Summary of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests-2 (after May 2022 series):

Hope you have seen Part 1.

We now proceed to

Bowling:

Most wickets (12 and above):

Muralidaran has 89 wickets, far ahead of the others. Next are Herath and Shakib. Also note AM Fernando’s 13 wickets in 2 Tests in this series.

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

Led by Herath, with the next three by Muralidaran.

Nayeem Hasan’s 6-105 was the best by BD against SL, surpassing Shakib’s 5-70 in 2008. Also note AM Fernando’s 6-51 in this series.

Best match bowling (Including all 9wm and above):

Headed by Muralidaran and Herath. None from Bangladesh here. AM Fernando took 10-144 during this series.

Best bowling average (Minimum 2000 balls bowled):

Includes Shakib and Taijul from this series.

Muralidaran has the best bowling average, economy rate and strike rate.

Now for

Fielding:

Most dismissals (10 and above):

Led by P Jayawardene with Dickwella and Sangakkara close behind.

Mushfiqur Rahim has the most dismissals from BD

P Jayawardene has the most stumpings (8) and M Jayawardene the most catches by a fielder (17).

Dickwella has the most catches by a keeper (24).

Most dismissals in an innings (4 and above):

Mushfiqur and Dickwella have made 5 dismissals in an innings, but not in this series. However Dickwella took 4 catches twice in this series.

Sangakkara and S Sarkar have taken 4 as a fielder.

Most dismissals in a match (5 and above):

Again headed by P Jayawardene with 7.

M Jayawardene and S Sarkar have taken 5 catches as fielders.

Dismissal rate (Minimum 20 innings, 0.600)

Headed by Sangakkara, with M Jayawardene heading the fielders.

Finally,

All-round performance

Overall (see criteria below):

Shakib (611 runs and 38 wickets) is the only one who qualifies.

Match (50 and 5wi):

All the instances are by Shakib.

Summary of Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Tests-1 (after May 2022 series):

Sri Lanka won 1-0 with one draw.

Overall summary:

We see that Bangladesh is yet to win against Sri Lanka at home, although they have won one Test in Sri Lanka.

Batting:

Most runs (750 and above):

Sangakkara has the most centuries (7) and most 50+ scores (14). Mushfiqur has 10 50+ scores.

Several current players starting with Mushfiqur Rahim are here.

Highest innings (150 and more):

Mathews made the highest score in this series (199). He became the first to score 199 and a duck in the same Test. Several have made 99 and a duck.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, all instances):

Sangakkara has by far the highest average, with current player Mushfiqur having the second highest.

Highest batting strike rate (Minimum 1000 balls faced):

Dilshan has by far the highest strike rate, while current player Tamim Iqbal has the highest among Bangladesh players.

To be continued.

See Part 2

The worst batsmen in Tests and ODIs

You all know about Bradman’s batting average of 99.94.

Here, we look at the other end of the spectrum.

This data is updated to 27-5-2022. Matches involving the ICC XI are not counted.

As per the usual practice, a minimum of 20 innings is considered.

Lowest Test batting averages (below 5.00):

Heading this list is current Bangladesh player Ebadot Hossain with 0.72.

Next lowest is Zimbabwe’s “Pommie” Mbangwa with 2.00, and JV Saunders of Australia long ago with 2.29

Bangladesh has another candidate coming up with Khalid Ahmed with 7 Tests, 11 innings and batting average of 0.50.

Current players here include Ebadot Hossain, Abu Jayed, Lahiru Kumara, Shannon Gabriel, Lungi Ngidi, and “Fizz” Rehman.

The lowest by Indian players are 3.80 by Maninder Singh, 4.07 by BS Chandrasekhar and 4.60 by DR Doshi.

Now we look at the corresponding figures for ODIs.

As before, we take a minimum of 20 innings. Matches involving the ICC XI, Asia XI and Africa XI are not counted.

Lowest ODI batting averages (below 5.00):

Here, the figures are slightly better with the lowest by Zimbabwe players B Muzarabani (2.81) and CB Mpofu (2.85).

Current players include B Muzarabani and N Pradeep (4.37).

From India there are S Sreesanth (4.00) and Ishant Sharma (4.80).

Also note Mohammad Irfan, the only 7-footer to play in Tests.

Test captains with the most wins, losses and draws

Most wins (15 and above):

GC Smith has the most Tests, so it is not surprising that he has the most wins (53) Next are Ponting (47) and S Waugh (41). One can see (from the last column) that S Waugh, Bradman and Ponting have the highest win percentage.

