Peter Siddle and the PJs

Peter Siddle has been in and out of the Australian team.

In 64 Tests before the start of the current Ashes series, he has scored 1080 runs and has taken 214 wickets. In the current Test, he was the second top-scorer and made 44 batting at number 10.

He has taken 8 fivers and a hat-trick, and also holds one batting record as he is the only  batsman to have scored two fifties in a Test while batting at No 9.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/player/7898.html

Older cricket fans would remember Raju Bharatan and his horrible puns. He would have a field day with Peter Siddle, as his surname rhymes with many other words (not all of them polite): diddle, fiddle, middle, piddle, riddle, griddle etc.

The British media had this to say after one of his good performances: “Peter goes from second fiddle to fecund Siddle”.

Not quite up to the standard of Shashi Tharoor, but a good try.

More tailend heroics-2

Another aspect of great tailend recoveries is the proportion of runs added by the tailenders. Today we will concentrate on cases where the score was doubled after the fall of the 9th wicket.

There are only 6 such instances in all Tests. In chronological order, they are:

1) P Willey and RGD Willis took the score from 92/9 to 209/9. (Added 117*, which is 1.27 times the score of the first 9 wickets. Eng v WI, Oval, 24/07/1980. Drawn.

Scores: Eng 370 and 209/9 dec; WI 265.

Similarly:

2) PM Siddle and NM Lyon took the score from 21/9 to 47. Added 26, 1.24 times. A v SA, Cape Town, 09/11/2011. Lost.

Scores: Aus 284 and 47; SA 96 and 236/2. SA won by 8 wickets.

3) PJ Hughes and AC Agar took the score from 117/9 to 280. Added 163, 1.39 times. A v E, Nottingham, 10/07/2013. Lost.

Scores: Eng 215 and 375. Aus 280 and 296. Eng won by 14 runs.

4) C Overton and JM Anderson took the score from 27/9 to 58. Added 31, 1.15 times. E v NZ, Auckland, 22/03/2018. Lost.

Scores: Eng 58 and 320. NZ 427/8 dec. NZ won by an innings and 49 runs (Day-night Test)

5) GH Dockrell and  TJ Murtagh took the score from 85/9 to 172. Added 87, 1.02 times. Ire v Afg, Dehradun, 15/03/2019. Lost.

Scores: Ire 172 and 288. Afg 314 and 149/3. Afg won by 7 wickets.

6) KAJ Roach and ML Cummins took the score from 50/9 to 100. Added 50, 1.00 times. WI v Ind, North Sound. 22/08/2019. Lost.

Scores: Ind 297 and 343/7 Dec. WI 222 and 100. Ind won by 318 runs.

It is interesting that the first such instance occurred only after more than a century of Tests.

Going by the number of runs scored for the last wicket, the most is 163 by Hughes and Agar. The latter was making his debut and holds the record for the highest score (98) at no 11 in all Tests.

They also have the record for the highest ratio, 1.39.

You can also see that none of these teams won the Test. Only one managed a draw.

Next we will look at recoveries where the score was doubled after the fall of the 8th wicket. Apart from the 6 cases listed above, there are 8 others starting from 1927.

More tailend heroics-1

The best scores while batting at numbers 9, 10 and 11:

At No 9: (75 and above):

At No 10 (60 and above):

At No 11 (50 and above):

More than 25 in each innings at No 11:

This table is for those with 2 innings and over 50 runs. It can be seen that only TJ Murtagh has scored 25+ in each innings.

Finally, those who have scored a fifty in each innings at 9 to 11:

It can be verified that both of them scored 50+ in both innings at No 9.