Mega Partnerships in ODIs
The Strauss-Trott mammoth partnership of 250 runs is the highest ever in England’s ODI cricket history. Time to look at where it stands among the top partnerships of all time.
Over the past few weeks, football has been the most talked about sport in the world. English fans were disappointed with an exit in the round of 16 at the hands of Germany, but in cricket they have reason to smile. First, they beat the mighty Aussies in an ODI series. Now, Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott proved to be a more potent combo than Gerrard and Rooney, and put up the highest partnership for England in ODI history. Strauss and Trott became just the 11th pair to score 250 or more in ODI cricket. We decided to look at where their performance ranks amongst all the big partnerships in the 50-over format and used the Batting Momentum (a combination of runs scored and rate of scoring) to compare these mega partnerships.
| Rank | Partners | Runs | Opposition | Run rate | Batting Momentum |
| 1 | WU Tharanga, ST Jayasuriya | 286 | v England | 8.98 | 542 |
| 2 | SR Tendulkar, R Dravid | 331 | v New Zealand | 7.14 | 526 |
| 3 | SC Ganguly, R Dravid | 318 | v Sri Lanka | 7.09 | 503 |
| 4 | M Azharuddin, A Jadeja | 275* | v Zimbabwe | 6.62 | 413 |
| 5 | JAH Marshall, BB McCullum | 274 | v Ireland | 6.47 | 405 |
| 6 | Saleem Elahi, Abdul Razzaq | 257 | v South Africa | 6.42 | 378 |
| 7 | SC Ganguly, SR Tendulkar | 258 | v Kenya | 6.19 | 369 |
| 8 | SR Watson, RT Ponting | 252* | v England | 6.24 | 363 |
| 9 | AJ Strauss, IJL Trott | 250 | v Bangladesh | 6.25 | 360 |
| 10 | SC Ganguly, SR Tendulkar | 252 | v Sri Lanka | 5.72 | 341 |
The top 3 performances are in a league of their own. Right on top is the Tharanga-Jayasuriya performance which was truly spectacular. Chasing 321 for victory, Sri Lanka got there with 12.3 overs to spare! They were well on course for a 450 score had they completed their innings. Jayasuriya was the star with 152 off just 99 balls.
Second and third on the list are performances Indian fans will remember: the Tendulkar-Dravid world record in Hyderabad back in 1999 and the Ganguly-Dravid World Cup performance at Taunton. Another Indian pair in at four while McCullum and Marshall’s effort at Aberdeen is fifth. Elahi and Razzaq do not have the highest Pakistan partnership; that honour belongs to Aamer Sohail and Inzamam. Unfortunately, that match was in the first half of the nineties and the official number of deliveries faced hasn’t been recorded meaning we cannot compute the batting momentum for that partnership.
Australia’s best partnership came against England last year in the ICC Champions Trophy semi-final. Chasing 257 for victory, Ponting and Watson eased the Aussies to victory with 49 balls to spare. This was a big match performance and Watson carried his form into the final where his unbeaten century won Australia the tournament.
England’s performance ranks in at 9th amongst these mega partnerships. You’ll notice the same pair at the 7th and 10th spots. You may have heard about them too: Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar. They didn’t do too badly, amassing 8227 runs cumulatively in all their partnerships in ODIs. This included 26 century partnerships and an average of 47.55. The next highest pair in ODI cricket is almost 3000 runs behind this pair. With a dynamic duo like these two, mega partnerships are never far away.
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