500 Not Out: India in Test Matches

CK Nayadu’s 153 (11 sixes included) vs the MCC in 1926, Lala Amarnath’s (and India’s) first test century vs England in 1933, Vijay Hazare’s scoring twin hundreds (145 & 116) vs Australia in 1948, Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy’s 413 run opening stand vs New Zealand in 1956, Subhash Gupte’s (google who he is) 9-102 vs West Indies in 1959, Sunil Gavaskar’s aggregate 774 runs vs West Indies in 1971, Series wins in West Indies and England in 1971, India’s first win on Australian soil in 1977, Sunil Gavaskar crossing 10,000 test runs in 1987, Kapil Dev’s 432^nd wicket in 1994, Anil Kumble’s 10-74 in 1999, VVS Laxman’s 281 in 2001, Rahul Dravid’s 233 in 2003/04, Sachin Tendulkar’s 35^th test century in 2005, Anil Kumble’s 600^th test wicket in 2008, Sachin Tendulkar crossing the 15,000 run mark in 2014.

Indian cricket’s faithful servants have conjured moments which have gone down in its history as path breaking, awe inspiring, and jaw dropping achievements. On the occasion of India playing its 500^th test match, it is apt to have a look at how have its fortunes played out in the 84 years that India has been at the international stage.

The Lord’s in England played host to India’s first ever test match on June 25, 1932 vs England, a match India lost by 158 runs. It took India 20 years from this date, to register its first ever test win (vs England, 1952) and 36 years to register its first ever overseas series win (New Zealand, 1967/68).

While India’s domestic competitions were marked by insane run making feats/competitions (Vijay Merchant vs Vijay Hazare being the most prominent), things were a lot different on the international stage where not until the 1983 world cup triumph did India started to weigh itself favorably against all opposition and dispel the oft quoted joke that its batsmen had to be reminded that test matches were not timeless (justifiably so, India’s batsmen scored at 2.40 runs per over up until 1971, better only than Pakistan and New Zealand).

Of the 499 test matches that India has played so far, it has won 129, lost 157, drawn 212 and tied 1. India’s W/L ratio of 0.822 fifth worst in Test history (even below Sri Lanka). While this paints a fairly ordinary picture, it’s important to consider that of the 10 Indian cricketers who have played 100 test matches or more, 7 made their debut after 1989. The emergence of such prolific crop of cricketers has helped considerably improve the performance stats of Indian cricket since then, it’s W/ ratio has been the third best since both the 1990s and the 2000s, after Australia and South Africa respectively. Also, india has won 86 out of its 129 victories from 1990 onwards.

 

Decade	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	Drawn	W/L Ratio
1930s	7	0	5	0	2	0.000
1940s	13	0	6	0	7	0.000
1950s	44	6	17	0	21	0.353
1960s	52	9	21	0	22	0.429
1970s	64	17	19	0	28	0.895
1980s	81	11	21	1	48	0.524
1990s	69	18	20	0	31	0.900
2000s	103	40	27	0	36	1.481
2010s	66	28	21	0	17	1.333
Total	499	129	157	1	212	0.822

Table 1: Decade wise Performance Summary

Looking at India’s performance on a decade wise basis provides interesting insight into its performance over the years. Perhaps the most intriguing stat is India’s low W/L ratio in the 1990s, a decade which saw it emerging as the most formidable team to beat at home, but what offsets India’s unbelievable W/L ratio at home (3.4) is its dismal performance in away games (W.L Ratio: 0.07). Beginning form 2000 onwards was the most fulfilling period of Indian cricket when, under Saurav Ganguly’s captaincy, India began to dominate world cricket on the back of both its performance and commerce. The 2000s have also been the only decade where India’s overseas W/L ratio has been greater than or equal to 1.

Decade	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Played	3	5	25	36	34	42	30	47	26
Won	0	0	6	6	11	8	17	21	18
Lost	2	1	8	8	7	9	5	8	3
Drawn	1	4	11	22	16	24	8	18	5
W/L Ratio	0.00	0.00	0.75	0.75	1.57	0.89	3.40	2.63	6.00

Table 2: Performance Summary (Home Matches)

India’s subsequent decline in away performances from 2010 onwards is not a typically Indian trait, only 2 teams have had a W/L ratio of more than 1 during this period. Also, the W/L ratio in away matches in the ongoing decade for major test playing nations (excl. Zim and Ban) is .648, which the third worst for any decade after 1990s and 1980s. Filtering the period in consideration to start from 2013, the ratio plummets to.0.421, providing further fuel to the debate on doctoring pitches to gain an undue home advantage.

Decade	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Played	4	8	19	16	30	39	39	56	40
Won	0	0	0	3	6	3	1	19	10
Lost	3	5	9	13	12	12	15	19	18
Drawn	1	3	10	0	12	24	23	18	12
W/L Ratio	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.23	0.50	0.25	0.07	1.00	0.56

Table 3: Performance Summary (Away Matches)

In any case, what has been the defining feature of India’s performance overall is the gap between its performances at home and abroad, which was the narrowest in the ‘Ganguly Era’ (2000s). That was a decade when India registered match and series wins in Australia, England, West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand. In fact, had the Sydney fiasco taken a different turn, the decade would have gone by as one where India didn’t lose any rubber outside of the sub-continent (Except New Zealand, 2002/03 and Pakistan 2006), the only such instant in its history.

This was also a decade where India’s famous batting line up was in its full bloom, and the results showed in the form of India registering scores of 400 plus more often than it did during any other decade (26% of total innings). Easier wickets and better batsmen offer part of the explanation for this number, but there can be no debate around the fact that the 2000s was a decade India achieved the most satisfying results across all performance indicators.

Decade	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Total Innings (Away)	8	15	37	32	56	68	66	100	75
400+ scores	0	0	2	2	9	9	13	26	16
%	0%	0%	5%	6%	16%	13%	20%	26%	21%

Table 4: 400+ innings score frequency.

At least uptil the emergence of Sunil Gavaskar, India’s chances in a match relied more on the wicket-taking ability of its famous spin quartet than on the run making ability of its Batsmen. This trend has seen a stunning reversal especially post the 1990s (as the table above indicates), and since then the dependability has been reversed.

Nevertheless, as most of you would agree, India has produced lesser number of ‘great’ bowlers than its rivals in international cricket (bar New Zealand, Sri Lanka), which is one of the reasons why India has not been able to win overseas on a consistent basis. Fancy this, amongst all Indian bowlers to have taken 200 test wickets, no bowler averages lower than Bishen Bedi’s 28.71. This is the highest (worst, that is!) average amongst all test playing nations, all of which have at least one bowler with an average of less than 23.

Team	Bowler	Average
India	Bishen Bedi	28.71
South Africa	Dale Steyn	22.24
Australia	Glenn Mcgrath	21.64
West Indies	Malcolm Marshall	20.94
Sri Lanka	Muttiah Muralitharan	22.72
England	Fred Trueman	21.57
New Zealand	Richard Hadlee	22.29
Zimbabwe	Heath Streak	28.14
Pakistan	Imran Khan	22.81

Table 5: Lowest Averaging Bowlers

One way to ascertain the extent of this dependability is to look at how better/worse off the batting and bowling averages been when compared to the overall averages in the said period. Taking a decade wise look at this trend just goes to prove the hypothesis stated above. There has only been one decade (1990s) where Indian bowlers conceded lesser number of runs than the average yield in that decade. Batting, on the other hand, has seen a tremendous reversal, from scoring terribly less than other batsmen in the 1930s (29%), Indian batsmen have gone ahead of the curve in the 1990s and 2000s. The number for the 2010s presents a challenge, as replacements for India’s retired stellar batsmen look to find their mark.

Decade	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Overall	32.15	35.34	28.54	32.10	31.90	32.09	33.75	34.10	31.51
India	38.40	46.67	35.09	34.14	33.40	36.39	33.46	34.98	34.32
Factor	19%	32%	23%	6%	5%	13%	-1%	3%	9%

Table 6: Decade wise bowling efficacy

Decade	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
Overall	31.12	34.26	27.38	30.81	30.76	30.45	29.45	32.02	32.30
India	22.04	24.66	26.45	28.06	30.05	32.13	33.10	35.98	33.03
Factor	-29%	-28%	-3%	-9%	-2%	6%	12%	12%	2%

Table 7: Decade wise Batting efficacy. 

If your average cricket fan is asked to name three of the greatest cricketers that India has produced over the years, the most probable names would be: Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar. Although Rahul Dravid might replace Gavaskar for the recently born follower, the question is unlikely to bring out any other names beyond these four people.

Without ever contesting he stature of the players named above, one should also concede that there have been many who have contributed significantly to India’s performances over the years. We shall now take a decade wise look at the most prolific and the most pivotal players in each of them.

For this exercise, I have followed a very simple arithmetic:

1. Mentioned the most prolific batsman/bowler in a said decade.
2. Calculate a prolificacy factor, arrived at by dividing his total runs by the number of runs of the next best.
3. Calculate an efficacy factor, by dividing the average of the most prolific batsman/bowler by the next best.
4. In case some other cricketer has a better batting/bowling average (considering a suitable cut-off), that average is considered as the benchmark.
5. Multiply both the factors to arrive at an overall ‘Value Factor’.

A similar arithmetic has been followed to calculate the value factor for performance in wins, to give a balanced/alternate view of performance value.

Higher the value factor for a player during any decade would mean that the team’s fortunes depended more on his shoulders than anyone else. A high value factor would likely have an adverse effect on the team’s W/L ratio (though it hasn’t been tested).

The table brings out names that won’t surprise many, those who follow the game would have known that Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar’s name to come up as the most prolific batsmen in their respective decades. What the table demonstrated is the extent to which, these batsmen were better than the next best. From the 1940s onwards, Vijay Hazare, with a factor of 1.58, has been the most prolific batsmen in any decade, followed by Sachin Tendulkar (1.55-1990s) and Sunil Gavaskar (1.22-1970s). Sachin Tendulkar’s score seems all the more remarkable because more players than ever were having an extended run. Rahul Dravid’s factor is also remarkable given the talent around in that decade, and his ability to outshine them is a testament to his value and genius.

Decade	Player Name	Mtchs	Runs	Avg	Following Batsman	Runs	Best/Next Best Average	Avg	Prolificacy Factor	Efficacy Factor	Value Factor
1930s	V.Merchant	6	460	38.33	CK Nayadu	350	D.Hussain	42.33	1.31	0.91	1.19
1940s	V.Hazare	13	1095	49.77	R. Modi	695	R.Modi	49.78	1.58	1.00	1.58
1950s	P.Umrigar	43	2520	39.38	P. Roy	2280	V.Hazare	45.7	1.11	0.86	0.95
1960s	C.Borde	45	2562	37.13	MAK Pataudi	2552	P.Umrigar	51.47	1.00	0.72	0.72
1970s	S.Gavaskar	60	5647	55.91	G. Vishwanath	4611	S.Gavaskar	55.91	1.22	1.00	1.22
1980s	D.Vengsarkar	71	4501	46.89	S. Gavaskar	4475	M.Amarnath	47.73	1.01	0.98	0.99
1990s	S.Tendulkar	69	5626	58.00	M. Azharuddin	3880	V.Kambli	54.20	1.45	1.07	1.55
2000s	R.Dravid	102	8535	55.42	S.Tendulkar	7129	G.Gambhir	56.73	1.20	0.98	1.17
2010s	V.Kohli	45	3245	45.07	S.Tendulkar	2951	S.Tendulkar	50.01	1.10	0.90	0.99

Table 8: Batsman Value (All Matches)

 If the bowling table brings out one stunning statistic, it is that for Kapil Dev in the 1980s, not only was Kapil Dev carrying the entire bowling on his shoulders, he was doing with an effect that none of the Indian bowlers have even come close to. His factor of 2.17 is followed by Anil Kumble (1.75-1990s) and Erapalli Prasanna (1.38-1960s). India’s low W/L ratio during the 1980s and 1960s (0.524 and 0.429) is a likely outcome of it’s over dependence on one star performer.

Decade	Player Name	Mtchs	Wkts	Ave	Following Bowler	Wkts	Bowler	Avg	Wkts Factor	Ave Factor	Overall Factor
1930s	Amar Singh	7	28	30.64	M.Nisar	25	M.Nisar	28.25	1.12	0.92	1.03
1940s	V.Mankad	13	40	41.65	L.Amarnath	29	D.Phadkar	30.22	1.38	0.73	1.00
1950s	S.Gupte	31	134	29.13	V.Mankad	122	G.Ahmed	28.18	1.10	0.97	1.06
1960s	E.Prasanna	22	113	27.05	B.Nandkarni	76	S.V’Raghavan	25.17	1.49	0.93	1.38
1970s	B.Bedi	48	196	29.79	B.C’Shekhar	180	Kapil Dev	27.73	1.09	0.93	1.01
1980s	Kapil Dev	80	272	29.54	R.Shastri	141	R.Binny	33.28	1.93	1.13	2.17
1990s	A.Kumble	58	264	27.81	J.Srinath	162	V.Raju	29.79	1.63	1.07	1.75
2000s	A.Kumble	74	355	31.03	H.Singh	322	H.Singh	30.31	1.10	0.98	1.08
2010s	R Ashwin	36	193	25.20	I.Sharma	155	R.Jadeja	23.71	1.25	0.94	1.17

Table 9: Bowler Value (All Matches)

The table for wins has some interesting names topping their decades as the most valuable match-winners. Vinoo Mankad replaces Polly Umrigar has the most vital match winner of the 1950s, Umrigar, in turn replaces Chandu Borde as the match winner of the ‘60s. Gundappa Vishwanath replaces Sunil Gavaskar in the 1970s, and Cheteshwar Pujara replaces Virat Kohli in the 2010s.

