Review of Zimbabwe-India ODIs (Aug 2022)

This series was the first time India had played Zimbabwe in ODIs since 2016. India won 3-0, following their earlier clean sweeps in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Summary of all ODIs between these teams:

India leads 54-10 overall and 22-4 in Zimbabwe.

We now look at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (500 or more):

Tendulkar and Ganguly have almost the same totals. No current players here. The most are by Sikandar Raza (388) and S Dhawan (367).

The most centuries are 5 by Tendulkar and 3 by Ganguly.

The most 50+ scores are 12 by A Flower and 11 by A Campbell

Highest innings (100 or more):

Here there are some new records:

Shubham Gill’s 130 is the highest for India in Zimbabwe (surpassing Tendulkar’s 127* in 1998)

Sikandar Raza’s 115 is the highest for Zimbabwe at home vs India (surpassing E Chigumbura’s 104* in 2015).

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 30.00):

Tendulkar leads by a large margin, while recent players have not played enough.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 500 balls faced and 75.00):

Yuvraj leads here, while recent players are again absent.

Bowling:

Most wickets (15 or more):

Unexpectedly, Agarkar has the most wickets here. None from recent years.

No one has taken more than one 5wi. The most 4+wi are 4 by Zaheer Khan and 3 by Agarkar.

The most by current players is 14 by AR Patel.

Best innings bowling (includes all 5wi and better):

Newcomer Brad Evans is the only current player here. India’s best bowling is a 6-for by the nearly forgotten A Mishra.

Bowling averages (Minimum 1000 balls bowled, all instances):

Agarkar has the best bowling average and strike rate. Kumble has the best economy rate.

Fielding:

Most dismissals (12 or more):

A Flower leads by a large margin, and A Campbell has the most catches by a fielder.

Dravid, who played in some matches as a keeper, has the most dismissals for India.

Most dismissals in an innings (4 or more):

The most dismissals are 5 by Kirmani and N Mongia, while VVSL has the most (4) by a fielder.

Highest dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.500):

A Flower leads, while Azharuddin has the best rate by a fielder.

All-round performance (overall):

Minimum 20 innings and 1000 balls bowled:

Only Streak has batted and bowled enough. He does not really qualify to be an all-rounder in these matches.

All-round performance (match):

Minimum 30 runs and 3 wickets:

The best performances here are by Ganguly (2000) and Crocker (1992).

Review of India-New Zealand Tests-2

Hope you have seen Part 1.

We now proceed to Fielding records:

Most dismissals (15 and above):

Headed by Watling with 39. Dhoni has the most stumpings. R Taylor (23) has the most catches by a non-keeper.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 and above):

Kirmani, Dhoni and Watling jointly hold the record with 6.

Most dismissals in a match (5 and above):

Watling again with 9 dismissals

Highest dismissal rate (minimum 20 innings):

FM Engineer has the highest dismissal rate, and SP Fleming the highest by a fielder. R Taylor and Kohli have the most by current players.

All-round performances

Overall (Minimum 15 innings batted, 1500 balls bowled, one fifty, one 4-for):

This leads to the surprising result of Harbhajan Singh and BS Bedi leading this table, ahead of Sir Richard Hadlee.

Fifty-plus and five-for in the same match:

The best performances here are by BR Taylor (on his Test debut), BE Congdon and JG Bracewell.

India at the World Cup over the years-2

With India finishing its commitments at the 2019 World Cup, we look at individual performances in all the World Cups from 1975 to 2019.

Batting:

Most runs (500+):

While Kohli is second, he still has less than half the runs scored by Tendulkar. RG Sharma and Dhoni are next among current players.

Tendulkar and RG Sharma each have 6 centuries. Tendulkar also has the most 50+ scores (21), followed by Sharma with 9. Note Sharma’s conversion rate; he scored a century on 6 of the 9 occasions when he crossed 50. And Dhawan did the same on 3 of the 4 occasions!

Highest innings (95+):

This lists all the centuries and near-centuries. No one had scored an ODI century for India until Kapil did so in 1983. Note Gambhir’s 97 in the 2011 final. No one from either India or WI crossed 40 in the 1983 final.

Batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Some like RG Sharma, Gavaskar and Dhawan miss out as they did not play enough WC matches. Dhoni is in the middle of this table.

Strike rates (Minimum 500 balls faced, all instances):

The names at the top are predictable. And that Dhoni and Kohli (?) are in the middle, with Gavaskar and M Amarnath bringing up the rear.

Bowling:

Most wickets (10+):

The top position of 44 wickets is shared by Zaheer Khan and Srinath, with the former bowling significantly less overs. M Shami has the highest among current players.

No one has more than one fiver. M Shami is the only one with 4 four-fors, followed by Srinath and UT Yadav with 2 each.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 4+ wickets):

The best figures here are by A Nehra (the only 6-for). The highest among current players is 4-16 by M Shami. His 4-40 including a hat-trick is further down.

Bowling averages (Minimum 1000 balls bowled, all instances):

Zaheer Khan has the best average and best strike-rate, while Kapil Dev has the best economy rate. None of the current bowlers have played enough.

Fielding:

Most dismissals (10+):

Dhoni has more than twice the dismissals of the next man Dravid, while regular keeper KS More has the same number of dismissals.

Dhoni has the most dismissals (42), stumpings (8), and catches by a keeper (34). Kohli and Kumble have the most catches by non-keepers (14).

Most dismissals in an innings (3+):

The most dismissals are by Kirmani and Mongia (5 apiece). M Kaif has the most (4) by a non-keeper. He held this World Cup record from 2003 to 2015, when others also took 4 catches in an innings.

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Dhoni is the highest, followed by Dravid who kept in most of his WC matches. Kohli and Sehwag have the most among non-keepers.

All-round performance:

Overall (see criteria in table):

Kapil is the only one from India to reach this standard. Imran and Kallis also reached this, although Botham and Hadlee did not.

Match performance (30 runs and 3 wickets):

Yuvraj is here in his purple patch leading to the Man of the Series award in 2011. He and Shakib are the only ones with 50/5 in the World Cup. Next best is Kapil’s in 1983, although it ended in a defeat.

 

 

 

When India held over half the ODI partnership records

At the turn of the century, Indian batsmen held more than half the ODI partnership records. To be precise, the partnerships for the first five wickets plus the 9th wicket.

On 31 December, 1999, these were the partnership records for ODIs:

1st: SC Ganguly and SR Tendulkar, 252 vs SL, Colombo (Premadasa), 07/07/1998

2nd: SR Tendulkar and R Dravid, 331 vs NZ, Hyderabad (Deccan), 08/11/1999

3rd: R Dravid and SR Tendulkar, 237* v Ken, Bristol, 23/05/1999

4th: M Azharuddin and A Jadeja, 275* v Zim, Cuttack, 09/04/1998

5th: M Azharuddin and A Jadeja, 223 v SL, Colombo (Premadasa), 17/08/1997

The other record ODI partnerships on that date were:

6th: MO Odumbe and AV Vadher, 161, Ken v SL, Southampton, 30/05/1999

7th: TM Odoyo and AO Suji, Ken v Zim, 119, Nairobi (Aga), 16/10/1997

8th: PR Reiffel and SK Warne, 160, Aus v SA, Port Elizabeth, 04/04/1994

9th: Kapil Dev and SMH Kirmani, 126*, Ind v Zim, Tunbridge Wells, 18/06/1983

10th: IVA Richards and MA Holding, 106*, WI v Eng, Manchester, 31/05/1984

Note that the 4th and 10th wicket records mentioned above are still the world ODI records at the time of writing (29/10/2017).