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.

Summary of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests-2 (after May 2022 series):

Hope you have seen Part 1.

We now proceed to

Bowling:

Most wickets (12 and above):

Muralidaran has 89 wickets, far ahead of the others. Next are Herath and Shakib. Also note AM Fernando’s 13 wickets in 2 Tests in this series.

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

Led by Herath, with the next three by Muralidaran.

Nayeem Hasan’s 6-105 was the best by BD against SL, surpassing Shakib’s 5-70 in 2008. Also note AM Fernando’s 6-51 in this series.

Best match bowling (Including all 9wm and above):

Headed by Muralidaran and Herath. None from Bangladesh here. AM Fernando took 10-144 during this series.

Best bowling average (Minimum 2000 balls bowled):

Includes Shakib and Taijul from this series.

Muralidaran has the best bowling average, economy rate and strike rate.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Led by P Jayawardene with Dickwella and Sangakkara close behind.

Mushfiqur Rahim has the most dismissals from BD

P Jayawardene has the most stumpings (8) and M Jayawardene the most catches by a fielder (17).

Dickwella has the most catches by a keeper (24).

Most dismissals in an innings (4 and above):

Mushfiqur and Dickwella have made 5 dismissals in an innings, but not in this series. However Dickwella took 4 catches twice in this series.

Sangakkara and S Sarkar have taken 4 as a fielder.

Most dismissals in a match (5 and above):

Again headed by P Jayawardene with 7.

M Jayawardene and S Sarkar have taken 5 catches as fielders.

Dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.600)

Headed by Sangakkara, with M Jayawardene heading the fielders.

Finally,

All-round performance

Overall (see criteria below):

Shakib (611 runs and 38 wickets) is the only one who qualifies.

Match (50 and 5wi):

All the instances are by Shakib.

Summary of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests-1 (after May 2022 series):

Sri Lanka won 1-0 with one draw.

Overall summary:

We see that Bangladesh is yet to win against Sri Lanka at home, although they have won one Test in Sri Lanka.

Batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

Sangakkara has the most centuries (7) and most 50+ scores (14). Mushfiqur has 10 50+ scores.

Several current players starting with Mushfiqur Rahim are here.

Highest innings (150 and more):

Mathews made the highest score in this series (199). He became the first to score 199 and a duck in the same Test. Several have made 99 and a duck.

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

Sangakkara has by far the highest average, with current player Mushfiqur having the second highest.

Highest batting strike rate (Minimum 1000 balls faced):

Dilshan has by far the highest strike rate, while current player Tamim Iqbal has the highest among Bangladesh players.

To be continued.

See Part 2

Review of Bangladesh-Zimbabwe Tests (2020)-2

Hope that you have read Part 1

We now look at bowling records:

Most wickets (15 and above):

Taijul is far ahead of others.

He also has the most fivers (4) followed by Shakib and Enamul with 3. No one has more than one tenner.

Best innings bowling (6wi and above):

Taijul again leads this table. However there was no haul of 6wi or more in this match.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

Enamul’s 12-wicket haul was instrumental in Bangladesh’s first-ever Test win in 2005.

Shakib’s 10-for in 2014 was accompanied by a century. He is only the third player in all Tests to score a century and take a 10-for in the same match, after Botham and Imran.

Also note Nayeem Hasan’s 9-for in this match.

Fielding records:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Led by Mushfiqur, while Masakadza has the most by a non-keeper.

Most dismissals in an innings (4 and above):

Chakabva took 5 catches in this Test to equal the record. No non-keeper has taken 4 or more catches.

Most dismissals in a match (5 and above):

The record of 7 was set long ago. Chakabva took 5 in this match.

Best dismissal rate (Min 15 innings, all instances):

Mushfiqur leads here, far ahead of the others.

All-round performance (Overall, see criteria in table):

Shakib leads, followed by Chigumbura at a distance.

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

Shakib’s century and 10wm has pride of place.

Review of Bangladesh-Zimbabwe Tests (2020)-1

These teams have met in 17 Tests, with these results:

These can be summarized as:

The teams are now level at 7 wins each.

CR Ervine followed TW Latham as an one-Test captain.

This was only the 14th Test win by Bangladesh, and the second by an innings:

Bangladesh’s first Test win (and series win) was against Zimbabwe in 2005.

Batting records:

Most runs (250 and above):

Current and near-current players hold the first few places.

Taylor is the only one with 5 centuries. Taylor, Masakadza and Bashar have 7 50+ scores.

Highest innings scores (100 and above):

Mushfiqur’s double century in this series was less than his earlier record score in 2018. No one else has scored a double in these Tests.

Batting average (Min 15 innings, all instances):

Mushfiqur is just ahead of Taylor.

Batting strike rate (Min 750 balls faced, all instances):

Mominul and Taylor lead this table.

To be continued.

Notes on Test statistics-Nov 2019

Pairs by captains:

Mominul Haque became the latest captain to make a pair. Also remember the double act by du Plessis and Sarfaraz last year.

While the balls faced in an innings were not always recorded before 2000, we know that the only unusual pairs by captains were the “queen pairs” or silver pairs by Bedi and de Villiers.