None of Gundappa Viswanath’s 14 test centuries were in a losing cause, his replacing Gavaskar shouldn’t be any surprise to those who know this fact. There is a strong case for Dilip Vengsarkar to be counted in the same breath as Gavaskar as well since it was solely on his back that India was winning matches in the 1980s (2.65), briefly during which he was also the most prolific batsman in the world. Sachin Tendulkar had the company of Mohammad Azharuddin and Vinod Kambli as pivotal match-winners which reduced his overall value and similar is the case with Cheteshwar Pujara (2010s).

Rahul Dravid’s claim as the momentum changing batsman during the 2000s gets a string boost as he emerges with a high value factor (1.20) especially when seen in the light of the fact that there were other great names (Tendulkar, Laxman, Sehwag) in the fray.

Decade	Player Name	Mtchs	Runs	Ave	Following Batsman	Runs	Best/Next Best Average	Avg	Prolificacy Factor	Efficacy Factor	Value Factor
1950s	V.Mankad	5	563	112.6	P.Umrigar	371	V.Hazare	121	1.52	0.93	1.41
1960s	MAK Pataudi	9	705	44.1	A.Wadekar	507	A.Wadekar	63	1.39	0.70	0.97
1970s	G.Viswanath	16	1359	50.3	S.Gavaskar	1124	S.Gavaskar	45	1.21	1.12	1.35
1980s	D.Vengsarkar	10	895	74.6	S.Gavaskar	547	M.Amarnath	46	1.64	1.62	2.65
1990s	S.Tendulkar	18	1362	59.2	M.Azharuddin	1336	V.Kambli	74	1.02	0.80	0.82
2000s	R.Dravid	39	3810	74.7	S.Tendulkar	3163	R.Dravid	75	1.20	1.00	1.20
2010s	C.Pujara	17	1551	64.6	S.Tendulkar	1421	VVS Laxman	94	1.09	0.69	0.75

                                                    Table 10: Batsman Value (Wins)

Overall	Player Name	Mtchs	Wkts	Ave	Following Bowler	Wkts	Bowler	Avg	Wkts Factor	Ave Factor	Overall Factor
1950s	V.Mankad	5	41	13.32	S.Gupte	22	Jasu Patel	11.94	1.86	0.90	1.67
1960s	E.Prasanna	6	40	17.83	B.Bedi	25	B.Nandkarni	14.00	1.60	0.79	1.26
1970s	B.C’Shekhar	12	86	18.31	B.Bedi	72	E.Prasanna	17.41	1.19	0.95	1.14
1980s	Kapil Dev	11	49	18.0	N.Hirwani	29	M.Singh	11.25	1.69	0.63	1.06
1990s	A.Kumble	17	126	17.05	V.Raju	57	J.Srinath	18.38	2.21	1.08	2.38
2000s	H.Singh	31	175	21.55	A.Kumble	162	A.Kumble	20.07	1.08	0.93	1.01
2010s	R Ashwin	18	124	18.20	P.Ojha	78	R.Jadeja	15.59	1.59	0.86	1.36

Table 11: Bowler Value (Wins)

The bowler charts corroborates the claim Anil Kumble has as the biggest match-winner of the 1990s, his exploits on home surfaces are a stuff of legend and his factor brings it out clearly given that India registered all but 1 of its wins during this period at home. Ravi Ashwin’s exploits at home and against relatively weaker opposition like West Indies has catapulted his numbers (conventional and derived) into the elite league. But a win is a win isn’t it, and winning against weaker opposition is also a characteristic of a strong team.

India has come a long way since Lala Amarath registered the first test century by an Indian,  its players have broken records, ripped bowling attacks apart and defied them to the brink of them feeling like ripping their gear apart in frustration. While India has established an undeniable reputation as a cricket superpower, it is yet to tick some pivotal boxes which would springboard it as a formidable force wherever it tours/travels.

But for now, lets celebrate those who have helped us believe in a future of such daring expectations.

RANGANA HERATH: SRI LANKA’S LYNCHPIN

Herath has often been compared with Stuart Macgill, the Australian leg spinner who many believe lost out on his true stature in the game, having played all of it in the shadow of that magician Shane Warne. In spite of his talent, he only got to play in 44 tests. What often escapes people’s attention is that in the 16 matches that they played together, Macgill took more wickets than Warne. Anyways, this piece is not about the aforementioned players. Nevertheless, what I do want to bring out by stating the popular comparison of Herath with Macgill is that Herath has carved a legacy of his own, and unlike Macgill, is the chief baggage carrier of his team’s fortunes. He no longer is in the shadow of his greater contemporary Muttiah Muralitharan.

Rangana Herath made his international debut in 1999, and is the only active cricketer to have featured in a test match from the previous millennium. What’s remarkable about his career is his resurgence as a top class test bowler post the retirement of Muralitharan and much like what fascinated me about Courtney Walsh, he took on this challenge with a determination that belied his age (31). His career can be divided into two parts, from his debut till Dec 2008, and from Jul 2009 to the present day.

The way this comparison fans out is truly remarkable, uptil late 2008, Herath had featured in only 14 test matches thanks mainly to Vaas and Muralitharan carrying Sri Lanka’s fortunes on their backs. Post the retirement of both, Herath has emerged as a premier bowler in a side which has not seen bowling of considerable talent come out of its talent bank. Herath has taken 277 wickets from Jul 2009 onwards, and all of his five and ten wicket hauls have come in this phase. Herath’s tally of 277 wickets during this phase is only behind James Anderson and Stuart Broad, but his number of 5-fors and 10 fors are not even approached by any bowler. Herath’s consistency, in terms of wickets/matches ratio (4.82) is bettered only by Ravichandran Ashwin (5.55) and Saeed Ajmal (5.09). Needless to say, Herath has truly been born again.

Period	Mtch	Runs	Wkts	Avg	5WI	10WM
22 Sep 1999 – 26 Dec 2008	14	1418	36	39.39	0	0
4 Jul 2009 – 30 Jul 2016	57	7861	277	28.37	24	5
Overall	71	9279	313	29.64	24	5

Table 1: Herath Career Split

 

Player	Mat	Runs	Wkts	Ave	SR	5WI	10WM
James Anderson	80	8592	330	26.03	55.8	15	3
Stuart Broad	79	8260	306	26.99	54.3	14	2
Rangana Herath	57	7861	277	28.37	62.1	24	5
Dale Steyn	49	5121	236	21.69	43.5	14	2
Graham Swann	53	6750	221	30.54	60.7	15	3
Mitchell Johnson	52	6258	219	28.57	48.8	10	2
Nathan Lyon	55	6530	200	32.65	62	7	1
Morne Morkel	54	5178	187	27.68	56.3	5	0
Ravi Ashwin	33	4596	183	25.11	51.7	17	4
Peter Siddle	54	5414	179	30.24	60.5	7	0
Saeed Ajmal	35	5003	178	28.1	65.1	10	4
Tim Southee	44	4785	156	30.67	61.8	3	1

Table 2: Top Bowlers (Jul’09-Jul’16) – Min 150 Wickets.

Herath’s impact as Sri Lanka’s pivotal match-winner with the ball is also firmly (and remarkably) established when it is seen that he has taken more than 100 wickets more than the next bowler in matches that Sri Lanka has won since Jul 2009. Not only this, Herath has taken the highest proportion of wickets to total team wickets in this period, with only Dale Steyn giving him some competition in this regard. His average in won matches is also bettered only by Dale Steyn, Ravi Ashwin, and Vernon Philander. What’s worth a mention is that all his 5 career 10-fors have come in matches that Sri Lanka has won, if this doesn’t convey his impact then nothing will ever do.

Country	Wkts	Top Bowler	Wkts	% of team wickets
England	819	James Anderson	179	22%
Australia	814	Mitchell Johnson	148	18%
India	579	Ravi Ashwin	121	21%
South Africa	497	Dale Steyn	158	32%
Pakistan	476	Saeed Ajmal	80	17%
Sri Lanka	399	Rangana Herath	134	34%
New Zealand	340	Tim Southee	68	20%
West Indies	240	Kemar Roach	34	14%
Bangladesh	120	Shakib Al Hasan	35	29%

Table 3: Proportion of team wickets in won matches (Jul’09-Jul’16)

Herath has also developed a knack of picking up wickets a handful at a time. Considering wickets taken in hauls of 4 wickets or more, Herath is only behind Sydney Barnes, Muttiah Muralitharan, Richard Hadlee, Clarrie Grimmett and Erapalli Prasanna (surprised?) in having taken the highest proportion of career wickets in such hauls.

Player	Mat	Wkts	Wkts in 4 and 5 wkt hauls	%
Sydney Barnes	27	189	151	79.9
Muttiah Muralitharan	133	800	563	70.4
Richard Hadlee	86	431	301	69.8
Clarrie Grimmett	37	216	148	68.5
Erapalli Prasanna	49	189	125	66.1
Ravi Ashwin	33	183	119	65.0
Rangana Herath	65	293	188	64.2
Waqar Younis	87	373	233	62.5
Hugh Tayfield	37	170	105	61.8
Dennis Lillee	70	355	218	61.4
Richie Benaud	63	248	149	60.1

Table 4: 4 and 5 wkt hauls as % of total Wickets

Herath’s five for vs Australia in the recently concluded match is the 24^th of his career, he is now placed joint 10^th in the all-time list, a fascinating aspect of his career when seen in light of the fact that 24 bowlers have taken more wickets than Herath’s 313.

Herath’s five-for vs Australia is one of the many instances that Herath has taken a bagful of wickets in setting up/clinching a win. From Jul 2009 onwards, Herath has taken the most number of wickets in the 3^rd and 4^th innings of a test match, hence setting up matches for Sri Lanka more often than any other bowler in the world during this period. He is followed in this list by James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann. Herath’s average is bettered only by Ravi Ashwin and Dale Steyn.

Player	Mat	Runs	Wkts	Ave	SR
Rangana Herath	49	3291	134	24.55	53.50
James Anderson	73	3370	129	26.12	56.20
Stuart Broad	72	3140	111	28.28	57.60
Graeme Swann	47	3158	110	28.70	58.40
Mitchell Johnson	48	2560	98	26.12	47.60
Ravichandran Ashwin	29	1902	93	20.45	43.30
Dale Steyn	42	2139	92	23.25	46.40
Nathan Lyon	53	2709	82	33.03	63.30
Morne Morkel	46	1826	73	25.01	56.40
Saeed Ajmal	32	1958	73	26.82	63.10
Tim Southee	40	1923	63	30.52	59.70
Peter Siddle	49	2108	59	35.72	71.60
Ryan Harris	25	1156	58	19.93	40.70
Trent Boult	34	1653	57	29.00	58.40
Ishant Sharma	41	1901	57	33.35	61.60
Vernon Philander	28	1039	55	18.89	45.20
Kemar Roach	30	1183	50	23.66	47.40

Table 5: Wickets in 3^rd and 4^th innings (Jul’09-Jul’16)

This is only an indicative analysis as many more aspects of Herath’s career can be explored in greater depth. But one can safely concur that Herath’s reputation as a test blower will only grow. While his age may shorty begin to challenge his ability, but we’re sure he will find a way to overcome this hurdle too.

‘Tony Greig: What a playa, what a wonderful playa’

Sharjah, 22 Apr 1998; India were playing Australia in what was a virtual qualifier for a spot in the final of the Coca Cola Cup. Chasing a target of 276 in 46 overs (238 to qualify for the final), revised from 284 in 50 overs due to a desert costing 4 overs of play. When play resumed after the storm, India were placed at 143/4 in 31 overs, needing 95 runs in 15 overs to qualify for the final, and 131 to win the game (which seemed highly unlikely).

Sachin Tendulkar hoisted a slower ball from Kasprowickz for a six in front of the sight screen to end the 32^nd over and get India past the 150 mark. He kept batting with relative restraint until about the 38^th over, the match equation stood at 60 runs needed off 56 balls for India to qualify for the final. Starting with a straight, almost nonchalant, six off Steve Waugh, Tendulkar produced an awe (and romance) inspiring display of batting which has not been experienced by his fans since then. By the time the dust of that onslaught settled with his dismissal, India had not only cruised past the qualifying score (with 20 balls remaining) but with 34 runs required, looked poised for a win.

But apart from Tendulkar’s pyrotechnics, there’s something else which will be associated with that great night almost for eternity. It is Anthony William (Tony) Greig’s pyrotechnics played out from behind the microphone. I think it’s a pardonable exaggeration to say that Grieg’s commentary has had a big role to play for the cult status that innings of Tendulkar has acquired over the years. With Greig’s demise on Dec 29, 2012, Cricket lost one of its most avid disciples. He played a key role in making cricket the spectacle (limited overs if only) it is today by promoting Kerry Packer’s World Series cricket.

But is Tony Greig to be remembered only for his stint behind the microphone? After all, he represented England in 58 test matches, led them in 14, scored almost 3600 runs and took 141 wickets with medium place and spin bowling. I believe Tony Grieg is one of the most under-rated cricketers of his generation.

Tony Greig played 58 test matches between a five year period between 1972 and 1977. It is a testament to his abilities as a genuine all-rounder that during his career, he scored the most runs, and took the most number of wickets for any England player after Derek Underwood. What’s even more impressive is that even amongst all test playing nations, only Greg Chappell scored more runs than Greig, and apart from Derek Underwood, only Dennis Lille took more wickets than Greig’s 141.

One must also remember that Greig was an all-rounder, so in-spite of having played more matches than any other cricketer during his career, he didn’t get the bandwidth of either a specialist batsman or a bowler. So for an all-rounder to be at the top of the batting and bowling charts across any time frame is quite an achievement.

