Test innings: High and low scoring rates

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Inspite of the fast pace that Twenty20 has brought into cricket, there is still much to appreciate in the scoring rates of Tests.

We are now so conditioned to seeing everything in terms of scoring rates in T20. But Tests have their own fascination and this article looks at the two extremes of scoring rates achieved in Test innings. To ensure that we look at decent size innings, I have set 50 overs (3-4 hours of play) as a minimum required to include a Test innings.

First, the high scoring rates. The following table lists the best 10 innings in terms of scoring rates.

MtNo	Year	Bat-team	I	Vs	Score	Overs	ScRt	Result
1737	2005	South Africa	2	Zim	340/3	50	6.8	Won
75	1902	Australia	2	Saf	296/10	51	5.8	Drawn
1753	2005	England	2	Bng	447/3	78	5.73	Won
1561	2001	Sri Lanka	2	Bng	555/5	103.3	5.36	Won
633	1968	West Indies	3	Eng	284/6	53	5.36	Drawn
1278	1994	West Indies	3	Ind	301/3	56.3	5.33	Won
1781	2006	India	2	Pak	410/1	77.2	5.3	Drawn
1743	2005	Pakistan	3	Ind	261/2	50	5.22	Won

The South African blitz was quite recent and the innings was started and declared on the first day itself after Zimbabwe were dismissed for 54. The next instance occurred over 100 years back in a 3-day Test when fast scoring was essential. The third instance is a recent one by England against the hapless Bangladesh. However Bangladesh, 5 years later, are proving to be a tougher nut to crack.

I have given below the capsuled summary of the South African innings.

South Africa: 340 for 3 in 50 overs

G.C.Smith	121 (107)	Streak	13.0-0-90-0
De Villiers	98 (118)	Mpofu	12.0-2-53-0
Rudolph	49 (50)	Chigumbura	8.0-0-53-0
Kallis	54 (25)	Cremer	9.0-0-86-3

Now a look at the low scoring rates. The following table lists the worst 10 innings in terms of scoring rates.

MtNo	Year	Bat-team	I	Vs	Score	Overs	ScRt	Result
415	1955	NewZealand	3	Pak	69/6	90	0.77	Drawn
527	1962	India	3	Win	187/10	185.3	1.01	Lost
387	1954	Pakistan	1	Eng	87/10	83.5	1.04	Drawn
435	1957	South Africa	4	Eng	72/10	66.5	1.08	Lost
456	1958	NewZealand	1	Eng	67/10	59.1	1.13	Lost
413	1955	NewZealand	3	Pak	124/10	108.3	1.14	Lost
9	1882	Australia	1	Eng	63/10	53.2	1.18	Won
421	1956	NewZealand	1	Win	74/10	62.2	1.19	Lost

On a winter day in Dacca over 50 years back, the first two days were washed out by rain. Then, New Zealand were dismissed for 70 and Pakistan declared with a lead of 125. Afterwards, New Zealand produced what must be termed as a “you cannot pay me enough to come in” type of innings. They crawled to 69 in 90 overs. The rate is 0.77 per over. Today 0.77 per ball is, at times, de rigueur. I wonder whether the Bangladeshis who paid hard-earned money to watch this nonsense decided to separate on this day. New Zealand drew the match, however, since the last day was rained off. Fortunately, we do not have the balls played information. However, remember that this was on a wet coir matting pitch laid on grass.

New Zealand’s innings is summarized below. 55 out of 90 overs bowled by Pakistan were maidens.

New Zealand: 69 for 6 in 90 overs

Fazal Mahmood	6.0- 3-12-0
Khan Mohammad	30.0-19-20-2
Zulfiqar Ahmed	16.0- 8-13-1
Kardar	28.0-17-21-2
Shujauddin	9.0- 8- 1-0
Hanif Mohammad	1.0- 0- 1-0

No less excruciating was India’s crawl during 1962, when blocking was passé and scoring was out of fashion. India took nearly two complete days of batting to score 187 runs. A new society, SPCS, was called for. Gibbs had analysis of 53.3-37-38-8. The mitigating circumstance for India was that Contractor was seriously injured in the previous match and was still in hospital.

Premier Batsmen in Twenty20 cricket

Thursday, May 27, 2010

So, which batsman holds the numero uno position in T20 cricket? Our expert thinks it’s time we analysed some performances of note in cricket’s shortest version.

Test matches and One Day Internationals have been around for a long time - the former for well over a century and the latter for almost 40 years. With that much history and that much information to pull from, you can talk about the greatest batsmen of all-time in these forms of the game. While there will never be consensus, a few names show up repeatedly in most people’s list - Don Bradman, Gary Sobers, Allan Border and Sachin Tendulkar usually feature on the Test list while Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting, Tendulkar and Michael Bevan come up on the ODI list. Okay, maybe Bevan doesn’t get that much credit but he really should- his numbers are stunning with an average of 53.58 with close to 7000 runs in 232 matches.

With Twenty20s, the question of the best of all-time hasn’t been raised yet. The game is still in its infancy and we don’t have thousands of matches of data to pull from. But with five years, 181 matches and three world championships out of the way, now is a good time to take a first crack at that list. And if that’s not a good enough reason for to start with this exercise here’s another one for you - columnists need something to write about when there isn’t that much cricket action going on!

We started by valuing overall performance using the Batting Momentum from the Castrol Index - a measure that considers runs scored per innings (in essence a measure of consistency) and strike-rate which captures speed of scoring. We then looked at players in international T20s (we ruled out IPLs and other domestic competitions) who had played in at least 20 matches - that seemed like the appropriate number for Twenty20s. The players were then ranked based on their batting momentum. Without further ado, here’s the list of the best T20 batsmen in the game so far.

Rank	Player	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	Strike Rate	Batting Momentum
1	David Warner	20	602	89	30.1	153.57	46.22
2	Kevin Pietersen	28	911	79	37.95	141.67	46.09
3	Chris Gayle	20	617	117	32.47	144.49	44.58
4	Yuvraj Singh	22	555	70	32.64	153.73	40.63
5	Graeme Smith	27	803	89*	32.12	127.46	37.91
6	Cameron White	20	481	85*	43.72	148.45	35.70
7	Brendon McCullum	40	1100	116*	33.33	128.35	35.30
8	Gautam Gambhir	23	621	75	28.22	124.2	35.06
9	Mahela Jayawardene	31	760	100	28.14	141.52	34.70
10	DJ Hussey	23	512	88*	28.44	134.38	32.76

These batsmen are the early pioneers in international T20. David Warner and Kevin Pietersen top the list; the Aussie may be ahead on points but KP has led his side to a WC triumph which counts for a lot. Overall, the list is filled with powerful big-hitters. One of them, Brendon McCullum, is the only one to have got to 1000 runs in international T20s so far. It’s still early days, but this table exemplifies what teams should look for in the modern day T20 batsmen - bludgeoners who average about 30 runs per innings at a strike rate in the 140-150 range. However, a couple of the more technically sound batsmen and elegant stroke-makers cracked the list with Gambhir in at 8 and Jayawardene at 9 which indicates  a few  ‘traditional’ players can also achieve sustainable success.

Keep an eye out for the batsmen in this list. Decades from now, fans will be talking about one of them being the greatest T20 batsman of all time.