Review of Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe Tests-1

Sri Lanka won the series 1-0 with 1 draw. Zimbabwe put on a somewhat stronger challenge than expected, almost drawing  the first Test and putting Sri Lanka under some pressure in the second.

Summary of matches between these teams:

Zimbabwe is yet to win a Test in this series. They have lost all 8 Tests which they played in Sri Lanka.

This series was not part of the World Test Championship. Zimbabwe is not part of the championship in this cycle. Perhaps they will be in the top 9 and qualify for the next cycle.

We now look at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (250 and above):

Atapattu leads by a large margin. He has the most centuries (5). A Flower has the most 50+ scores (7), including 2 centuries.

Karunaratne and CR Ervine have the most runs among current players.

Highest innings (125 and above):

Note Atapattu’s 3 double centuries. The highest score in this series was 200* by AD Mathews. No one else crossed 125.

Highest strike rate (Min 1000 balls faced, all cases):

Jayasuriya predictably leads here, while Atapattu also has a strike rate considerably higher than that of the others.

Now for

Bowling:

Most wickets (10 and above):

Muralitharan and Vaas have done much better than others. Murali and Herath both have 2 ten-fors, while Murali also has the most five-fors (6).

Lakmal and Kumara have the most wickets among current players.

Best innings bowling (includes all instances of 5wi and above):

While Muralitharan and Herath are at the top of this list, Sikandar Raza’s 7-113 was the best for Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka. The previous best was 5-106 by PA Strang back in 1996. The previous best for Zimbabwe at home was 4-50 by CT Mumba in 2016.

Embuldeniya is the only other bowler with a five-for in the current series.

Best match bowling (includes all instances of 8wm and above):

Muralitharan and Herath again. However, Sikandar Raza’s 8-176 is the best for Zimbabwe at home. AG Cremer’s 9-275 at Colombo (RPS) in 2017 remains the best for Zimbabwe in Sri Lanka.

Best bowling average (Min 2000 balls, all instances):

Muralitharan expectedly heads this list as well. Herath did not bowl enough.

To be continued:

200+ scores for and against India

RG Sharma made the 54th score of 200 and above in a Test for India. These include 3 of 300+ and 51 from 200-299. Kohli has the most such scores (7), although Sehwag has the highest scores both inside and outside India. Outside Asia, we go quite far down until we reach Tendulkar’s 241* at Sydney.

The first such score was Umrigar’s 223 in 1955, equalled in the next month by Mankad and then surpassed by him with 231 which remained the record until Gavaskar’s 236* in 1983.This was surpassed by VVS Laxman’s 281 in 2001, Sehwag’s 309 in 2004 and again by him in 2008.

The highest in a win is 309 by Sehwag, in a loss 201* by Sehwag and in a draw 319 by (who else) Sehwag. An unique triple.

Now we see who did the same against India:

4 triple centuries and 47 from 200-299.

McCullum and Ponting have each done this 3 times against India.

The highest score here is Jayasuriya’s 340, the highest outside Asia is Gooch’s 333 and the highest in India is M Jayawardene’s 275.

The best in a victory is 333 by Gooch, in a defeat 242 by Ponting and in a draw 340 by Jayasuriya. In fact, Ponting’s 242 is the highest in any Test defeat.

ABD: career statistics highlights-3

We close by looking at statistics for World Cup matches alone, since a fair number of high scoring rates mentioned earlier were in relatively less important or highly one-sided matches. Perhaps this would give a better idea of performance in more important matches. Perhaps the Champions Trophy matches could also be added.

We start with the highest averages in World Cup matches (minimum 20 innings):

de Villiers heads this list although MJ Clarke and IVA Richards are just behind.

Now we look as

Highest strike rates in World Cup matches (minimum 500 balls faced):

Here we have McCullum followed by de Villiers and Kapil.

Then there are links in Cricinfo’s records section for Fastest centuries in ODIs:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/211608.html

That link is constantly updated. This is what it looked like on 26/05/2018:

Note that it took over 17 years to move from Afridi’s 37-ball effort in 1996 to Anderson’s improvement to 36 balls in 2014. But de Villiers lowered the bar to 31 balls a year later.

For World Cup matches alone, the best efforts are  50 balls by KJ O’Brien in 2011, 51 by GJ Maxwell in 2015 and de Villiers  again with 52 balls in 2015.

Similarly there is a link for the fastest 50. Like in the table above, it refers to the first 50 runs in the innings although the number of balls for the second or later 50 runs may be quite different.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284095.html

This is what it looked like on 25/05/2018:

The record had been stuck at Jayasuriya’s 17 balls since 1996. de Villiers lowered it to 16 balls after almost 19 years. After that Kusal Perera and Guptill also equalled the old 17-ball record.

In World Cup matches, the fastest 50s have been in  18 balls by McCullum (2015), 19 by Mc Cullum again in 2015 and  20 by AD Mathews also in 2015.