The most wins by Indian captains are 36 (Kohli, 5th overall), 27 by Dhoni (10th ) and 21 by Ganguly (19th).

Current captains here are Kohli (36), Root (26), and Williamson (22).

Most losses (13 and above):

GC Smith again heads this list, closely followed by SP Fleming and Lara who led relatively weak teams.

The highest by Indian captains are 19 by Pataudi (11th overall), 18 by Dhoni (12th) and 15 by Kohli (19th). Also 14 by Azharuddin and 13 by Ganguly.

Current captains here are Root (19), Kohli (15) and BRM Taylor (13).

Most draws (13 and above):

Headed by Border (39), Gavaskar (30) and GC Smith (27).

For India the highest are 30 by Gavaskar (2nd overall), 23 by Kapil (8th) and 19 by Azharuddin (11th). Also 15 by Ganguly.

No current captains here. The most recent is AN Cook (13) who finished his term of captaincy in 2016.

Test captains with the best win-loss ratios

Here we have the raw data for all Test captains. Naturally the W/L ration is undefined for those with no losses:

Here we have everyone who captained in 2 or more Tests without a loss.

This list is headed by WW Armstrong of a century ago with 10 Tests including 8 wins and 2 draws, followed by DB Close (7 Tests, 6 wins and a draw).

Those with an all-win record are A Bacher, today’s Babar Azam and Lord Hawke who all captained in 4 Tests.

Also note AM Rahane with 5 Tests, 4 wins and a draw.

However, this list would be more meaningful if it was restricted to those who captained in 10 or more Tests.

Here we get:

As mentioned earlier, WW Armstrong is the only one here with no losses. Next come Jardine, Bradman and Steve Waugh. Waugh has the highest ratio for those who captained in 25 or more Tests.

From India, V Kohli is the only one.

de Kock’s misfortune

This refers to the 2nd Test between Pakistan and South Africa at Rawalpindi, which was played on 4-8 Feb 2021.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/south-africa-in-pakistan-2020-21-1242968/pakistan-vs-south-africa-2nd-test-1243018/full-scorecard

Needing 370 to win, SA made a reasonably good start. Things started going wrong when Markram was dismissed at 241/4. Captain Quinton de Kock came in, and was promptly dismissed first ball by Hasan Ali, becoming one of this bowler’s five victims in the innings and ten in the match.

It must be particularly mortifying for a captain to be dismissed first ball in the 4th innings of a difficult chase. Let us see how many times it has happened.

While the number of balls in an innings have not always been recorded before 2000, we presume that most golden ducks have been recorded.

Golden duck by captain in 4th innings:

This includes all cases (win, loss, tie, draw).

23 such cases ending with Q de Kock. Many prominent captains appear here, such as Sobers, Greg Chappell (twice), Atherton, Ganguly, Inzamam and more recently Kohli and Root.

What if the team won in the chase despite the captain getting a golden duck? See this list:

That was a very short list of two. And they were relatively less prominent captains.

Now see when teams have tied or drawn in the chase when the captain got a golden duck:

5 such instances. The one involving Sobers was not in the second Test which India won, but the 5th one which India came close to winning (thanks partly to Gavaskar’s 124 and 220).

And finally, cases when teams have lost in the chase when the captain got a golden duck:

16 such cases, ending with de Kock. He is in distinguished company, along with his contemporaries Kohli and Root.

The bowlers behind the low scores

We have heard a lot about low Test scores in the last few days. Here we list the bowlers who were responsible.

Here we see the Lowest Test scores (40 and below, 8 or more wickets lost):

While the 35/8 in 1953 was not an all-out score, it probably would have been quite low if the match had lasted a few more overs before time ran out. India’s 36 had one batsman retired hurt.

Listing all the bowlers in these innings:

NZ 26 (Tyson 2-10, Statham 3-9, Wardle 1-0, Appleyard 4-7)

SA 30 (1896): (Lohmann 8-7, Bromley-Davenport 1-23, Hayward 1-0)

SA 30 (1924): (AER Gilligan 6-7, M Tate 4-12)

SA 35 (Haigh 6-11, AE Trott 4-19)

Aus 35/8 (Bedser 2-14, Laker 2-11, Wardle 4-7)

Aus 36 (Hirst 3-15, Rhodes 7-17, Braund 0-1)

SA 36 (Nash 4-18, McCabe 1-4, Ironmonger 5-6)

Ind 36 (Starc 0-7, Cummins 4-21, Hazlewood 5-8)

Ire 38 (Broad 4-19, Woakes 6-17)

Note that in some cases only 2 bowlers bowled through the innings.