As far as his batting is concerned, Consistency is the word which describes it best. For one thing, his career average never dropped below 40, which is mighty impressive for an all-rounder. Not only that, Greig was amongst the select few batsmen who averaged more than 50 in test wins during his career span. Although he placed below several batsmen (luminaries, i.e.), but he still had a better average than Doug Walters and Ian Chappell. Also, 3 of his 8 test centuries came in winning causes.

(Among other things, one can’t help but notice that it’s Gundappa Viswanath instead of Sunil Gavaskar who features as the only Indian on this list. In fact, India never lost a test when Viswanath scored a century, but that’s a separate story altogether.)

Player Name	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Geoff Boycott	7	12	827	75.18	4	3
Gordon Greenidge	8	15	1015	72.50	5	5
Viv Richards	11	17	1037	69.13	4	2
Greg Chappell	23	38	2133	68.80	8	13
Clive Lloyd	14	22	1312	65.60	5	3
Roy Fredericks	14	23	1227	61.35	4	9
Dennis Amiss	13	20	1002	58.94	3	2
Ian Redpath	15	28	1437	57.48	6	6
Alvin Kallicharran	12	19	968	56.94	2	5
Gundappa Viswanath	9	18	817	54.46	2	4
Tony Greig	17	22	1064	53.20	3	8
Doug Walters	15	23	975	48.75	3	7
Ian Chappell	20	35	1481	46.28	3	8
Rodney Marsh	23	34	1169	38.96	3	5

Table 1: Average in test wins (8 Jan 1972-25 Aug 1977)- min 750 runs.

Greig’s consistency as a batsman is also illustrated by his series by series record. He played a total 15 test series, and in 10 of them he averaged over 35. One must also not forget the runs he scored in ‘tough-rubbers’; most evident is his performance vs Australia in the 1974/75 ashes played down under. The fierce pace of Lillee and Thomson terrified England batsmen throughout the six match series; eventually won 4-1 by Australia. Not only was Greig the highest scoring England batsmen with 446 runs, but was the only England batsman apart from John Edrich to average more than 40.
In the 1976 Wisden Trophy vs the West Indies, marked by controversy over his comments of making the West Indies ‘Grovel’, Greig was nowhere near the top of the batting charts which was dominated exclusively by three West Indies batsmen (Richards, Greenidge, Fredericks), but notably he was amongst the only England batsmen along with Dennis Amiss, Alan Knott and David Steele to have managed a century against the West Indies’ menacing pace battery.

For a majority of his career, Greig batted at no.6, and till date he has scored the most runs at this position apart from Steve Waugh, Hashan Tillakaratne and VVS Laxman. Although his average looks a bit mediocre compared to other batsmen on the list, but it must be remembered again that Greig was an all-rounder, and (amongst all-rounders) only Gary Sobers (53.34) averaged more than him at this position whereas Ian Botham averaged only 29.23. That is some class to be at par with.

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Steve Waugh	66	79	3165	51.04	6	16
Hashan Tillakaratne	58	74	2843	47.38	7	11
VVS Laxman	52	67	2760	50.18	5	20
Tony Greig	45	67	2741	43.50	7	15
Ian Botham	66	94	2690	29.23	5	14
Gary Sobers	42	57	2614	53.34	8	11
Allan Border	48	63	2556	52.16	6	17
Shiv Chanderpaul	40	49	2528	64.82	7	16
Asad Shafiq	39	56	2420	46.53	8	12
AB de Villiers	40	50	2394	52.04	5	14
Clive Lloyd	40	47	2114	49.16	6	13
Tillakaratne Dilshan	42	52	2087	46.37	5	8
Angelo Matthews	34	51	2044	49.85	4	11

Table 2: Most runs at No.6

Greig is amongst the most prolific all-rounders not only during his time, but in test cricket history as well. Fancy this, Greig is one of the 15 select players to have scored 300 runs and taken 20 wickets in a test series. What’s even more interesting is that he is the only England all-rounder to have breached this double along with Andrew Flintoff; Ian Botham missed the mark by one run but his performance in the concerned rubber (1981 Ashes) is about much more than just the numbers, it uplifted an entire nation, or a team to say the least.
If we reduce the cut-off to 300 runs and 15 wickets, the list of achievement expands to 34, but Grieg is again the only Englishman to have breached the double twice. The only other players to have bettered Greig’s frequency are Sobers (5), Miller (4), and Botham (3). All, apart from Miller, played a substantial number of matches more than Greig.

Although more of a batting all-rounder, Greig bowling was more than useful, none more so than the one instance where he took 13 wickets in a match vs West Indies at port of spain (1972) is the 5^th best bowling performance by an England bowler from the 2^nd World war to the present day.

Apart from his utilities as a batsman and bowler, Greig was also an extremely good fielder as is evident from the number of catches he took (87). At the time if his retirement in 1977, only 5 fieldsmen; Colin Cowdrey (120), Wally Hammond (110), Gary Sobers (109), Ian Chappell (103), Bob Simpson (99) had taken more catches then Greig. Removing the time filter to include all fieldsmen till the present day, Greig’s catches/inns ratio (.813) is amongst the best for a non-wicketkeeper. Only 6 fielders in the history of the game have a better ratio than Greig’s.

Player	Mat	Inns	Ct	Dis/Inn
Eknath Solkar	27	50	53	1.060
Darren Sammy	38	68	65	0.956
Bob Simpson	62	117	110	0.940
Brian Young	35	58	54	0.931
Ross Taylor	69	129	112	0.868
Stephen Fleming	111	199	171	0.859
Tony Greig	58	107	87	0.813
Mark Taylor	104	197	157	0.797
Bruce Mitchell	42	71	56	0.789
Graeme Hick	65	115	90	0.783

Table 3: Catches/inns (Min.50 catches)

As an all-rounder, Greig stands in absolute elite company when it comes to the difference between batting and bowling averages of top all-rounders across eras. Considering all-rounders having achieved a double 3000 runs and 100 wickets, Greig’s ‘average difference’ (8.23) is bettered only by Gary Sobers, Jacques Kallis and Imran Khan. Now that’s cricketing royalty, because even if we reduce the career runs cut-off to 2000 runs, Greig’s difference is still only bettered by 5 players.

Player	Matches	Runs	Bat Av	Wkts	Bowl Av	Ave Diff
Gary Sobers	93	8032	57.78	235	34.03	23.75
Jacques Kallis	166	13289	55.37	292	32.65	22.72
Imran Khan	88	3807	37.69	362	22.81	14.88
Shaun Pollock	108	3781	32.31	421	23.11	9.2
Tony Grieg	58	3599	40.43	141	32.2	8.23
Ian Botham	102	5200	33.54	383	28.4	5.14
Richard Hadlee	86	3124	27.16	431	22.29	4.87
Chris Cairns	62	3320	33.53	218	29.4	4.13
Kapil Dev	131	5248	31.05	434	29.64	1.41
Andrew Flintoff	79	3845	31.77	226	32.78	-1.01
Daniel Vettori	113	4531	30.00	362	34.36	-4.36
Ravi Shastri	80	3830	35.79	151	40.96	-5.17
Chaminda Vaas	111	3089	24.32	355	29.58	-5.26
Shane Warne	145	3154	17.32	708	25.41	-8.09
Carl Hooper	102	5762	36.46	114	49.42	-12.96

Table 4: Average difference of All-Rounders (Min.3000 runs and 100 wickets)

Tony Greig’s most remembered facet is his enthusiastic calling of cricket action from behind the microphone, so much so that his exploits as a cricketer are easily forgotten. But if there’s one thing that he carried over from his cricketing career to a commentator, and what would make those who didn’t watch him play, believe in his glitter of his career achievements was his passion and persona; providing ample evidence that he was brilliant at whatever he did.

Waqar Younis: Like Lightning

Independent since the same number of years as India, Pakistan has found it hard to establish itself as a force to reckon with, both politically and economically. The (absolute) homogeneity of the religion of its citizens was both the necessity and the basis on which the nation was founded. The country stands today, it seems, in perpetual wait for relief from gunshots and wounds, for an opportunity to out-do its mighty neighbor (in acceptable spheres) and for a bigger occasion to celebrate and cherish than the 1992 world cup triumph, which to many Pakistanis is the only shining beacon in its otherwise tumultuous history.

But, there are two spheres where Pakistan can claim to have outdone its mighty neighbor; Music, and till about 1999, Cricket. The first test series between the two nations was held in India in 1952, India won the rubber 2-1 and this was to remain the only conclusive decision in the 3 bilateral rubbers held till 1961, a period in which the two nations drew 13 consecutive matches.

Cricketing ties were resumed through India’s 3 test tour of Pakistan in 1978; Pakistan beat India 2-0 thanks largely to the heroics of Zaheer Abbas (whose aggregate of 583 runs was a record for a 3 match series) and Javed Miandad. The baton was then passed on to a certain Imran Khan during India’s second tour to Pakistan in 1982/83. Bowling at humiliating pace throughout, Imran took 40 wickets in the six test series and along with Mudassar Nazar (761 runs)  summed up India’s 3-0 defeat. This, coupled with dominating performances in one day matches at Sharjah in the latter half of the decade, meant that Pakistan seemed unbeatable to the average Indian cricket lover.

Waqar Younis only helped further this reputation when he smacked Tendulkar on the jaw at Sialkot in 1989 as India was holding on to draw a historic test series in Pakistan. A bowler of raw pace back then, in 1992, Waqar Younis was a subject of much interest to purists the world-over, amazed as they were at the phenomenon of reverse swing.

TEST MATCHES

Waqar Younis was at his peak as a test match bowler between 15 Nov 1989 and 28 Sep 1994. During this period, Waqar was undoubtedly the most prolific wicket taker in the world, taking 187 wickets in 32 matches; 20 wickets more than the second placed Wasim Akram in almost the same number of matches. Waqar took an astonishing 5.8 wickets per match, comfortably ahead of Wasim (5.4) and Ambrose (5.15). But what’s most amazing about these statistics is Waqar’s unbelievable consistency of bagging wickets by the handful. Waqar was talking a 5-for once every 3 innings, which is way ahead of Wasim (4.3) and Ambrose (5.8). Waqar’s average is only behind Curtly Ambrose (18.71) while his strike rate of 35.4 is clearly ahead of the next placed Wasim Akram (46.6).

Player	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Ave	SR	5WI	10WM
Waqar Younis	32	57	187	18.85	35.4	19	4
Wasim Akram	31	56	167	20.46	46.6	13	2
Curtly Ambrose	31	58	159	18.71	51.0	10	3
Merv Hughes	36	66	158	25.99	54.9	4	0
Craig McDermott	34	59	151	26.21	55.4	6	2
Shane Warne	27	48	124	23.62	67.4	6	1
Danny Morrison	27	43	103	32.78	59.1	7	0
Courtney Walsh	31	58	100	28.66	65.7	2	0
Phil DeFreitas	26	46	99	27.58	59.1	3	0
Devon Malcolm	27	49	97	33.73	61.0	5	2

 Table 1: Top Bowlers in Test Matches (15 Nov 1989 – 28 Sep 1994)

During this period, Waqar was also the most wicket-taker in wins, taking 123 wickets in 15 matches with a jaw-dropping WPM (Wickets-per Match) ratio of 8.2. Curtly Ambrose (98) and Wasim Akram (92) are the next placed bowlers again. His average and strike rate are the best of the lot too.
Waqar also took 13 of career 22 5-fors in these 15 matches. Such a skewed concentration of wickets may show that Waqar peaked very early but while he did, he stood head and shoulders above the others.

Player	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Ave	SR	5WI	10WM
Waqar Younis	15	30	123	14.46	28.8	13	4
Curtly Ambrose	15	30	98	14.98	42.3	7	3
Wasim Akram	13	26	92	15.67	36.6	7	1
Merv Hughes	17	34	80	22.65	52.6	1	0
Craig McDermott	15	28	74	22.9	51.8	4	2
Shane Warne	12	24	69	19.85	59.8	3	0
Anil Kumble	8	16	55	19.36	50.3	4	1
Courtney Walsh	14	28	54	24.27	54.4	0	0
Phil DeFreitas	7	14	40	19.85	45.2	2	0

Table 2: Wickets in Wins (15 Nov 1989 – 28 Sep 1994)

During his career span, Waqar was amongst the most formidable wicket takers in winning causes. His tally of 222 wickets is bettered only by Glenn Mcgrath (297) and Muttiah Muralidaran (236). His average is also an impressive 18.20, and only Ambrose, Murali, Donald, Kumble and Wasim have a better average but the numbers are packed closely. One thing that stands out for Waqar yet again is his strike rate, which is better than any bowler who took more than 100 wickets in matches won during his career span. Incidentally, Waqar’s strike rate of 43.4 is the second best in the history of cricket (After Dale Steyn) if the cut off is taken at 200 wickets and the fourth best when the cut-off is reduced to 100 wickets.