Highest scores by wicketkeepers:

BJ Watling’s double century is the highest score by a wicketkeeper from New Zealand, but there are many other keepers with high scores:

Scores above 175 by wicketkeepers:

Mushfiqur Rahim is the only keeper with two double centuries.

Highest totals in Eng-NZ Tests:

New Zealand’s 615/9 dec against England was the highest in ANY Test between these teams:

Lowest scores against India:

Bangladesh’s 106 in 30.3 overs is not really the worst innings score against India. But it is the lowest score (both by runs and balls faced) in the first innings against India.

You can also see how Afghanistan fared in their first Test, against India in June 2018. They have picked up well after that.

 

Wicket-keepers who captained in Tests (Revised in Jun 2022)

Note: This will be revised at least once a year. Probably the next revision will be in May 2023.

It is understood that TD Paine will not captain Australia again.

Updated basic statistics can be seen here: https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283404.html

Q de Kock and Mohammad Rizwan became the latest of the relatively few wicket-keepers to have captained in a Test. Here is the full list (as on 30 Jun 2022):

Relatively few keepers have had extended runs as captains. However the top two on this list are current players, even though MS Dhoni retired from Tests a few years ago and from the captaincy of ODIs and T20Is more recently. Paine ended with 101 dismissals.

There are some like Gilchrist, Boucher and Jacobs who captained only when the regular captain was temporarily unavailable. Some, like DL Murray and IDS Smith, had long Test careers but captained their side in precisely one Test.

Sarfaraz Ahmed (13) was replaced after his last Test as captain in January 2019, and TD Paine (23) was replaced for non-cricketing reasons in late 2021.

Dhoni has the most dismissals, followed by Paine and Alexander at a long distance.

Dhoni has the most stumpings (24) and is followed by PM Sherwell with 16.

Lee Germon is a special case as he captained his side in all his 12 Tests. He is the only player from an established side to have captained in a Test on his debut in recent years. The last before him was Tony Lewis in 1972. (Obviously we do not count Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Ireland, Afghanistan and the returning South Africa).

Germon is second on the list of those who captained their side in all their Tests.

The leader in this category was also a keeper:

Long ago PM Sherwell led South Africa in all his 13 Tests, a record for all countries. He was keeper in all these 13 Tests.

A few such as AJ Stewart played numerous Tests as keeper and non-keeper. The above list only includes the Tests where he was keeper. He also opened the batting in some of these matches. He captained England a total of 15 times, 12 as keeper and 3 as non-keeper. BB McCullum captained New Zealand 31 times, but was keeper in only 1 of them.

Other examples include KC Sangakkara (captained in 15 Tests, never as a keeper), AB de Villiers (captained in 3 Tests, none as keeper), R Dravid (25 Tests, none as keeper) and LD Chandimal (captained in 10 Tests, none as keeper). But they have captained in ODIs and T20Is as keepers.

Note that Taibu somehow took one catch as a fielder when he temporarily relinquished his keeping duties. He has also bowled and taken a wicket while a designated keeper.

Here we summarize the batting performance of these captains. The batting average is for those who batted for 20 innings:

The highest batting average for long-term captains is Andy Flower’s 49.28, followed by Mushfiqur and Dhoni in the low 40s. Paine and Sarfaraz are in the middle, while Moin Khan did not play enough to reach 20 innings.

Note the double centuries by Mushfiqur and Dhoni.

The dismissal rate, for those who fielded in at least 20 innings:

While Sarfaraz is no longer captain, his dismissal rate as captain is second only to that of Paine’s. But he and Paine have been dropped altogether from the team. Moin Khan and Mushfiqur are at the bottom, while Dhoni is in the middle.

Flower is the only one here who never made a stumping, while Dhoni has the most.

And finally we look at their performance as captains, considering the win/loss ratio. This is for those keepers who captained for at least 10 Tests:

(This table is still valid on 30 Jun 2022).

Interesting. We saw that Moin Khan performed worst as a keeper, but he did best as a captain. Similarly for FCM Alexander who did not do too well as a batsman. Next are Dhoni and Paine.

Taibu and Khaled Mashud failed to win a Test as captain, while Germon and Flower were just ahead with one Test win apiece.

Review of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests in Feb 2018-2

Continuing our review of all Tests between these teams until now.

Fielding:

8 or more dismissals:

The lesser-known P Jayawardene has the most dismissals, most catches by a keeper and most stumpings. The better-known M Jayawardene has the most catches by a fielder. Mushfiqur is catching up.

Innings fielding (4 or more dismissals):

Dickwella equalled the record of 5 during this series. Sangakkara and Soumya have 4 catches as fielders.

Match fielding (5 or more dismissals):

P Jayawardene has the record of 7, while M Jayawardene and Soumya have 5 catches as  fielders. Dickwella has the best figures from the current series.

Dismissal rate (minimum 20 innings fielded, all cases):

Sangakkara has the highest here, as P Jayawardene did not play enough matches here. Mushfiqur has done almost as well as Sangakkara. Among non-keepers the highest rate is inevitably by M Jayawardene.

All-round performances

Overall-see criteria in table:

Shakib is the only all-rounder with respectable figures. Vaas did not play enough in these matches.

Match performances (50 and 5wi):

The one-man army Shakib Al Hasan again. His absence in this series must have hurt Bangladesh a lot.