Now we look at India’s lowest Test scores (75 or less, 8 or more wickets lost):

36 (Starc 0-7, Cummins 4-21, Hazlewood 5-8)

42 (Arnold 4-19, Old 5-21, Hendrick 0-2)

58 (1947) (Lindwall 2-11, Johnston 2-17, Miller 1-26, Toshack 5-2)

58 (1952) (Bedser 2-19, Trueman 8-31, Laker 0-7)

66 (Donald 4-14, SM Pollock 3-25, Klusener 2-16, McMillan 0-9)

67 (Lindwall 1-9, L Johnson 3-8, Loxton 1-10, Johnston 2-15, Ring 3-17)

75 (Patterson 5-24, WW Davis 3-20, W Benjamin 1-17, Walsh 1-13)

As we can see, India had the misfortune to run into the leading attacks of Australia, England and South Africa at various times.

The scores of 36 had the No 11 batsman retired hurt, and the 42 had one batsman absent hurt (though he was also No 11, so it should not have mattered much).

Toshack’s 5-2 is the best analysis by any bowler with 5 or more wickets in an innings. The next best is 6-3 by J Lawson vs Bangladesh in 2002. However, CA Walsh has taken 5-1 in an ODI.

L Johnson (Aus, 1948) was playing in his only Test.

Trueman’s 8-31 came in his 3rd Test and it remained his career-best analysis.

Analyzing Test captaincies – 6

Finally we look at captains with the most wins, most losses and most draws.

Most wins (14 and more):

Here, and in the rest of the post, we will see that the toppers will generally be those who captained in the most Tests. GC Smith with 53 wins had captained in the most Tests (108). RT Ponting is next with 47 wins.

Among current players, V Kohli has the most wins (33). That is also the most by an Indian captain.

Most losses (12 and more):

Unsurprisingly, it is also headed by GC Smith with 28 losses. Next is SP Fleming with 27.

Among current captains, JO Holder has the most losses (19). For India, MAK Pataudi leads with 19.

Most draws (12 and more):

For a change, this is headed by another captain AR Border with 39 draws (including 1 tie). Next is SM Gavaskar with 30. He was well known for his defensive captaincy. Like Border, he had a weak Test team most of the time. GC Smith is third with 27.

Among recent captains, AN Cook leads with 13 draws.

Chetan Chauhan R.I.P.

Chetan Pratap Singh Chauhan (1947-2020) appears to be the first international cricketer to fall victim to Covid-19.

At the time of his death, he was a state minister in Uttar Pradesh. He had earlier been a member of the Lok Sabha (Parliament).

A quick look at his cricketing career :https://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/player/27619.html

He started on a low key in 1969 against New Zealand. By 1973 he had appeared in 5 Tests without a fifty, and most cricket followers in India thought they would not see him play Tests again. However, strong domestic performances got him a place on the 1977-78 tour to (Packerized) Australia. He made a century in a tour match, 88 and 32 in his comeback Test and was then a regular in the side until 1981. Openers who followed him (such as Srikkanth) usually failed to match his consistency.

He did possess an odd record of the most Test runs without a century. He was the first to score 2000 without a century, and held this record until Shane Warne crossed it in March 2002 and went beyond 3000 until he ended with a top score of 99.

Here is a list of those who crossed 1000 without a century. Many of them are tailenders (including many regular No 10s and 11s) who played enough Tests to reach 1000:

(Up to Jul 31 2020. Does not include the ICC XI v Aus Test).

We can see that Warne and Chauhan are the only ones to cross 2000 without a century. The current player N Dickwella will probably join them soon. But he would probably prefer to score a century and get off this list!

The lowest average here is by JM Anderson (9.68) followed by Waqar Younis (10,20)

Waqar and NM Lyon are the only ones to cross 1000 without a fifty. Lyon has a slightly better average of 12.27.

Chauhan has the most 50s here (16) and is followed by Dickwella with 15 and Mackay with 13.

We take a look at the

Same players ranked by batting averages (for averages above 20):

This table is headed by the relatively unknown BM Laird (an opener), KD Mackay (all-rounder) and TD Paine (wicketkeeper). Chauhan is 4th on this list. There are several other Indian players in this category who averaged above 20, ranging from Surti to Abid Ali.