Player	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Ave	SR	5WI	10WM
Curtly Ambrose	33	65	184	15.19	41.9	12	3
Muttiah Muralitharan	29	57	236	16.20	46.2	22	10
Allan Donald	33	64	187	16.79	35.5	14	3
Shaun Pollock	34	67	166	17.19	45.3	9	1
Anil Kumble	23	46	170	17.34	45.2	12	3
Wasim Akram	33	65	188	18.19	41.6	12	2
Waqar Younis	39	78	222	18.20	35.0	14	4
Glenn Mcgrath	59	118	297	19.16	46.9	13	3
Courtney Walsh	33	66	163	19.35	45.8	7	1

Table 3: Wickets in Wins (15 Nov 1989 – 2 Jan 2003)

One of Waqar’s (and Wasim’s) outstanding abilities was to ball Yorker/full length balls at high speed which resulted in him taking a lot of wickets in the form of a bowled/LBW dismissal. 212 out of this total 373 career wickets came in the form of the two modes of dismissal, a proportion (56.8%) which is only behind England’s Brian Statham (57.1%). Ray Lindwall and Wasim Akram are the other two bowers to take more than 50% of their wickets in this manner. One thing to note in the complete list is that of the 19 bowlers who have a proportion of greater than 40%, few (6) bowled in the 2000s, and even fewer (2) made their debuts in the same decade (Rangana Herath and Matthew Hoggard). Have batsmen today, found a technique to avoid the ball from hitting the timber, or have the bowlers lost the penetrative guile is a matter of deeper analysis.

Bowler	Bowled/LBW	Total	Prop
Statham	144	252	57.14
Waqar	212	373	56.84
Lindwall	128	228	56.14
Akram	221	414	53.38
Swann	127	255	49.80
Garner	126	259	48.65
Imran	176	362	48.62
Holding	116	249	46.59
Trueman	143	307	46.58
Kapil Dev	199	434	45.85

Table 4: Bowled/LBW wickets (% of total Wickets)

COMPARISON WITH WASIM

Waqar formed with Wasim Akram, one of the most deadly ad effective fast bowling partnerships of all time. In the 61 matches that they played together, they took almost the same number of wickets, but whereas Waqar took wickets at a better Strike Rate, Wasim outdid him in average, 5-fors and 10-fors. Also note that differences in these parameters are almost negligible as both bowlers were neck and neck in terms of wicket taking abilities.

Waqar Younis
Mat	Inns	Runs	Wkts	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
61	110	6351	277	22.92	3.27	42	17	3
Wasim Akram
Mat	Inns	Runs	Wkts	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
61	109	6016	282	21.33	2.6	49.2	20	4

Table 5: Wasim and Waqar (Matches played together)

In the 28 matches that they played and won together, there again is little to differentiate between the two. They took almost the same number of wickets, gave away the same number of rune per wicket, and took the same number of 5 and 10 fors. Nevertheless, Waqar comes up trumps when it comes to strike rate, proof positive of the mindset of attacking bowling ingrained into him by his mentor Imran Khan.

Waqar Younis
Mat	Inns	Runs	Wkts	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
28	56	2969	165	17.99	3.15	34.2	10	2
Wasim Akram
Mat	Inns	Runs	Wkts	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
28	55	2902	161	18.02	2.62	41.1	11	2

Table 6: Wasim and Waqar (Matches won together)

A closer look at the numbers of Wasim and Waqar, does bring out one facet that catapults Wasim into the category of all-time greats and Waqar into those who touched and missed; Consistency. Wasim’s numbers did not vary no matter what the opposition and the venue, whereas at least one of the two had to be in Waqar’s favour for him to do well. Breaking the matches they played together by opposition, the difference between Wasim’s highest and lowest average vs an opposition is only 12.21, whereas for Waqar, the difference is 39.06. A similar story prevails when it comes to strike rate as Wasim was at his best against every opposition (difference: 21.3) while Waqar had more choices (difference: 62.5).

	Waqar	Wasim	Waqar	Wasim	Waqar	Wasim
Opposition	Wkts		Average		SR
India	8	21	48.75	23.76	80.20	53.60
Australia	24	42	34.37	21.66	66.00	52.40
New Zealand	45	48	17.86	16.41	38.90	40.90
West Indies	47	57	23.12	19.64	39.50	42.10
Sri Lanka	48	35	21.27	20.20	36.00	49.30
England	44	37	25.93	28.62	46.10	62.20
Zimbabwe	34	34	21.91	20.11	41.80	47.20
South Africa	14	8	15.14	24.37	27.70	51.70
Bangladesh	13	0	9.69	–	17.70	–

Table 7: Wasim and Waqar (Performance vs Opposition in matches played together).

ONE DAY INTERNATIONALS

Excellent as they are in test matches, Waqar’s ODI exploits are a notch above his test performances. To this date, Waqar remains one of the only 4 bowlers to have taken more than 400 ODI wickets (Muralitharan, Wasim Akram and Chaminda Vaas are the others). Waqar’s peak as an ODI bowler was the 7 1/2 year period between 1 May 1990 and 5 Nov 1997. His tally of 243 wickets is comfortable ahead of the second places Wasim Akram (211), his strike rate is bettered only by team-mate Saqlain Mushtaq and only Saqlain, Wasim and Donald have a better average.

Player	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Ave	SR	4W	5W
Waqar Younis	141	140	243	22.10	29.0	9	8
Wasim Akram	140	139	212	21.83	34.6	11	3
A Kumble	124	121	167	27.09	39.6	5	2
J Srinath	123	121	158	28.96	40.4	2	2
AA Donald	89	88	150	22.08	32.2	5	2
Aaqib Javed	119	116	138	30.00	42.1	2	4
CEL Ambrose	111	110	136	25.02	43.3	2	2
Saqlain Mushtaq	71	68	133	19.69	27.6	5	4
SK Warne	76	75	129	22.16	33.0	9	1
ST Jayasuriya	136	117	123	33.39	41.0	3	2

Table 8: Top ODI bowlers (1 May 1990 – 5 Nov 1997)

Waqar’s ability to take wickets by the handful is amply reflected in ODIs too. Waqar holds the record for having taken the most 5-fors in ODI history (13), and Muttiah Muralitharan is the only other bowler to have taken 10 or more. Waqar has also taken the most number of wickets (127) in a 4 and 5 wicket haul in ODIs, followed by Murali (112) and Lee (101).

The opposition Waqar tormented most during his career was the relatively weak New Zealand side, against whom he took 79 wickets in 37 matches. The 5 five-fors he took against them is also a record for the most taken against one opposition in ODIs.

Waqar is one of the most formidable match-winners in ODI history, his tally of 278 wickets in wins is surpassed only by Muralitharan, Akram, Mcgrath, Lee and Pollock.

Player	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Ave	SR	4W	5W
M. Muralitharan	202	202	368	18.23	29.7	13	9
W. Akram	199	198	326	18.86	30.5	12	6
G. McGrath	171	171	301	17.94	29.4	8	7
B. Lee	153	153	297	20.54	26.7	12	8
S. Pollock	191	191	290	19.67	35.1	10	2
W. Younis	149	148	278	18.76	25.9	10	11
S. Afridi	218	206	277	25.55	35.3	4	9
C. Vaas	168	168	228	22.16	35.1	6	3
S. Jayasuriya	233	196	222	27.53	37.0	7	2
S. Warne	124	122	214	21.43	31.4	9	1

Table 9: Wickets in ODI wins

Pakistan’s remarkable ODI fortunes in the 1990s were contributed to, apart from its top draws, by one venue; Sharjah. Not only has Pakistan won more matches than any opposition (79), but amongst teams which have played at least 20 matches there, Pakistan has the highest Win/Loss ratio (1.975) as well, followed by Australia (1.75) and West Indies (1.00).

Waqar’s 122 wickets at Sharjah remain the most wickets by a bowler on a single ground in ODI history, followed by Wasim (114) at Sharjah and Shakib Al Hasan (94) at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium, Mirpur.

Rohan Kanhai: Lost in the history books?

The author of what is regarded as one of the finest books on cricket (Beyond a Boundary), CLR James was a pioneer in post-colonial literature. The aforementioned book too is not your typical cricket book, James himself described the book’s contents as “neither cricket reminisces nor autobiographical”.

James’ writings on prominent cricketers of his time (Especially West Indian) were not only a reflection on their style of play, but also a study of the circumstances that shaped its composition and expression. Thrilling stroke play by any West Indian batsman, as per James viewpoint, is not just an array of dazzling strokes but also characteristic of what they’re endowed with in a greater volume than cricketers of other descent/s: The ability to reach the high noon of the craft being practiced, and in days of yore, they did that too bluddy often.

So, when James writes about Rohan Bholalall Kanhai as ‘the high peak of West Indian cricketing development’, you know he’s talking about a player of exceptional merits: for no ordinary bloke would merit a praise so illustrious.

Apart from James, I can recall three eminent cricketers talking about Rohan Kanhai in a similar vein; Richie Benaud considered him one of the greatest batsman the world has ever seen, so did fellow Guyanese Alvin Kallicharran, and Sunil Gavaskar, of all people, named his son Rohan after him.  Kanhai’s place in the game’s memoires is perhaps described best by the phrase used in a Bollywood blockbuster (Lagaan, 2001) for its lead protagonist; Lost in the history books. (I’m listening to the theme as I write)

In a career spanning just shy of 17 years, Kanhai played 79 test matches for the West Indies, enthralling crowds with his inventive stroke play, none more evident than in his famous fall-back hook shot (Pictured above). Amongst many, the most notable factor in Kanhai’s career was his consistency, never in his career did his average go above 49.71, and from his 30^th test onwards never did it dip below 46.14.

Rohan Kanhai took a while to get going in Test Cricket, and like fellow West Indian Garry Sobers, turned his first test century into a big one vs India. Kanhai, in fact, went a step further: his second hundred was also a double, vs Pakistan. These were to remain the only double centuries he scored in his career, but the full noon of his batting glowed in resplendent fashion against every opposition.

Kanhai was at his peak form between 26 Mar 1959 and 9 Mar 1973, a period when his average (53.23) was surpassed only by Graeme Pollock, Ken Barrington and Garry Sobers. Kanhai also scored almost 90 runs (89.76) per test match, only Graeme Pollock (98.1) and Garry Sobers (91.4) scored more than Kanhai. 13 of his 15 career centuries came during this period, bettered only by Ken Barrington (20) and Garry Sobers (19).

 

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Graeme Pollock	23	41	2256	60.97	7	11
Ken Barrington	80	128	6754	59.76	20	35
Garry Sobers	60	105	5485	59.61	19	21
Rohan Kanhai	51	88	4578	53.23	13	21
Tom Graveney	31	47	2292	52.09	7	9
Bob Simpson	46	84	3995	51.21	8	23
Ted Dexter	57	95	4290	49.31	8	26
Doug Walters	38	66	2877	48.76	9	17
Colin Cowdrey	75	125	5363	47.88	17	24
Geoff Boycott	51	89	3620	47.63	10	18

Table 1: Top Batsmen (26 Mar’59 – 9 Mar’73)

Kanhai batted at No.3 position for a majority of his career (52 tests), amongst batsmen who have scored atleast 3000 runs at this position, Kanhai is amongst the 12 who have averaged more than 50. Although he is placed 10^th in terms of averages, one needs to look closely at how packed the averages are from Hashim Amla onwards (Look and GASP at Sangakkara’s numbers btw!), given especially that the table is led by two Frankensteinians, Don Bradman (103.63) and Wally Hammond (74.78).

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Don Bradman	40	56	5078	103.63	20	10
WR Hammond	37	52	3440	74.78	14	4
Viv Richards	45	59	3508	61.54	12	14
Kumar Sangakkara	125	207	11679	60.82	37	50
Brian Lara	45	66	3749	60.46	9	13
Hashim Amla	76	122	6251	56.31	22	27
Ricky Ponting	113	196	9904	56.27	32	43
Kane Williamson	38	70	3443	53.79	11	16
Rahul Dravid	136	219	10524	52.88	28	50
Rohan Kanhai	57	90	4689	52.68	13	20

Table 2: Batting Averages at No.3 (Min 3000 runs.

Kanhai had a deeper connection with India apart from just his Parents being its natives. Right from scoring his maiden test hundred against India, Kanhai developed a flavor for the flavorless bowling of India against whom he averaged a whopping 62.70. For batsmen who have scored a minimum 1500 runs against India, Kanhai’s average is bettered by Zaheer Abbas, Garry Sobers, Jacques Kallis, Javed Miandad, Mahela Jayawardene and Shiv Chanderpaul.

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Zaheer Abbas	19	25	1740	87.00	6	3
Garry Sobers	18	30	1920	83.47	8	7
Jacques Kallis	18	31	1734	69.36	7	5
Javed Miandad	28	39	2228	67.51	5	14
Mahela Jayawardene	18	28	1822	67.48	6	8
Shiv Chanderpaul	25	44	2171	63.85	7	10
Rohan Kanhai	18	28	1693	62.70	4	7
Matthew Hayden	18	35	1888	59.00	6	8
Clive Lloyd	28	44	2344	58.60	7	12
Kevin Pietersen	16	28	1581	58.55	6	6

Table 3: Top Batsmen vs India (min 1500 runs)

While analyzing a cricketer’s numbers, one generally looks for outliers that can be highlighted when compared with other players either within a time frame, or on a standalone basis. But as highlighted before, Kanhai was such a consistent performer throughout his career that there are no sudden peaks or troughs in his form. So, it is apt to highlight this very factor of his play; Consistency which is startling for a career as long as his.

Kanhai, like most batsmen of his era, played only against 4 test playing nations during his career, and apart from India (understandable, since India had a spin dominated attack at that time), the difference between his highest and his lowest average is 3.8. Nevertheless, even if the comparison is stretched to all opposition teams, the difference between Kanhai’s highest and lowest average against an opposition for a minimum of 10 test innings batted against each, is only behind Basil Butcher, Ian Redpath, Bob Simpson and Geoff Boycott.

It is to be considered, however, that for each of batsmen named above, numbers have been calculated after discounting for in-frequent opposition/s, i.e. opposition against which a batsman played less than 10 innings. Kanhai is, in fact, the one of the only four batsmen who didn’t come across an in-frequent opposition in this time period along with Gary Sobers, Colin Cowdrey and Ted Dexter. That he towers above them all in this respect is a remarkable achievement.

