Review of SA-WI Tests (2023) Part 2

Hope you have read Part 1.

Continuing with individual performances:

Bowling:

Most wickets (20 and above):

Led by Pollock, while Walsh has the most for WI. Ntini has the most 5wis (5) while he and Nel are the only ones with 10wm.

Roach and Rabada are the only current players.

Best innings bowling (All cases of 6wi or more):

Headed by Ntini and Rose. Rabada’s 6-50 is the best from current players.

Best match bowling (All cases of 8wm or more):

Headed by Ntini and Nel. Rabada again has the best (8-94) among current players.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls):

No current players here. Walsh has the best bowling average and economy rate, while Nel has the best strike rate.

Fielding:

Most dismissals (15 or more):

Headed by Boucher and Jacobs. J da Silva has the most dismissals by current players. Kallis has the most by a fielder.

Best innings dismissals (4 or more):

Headed by current player J da Silva.

Best match dismissals (6 or more):

Again headed by current player J da Silva.

Innings dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.600):

Jacobs and Boucher have the best figures here, with Cullinan having the best for fielders.

J da Silva is not here as he has not played enough.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Kallis is the only one who qualifies.

Match performances (50+ and 5wi):

Again, Kallis is the only one who qualifies.

Review of Aus-SA Tests, 2022-23 Part 2

Hope you have read Part 1.

We now take up Bowling records:

Most wickets (Minimum 50 or more):

Warne has the most wickets, with Grimmett following at a distance. Recent players Steyn and MG Johnson are next. Grimmett (8) and Warne (7) have the most 5wis. Grimmett (4) also has the most 10wms, followed by MG Johnson and Warne.

Best innings bowling (including all 7wi):

MG Johnson is the only one with an 8wi.

Best match bowling (including all 10wm):

Grimmett has 2 of the best 3 performances here.

Bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

Grimmett and Whitty have the best averages, Goddard and Grimmett the best economy rates, with Whitty and Steyn having the best strike rates.

Now for Fielding:

Most dismissals (25 or more):

Boucher has the most dismissals, although Oldfield has the most stumpings. Ponting (35) and de Villiers (34) have the most catches by fielders.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Grout and Lindsay were once Test record-holders in this category.

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

de Kock is the only recent player at the top.

Best dismissal rate (0.650 or more):

Headed by Lindsay and Haddin. The best by a pure fielder is 0.964 by RB Simpson, although the “hybrid” de Villiers is a little higher at 1.085.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria below):

MG Johnson is a little ahead of TL Goddard.

Match performances (50+ runs and 5+wi):

The best performances include 100/5wi (Kelleway and Benaud) and 50/10wm (Steyn).

Review of India-South Africa ODIs-Oct 2022: Part 2

Continuing with the statistical summary of ODIs between India and South Africa.

Hope you have read Part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/review-of-india-south-africa-odis-oct-2022-part-1/

Continuing with individual performances in

Bowling:

Most wickets (15 and above):

The most by current players is 24 by Kuldeep Yadav and 22 by YS Chahal.

No one has more than one 5wi.

3 players have 3 instances of 4wi.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 4wi):

SB Joshi’s 5-6 was the best in his short ODI career.

Kuldeep Yadav’s 4-18 at Delhi in this series is the best for India against SA at home. The previous best was 4-25 by Kumble at Wankhede in 1996.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 1000 balls bowled, all instances):

Donald and Pollock have the best averages. But no current player has bowled enough.

Kumble and Pollock have the best economy rates

Donald and Pollock have the best strike rates.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Boucher (42) is closely followed by Dhoni (41). Dhoni has the most stumpings (11).

The most catches by a fielder is 23 by Kohli. Also note the “hybrid” de Villiers with 9 dismissals as keeper and 8 as fielder, totalling 17.

de Kock (25) has the most for current players.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Boucher is the only one with 5 dismissals. GC Smith and Bavuma have taken 4 catches as fielders.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.500):

Headed by Boucher. Kohli has the best rate by a fielder.

