Review of Ind vs Aus Tests (2023)-Part 1

India won the series 2-1. This was their 4th consecutive series win against Australia.

A total of 106 Tests have been played between these teams.

Australia leads 44-32 with 1 tie and 29 draws.

Both sides do much better at home:

In Australia, Aus lead 30-9 with 13 draws.

In India, Aus trail 14-23 with 1 tie and 16 draws.

We now look at individual records, staring with Batting:

Most runs (1000 and more):

Tendulkar leads by a lrge margin, followed by Ponting. Pujara, Kohli and Smith lead among current players.

Highest innings (175 and above):

While there are many large scores here (including VVSL’s legendary 281), the highest scores from this series are 186 by Kohli and 180 by Khawaja.

The most centuries are 11 by Tendulkar.

The most 50+ scores are 27 by Tendulkar and 20 by Ponting.

Highest batting average (Minimum 20 innings, 40 and above):

The unexpected leader is David Boon, ahead of Steve Smith. Bradman is not here because he did not play enough. Smith, Kohli and Pujara represent current players.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced, 50 and above):

Headed by Gilchrist and Sehwag. Warner, Hayden and Bradman are next. Warner, S Smith and Kohli have the highest strike rates among current players.

To be continued.

Tests in 2022-Fielding records.

First we see who took the most dismissals in the year (15 or more):

Led by newcomer K Verreynne of SA with 39, followed by Foakes (38) and Carey (37). Foakes and Carey have the most catches as keepers (37). RR Pant has the most stumpings (6). The most catches by fielders are 22 by Crawley and 21 by Root.

Now for the most dismissals in an innings (4 or more):

Carey leads with 6 dismissals, followed by Verreynne and Billings (5). Many others have 4 dismissals. Blundell appears to have the most stumpings (2). 3 players have 4 catches as fielders.

Most dismissals in a match (6 or more):

Led by Carey with 9, followed by several with 7. The most stumpings are 3 by Nurul Hasan and Blundell. The most catches by a fielder are 6 by Latham and Crawley

Highest dismissal rates (Minimum 20 innings, 0.600):

Again headed by Carey, followed by OJ Pope with a combination of dismissals as a keeper and fielder. The best rate by a pure fielder was 0.857 by SPD Smith followed by Crawley and Root.

Review of Australia-West Indies Tests-Part 1

Australia won the two-Test series 2-0. This was the first series between these teams since 2015-16 in Australia. The West Indies has not hosted Australia since 2015.

Here is a summary of all Tests between these teams:

Total: 118 Tests, 60 won by Aus, 32 won by WI, 1 tie, 25 draws

In Aus: 68 Tests, 39 won by Aus, 18 won by WI,1 tie, 10 draws

In WI: 50 Tests, 21 won by Aus, 14 won by WI, 15 draws.

Going to individual scores, starting with

Batting:

Most runs, minimum 1000:

Led by Lara by a large margin.Next is Viv Richards. The most by an Aus player is by Steve Waugh. Lara and Richards also have the most centuries (9 each). Lara also has the most 50+ scores (20) followed by Haynes and Border with 19.

No current player here, partly because these teams have not met much in the recent past.

Highest individual scores, minimum 175:

Led by Lara, with what was his first Test century.Second is 269* by the already forgotten AC Voges less than a decade ago. The 242 by KD Walters is significant as he was the first of several to score a double century and century in the same Test. M Labuschagne also achieved this, and his 204 also appears above.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings and 40.00):

Headed by the somewhat unexpected pair of Ian Chappell and Larry Gomes. Greg Chappell is just after Gomes. No current player here.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced and 50.00):

Data on balls faced is not fully available. But it is reasonable to assume that Viv Richards would have the highest strike rate. Next is the less disputable SR of Steven Smith..

Now for

Bowling:

Most wickets (Minimum 50):

Headed by the long-serving CA Walsh (135), Ambrose (128) and McGrath (110). Again, no one from recent years.

The most fivers are 8 by Ambrose and McGrath. Only McGrath has taken two tenners.