Player Name	High Ave	Opp	Low Ave	Opp	Diff
Gary Sobers	89.45	Pak	26.91	NZ	62.54
Ken Barrington	79.44	NZ	34.73	WI	44.71
Hanif Mohammad	73.60	Aus	37.30	Eng	36.3
Tom Graveney	66.68	WI	34.90	Aus	31.78
Doug Walters	92.00	WI	36.87	Eng	55.13
Bob Simpson	53.27	Eng	39.20	SA	14.07
Geoff Boycott	51.10	Aus	36.93	NZ	14.17
Colin Cowdrey	72.55	Ind	37.88	Aus	34.67
Ted Dexter	93.60	Pak	38.80	Aus	54.8
Rohan Kanhai	62.70	Ind	41.98	Eng	20.72
Bill Lawry	69.00	Eng	36.48	SA	32.52
Conrad Hunte	64.30	Pak	33.50	Ind	30.8
Basil Butcher	47.66	Ind	40.50	Aus	7.16
Ian Redpath	46.52	SA	33.92	Ind	12.6
John Edrich	63.75	NZ	24.11	Pak	39.64
Ian Chappell	72.66	WI	16.94	SA	55.72
Chandu Borde	82.50	Pak	21.82	Aus	60.68

Table 4: Average Difference – Opposition (30 May’57 – 30 Mar’74)

Kanhai was also amongst the most consistent batsmen in both home and overseas conditions, during his career span only Bob Simpson (.41) and Ian Redpath (1.62) had a lower difference between their home and overseas average. John Edrich (2.73), Hanif Mohammad (3.46) and Ian Chappell (4.38) follow Rohan Kanhai as the next placed batsmen. Although there are batsmen who averaged more overseas than at home (John Edrich, Colin Cowdrey, Ted Dexter, Basil Butcher, Geoff Boycott, Ken Barrington), I’ve taken the difference as an absolute value and not as an  and vice versa. Notable, though, are names of two batsmen who average more than 50 in both scenarios; Ken Barrington and Garry Sobers.

Player Name	Home Avg	Ov.Ave	Diff
Bob Simpson	48.82	48.41	0.41
Ian Redpath	43.45	41.83	1.62
Rohan Kanhai	48.63	46.51	2.12
John Edrich	40.63	43.36	2.73
Hanif Mohamamd	46.08	42.62	3.46
Ian Chappell	44.28	39.90	4.38
Colin Cowdrey	45.02	52.59	7.57
Ted Dexter	43.03	53.65	10.62
Basil Butcher	35.09	46.41	11.32
Geoff Boycott	43.83	55.17	11.34
Conrad Hunte	53.48	38.70	14.78
Bill Lawry	56.36	39.60	16.76
Ken Barrington	52.30	69.18	16.88
Gary Sobers	70.44	53.09	17.35
Chandu Borde	43.31	24.34	18.97
Tom Graveney	62.97	34.11	28.86
Doug Walters	68.10	38.55	29.55

Table 5: Average Difference – Home vs overseas (30 May’57- 30 Mar’74)

Rohan Kanhai played in 17 rubbers throughout his career, and remarkably, only in two of them did he average less than 30 (which, incidentally were his first and last rubbers). If we exclude these two instances, Kanhai’s average never dropped below 37 in any rubber that he played in. Kanhai also, remarkably, scored at least one fifty-plus score in all of them.

Average	<30	30-40	40-50	50-60	60-70	<70
Instances	2	2	4	8	1	1

Table 6: Series averages

An interesting method of measuring batsman consistency is the ‘slice method’, as developed by Cricinfo’s Anantha Narayanan. As per that method, a batsman’s career innings are broken down into multiple slices/slabs of 10 innings. His average across those slices is divided with his overall RPI (Runs per Innings, not discounting for not outs) to arrive at what he calls a Slice Performance Index (SPI). Standard deviation of the SPI distribution is then calculated, lower the SD, better the consistency levels.

The SPI obtained above is divided into the following 5 cohorts/categories, and a percentage of the innings slices with an SPI falling between the 2^nd and the 4^th category is then considered as the final indicator of consistency.

1. >.67
2. .67-.90
3. .90-1.10
4. 10-1.33
5. >1.33

Considering the same time span as in the previous table, Rohan Kanhai with an comes out to be the fourth most consistent batsman (on the basis of slice percentage) after Ian Redpath, Conrad Hunte and Colin Cowdrey as per this exercise. The constant appearance of little appreciated batsmen like Ian Redpath, Conrad Hunte and Basil Butcher again underlines the flavor for numbers over the real substance of the batsman.

Kanhai’s SD is also only behind Colin Cowdrey, Conrad Hunte, Ian Redpath and Bill Lawry.

Player Name	SD	<.67	.67<>.90	.90-1.10	1.10-1.33	>1.33	Total	Mid 3	Percentage	Rank
Ian Redpath	0.26	0	4	4	1	0	10	9	90.00%	1
Conrad Hunte	0.26	0	2	4	1	0	8	7	87.50%	2
Colin Cowdrey	0.25	0	5	3	4	0	15	12	80.00%	3
Rohan Kanhai	0.28	0	3	4	4	0	14	11	78.57%	4
Bill Lawry	0.28	0	4	3	3	0	13	10	76.92%	5
Tom Graveney	0.30	0	0	1	4	0	7	5	71.43%	6
Chandu Borde	0.38	0	3	2	2	0	10	7	70.00%	7
Geoff Boycott	0.32	0	1	3	3	0	11	7	63.64%	8
Doug Walters	0.47	0	3	2	0	0	8	5	62.50%	9
Basil Butcher	0.31	0	1	2	2	0	8	5	62.50%	9
Hanif Mohammad	0.40	2	1	2	1	1	7	4	57.14%	11
Ted Dexter	0.39	0	4	0	2	0	11	6	54.55%	12
Gary Sobers	0.42	4	4	3	1	3	15	8	53.33%	13
John Edrich	0.43	0	4	1	0	0	10	5	50.00%	14
Bob Simpson	0.39	0	2	2	0	0	9	4	44.44%	15
Ian Chappell	0.40	3	2	1	1	3	10	4	40.00%	16
Ken Barrington	0.41	0	0	1	3	0	13	4	30.77%	17

Table 7: Consistency Index as per Slice method (30 May’57 – 30 Mar’74).

Please also note that this table does not convey that batsmen like Garry Sobers and Ken Barrington were not consistent. Consistency, in this case, is closer to what Oxford defines it more than anything else; the quality of achieving a level of performance which does not vary greatly in quality over time.

Sobers’ and Barrington’s outlier dominated numbers also mean that they were able to lift their game above their usual levels more often than other players. Kanhai’s appreciation, meanwhile, is that he was able to perform irrespective of the opposition and geography. Not that de didn’t lift his game when it was required (he was involved in 34 century and 85 half century partnerships during his career), but Kanhai was more likely to perform to his customary level more often that his contemporaries, and this is no mean achievement.

 

Brian Lara: Prince among Batsmen

Cricket enthusiasts have always been engaged in debates on deciding on the best from amongst two or more outstanding batsmen of their respective generations. Although the reader might differ (and digressions are welcome), but I believe that batsmen offer a more diverse study (in contrast). Dominant hand aside, batsmen differ widely across physiological nuances in terms of stance (and head position), back lift, follow through and much more that’s visible more to a technical eye. A comparison of bowlers rests mostly on their numbers, whereas for batsmen, style of play is a factor in equal measure.

There’s always a dissection of a batsman’s style, apart from his technique and temperament. Or else, pundits would not banter Graeme Smith’s ‘ugly’ batting style while lauding his performances at the same time. On the other hand, Victor Trumper only averaged 39 in tests, but is universally regarded as one of the greatest batsmen to have played the game, mostly on the back of his elegant (and brilliant) style of play. Style, it seems, does matter.

There was, by universal consent, no better exponent of style across eras than Brian Charles Lara. Any tribute to Lara is futile without a mention of that back-lift and the flourish that followed it. His contemporaries swear by that if a last penny was to be spent on something, it would be to watch Lara bat. Lara batting style, according to Ian Chappell, was a mix, and reminiscent of two swashbuckling West Indies batsmen; Sir Garry Sobers and Roy Fredericks.

In debates to decide who the better batsman was between Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, the diminutive Indian usually comes up trumps backed by an inference that he was more consistent than the former. This, I believe, is a grave misconception. For Brian Lara was not all style, there was serious substance that (sadly) made itself evident when few were watching.

TEST MATCHES

Brian Lara’s career can be divided into three phases; Dec’90 to Aug’95, Apr’96-Apr’01 and from Nov’01-Nov’06. His form and numbers were similar in the first and last of these phases, whereas he struggled (as per his standards) during the second one, averaging almost 20 lesser than in each of the preceding and following periods.

Brian Lara averaged 60.96 from his debut till the end of the Wisden Trophy 1995 (Drawn (2-2) series in which he triumphantly topped the batting charts with 765 runs with 3 centuries), keeping a cut off of 1000 runs, his average (60.96) was bettered only by fellow-West Indian Jimmy Adams (62.15). His two record breaking innings of 375 & 501 were also registered in this period. His form fell away post Aug 1995 and he averaged 40.06 and although the world saw flickers of his genius in the 1999 Frank Worrell Trophy, where he single handedly denied Australia a series victory with innings of 213 (Kingston) and 153 (Barbados), the in-consistency of such performances meant that his average (keeping the same cut-off) was placed 26^th in the list of averages for that period.

Period	Mtch	Inns	No	Runs	Ave	100	50
6 Dec’90- 24 Aug’95	31	52	2	3048	60.96	7	16
19 Apr’96 – 19 Apr’01	49	89	2	3485	40.06	8	17
13 Nov’01 – 27 Nov’06	51	91	2	5420	60.9	19	15
Total	131	232	6	11953	52.88	34	48

Table 1: Brian Lara Career Break-Up

Starting from the 2001 test series in Sri Lanka where he aggregated a massive 688 runs, which is also the second highest aggregate by a batsman for a 3 match series, Brian Lara commenced on a prolific, but often in vain, run making period which continued right till his retirement. Keeping a 1500 run cut-off for the period, Brian Lara averaged 60.90, only behind Ricky Ponting, Mohammad Yousuf, Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis. The next West Indian on the list is Shiv Chanderpaul with an average of 49.40. His run aggregate (5420) is also only behind Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden.

Lara also scored 19 of his 34 career centuries in this period, and was scoring a century every 4.8 innings, a rate bettered only by Mohammad Yousuf (4.19) and Ricky Ponting (4.21).

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Ricky Ponting	58	101	6181	72.71	24	21
Matthew Hayden	63	114	5916	56.88	22	21
Brian Lara	51	91	5420	60.89	19	15
Rahul Dravid	55	90	5003	64.97	14	25
Justin Langer	58	104	4774	49.21	14	18
Marcus Trescothick	60	113	4754	45.71	12	22
Jacques Kallis	49	86	4604	64.84	15	23
Mohammad Yousuf	40	67	4167	68.31	16	13
Michael Vaughan	53	97	4022	45.19	14	12

         Table 2: Top Run Scorers (Nov’01-Nov’06)

This period also saw West Indies plummet to new lows, the 50 test matches that Brian Lara played in, West Indies lost 29 and won only 7. For Lara to feature on this list is a testament to his genius and a statement on the state of affairs of West Indies cricket. Lara’s average in losses (53.17) is, unfortunately, also the highest in this period followed by Jacob Oram and Mohammad Yousuf. He also holds the record for must runs scored in a match in a losing cause; 351 vs Sri Lanka at Galle (2001).

George Headley once said that he’d be wearing his pads in the dressing room after the toss result, and that a wicket would fall and he’d have to go out to bat. Batting at No.4, Brian Lara is his worthy successor in this regard, especially when seen in light of the fact that West Indies had amongst the lowest average partnership runs for the first 2 wickets major test playing teams in this period. This meant that Lara had to come in early and consolidate. His contribution to the total team score (20.07%) is easily the highest for any batsman, followed by Rahul Dravid and Ricky Ponting.

Team	Total Runs	Best Batsman	Runs	Runs (%)
Australia	35501	Ricky Ponting	6181	17.41%
England	33797	Marcus Trescothick	4754	14.07%
West Indies	27003	Brian Lara	5420	20.07%
South Africa	27218	Jacques Kallis	4604	16.92%
India	28464	Rahul Dravid	5003	17.58%
Pakistan	23599	Mohammad Yousuf	4167	17.66%
Sri Lanka	26045	Kumar Sangakkara	4013	15.41%
New Zealand	20477	Stephen Fleming	2892	14.12%
Bangladesh	14672	Habibul Bashar	2416	16.47%
Zimbabwe	9871	Tatenda Taibu	1244	12.60%

Table 3: Top Performing Batsmen (Nov’01-Nov’06).

Brian Lara was also one of the most consistent batsmen in overseas matches. Keeping a cut off of 1000 runs, Lara’s average in overseas tests is a mighty 59.75, only Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Yousuf and Ricky Ponting have a better average than Lara’s. Also, only Rahul Dravid scored more overseas centuries (10) than Brian Lara’s 9. Lara also scored 4 of his 9 career double centuries under this scenario.

(His overseas average before this period was a modest 40.88.)

