bedi v NZ in 1976-77. Next is Mushtaq Mohammad with 5-28.

And finally, the Devil makes a comeback here with a score of 66/6:

Though England has also faced 666/6 against India not long ago at Chennai in 2016-17, in KK Nair’s match.

Highest maiden Test centuries by Indians

Mayank Agarwal became the 4th Indian Test player whose maiden Test century was a double. Shikhar Dhawan’s 187 is the highest by an Indian on debut, followed by RG Sharma’s 177.

More on this topic:

Note the tragic case of Karun Nair. Perhaps he will soon get a chance to redress matters.

Also see this link for all Test players whose maiden century was 200 or more:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/230132.html

 

Karun Nair’s Test records

You will remember the fuss about Karun Nair when he scored his triple century in his third Test at Chennai. We now look at his oddly skewed Test career after he has completed 6 Tests. This should be apparent from this sequence of scores:

He has a respectable average of 62.33. But he scored 303 of his 374 runs in one innings (81.0 %) and never made another score above 50. To be precise, his next highest score is only 26.

It is hoped that he will play at least a few more Tests and score more centuries. Until then, he holds a couple of records in all Tests. This does NOT include the highest maiden century, as Gary Sobers (365*) and Bob Simpson (311) are ahead.

Highest score by someone who scored only one century ( 150 and above):

KK Nair heads this list, ahead of England’s RE Foster who held the record for about 113 years. His 287 (on debut) was the world Test record until early 1930 when Andy Sandham made 325 (in his last Test), though Bradman crossed it with 334 later the same year.

Foster, Kuruppu, Fawad Alam, K Ibadulla, C Bannerman and A Jackson  were making their Test debuts. Gillespie made his only century in his last Test while batting as nightwatchman. There are several other current players here led by MT Renshaw with 184.

Another quirky record is the highest Test score made by someone who never made a fifty (i.e. a score between 50 and 99). This gets a bit messy due to Statsguru’s limitations, but we get these figures:

Highest score by those who scored one century and no fifty (110 and above):

Highest score by those who scored two centuries and no fifties (all cases):

And finally:

Highest score by those who scored three centuries and no fifties (all cases):

No one has scored more than three centuries without a fifty. For a short time KL Rahul shared the record with Bopara. But Rahul scored his first fifty soon after he scored his third century.

As we can see, KK Nair is the only one to score a triple century but no fifty. David Lloyd and Brendon Kuruppu are the only ones to score a double century but no fifty. And Ravi Bopara’s Test career may be over, but he also holds a record which may not be broken for a long time.

KK Nair is also the only current player with one or more centuries and no fifties.

 

 

 

 

 

Test batting performances of 2016

These tables cover all Test matches in the calendar year 2016.

This post concentrates on batting.

Most runs (500 and above):

As many as 7 with over 1000 runs (including 4 from England). Root just edged out Bairstow.

4 centuries each by V Kohli, S Smith and MM Ali.

The most scores of 50+ are 13 by JE Root and 11 by JM Bairstow. Three others have 9.

Highest innings scores (140 and above):

Headed by a newcomer KK Nair and a relative veteran in Azhar Ali. This was Nair’s maiden Test century. V Kohli had three scores of 200 and above. BA Stokes’s 258 was the highest by any No 6 batsman in Tests, surpassing KD Walters’s 250 in 1976-77.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 15 innings, 20.00 and above):

Also note the highest strike rates for a minimum of 15 innings: Warner (86.87), Sarfraz (70.33) and Stokes (66.76).

To be continued

Jadeja and Nair’s record feats

It was clear that deciding the Man of the Match for this Test would be somewhat difficult. Finally the Crown Prince won at the expense of the Knight. We look at their records in this Test.

Highest innings by Asian batsmen against England (200 and more):

KK Nair’s 303* is the highest by any Asian batsman against England, surpassing the 274 by Zaheer Abbas in 1971. That remains the record for the highest by an Asian batsman in England. For India, the record is 221 by Gavaskar in 1979.

Nair’s 303* is also the highest for India vs England, surpassing the 235 by Virat Kohli earlier in this series and the 224 by VG Kambli in 1992-93.

Nair also became the third to make a triple century as his maiden century.

These are the highest maiden centuries (250 and above):

A dynamic link for all such scores of 200 and above:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/230132.html

More detailed accounts of the innings of Sobers and Simpson can be seen here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple-part-2/

We now move on to Ravindra Jadeja’s all-round feat.

Here we have a complete list of those who scored a fifty and took 10 wickets in a Test:

This has been achieved on 26 occasions by 24 players. Jadeja is the only one to take 3 or more catches as well. The only other Indian to have scored a fifty and taken 10 wickets in a match is Kapil Dev. Only Botham, Imran and Shakib have scored a century and taken 10 wickets in a match. Earlier Davidson scored over 100 runs and took 10 wickets, but did not score a century.

The other main all-round feat is a century and five wickets in an innings, which is slightly more common. It has been achieved on 32 occasions by 25 players, including Mankad, Umrigar and Ashwin (twice).

On only three occasions have these players taken 3 catches as well: Mushtaq (1973), Botham (Feb 1978) and Kallis (2002).

Now for a few other contrived all-round records. Jadeja took 10 wickets in the match and 4 catches (of which one was a c & b). He is one of only 5 to achieve this:

10 wickets and 4 catches in a match:

And he is also part of a small group of 15 players who had an innings tally of 10 or more wickets and catches put together. 5 players have 11.

They are GA Lohmann, JM Noreiga, HJ Tayfield, AE Trott and LC Braund. 10 others including Jadeja have 10.

In Jadeja’s case, the one c & b meant he had a hand in 9 of the 10 wickets which fell. Only Dawson (b Mishra) evaded him.

Tail piece: While Karun Nair is nominally from Kerala, he was born in Jodhpur and has lived mainly in Bangalore.