Finally, all-round performance:

Career performance (see criteria in table):

Cronje’s occasional bowling puts him at the top here, far ahead of Tendulkar. Strangely, Kallis does not qualify here.

Match performance (Minimum 30 runs and 3 wickets):

There are several instances here, but the best would clearly be by Kallis (Nov 2006) followed by Kallis again (Feb 2010). Honourable mention to Klusener.

New Zealand-South Africa Tests, 2022 (Part 2)

Hope you have read Part 1: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/03/05/new-zealand-south-africa-tests-2022-part-1/

Continuing with individual performances in

Bowling:

Most wickets (20 and above):

The current players here are Wagner and Rabada.

Steyn has the most fivers (6), followed by CS Martin and M Ntini with 4 each.

Steyn is the only one with two tenners.

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

In this series we have MJ Henry taking 7-23 in the first Test as a record for NZ v SA, surpassing JR Reid’s 6-60 at Dunedin in 1964.

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

Here Henry has 9-55, which is NZ’s second best match bowling performance against SA. CS Martin’s 11-180 figured in NZ’s first home victory against SA in 2004.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls bowled, all instances):

Headed by Steyn and Tayfield. No current players here. Also note Vettori’s poor performance.

Steyn and Tayfield have the best averages.

Tayfield and Reid have the best economy rates.

Steyn and CS Martin have the best strike rates.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (12 and above):

Headed by Waite and Boucher, who are far ahead of the others. Boucher has 49 catches to Waite’s 47, although Waite has the most dismissals.

No current players here. GC Smith (18) has the most catches by a fielder.

Most innings dismissals (5 and above):

de Kock appears twice, while several other keepers have 4 dismissals in an innings. No fielder has more than 3 catches in an innings.

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

Several keepers have made 7 dismissals in a match. The best by a current player is 6 by Blundell. GC Smith took 5 catches as a fielder.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.40):

Waite heads this list by a large margin, followed by Boucher. GC Smith has the best rate for a fielder.

All-round performances:

Overall (see criteria in table):

With these criteria, JR Reid has the best overall performance, far ahead of Vettori.

Match (fifty and five-for):

Only two instances, and MJ Henry’s performance is the best here. His fifty came at No 11.

Review of Tests between India and South Africa-2

Hope you have read part 1:

Review of Tests between India and South Africa-1

Continuing with individual performances in

Fielding:

Most dismissals (12 or more):

Boucher leads by a large margin (60) followed by de Villiers (40).

de Villiers has the most catches by a fielder (25) besides 15 catches as a keeper. Next among fielders is Kallis with 23. Note that K Verreyne has 14 in just 2 Tests.

Current players here include Saha, de Kock, Pujara and Rahane.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Saha (twice), de Kock and newcomer Verreyne represent the current players.

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

Saha has the most, with 5 catches in each innings. Other current players are de Kock, Pant and Verreyne.

Most dismissals per innings (Minimum 20 innings, 0.60 or more):

Boucher leads by a large margin over Dhoni.

Apart from the “hybrid” de Villiers who played both as a keeper and fielder, GC Smith has the highest dismissal rate among fielders.

Rahane is the only current player here.

Finally: All-round performance:

Overall performance (see criteria in table):

Only SM Pollock can be called a genuine all-rounder. Kallis is not here as he bowled less than 2000 balls against India.

Match performance (at least 50+ and 5wi+):

The best of these match performances seems to be by N Boje.

Tail piece:

AK Markram has now played 29 Tests. 18 of them were won by SA and 11 were lost. None were drawn. He thus continues to hold the record for playing in the most Tests without a draw. Next is England’s GA Lohmann of long ago who played in 18 Tests (15 wins, 3 losses).

Review of Pakistan-South Africa Test series-2

Hope you have seen Part 1:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2021/02/11/review-of-pakistan-south-africa-test-series/

Continuing with individual performances in bowling:

Most wickets (20 and more):

Steyn is far ahead of the others. Rabada is the only current player here.

Best innings bowling (6wi and above):

Nothing from the current series. Oddly, KJ Abbott played only two Tests.