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Rahul Dravid	31	50	3249	75.55	10	14
Mohammad Yousuf	19	32	1866	64.34	7	6
Ricky Ponting	23	41	2244	62.33	9	6
Brian Lara	23	44	2629	59.75	9	7
Stephen Fleming	21	35	1963	59.48	6	7
Gary Kirsten	12	23	1228	58.47	5	5
Sachin Tendulkar	24	36	1790	57.74	5	6
Jacques Kallis	22	42	1923	56.55	5	10
Adam Gilchrist	27	43	1904	52.88	8	4
Younis Khan	19	34	1690	52.81	5	5

Table 4: Average in overseas tests (Nov’01-Nov’06)

Much has been said about Brian Lara’s huge appetite for runs, the 9 double centuries he scored through his career are only behind Don Bradman and Kumar Sangakkara. Also, for players who have scored at-least 1000 runs in centuries, Brian Lara’s average century score (173.2) is only behind Don Bradman, Zaheer Abbas, Stephen Fleming and Virender Sehwag.

Player Name	Century Runs	100s	Average Score
Don Bradman	5393	29	185.97
Zaheer Abbas	2158	12	179.83
Stephen Fleming	1585	9	176.11
Virender Sehwag	3996	23	173.74
Brian Lara	5889	34	173.21
Seymour Nurse	1037	6	172.83
Brendon McCullum	2064	12	172.00
Dennis Amiss	1879	11	170.82
Frank Worrell	1530	9	170.00

Table 5: Average Century Score

Lara’s relish for big scores translated to huge aggregates in series’ as well. As of date, Lara holds the record for scoring more than 400 runs in a series a total of 11 times. He is followed by Don Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar who did it 10 times each.

Player Name	400+ Runs Series
Brian Lara	11
Don Bradman	10
Sunil Gavaskar	10
Garry Sobers	9
Allan Border	8
Graham Gooch	8
Len Hutton	8
Matthew Hayden	8

Table 6: 400 plus runs, number of series.

Following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Brian Lara reserved his best against Australia and England. His first century was a majestic 277 vs Australia at Sydney (Lara named his daughter ‘Sydney’), which is the second highest score for a first career century after Gary Sobers’ 365 vs Pakistan (1958). Lara’s average vs Aus (51.00),for batsmen who scored a min 750 runs against them, is next only to Saeed Anwar, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman (he just had to figure here, didn’t he!).

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Saeed Anwar	8	15	886	59.06	3	5
Sachin Tendulkar	21	39	1859	53.11	7	7
VVS Laxman	16	29	1457	52.03	4	6
Brian Lara	31	58	2856	51.00	9	11
Virender Sehwag	9	18	846	49.76	2	3
Richie Richardson	14	24	1084	49.27	4	4
Rahul Dravid	19	35	1503	48.48	2	8
Michael Vaughan	10	20	959	47.95	4	1
Graham Thorpe	16	31	1235	45.74	3	8
Aamer Sohail	9	17	767	45.11	2	4

Table 7: Averages vs Australia (Dec’90-Nov’06)

Dropping the career span filter, Lara’s average comes down to being the 16^th highest, but, his 9 centuries against them are joint 3^rd highest after Jack Hobbs and Sachin Tendulkar.

Lara’s record against England is even more formidable, for batsmen who have scored at-least 750 runs versus England, Brian Lara’s average (62.14) is 6^th highest overall, and 3^rd highest for West Indies batsmen after George Headley and Viv Richards.

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Don Bradman	37	63	5028	89.78	19	12
George Headley	16	29	1852	71.23	8	5
Sid Barnes	9	14	846	70.5	2	4
Mohammad Yousuf	14	24	1499	62.45	6	3
Vivian Richards	36	50	2869	62.36	8	15
Brian Lara	30	51	2983	62.14	7	11
Colin Bland	8	16	858	61.28	2	5
Rahul Dravid	21	37	1950	60.93	7	8
Salim Malik	19	28	1396	60.69	4	9
Garry Sobers	36	61	3214	60.64	10	13

Table 8: Averages vs England

For a majority of his career Brian Lara batted at No.4, his average (51.25) for batsmen who have scored at least 2000 runs at this position is 15^th highest overall and second highest for a West Indies batsman after Sir Everton Weekes (63.62). His aggregate of runs at this position (7535) though, is next only to Sachin Tendulkar, Mahela Jayawardene, and Jacques Kallis.

It is while batting at No.3 though, that Lara’s numbers find few peers. Keeping the same cut-off as above, Brian Lara’s average (60.46) is next only to Don Bradman, Ken Barrington, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Viv Richards and Kumar Sangakkara. Lara registered his much celebrated record score of 400* vs England batting at this position.

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Don Bradman	40	56	5078	103.63	20	10
Ken Barrington	27	40	2626	77.23	13	7
Wally Hammond	37	52	3440	74.78	14	4
George Headley	19	32	2064	71.17	10	4
Vivian Richards	45	59	3508	61.54	12	14
Kumar Sangakkara	125	207	11679	60.82	37	50
Brian Lara	45	66	3749	60.46	9	13
Hashim Amla	76	122	6251	56.31	22	27
Ricky Ponting	113	196	9904	56.27	32	43
Kane Williamson	38	70	3443	53.79	11	16

Table 9: Averages at No.3 position

 

One Day Internationals

Brian Lara’s ODI career was a shade less glorious than his test career, but it had its moments.  He was at his peak as an ODI batsman in a 4 year period between 19 Feb 1993 and 12 Jan 1997. Lara topped the charts for aggregate runs and was daylights ahead of the second best Gary Kirsten in terms of batting average.

Player	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
Brian Lara	71	70	3495	57.29	11	18
Sachin Tendulkar	85	84	3380	44.47	10	19
Mark Waugh	82	82	3299	43.98	9	20
Saeed Anwar	82	82	3161	43.3	8	15
Aamer Sohail	90	89	3096	35.58	4	21
PA de Silva	88	86	3018	40.24	5	20
Inzamam-ul-Haq	86	82	2644	38.31	2	20
Mohammad Azharuddin	85	80	2633	41.79	0	19
Hansie Cronje	78	75	2494	37.22	2	16
Gary Kirsten	58	58	2425	47.54	7	10

Table 10: Top ODI batsmen (Feb’93-Jan’97).

Brian Lara’s characteristic as a genuine match-winner stamps itself strongly in the one-day format. Lara’s average of 61.82 in ODI wins is second highest for West Indies batsmen (after Ramnaresh Sarwan) and is bettered only by MS Dhoni, Hashim Amla, Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, and Michael Bevan. That 5 of the 6 batsmen ahead of Brian Lara made their debuts in the relatively free scoring decade of 2000s points to Lara’s exceptional ability to play match-winning innings when scoring was curtailed by an array of quality pace and spin bowlers around the world.

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	100	50
MS Dhoni	150	126	5264	73.11	6	36
Hashim Amla	82	81	4984	68.27	20	24
Virat Kohli	99	95	4995	67.5	21	19
AB de Villiers	125	120	6050	67.22	20	34
Michael Bevan	155	122	4502	65.24	5	32
Ramnaresh Sarwan	79	71	2917	62.06	4	18
Brian Lara	139	134	6553	61.82	16	42
Martin Crowe	61	60	2694	59.86	4	21
Paul Collingwood	92	81	2955	57.94	5	15
Martin Guptill	68	68	3298	57.85	8	21

Table 11: Average in ODI wins 

In an era when Shahid Afridi and Sanath Jayasuriya were tearing apart record books with their frantic and daring stroke play; vs Bangladesh at Kuala Lumpur in 1999, Brian Lara scored the then second fastest ODI century of all time, off 45 balls.

The majesty of Brian Lara’s stroke play was described best by Tony Cozier in one sentence. While executing a scorching cover drive off Makhaya Ntini en route his 202 vs South Africa at Wanderers in 2003, cozier remarked:
‘Oh Glorious, now that’s the difference between Chanderpaul and Lara, that bat came from above his head and finished up above his head’.

Lara’s brilliance put him on a different pedestal altogether, at full flow (or even less than that) Brian Lara made other batsmen look like what Neville Cardus exclaimed for Ranjitsinghji’s batting: ‘Plebeians toiling in the Sun’.

A triumph of Gluttony: Prolific Batsmen over the years

Aaron Finch spoke for cricket fans, experts and players alike in his appreciation of Virat Kohli’s unprecedented run of form during the IPL in particular, and in T20 for 2016 in general. Kohli has amassed 865 runs at an average of 86.50 in this edition of IPL, outscoring the second best David Warner by a whopping 225 runs! If the RCB qualify for the playoffs, I would have my bet on his crossing 1000 runs for the season, a record it appears, only he can better.

But that too appears unlikely, because batsmen very seldom find form as unbelievable as this again through their playing careers. Nevertheless, cricket fans, experts and players do not have a great memory either, as one great feat tends to overshadow those that preceded it. In this feature, I recollect 10 unbelievable batting triumphs which prove that batsmen have always been what I suggest through the title, a peculiar, Gluttonous creature.

1. Ricky Ponting: Ponting stood as the most threatening competitor to Tendulkar’s records for longer than any batsman Indians can remember. Fancy this, after the Adelaide test of the 2006/07 ashes, Ricky Ponting had 33 centuries to Tendulkar’s 35, averaged 59.99 to Tendulkar’s 55.39 and was 1230 runs shy of Tendulkar’s tally of 10469, which then seemed immaterial because the rate he was scoring centuries at, Ponting would have overtaken Tendulkar soon enough had the little master not resurrected himself (and how often he did it!).Nevertheless, from 8 Mar 2002-1 Dec 2006, Ricky Ponting was second only to Don Bradman in terms of highest average sustained over 52 test matches. Ponting averaged 75.05 over 53 test matches he played in this period, and his century rate of one every 3.92 innings was approached only by Mohammad Yousuf (4.2). Cricinfo, in 2011, named Ponting as the player of the decade. No wonder why!

          Ricky Ponting: Top of the food chain

2. Dilip Vengsarkar: Colonel, as he is known as, is one of India’s most under-rated batsmen. In matches that he and Gavaskar played together against the four-pronged pace attack of the mighty West Indies, Vengsarkar averaged 41.41 to Gavaskar’s 40.87 and quite often performed when Gavaskar did not (that a certain Mohinder Amarnath outperformed both on the tour of West Indies in 1983 is another matter), but Vengsarkar deserves more mention that he gets.

 From 5 June 1986 to 12 Nov 1988, however, Vengsarkar had absolutely no equals in        world cricket. He averaged 100.35 over the 17 tests he played in this period, almost 38 points more than the second placed Allan Border. His 8 centuries were also neared only by Allan Border (5). Part of this dream run were two centuries on India’s victorious 1986 tour to England which remained India’s only overseas series victory until its 2006 victory over the West Indies. To top it all, India won 5 and lost only 2 out of the 17 matches during this period. To say that Vengsarkar was the chief architect of most of them is a no-brainer.

            
            Dilip Vengsarkar: India’s batting bulwark.

 

3. Sachin Tendulkar: Must have been waiting for this eh, you must also have guessed the year too. The frequency and the genius with which Tendulkar was scoring runs in 1998 merited direct and most easily pardonable comparison with Don Bradman yet. Tendulkar broke his own record of scoring most ODI runs in a calendar year (1611 in 1996) when he smashed 1894 runs in 1998, his 9 centuries were also a betterment of his own number in 1996 (6). Within that year, Tendulkar was in sublime form between 17 Apr 1998 and 13 Nov 1998 when he averaged a whopping 79.31 and was scoring a hundred every 3rd innings.
   And if this isn’t enough, fancy this, Tendulkar was placed 10^th on the list of top wicket-takers for that year (24) and was one of the only 7 bowlers who could muster a 5-for.
   Sachin Tendulkar: Ate Aussies for breakfast in 1998.

    

4. Sunil Gavaskar: One Little master followed by another. Sunil Gavaskar, as Viv Richards puts it, was the ‘Godfather of Indian batting’. Sunil Gavaskar based his batting on immense powers of concentration and would almost always be the pivot around whom India’s batting would revolve. Gavaskar scored a record 774 runs in his Debut series vs West Indies in 1971, but struggled to maintain this Bradman-esque standard of form for till late 1977.
   But starting from India’s tour to Australia in 1977/78, till the end of Pakistan’s tour of India in Feb 1980, Gavaskar played in 6 test series and scored more than 400 runs in each of them. No other player apart from Bradman, has maintained such consistency over more than 3 test series.
                               Sunil Gavaskar: The Bombay Bradman

    

5. Garry Sobers: Talking about all-round cricketers, Sir Garfield Sobers inspires awe in equal measure to Don Bradman’s amongst Batsman. Sobers is quite simply the greatest cricketer to have graced a cricket field. He made his first class debut for Barbados at the age of 16, and less than 2 years from then, was selected for West Indies to play against England at Kingston in 1954. Although Sobers retained his place in the West Indies team, it wasn’t until 1958 that he demonstrated his true potential as a batsman. Gary Sobers scored a record 1193* runs that year, which was broken by Bob Simpson in 1964. Sobers’ average (132.55) nonetheless is the best amongst Batsmen who have scored 1000 runs in a calendar year.
             Sir Gary Sobers: 3 players in 1.

    

6. Vijay Merchant: For up and coming batsmen in the Mumbai circles, watching Vijay Merchant bat was a part of their education. The pioneer of the Mumbai school of batting, Merchant was dogged, determined and possessed un-flinching powers of concentration. In the 1944/45 Ranji trophy final, Merchant scored 278 for Bombay in the 2^nd innings and when he was out, leg-spinner Madan Raiji asked him how did he get out. Merchant’s reply served as a lesson to Mantri who later passed it on to Gavaskar; ‘My concentration dipped a bit’ he said. Mantri was amazed that what happened to players like him in their 30s and 40s, happened to him on 278! (A certain Denis Compton scored 249* playing for Holkar in that match, and was never paid the promised sum of 1300 pounds.)
   It is gifts like these that helped Merchant pile up an unparalleled record in Ranji Trophy matches for Bombay. In 33 matches that he played for Bombay, he scored 3639 runs at an average of 75, scoring 16 centuries in 47 innings.
                         Vijay Merchant: Zara Concentration ochu thai gayu’.