Finally, let us look at

Indian opening batsmen (who played at least 20 innings at No 1 or 2):

The first two names are easily guessed, though you might not have expected Shastri and Gambhir to be the next two. Chauhan does not fare too well here, being 20th out of 28. However he is above some well-known names such as Pankaj Roy and K Srikkanth.

Even non-flashy openers have a place, although they often do not get a long enough run.

Review of England-West Indies Tests-2020-II

Hope that you have seen part 1 ( https://abn397.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/review-of-england-west-indies-tests-2020-i/ )

We now look at Bowling figures.

Most wickets (60 or more):

The top two were contemporaries at a time when WI were declining from their peak. Broad is the only current player.

The most 5-fors were by Ambrose (8) and Gibbs (7), while several (including Broad) had two 10-fors.

Most wickets in an innings (8wi and above):

The only one from recent years was Chase’s 8-60 in 2019.

Most wickets in a Test (11wm and above):

Broad’s 10-67 is the best in recent years.

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

While Garner and Ambrose lead the averages, Valentine and Ramadhin have the best economy rates and Marshall and Holding the best strike rates. An equitable distribution of work.

Now for Fielding statistics:

Most dismissals (25 or more):

Buttler is the only current player here.

The most stumpings were by Ames (11), the most catches by a keeper by DL Murray (90) and the most by a non-keeper by Lara (45)  and Sobers (40).

Most dismissals in an innings (5 or more):

Most dismissals in a match (7 or more):

Best dismissal ratio (Minimum 20 innings and 0.750)

Only Root from recent times. The best by a non-keeper is 0.916 by Hammond and 0.863 by Constantine. Also see the figures for the “hybrids” Stewart and Walcott.

All-round performances (see criteria below):

Minimum 20 innings batted, 2000 balls, 3+ fifties, 3+ 4wi:

Sobers is far ahead of the others. Oddly enough Holding is in second place. Botham did not perform well against WI.

Match performances (Minimum one fifty and one 5wi):

Most of the famous names are here, with Stokes, Chase (2) and Broad in recent years.

The double of 100/5wi was reached by Sobers and Greig, while the double of 50/10 wm was reached by Boyce and Broad.

Review of England-West Indies Tests-2020-I

England won the series 2-1, leading to this points table for the WTC:

England gained 80 points and WI 40 points in this series.

The record for Tests between these countries:

England extended its lead for matches at home, although WI still lead overall.

We now look at Batting records:

Most runs-1200 and above:

The most centuries (10) are by Sobers, followed Richards and Headley  with 8.

The most scores above 50 are 23 by Richards and Sobers, followed by Chanderpaul with 21.

Note the absence of any current players in this list. The most recent is Cook.

Highest innings (200 or more):

Here the only score by a current player is at the bottom (202* by Holder). Note the 1-2 by Lara, both world records at the time.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 40.00):

Hutton and Headley are far ahead of the others. Stokes and Cook are the only ones here from the past few years.

Highest strike rates (Minimum 1000 balls, 55.00):

While No 2 is predictable, No 1 is not. He had scored a century on debut against WI.

Blackwood and Stokes represent the current players.

Continued in https://abn397.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/review-of-england-west-indies-tests-2020-ii/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other double: 50 + 10 wkts in a match

Most of those who follow Test cricket know about the double of a century and 5wi in a match. This has been done 32 times, with the last occasion being the present WI player Roston Chase in 2016.

The lesser-known double is that of 50 and 10wm, which is slightly rarer and has been done on 30 occasions. Stuart Broad joined this list in the 3rd Test against West Indies in 2020.

This seems to be a little harder to achieve compared to the other double. Sir Richard Hadlee is the only one to do it 3 times and Shakib Al Hasan the only one to do it twice. Kapil, Botham and Imran duly appear here. “Sir” Jadeja is the only other player from India here.

In a mirror of Bruce Taylor’s 100 + 5wi against India on his debut in 1965, only one player John Lever has  managed 50 + 10 wm also against India in 1976. Oddly enough S Venkataraghavan was in India’s team on both occasions.

There are some odd cases here involving players who were not generally considered all-rounders, such as Qadir, Border, Bevan and Steyn. And others who had short careers such as Lever, Nash and Craig. But most of the big names of the past few decades are there.

The elite group with a century and 10-for includes Botham, Imran, Shakib and honorary member Davidson with 100 runs and 10-for.

Broad achieved this in the nick of time, taking the last wicket of the match to complete his tenner.