Nauman Ali took 5-35 (on Test debut) in the first Test. This is now the best for P v SA in Pakistan, surpassing the 5-46 by D Kaneria in 2003-04.

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

Note Hasan Ali from the current series. His 10-114 is now the best for P v SA in Pakistan, surpassing the 8-210 by Abdur Rehman in 2007-08.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Pollock and Steyn lead here, with Kaneria having the best average among Pakistani players.

Kaneria and Pollock have the best economy rates.

Steyn and Pollock have the best strike rates.

Fielding: Most dismissals (10 and above):

Boucher has by far the best figures here. The best by non-keepers are 23 by GC Smith and 21 by Younis Khan.

de Kock and Elgar represent the current players.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

The best by a non-keeper is 4 by Taufeeq Umar.

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

de Villiers has 11 dismissals which is a share in the world record. No instance from the current series. The best by a non-keeper is 6 by Taufeeq Umar.

Best dismissal ratio (Minimum 20 innings, 0.500 and above):

Headed by Boucher and de Villiers. The best by non-keepers are by Younis Khan and GC Smith.

All-round performance (see conditions in table):

Only Pollock and Kallis qualify here.

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

Only the lesser known PS de Villiers and Pollock.

All-round records-Batting and fielding-2

Continued from here:

abn397.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/all-round-records-batting-and-fielding-1/

Looking at career figures (minimum 2000 runs and 100 dismissals):

These figures are correct up to 31 Aug 2020, and do not include the ICC XI Test in 2005.

The current players can be seen at the bottom, from Mushfiqur Rahim downwards.

It may be more meaningful to segregate the figures of dismissals for 1) designated wicket-keepers and 2) not designated wicket-keepers

Designated wicket-keepers: 2000 runs and 100 dismissals:

The most runs here are by Boucher (5498) and Gilchrist (5475), with several in the 4000s. The most dismissals are by Boucher (553) and Gilchrist (409). From India, we have Kirmani and Dhoni.

Not designated wicket-keepers: 2000 runs and 100 dismissals:

The most runs here are by Ponting (13278), Dravid (13265) and Kallis (13206) with several others above 10000. The most dismissals are by Dravid (209) and M Jayawardene (205).

From India we have Gavaskar, Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Dravid, and Laxman.

Also note those with over 100 wickets: Sobers, Botham, Hooper, Warne and Kallis. #3 and #4 would usually not be considered great all-rounders.

Next, we will look more closely at those who played sometimes as designated wicket-keepers and sometimes not.

Batting recoveries 2: Doubling the score by the 9th wicket partners

We have seen that there have been only 6 occasions when the 10th-wicket pair has doubled the score. The 9th-wicket pairs do slightly better with 9 such instances. 8 of these ended in losses and one was drawn.

This is the tabular list:

Ratio 1 is the ratio (9th wkt partnership) / (sum of 1st to 8th wkt partnerships)

Ratio 2 is the ratio (sum of 9th and 10th wkt partnerships) / (sum of 1st to 8th wkt partnerships)

The first such instances occurred in 1948, then 1967 and 1981 and more regularly since then.

We are more concerned about Ratio 1 here. The highest is 2.923 by Asif Iqbal and Intikhab Alam, and the lowest is 1.038 by Fleming and Doull.

The 10th wkt partnerships were rather small in these cases.

The best here is 2.923 (again Asif/Intikhab) and the lowest 1.058 (again Fleming/Doull).

Note the debutants Masvaure and more recently Muthusamy.

The last instance here is the record 195 by Boucher and Symcox, which is the only drawn match here.

The highest score by a No 10 here is 108 by Symcox, followed by fifties from several others starting with Madan Lal (63*).

 

The best tailenders in Tests

Having studied the Indian tailenders here , we take a look at Test batsmen from 8 to 12 (!) in all Tests.

Minimum 20 innings, average 25.00

Some of the players here also batted at 7 or higher. Jadeja’s only century and some of Kapil’s centuries came that way.