    

7. Michael Hussey: Hussey made a delayed international debut at the age of 30, but performances in his first 2 years in test matches both made up for that delay and left people conjecturing about what more could he have achieved was he given a chance earlier. From 17 Nov 2005 (his 2^nd test) to 16 Nov 2007, Hussey achieved a batting average of 93.30 in 17 matches, scoring 7 centuries in 27 innings. Since the free scoring times of the modern era cannot afford another Bradman, Hussey’s form dipped and he ended his career at a more human average of 51.52.
                    Michael Hussey: Shades of Bradman.

    

8. John Edrich: John Edrich was a solid left hand opening batsman for England for most part of the ‘60s and 70s. During England’s horrendous 1973/74 ashes, he received a career threatening blow to the ribs by a Dennis Lillee delivery at Sydney. But Kudos to the spirit of the man, in 1976 he became the 7^th Englishman and the 12^th overall to score 5000 runs in tests.
   Goings were better in 1965 though, 1 year into his debut into the test team, Edrich was having the summer of his lifetime. Edrich ended the first class season with an average of 62.67, and at one point had accumulated an astonishing 1311 runs in 9 completed innings. Included in this dream run is his 310 vs New Zealand at Leeds. During that knock, Edrich scored 238 runs in boundaries (52*4, 5*6), a record that stands till date. A summary of the 9 innings is given below:

 

Date	Opposition	Runs Scored	Playing For
9-Jun-65	NZ	139	Surrey
12-Jun-65	Oxford University	121	Surrey
16-Jun-65	Gloucestershire	205	Surrey
19-Jun-65	Kent	55	Surrey
26-Jun-65	Essex	96	Surrey
30-Jun-65	Northamptonshire	188	Surrey
3-Jul-65	Yorkshire	92	Surrey
3-Jul-65	Yorkshire	105	Surrey
8-Jul-65	NZ	310	England

                                       John Edrich: Summer of ’65.

 

9. Bill Ponsford: It is widely believed that the emergence of Don Bradman effected he legacy of two of the most prolific batsmen of his time: Wally Hammond and Bill Ponsford. Ponsford was a giant in the Australian country circuit. He was the first consistent scorer of high scores and remains to this day the only batsman to score two quadruple centuries in first class cricket, along with Brian Lara. While this is amazing enough, Ponsford’s exploits in the 1926 and 1927 Sheffield shield season/s are almost beyond belief, they qualify as one of the great batting achievements in any era. In 11 innings towards the end of the 1926/27 season and the start of the 1927/28 season, Ponsford scored a mind boggling 2109 runs included 2 quadruple centuries and another triple century.

Date	Opposition	Runs Scored	Playing For
3-Dec-26	South Australia	214	Victoria
3-Dec-26	South Australia	54	Victoria
17-Dec-26	Queensland	151	Victoria
24-Dec-26	New South Wales	352	Victoria
1-Jan-27	South Australia	108	Victoria
1-Jan-27	South Australia	84	Victoria
2-Dec-27	South Australia	133	Victoria
16-Dec-27	Queensland	437	Victoria
23-28 Dec 1927	New South Wales	202	Victoria
23-28 Dec 1927	New South Wales	38	Victoria
30-Dec-27	South Australia	336	Victoria

    

                               Bill Ponsford: Prolific beyond belief

 

10. Andy Flower: The only Zimbabwe batsman to have a test career average of 50 plus, Andy flower was the most crucial part of an outfit which was starting to rub-off the tag of push-overs. But his retirement has had a telling effect on the nation’s cricketing ambitions. Nevertheless, from 18 Nov 2000 to 15 Nov 2001, Andy Flower was in prime form, illustrated by a batting average of 27. Flower also scored 20.54% of his team’s runs and averaged 87.66 in 4 matches that Zimbabwe won in this period. By the end of this period, Flower’s batting average was a stuff-of-legends 56.60, with the second best being Grant Flower (30.28). His retirement forced Zimbabwe back to where they had started from, proving all over again that one man does not and cannot carry a team’s fortunes beyond a point.         
             Andy Flower: All of Zimbabwe-in-one. 

P.S. I’ve left out an analysis of Viv Richards’ ODI numbers, ill do that as a standalone analysis in some other feature. Also, Don Bradman’s ridiculous numbers merit the same attention and space.

CA Walsh: Remember the Name

The year was 1962, 30 since India had gained international status and it had won only 8 out of the 79 test matches that it had played till then. Bad.
On a tour of West Indies and up against a pair of fearsome fast bowlers in Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith. Worse!

The tragic death of Philip Hughes from a blow to the head gathered international headlines and sympathy, a little known incident on the aforementioned tour could have also ended on a similarly unfortunate note. India’s skipper Nari Contractor was facing up against the fierce Charlie Griffith in a first class match against Barbados and a rising ball hit him on the back of his skull. Frank Worrell, the West Indies captain, was the first to donate blood for the blood transfusion which ultimately saved Contractor’s life. He didn’t play test cricket again, but for sure was fortunate enough to tell his tale (Contractor is 82, and assuredly heading towards a century).

West Indian fast bowlers have had a history of causing as much harm to the batsman as to the stumps. The killer jolts they’ve dealt to batsmen has, more than anything else, become their enduring legacy.

But, something else happened in 1962. The year marks the birth of Courtney Andrew Walsh, who was to remain in the shadow of bulkier contemporaries for the majority of his career much because he didn’t quite fit into the West Indian fast bowler stereotype. Nothing is more representative of Walsh’s persona than this image. Skirting through the crowd on the final day of the Oval Test (2000), Walsh is seen towering over everybody else, and yet somehow appears to be a benign presence.

He remains perhaps the most underrated West Indies fast bowler ever (disagreements are welcome), despite having breached the following milestones in a glittering 17 year career:

• Overtook Malcolm Marshall as West Indies’ highest wicket taker. (vs South Africa at Johannesburg, 1998)
• Became the first West Indian bowler to take 400 test wickets (vs Australia at Port of Spain, 1999)
• Overtook Kapil Dev’s tally of 434 test wickets to become the most prolific bowler in Test match History (vs Pakistan at Georgetown, 2000).
• Became the first bowler in Test History to take 500 Test match wickets (vs South Africa at Port of Spain, 2001).

Courtney Walsh’s career can be divided in two parts, from 9 Nov 1984-23 Apr 1993, when he operated exclusively as a second/third change fast bowler for the West Indies, and from 1 May 1993-19 Apr 2001, when he formed along with Curtly Ambrose, one of the most successful new ball partnerships of all time. Walsh’s transition from a change to a strike bowler is absolutely remarkable, considering that he was already 32 years old when handed the new ball. At an age when most fast bowlers are past their prime, Walsh turned his could-have-been-not-so good fate on its head to become one of the leading bowlers in the world till his retirement.

Walsh’s stats reveal a remarkable transition, not only did he take more wickets per match (4.3 as against 3.46), but conceded lower number of runs per wicket, lesser runs per over, and took more than 3 times the number of 5-fors as he did before.

 

Span	Mtch	Wkts	Ave	Eco	S/R	5W
9 Nov 1984 – 23 Mar 1993	58	201	25.17	2.63	57.5	5
1 May 1993 – 19 Apr 2001	74	318	23.98	2.47	58.1	17

Table 1: Walsh career break-up

A more nuanced analysis of his record vs all test playing nations better illustrates the brilliance of Walsh. By using the same break-up as above, Walsh’s numbers across major bowling parameters: Wickets per match, Average and Strike Rate, improved against all test playing nations apart from India (surprising isn’t it?). This given that he had a great tour to India in 1987/88 where he was the highest wicket taker from either sides. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe have been excluded from this analysis as Walsh didn’t play that much against them, and hence his numbers look either excessively shrunk, or exaggerated.

 

	Wickets per match			Average			Strike Rate
Opp.	Nov’84- Apr’93	May’93- Apr’01	Diff.	Nov’84-Apr’93	May’93-Apr’01	Diff.	Nov’84-Apr’93	May’93-Apr’01	Diff.
Aus	2.95	4.22	1.27	30.93	26.93	-4.00	68.9	59.1	-9.80
Eng	3.35	4.59	1.24	27.93	24.07	-3.86	63.7	59.3	-4.40
India	5.50	3.00	-2.50	16.02	29.09	13.07	35.5	74.3	38.80
N.Z	4.00	4.50	0.50	23.81	20.81	-3.00	54.5	51.1	-3.40
Pak	2.92	4.14	1.23	24.40	22.62	-1.78	57.8	50.3	-7.50
S.A.	4.00	5.22	1.22	25.50	19.31	-6.19	73.5	53.9	-19.60

Table 2: Comparative analysis (Pre Transition vs Post Transition)

During his peak as a bowler (1 May 1993-19 Apr 2001), only Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath took more wickets than Walsh, and amongst bowlers who took more than 200 wickets during the period in consideration, only Curtly Ambrose, Shaun Pollock, Muttiah Muralidaran and Shane Warne had a better economy rate than Walsh. Walsh also took more 5-fors than all bowlers, apart from Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald and Muttiah Muralidaran.

Player Name	Mtch	Wkts	Ave	Eco	S/R	5W
Shane Warne	76	345	26.24	2.45	64.2	15
Glenn McGrath	70	326	21.71	2.53	51.4	18
Courtney Walsh	74	318	23.98	2.47	58.1	17
Muttiah Muralidaran	58	301	25.14	2.36	63.7	24
Allan Donald	64	299	21.72	2.84	45.8	18
Shaun Pollock	56	231	20.32	2.26	53.8	12
Wasim Akram	53	225	22.43	2.61	51.4	13
Anil Kumble	51	223	28.79	2.5	68.9	13
Curtly Ambrose	57	216	20.69	2.25	55	13
Waqar Younis	49	207	24.65	3.22	45.9	9

Table 3: Top Bowlers (May’93-Apr-01)

Much has been said about the Walsh-Ambrose new ball pair, but a closer look at the matches they played together bring out Walsh as a superior wicket-taker than Ambrose. In the 50 matches they opened the bowling in (8 Apr 1994-31 Aug 2000), they took a combined 418 wickets. Walsh was easily the more prolific of the two, claiming almost 50 wickets more than Ambrose. Also, more number of 5-fors and 10-fors add further cement to Walsh’s superiority as a penetrative new ball bowler.

Player Name	Mtch	Runs	Wkts	Avg	Econ	5W	10W
Courtney Walsh	50	5174	233	22.2	2.52	11	2
Curtly Ambrose	50	3952	185	21.3	2.27	14	0

              Table 4: Walsh vs Ambrose (May’93-Aug’00)

The one thing that makes Walsh stand out from the rest is his stamina and consistency. As has already been mentioned, Walsh was given the new ball only when he was 32 years old and continued bowling from that position till he retired at 39. Walsh, to this day, is only behind two Australians (Clarrie Grimmett and Shane Warne) in terms of number wickets taken after attaining the age of 35. His average is also only behind Sydney Barnes and Richard Hadlee. If the benchmark is filtered to include only fast bowlers, Walsh is ahead of the second placed Richard Hadlee by daylight. It is a shame that his services to the West Indies team were of so little avail during these years as they won only 10 of the 40 matches they played.

Player Name	Mtch	Runs	Wkts	Ave	Eco	5W
Clarrie Grimmett	33	4735	192	24.66	2.16	18
Shane Warne	33	4570	181	25.24	2.97	10
Courtney Walsh	39	3890	180	21.61	2.29	9
Anil Kumble	35	5155	154	33.47	3.03	6
Sydney Barnes	18	2058	139	14.8	2.36	18
Muttiah Muralidaran	23	3531	126	28.02	2.88	10
Richard Hadlee	23	2482	116	21.39	2.63	11
Lance Gibbs	29	3232	100	32.32	1.96	5
Rangana Herath	21	2986	97	30.78	2.8	7
Arthur Mailey	19	3158	93	33.95	3.24	6

Table 5: Top wicket-takers after the age of 35

Not only was Walsh pushing his body and stamina to the limit, he was also bearing the brunt of wicket taking disproportionate to it. From 30 Oct 1997 to 19 Apr 2001, Walsh took almost 32% of all wickets taken by West Indian bowlers. Only Muttiah Muralidaran (35%) took a higher percentage of wickets than Walsh in this period. Among fast bowlers, Walsh is leading by a big margin as Shaun Pollock (25.9%) is a distant second. But there was a certain Allan Donald who operated in tandem with him didn’t he?

Country	Highest Wicket Taker	Wkts	Team Wkts	%
West Indies	Courtney Walsh	180	591	30.46%
Pakistan	Saqlain Mushtaq	98	526	18.63%
Australia	Glenn Mcgrath	171	707	24.19%
New Zealand	Chris Cairns	102	463	22.03%
India	Anil Kumble	108	414	26.09%
Sri Lanka	Muttiah Muralidaran	185	516	35.85%
England	Darren Gough	112	541	20.70%
South Africa	Shaun Pollock	191	737	25.92%
Zimbabwe	Health Streak	71	300	23.67%

                             Table 6: Most Effective wicket takers (Oct’97-Apr’01)

Dennis Waight, the physio of the West Indies team during Kerry Packer’s World Series cricket, once said that if Walsh stops bowling, he’ll never bowl again. Walsh often gave an impression that he could bowl for as long as his captain and the situation demanded. It is only fitting that he bowled the maximum number of balls for any fast bowler, he is followed by Glenn Mcgrath and the indefatigable Kapil Dev. In fact, Walsh bowled an absolutely mind boggling 1, 07,324 balls in top class cricket, easily the most by any fast bowler in history.