Best innings bowling (including all 7wi and better):

Nothing from recent years. The most recent entry is by WI’s J Lawson in 2003 (not the Australian GF Lawson).

Best match bowling (Including all 10wm and better):

Headed by the colourful MG Hughes. Nothing after 2012, which does include current player Kemar Roach.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls bowled, maximum 30.00):

Headed by McGrath and Garner. We also see that the best economy rates were by Gibbs and Walker, and that the best strike rates were by B Lee and J Thomson). N Lyon represents the current players.

To be continued.

Australia-England series review-2

Hope you have seen the first part:

Australia-England series review-1

Continuing with individual performances in

Bowling:

Most wickets (90 or more):

Headed by Warne and Lillee. Current players are headed by Broad (131), Anderson (112) and Lyon (101).

Best innings bowling (including all 8wi or more):

Headed by Laker. SCJ Broad is in 4th place with 8-15 in 2015. No one else from recent times, unless you count McGrath’s 8-38 in 1997.

Best match bowling (including all 12wm or more):

Laker heads this table as well, with Massie’s freak debut in second place. From recent years the best is 12-246 by Warne in 2005.

Best bowling averages (Minimum 2000 balls, 25.00 or less):

Here we do have some current players such as PJ Cummins (20.75) and Hazlewood (24.45).

Lohmann has the best bowling average (13.01), Attewell the best economy rate (1.31) and Ferris the best strike rate (42.2)

Now we look at

Fielding:

Most dismissals (40 or more):

Headed by RW Marsh (148), though there are several current players such as Paine, SPD Smith and Bairstow. The specialist stumper Oldfield has 31 stumpings besides 59 catches. Among fielders, the highest is 61 by GS Chappell. Current players include SPD Smith (46).

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Several keepers have taken 6 in an innings. No fielder has more than 4. Oldfield has 4 stumpings.

In this series, Carey and Billings each took 5 catches on debut.

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

Several keepers have taken 9 in a match. Also note GS Chappell’s 7 as a fielder. He was the first Test player to achieve this, although several others have equaled this (and India’s Rahane has taken 8).

In this series AT Carey took 8 dismissals on debut. All 8 were catches, which is a record in all Tests. Others have taken 8 on debut but included one or more stumpings.

See https://abn397.wordpress.com/2021/12/11/alex-careys-records-in-the-brisbane-test/

Best dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.75):

Headed by Gilchrist and Haddin, with Bairstow, Buttler and SPD Smith from current players. LC Braund has the best (0.973) among pure fielders.

All-round performances:

Career figures (see criteria in table):

KR Miller leads by a large margin. Stokes represents the current players.

Match performances (50 and 5wi):

A long list. The best would be those with 100/5wi (JM Gregory, Botham) and with 50/10wm (W Bates, Trumble and Woolley).

Australia-England series review-1

Australia won this series 4-0 and came within one wicket of making it 5-0. They had already achieved this against England in 1920-21, 2006-07 and 2013-14.

Last-wicket pairs thwarting defeat are more common than one would imagine. Here is a complete list of these instances in Tests:

This was only the second such instance in Aus-Eng Tests. The earlier one was at Manchester in 2005.

India also appears a number of times in this list, both as thwarter and thwartee.

Here is the summary of matches between Australia and England. Remember that there are some Tests which are not considered as Ashes contests.

Australia’s dominance at home is clear, and they almost lead England in England as well.

We now look at individual performances, starting with

Batting:

Most runs (2000 and more):

Many famous names here. Bradman has the most centuries (19) followed by Hobbs with 12.

Bradman also has the most 50+ scores (31) followed by Border with 29.

You will struggle to find current players here. They are SPD Smith with 3044 with Root just scraping in with 2016. Going a little further back there is Cook with 2493.

Highest innings (200 or more):

In recent years there are 244* by Cook (2017), 239 and 215 by Smith (2017 and 2015).