This list is headed by the relatively lesser known JDC Goddard who was the West Indies captain during the 1948-49 tour of India and the epochal 1950 tour of England.

The current players include (in descending order) Mahmudullah, Jadeja, JO Holder and Ashwin.

As most of us would be more familiar with recent players, we repeat the above exercise for players from 2000 onwards:

Minimum 20 innings, average 20.00 after 01 Jan 2000

Here, only performances after 1 Jan 2000 are included. So the earlier careers of a few trans-millenials such as Boucher, Vettori, Pollock and Streak are not included here.

Here, Boucher is followed by the already forgotten MD Craig, Mahmudullah, Prior and Jadeja. Those currently playing include Mahmudullah, Jadeja, Holder and Ashwin.

Vettori has the most centuries (5) and 50+ scores (20). In contrast, Australia’s NM Hauritz has only one fifty but still manages a batting average of above 20. Similarly for SA’s AJ Hall and England’s TT Bresnan with two fifties apiece.

Review of SA-SL Tests-2

Hope you have read Part 1.

We now move on to Bowling:

Most wickets (10 wickets and more):

Muralitharan is far ahead of the others, while Steyn leads current players with Philander close behind.

Muralitharan has the most 10-wicket hauls (4) while no one else has more than 1. He also has the most 5-fors with 11, when no one else has more than 3.

Best innings bowling (6wi and above):

Maharaj has the best analysis which came in the last series between these teams. There is nothing from the current series.

Best match bowling (8wm and above):

While there are a few performances from the 2018 series here, there are none from this series.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, all instances):

Expectedly it is headed by Muralitharan. The best economy rate is also by him, while Steyn has the best strike rate.

Now for fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Boucher heads this list by a large margin. He has the most stumpings and catches by a keeper. Kallis has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

Boucher heads this again, while Kallis has the most by a non-keeper.

Most match dismissals (6 and above):

de Kock heads this list, while Kallis again has the best by a non-keeper. de Kock is also the only current player here.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings and 0.400):

Headed by Boucher and Kallis. Amla is the only current player here.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Only SM Pollock makes the cut.

Match performance:

No one has a fifty and five-for in the same match. However, we can find some who have made 50 runs and taken 5 wickets in a match:

Pollock and Kallis would have the best performances here.

 

 

 

Review of South Africa-Zimbabwe Tests

A summary of all Tests between these countries:

SA has won 8 out of 9 Tests, including all 4 played at home and 4 out of 5 played away. Zimbabwe’s best performance can thus be said to be the Test at Bulawayo starting on 14 Sep 2001 (just after 9/11!) which was drawn.

We quickly go through the main individual performances:

Most runs (200 and above):

Andy Flower’s performance in a weak team is particularly creditable. He and Kallis are the only ones with more than one century.

Highest innings scores (90 and above):

Andy Flower again, highlighting his lone battle with 142 and 199* in a losing cause.

Most wickets (8 and above):

The first three names are no surprise. Zimbabwe bowlers hardly figure here, particularly since their team sustained several innings defeats.

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

Donald’s performance in the first Test between these teams remains unsurpassed. And Bryan Strang’s performance in the same Test is still a record for Zimbabwe.

Best match bowling (6wm and above):

As above, Donald’s record stands since 1995. And no Zimbabwe bowler appears here (again, because of the numerous innings defeats).

Most dismissals (5 and above):

As one would expect. Interestingly four non-keepers share the record of 5 catches.

Best innings fielding (3 or more dismissals):

As expected, though Sibanda’s presence as the lone Zimbabwe player is strange.

Best match fielding (4 or more dismissals):

Note the absence of any Zimbabwe players here, and GC Smith’s record among non-keepers.

Overall all-round performance (see criteria below):

The best all-rounder on both sides, while Pollock and Streak did not play enough in these matches.

All-round match performance (50+ runs and 5+ wickets):

There is no instance of 50+5wi in these matches, so the criterion is reduced to 50 runs and 5 wickets in the match. Here again it is Kallis all the way with Pollock playing a minor role.