Way-out Test innings: a selection

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Our expert analyses Test hundreds that have stood out prominently in a team’s overall performance.

When Kevin Pietersen was essaying his masterpiece at Colombo, it looked as if, not just figuratively, there were two pitches. One in which batting was made easy, through the run-a-ball innings of Pietersen and the other one in which batsmen could barely score a run every 3 balls. And this was not just a phase of batting but right throughout the innings. That made me think of Nathan Astle’s 222 and VVS Laxman’s 167, both in a losing cause with both batsmen playing on alternate pitches. Hence this article.

I have compared the strike rate of the batsman with the strike rate of the rest of the team, extras excluded. To make sure that only substantial innings are considered, I have set the cut-off at 100 runs. Not that I consider a century is anything great but it is a nice cut-off point. The innings selected have a minimum batsman-to-team ratio value at 2.40. Initially, I had set this at 2.50 but then Pietersen’s innings would have missed the cut. I did not want that to happen since that was the innings which was the trigger for this analysis.

The first thing that strikes us is that very few of these innings have been played in winning causes. Only 7 out of 25. Rhodes’ innings is a masterpiece in that he played a run-a-ball century while the rest of the team barely crossed run-per-over. That too, away, against Murali and company. Lara’s classic was played in the Test after the all-time-classic of 153 at Bridgetown. The Australian attack was a fair one, minus Warne. However, Lara played a 84-ball hundred while his team-mates trudged along wearily.

Botham’s match-winning faster-than run-a-ball hundred was played two Tests after the Headingley masterpiece of 149. Although England had the cushion of a 100-run lead, Botham’s innings was the match-winning one since England had slumped to 104 for 5. As subsequent events showed, Australia scored over 400 runs in the fourth innings and this was absolutely essential. Kapil Dev’s century was in an inconsequential two-innings drawn Test and Azhar’s century was a classic. A near run-a-ball 182 which was a truly match-winning effort.

Richards’ first entry is the famous 56-ball hundred. He is one of three batsmen to have two entries in the table, Azhar and Gayle being the other two.

Astle’s 222 was played at break-neck pace. Entering at 119 for 3 and chasing 550 runs, he played one of the most amazing innings in Test history. He scored 222 in 168 balls, with 28 fours and 11 sixes and was last out at 451. There was a last wicket stand of 118 with injured Chris Cairns, who scored 23.

Laxman’s 167 took 198 balls and this was scored at a rate of 84.3. The rest of the team scored 73 runs in 150 balls at 48.6 and the ratio is 1.73.

Pietersen’s ratio is 2.47 which explains the domination he had over the Sri Lankan bowling and the others did not.

Finally, it must be understood that this analysis covers about 1350 Tests for which I have complete balls-played information.

The T20 performances to beat

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

With the annual Indian T20 extravaganza upon us, our expert analyses key performances in the domestic leagues.

This is a no-frills introduction to the fifth edition of the Indian Twenty20 League. Later, I will be doing some nuanced analysis of specific performances during the tournament. For the record, I include the Indian T20 League and Champions League matches in these records since these two form a single Database.

These are the hundreds scored in the leagues’ domestic T20 matches so far. Considering that a total of 319 matches have been played, this means that a batsman has scored a century every 15 matches. McCullum’s innings of 158 in 73 balls in the very first match of the Indian T20 League in 2008 has set the standard and is yet to be overtaken. However, in the Ratings points measure, Warner’s match-winning 135 in the champions’ clash in 2011 has overtaken this innings. Warner has also another century in the same league but finished on the losing side. This is the highest losing innings ever. Four other hundreds were played, finishing on the losing side. Pathan’s 100 is the fastest hundred ever, but again did not win the match for his team. Paul Valthaty has the highest chasing score, of 120.

Listed above are the 5/6 wicket-hauls across both leagues and one other special performance. There have been nine 5-wicket hauls, leading to a frequency of 35 matches per 5-wicket performance. However there have been 47 4-wicket captures. So it looks like a century is somewhere in between a 4-wicket and 5-wicket capture. Two of these 5-wicket hauls have finished on the losing side. Kumble’s 5 for 5 is the best defensive bowling performance ever.

Now for the special performance. Sunil Narine’s 3 for 8, in the CL last year secured more Rating points than Sohail Tanvir’s 6-wicket haul. The reason was that they were defending a low total of 123 for 8, away in Chennai, against the mighty hosts. Narine’s mid-innings spell of 4-0-8-3 secured 856 Rating points. He got the wickets of Vijay, Raina and Dhoni, all for single figures.


Now for the team performances. I have listed above the team scores of 210 and above. There have been 36 instances of 200+ scores in the two leagues so far. Chennai tops the table with two scores of above 240. Surprisingly, nine of the 200+ scores have finished on the losing side. Five of these have been while chasing bigger 200+ scores. Match no 316, featured above, in last year’s CL is an instance of a team successfully chasing a total of 214. 

During the Indian T20 League this year, I will come out with some derived performance analysis.