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 45.00 or more):

SPD Smith is No 4 (after Bradman, Sutcliffe and Barrington). No one else from the last few years, unless you count CJL Rogers who played a few Tests in 2013-2015.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls faced, 50.00 or more):

Oddly enough, SCJ Broad has the 4th highest strike rate (after Gilchrist, Flintoff and Prior). And Warne is 5th. Warner, SPD Smith and Stokes are also here.

To be continued.

Summary of Test matches in 2021: Fielding records : Part 4

Hope you have read the earlier summaries such as https://abn397.wordpress.com/2022/01/04/summary-of-test-matches-in-2021-bowling-records-part-3/

We now continue with Fielding records in Tests during the calendar year 2021.

Most dismissals (15 or more):

The most dismissals were 42 by JC Buttler, followed by 39 by RR Pant. The most catches by a keeper were 41, also by Buttler. The most stumpings were 6 by RR Pant. The most catches by a fielder were 21 by JE Root.

Most dismissals in an innings (5 and above):

This list includes 4 keepers (including AT Carey on debut) as well as a fielder (Thirimanne). Thirimanne became one of several fielders to take 5 catches in an innings. Unusually, all these catches came off a single bowler (L. Embuldeniya). This is probably a record in all Tests.

Most dismissals in a match (6 and above):

8 dismissals were made by several keepers, including AT Carey on debut. Fielders MM Ali and SPD Smith took 6 catches each.

Highest dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.5) :

RR Pant has by far the best dismissal rate of 1.695. No other keeper qualifies here. Among the fielders, JE Root is next with 0.750, followed by V Kohli and RG Sharma.

To be continued.

Centuries in the fourth innings of Tests

Hope you have seen the previous post:

Centuries in the third innings of Tests

Finally, we look at centuries in the fourth innings:

It is clearly more difficult to make a century in the fourth innings than the other innings. The most centuries here is by Younis Khan (5), while 4 others have scored 4 each (GC Smith, RR Sarwan, RT Ponting and SM Gavaskar).

Among current players there are KS Williamson (3), AK Markram, BA Stokes and several others with 2.

Among Indian players, there are Gavaskar (4) and Tendulkar (3).

Those who loved the fourth innings:

W Watson (Eng) made both his centuries in the fourth innings.

No one else has scored 2 or more centuries in the fourth innings and none in other innings.

The next best is 2 out of 4 by JB Stollmeyer.

Those who hated the fourth innings:

There is a long list of prominent batsmen who scored many centuries but none in the fourth innings.

This is headed by SR Waugh (Aus) with 37 centuries. Next are SPD Smith (Aus) with 32, M Yousuf (Pak) with 24, JE Root and V Sehwag with 23.

It is just possible that Smith and Root will score a century in the fourth innings in the future. Or Smith may cross Waugh’s record of 37.

Batting averages in the first and second innings of Tests-September 2021

Hope you have seen this one:

Batting averages across innings-September 2021

In the first innings alone, we have:

The cutoff here is 55.

Bradman is still at #1, with over 100. Next are current player SPD Smith and another Australian in AL Hassett.

Ross Taylor, David Warner and F du Plessis are other current players here, though not in the top 10.

Among Indian players, Tendulkar is 9th here. Others are Sehwag, Dravid and Sidhu.

The Test record of 400* by Lara was in the first innings, besides the earlier records of 364 by Hutton and 334 by Bradman.

In the second innings, we have:

The cutoff here is still 55.

Bradman yet again leads, followed by current player KS Williamson and Mohammad Yousuf.

Other current players in the top ten are JE Root (4) and V Kohli (5).

Going further down, the other current players here are SPD Smith (besides AB de Villiers and AN Cook if you stretch a little).

From India, there is Kohli followed by Sehwag, Dravid, Gavaskar and Tendulkar.

The highest score here is 374 by M Jayawardene, while the old Test records of 365* by Sobers and 336* by Hammond are also here.

Current players seem to have done a little better here than in the first innings.

Will take up the third and fourth innings next. The results are somewhat different.

Batting averages across innings-September 2021

No Test matches for a while, so we can do some overall reviews.

Batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 50.00):

Mr 99.94 is well known, but No 2 has already been forgotten. No 3 is fast closing in on No 2’s 61.87. The only other current player in the top 10 is No 6 with 60.80.

The highest for India is by VG Kambli (!) at 54.20. Something similar to the case of AC Voges.

From India, there are also Tendulkar, Dravid, Gavaskar and Kohli.

Among current players, there are SPD Smith, M Labuschagne, KS Williamson, V Kohli and JE Root (who just manages 50+).

In following posts we will look at batting averages across innings.

Highest batting averages at each batting position-Tests (Part 3, No 1-11):

Here we look at overall batting averages:

While everyone knows the No 1, the next few positions have some surprises. Nos 2 and 4 (besides No 20) had the advantage of playing relatively fewer Tests, as well as the current player No 6.

No 3 and 6 are also going to be around for some time. Perhaps they can move to No 2.

Statistics of ODIs of 2020

The number of matches in all formats got reduced due to “unforeseen circumstances”. However, we still have some aggregates which are of some utility even if averages and strike rates are not meaningful.

We start with the ICC rankings at the end of the year:

Which has England, India, New Zealand and Australia as the top 4 teams.

A simple comparison of W-L ratios gives this:

Not really meaningful as the top 3 teams here (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan) have played too few matches. Then we have Oman (!) followed by SA and NZ which still doesn’t make much sense.

A summary of individual performances follows.

Batting-most runs (250 and above):

That’s more like it. Finch leads by a large margin over his team-mate SPD Smith. Rahul and Kohli are 5th and 6th.

And Labuschagne, the Test find of 2019 is 3rd here.

The most 100s are 3 by SPD Smith. The most 50+ scores are 7 by Finch followed by 5 by Smith and Kohli.

Highest innings (100 and more):

All the centuries are listed here:

Unusually, the only scores above 150 are from Bangladesh. The highest from India is 119 by RG Sharma.

Bowling – most wickets (8 and above):

Zampa with 27 wickets is far ahead of the second-placed AS Joseph.

The most 4wi hauls is 3 by AS Joseph

No one has more than one 5wi.

M Shami has the most wickets for India (12).

Best innings bowling (All instances of 4wi):

The fast-rising S Lamichane of Nepal has the best figures of 6-16, which came against USA, another one of the newcomers. The only other 6-wicket haul was by the relatively inexperienced L Ngidi

India’s best is quite far down, being Shami’s 4-63.

Most dismissals (5 or more):

The most dismissals are 15 by Carey (Aus) and Hope (WI). The most by a non-keeper is 10 by Starc.

Rahul had the most stumpings (2).

For India, Kohli has 5 dismissals.

Most innings dismissals (4 and more):

The highest is 5 by Hope, and three others have 4 each. The best for India is 3 by Rahul on two occasions.

Several non-keepers have taken 3 catches in an innings.

All-round match performances (30 runs and 3wi):

The best would seem to be the two instances by Aqib Ilyas of Oman, followed by JJ Smit of Namibia.

Test matches of 2019-Fielding

Individual performances in fielding:

Most dismissals (12 or more):

Australian captain Paine leads by a large margin over the next, de Kock.

The best by a non-keeper was 25 by Root, England’s captain.

M Rizwan took over as Pakistan’s keeper from former captain Sarfaraz Ahmed.

Buttler and Hope played some (but not all) of their matches as keepers.

The most stumpings were 4 by JL Bairstow.

Most innings dismissals (4 and above):

de Kock is the only one with more than 5 dismissals.

Klaasen took 4 dismissals on debut. Other new faces here are RR Pant and Mohammad Rizwan.

Root, Warner and SPD Smith took 4 catches apiece as non-keepers.

Most match dismissals (6 or more):

Sarfaraz Ahmed took 10 dismissals before he lost his captaincy as well as his place in the team. Paine and de Kock were next with 8. New faces here include GC Wilson, RR Pant and Mohammad Rizwan.

Warner and SPD Smith took 6 catches as non-keepers.

Best dismissal rate (Min 15 innings, 0.500):

Paine has by far the best dismissal rate (2.521), followed by Watling.

The best by a non-keeper is 1.312 by SPD Smith.