Player Name	Balls Bowled
Courtney Walsh	30019
Glenn Mcgrath	29248
Kapil Dev	27740
James Anderson	25185
Shaun Pollock	24353
Chaminda Vaas	23438
Wasim Akram	22627
Curtly Ambrose	22103
Richard Hadlee	21918
Ian Botham	21815

Table 7: Most balls bowled by pace bowlers (Test Matches)

Placid and unresponsive Asian wickets are often considered tough to bowl on for Fast Bowlers. A below par performance in the few tests Dennis Lillee played in the subcontinent is perhaps the only question mark on his otherwise brilliant career numbers. But not so for Walsh. Not only is he the most successful overseas fast bowler on Asian wickets, his average is also bettered only by a fellow West Indian in Wes Hall. Not surprisingly, there are three West Indian quickies on this list.

Player Name	Mtch	Wkts	Ave
Courtney Walsh	17	77	20.53
Dale Steyn	16	76	20.8
Malcolm Marshall	19	71	23.05
Richard Hadlee	13	68	21.58
Shaun Pollock	17	60	23.18
Glenn Mcgrath	16	58	25.96
Wes Hall	11	54	20.05
Jason Gillespie	13	51	22.86
Matthew Hoggard	14	50	28.22

Table 8: Best pace bowlers in Asia

To top it all, in a first class career that spanned from 1981 to 2001, Walsh ended up being the highest non-English wicket taker of all time. He is followed by Malcolm Marshall, Intikhab Alam (the highest placed Asian on all time the list) and Bishen Bedi (Highest placed Indian on the all-time list!). That the top 10 list is dominated by presence of 6 spinners, illustrates the fitness and willpower Walsh possessed to excel at every level of the game.

Player Name	Wkts
Courtney Walsh	1807
Malcolm Marshall	1651
Intikhab Alam	1571
Bishen Bedi	1560
Richard Hadlee	1490
Clarrie Grimmett	1424
Mike Procter	1417
Mushtaq Ahmed	1404
S. Venkataraghavan	1390
Muttiah Muralidaran	1374

Table 9: Most first-class wickets

The omission of Courtney Walsh in debates on deciding the greatest fast bowler is mainly due to his being the spearhead of a weak test side during his peak years. He didn’t run through batting line-ups single handedly like a Curtly Ambrose, but through sheer consistency and stamina, he did run through the record books.

(Note: This article was first published by this author on Sportskeeda.)

 

 

 

NS Sidhu: Bigger than the clichés

The January edition of ESPN Cricinfo’s digital magazine Cricket Monthly carried a special coverage on the top 50 individual performances in test cricket from 1966 onwards to the present day. Predictably, Viv Richards, Gary Sobers and Brian Lara figure on that list and so do Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidaran. The names are deserving enough to make this, or any, list of individual brilliance compiled by any cricket lover or expert around the world.

But i was left a little bemused at the exclusion of Dean Jones’ 210 vs India played in the tied test in Madras (1986). Batting under the scorching Chennai sun, Jones vomited multiple times besides the pitch, urinated in his flannels, and ended up in a hospital on a saline drip by the time his 8 hour marathon ended.
And i was a little more bemused to find out that this innings, which the then coach of Australia Bob Simpson described as ‘one of the gutsiest innings ever played’, is expended for the inclusion of Sanath Jayasuriya’s 340 vs India, Brian Lara record breaking 375 & 400 vs England, and Viv Richards’ 291 vs England. All of these innings were played in dead tests or dead rubbers whereas the tied test match heralded a new era in Australian cricket, it began their quest to become the leading test playing nation in the world.
Just one of the many instances where romance for visceral thrills was preferred over the real substance of the performance.

Navjot Singh Sidhu’s biggest contribution to Indian Cricket, as is often said, was when his illness allowed Sachin Tendulkar to open the batting for India in an ODI vs New Zealand in 1994. Tendulkar smacked 82 from 49 balls, and claimed that spot till the day he retired 18 years later. A batsman who was arguably one of the biggest match winners of his day (as the analysis would bring out), for his legacy to be reduced to being a pedestal for his more storied batting partner’s climb to immortality is indeed a shame.

My father once bowled to him during the Ranji Trophy trials in Patiala in 1981, he remembers Sidhu as a batsman who was solid in defence, but lacked strokes. Dubbed as a stroke-less wonder after his international debut in 1983, Sidhu returned in the 1987 world cup as an attacking opening bat with a special relish for Spinners. From then on, he never looked back.

TEST MATCHES

Sidhu was at his peak as a batsman between 11 Feb 1993 and 25 Mar 1998, during which he averaged an astonishing 59.56, and only Tendulkar (64.13) and Steve Waugh (61.10) averaged more than him. Curiously, out of the 8 batsmen who averaged more than 50 in this period, 4 are Indians. Sidhu was also, by a distance, the best opening batsmen in this period, averaging almost 10 points more than the next placed Sanath Jayasuriya.

His most notable innings during this period include his six studded 124 vs Sri Lanka at Lucknow (1994) where he took Muralidaran to the cleaners, the 11 hour marathon 201 vs West Indies at POS (1997), and four consecutive fifties in the 1998 Border Gavaskar series, where he and Tendulkar took Warne and Australia apart with their attacking stroke play.

 

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50
Sachin Tendulkar	39	58	3335	64.13	12	13
Steve Waugh	54	86	4155	61.1	10	25
Navjot Sidhu	27	37	2204	59.56	7	11
Vinod Kambli	16	19	1050	55.26	4	3
Brian Lara	47	79	3954	52.02	9	19
Rahul Dravid	22	35	1643	51.34	1	15
Saurav Ganguly	20	31	1483	51.13	5	5
Jimmy Adams	29	46	1866	50.43	5	8

Table 1: Top Batsmen (Feb’93-Oct’98)

 

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50
Navjot Sidhu	25	35	2130	60.85	7	11
Sanath Jayasuriya	18	31	1534	51.13	4	7
Saeed Anwar	30	49	2242	46.7	5	16
Michael Slater	37	65	2817	45.43	7	11
Alec Stewart	31	52	2175	42.64	4	12
Michael Atherton	57	104	4083	40.83	8	25
Mark Taylor	59	101	3772	40.12	10	19

Table 2: Top Opening Batsmen (Feb’93-Mar’98)

 

A remarkable aspect of Sidhu’s form during this period is his sheer consistency. In the 10 test series he played, he averaged more than 50 in 7 of them and, quite amazingly, never averaged below 37 in any of them. Also, 7 of his 9 career centuries came during this period

Some of Sidhu’s bravest innings came in the period that preceded his peak as a batsman. In the 1989 Sialkot test vs Pakistan (Yes, the one where Waqar hit Sachin on the jaw), India had nearly given away their 74 run first innings lead tottering at 4-38. Sidhu’s 97 was not only the top score of the match but was also instrumental in India averting a defeat and hence for the first time ever, a series was drawn in Pakistan.
Also worth a mention is his 116 vs West Indies at Kingston, 1989 against the pace battery of Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh and Patterson in a match where no Indian batsman scored more than 47. A lost cause eventually, but a gutsy performance.

Sidhu, throughout his career, was a match winner second to none. For batsmen who scored more than 1000 runs in team wins during his career span, Sidhu’s average is next only to Steve Waugh, Graham Gooch, Shoaib Mohammad and Jimmy Adams. He is also the only Indian batsman apart from Sachin Tendulkar to average more than 60 in wins.

 

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50
Steve Waugh	45	64	3914	83.27	14	18
Graham Gooch	17	30	2273	78.37	9	4
Shoaib Mohammad	12	18	1055	75.35	3	5
Jimmy Adams	15	21	1051	70.06	3	5
Navjot Sidhu	13	18	1179	69.35	4	7
Saeed Anwar	16	25	1651	68.79	5	10
Inzamam-Ul-Haq	21	33	1745	67.11	5	10
Sachin Tendulkar	16	24	1268	63.4	4	7
Martin Crowe	14	23	1179	62.05	2	7
Michael Slater	23	38	2138	61.08	8	6

Table 3: Average in test wins (1983-1999).

Sidhu toured England and Australia only once in his career and fared badly in each of them. But what must be noted is that he made those tours in 1990 and 1992 respectively, which was a period when he had not yet found the batsman in him. He declined to tour England in 1996 owing to differences with Mohammad Azharuddin, who knows what numbers he would have gathered had he opted to go.

 

ONE DAY INTERNATIONALS

Sidhu’s personality and his performances played out with a little more flair in ODIs than in test matches. Making his one day debut vs Australia in the 1987 world cup, he started off with a bang with 4 consecutive fifties and continued this rich vein of form for the next 2 years to complete 1000 ODI runs in just 25 innings. To this day, Sidhu remains the third fastest Indian to score 1000 ODI runs (25 innings) after Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan (24 each).

Sidhu was in his peak form between 9 Oct 1987 and 14 Apr 1995. Amongst batsmen who scored more than 2000 runs in ODIs, Sidhu was the highest averaging Indian, and had the third best overall average after Dean Jones and Geoff Marsh.

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50	S/R
Dean Jones	119	117	4644	45.98	4	39	70.19
Geoff Marsh	80	78	3178	44.13	7	18	55.53
Navjot Sidhu	91	87	3446	43.62	5	28	71.22
Brian Lara	84	83	3313	43.59	5	25	73.58
Desmond Haynes	116	116	4319	41.52	9	29	65.02
Inzamam-ul-Haq	87	85	2981	41.4	4	21	73.82
Martin Crowe	80	79	2811	41.33	2	21	71.83
Robin Smith	64	63	2218	40.32	4	13	70.34

Table 4: Top ODI batsmen from Oct’87-Apr’95.

Sidhu was also striking the ball at a decent rate, scoring 71 runs per 100 balls which not only compares well with the batsmen listed in the table but is also well placed amongst all major batsmen of that time. Also, 5 of his 6 ODI centuries came during this period.

Pressing his stature as a genuine match winner, throughout his career, no one averaged more than Sidhu in matches that India won, apart from Sachin Tendulkar. Keeping the same cut-off as above, Sidhu emerges as one of 8 batsmen who averaged more than 50 in wins. He and Tendulkar, in fact, are the only Indian Batsmen who average more than 50 in this case. The scenario is a little different when the cut-off runs are reduced to 1000, but it doesn’t diminish his contribution one bit.

If the same statistic is seen for peak years, Sidhu’s numbers are remarkable. Only Martin Crowe averages more than Sidhu in wins followed by Brian Lara and Dean Jones.

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50
Martin Crowe	36	36	1702	65.46	2	14
Navjot Sidhu	52	50	2448	58.28	4	21
Brian Lara	46	45	2207	58.07	5	16
Dean Jones	79	78	3540	55.31	4	30
Inzamam-ul-Haq	48	46	1908	54.51	3	13
Mohammad Azharuddin	72	64	2213	50.29	1	14
Sachin Tendulkar	51	49	1963	49.07	4	14
Desmond Haynes	67	67	2796	49.05	8	16
Andrew Jones	40	40	1614	48.9	0	17

Table 5: Average in Team Wins (Oct’87-Apr’95)

Sidhu was also remarkably consistent when it came to contributing in team wins at overseas and neutral venues. Amongst Indian batsmen, his average (49.28) is bettered only by Saurav Ganguly (68.71) and Sachin Tendulkar (60.23). His average is 11^th highest on an overall basis though, not bad at all when you see the names that follow him.

Sidhu was also amongst the top batsmen in Sharjah, which had become the center of the ODI action in the late 80s and all of the 90s. Although Sachin made the venue his own in 1998, Sidhu was amongst the top performing batsmen in Sharjah during his career span. A significant finding given that India won only 16 out of the 38 matches it played there.

Player Name	Mat	Inn	Runs	Avg	100	50
Sachin Tendulkar	28	28	1260	50.40	4	6
Saeed Anwar	36	36	1553	45.67	7	4
Inzamam Ul Haq	28	28	1096	45.66	1	8
Saleem Malik	45	39	1462	43.00	3	9
Navjot Sidhu	32	32	1225	40.83	2	8
Aamer Sohail	25	25	960	40.00	2	6
Rameez Raja	24	24	787	35.77	2	3
Roshan Mahanama	30	29	888	34.15	1	5
Aravinda De Silva	35	35	1123	34.03	1	7

Table 6: Top Batsmen at Sharjah (Oct’87-Sep’98).
Sidhu’s antics in the media seem to have overshadowed his performances on the cricket field. His ebullient and extrovert demeanor belie his keen observation of the game that allowed him to come back into the Indian team in 1987 and cement his place as one of India’s most consistent performers for a better part of the next decade. One has to look deeper into the numbers to truly understand the sheer match winning capabilities of this glorious cricketer.

P.S. The numbers analysis was inspired by a statistical analysis of Sidhu here.

Kapil at his Peak: The Bounty Hunter

No Indian cricketer, in our living memory, has evoked as much awe and romanticism as Sachin Tendulkar. His essence is captured best in an article published in The Times of India by C.P.Surendran, a day after his Sharjah blitz, on April 26, 1998, an excerpt from which reads as follows:

“The poor Indian lifts his hands to Sachin Tendulkar in supplication: give us respite, a sense of liberation; lift us up from the dark pit of our lives to well-lit places of the imagination with your skill-wrought perfections.”

Through this backdrop, you must be thinking I’ve given you the answer to the question of who was chosen as India’s cricketer of the century by Wisden India in 2002.

It was Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj.

You must also be thinking as to why the heck be an article on Kapil Dev beginning with a typically Indian adulation of Sachin Tendulkar.

It is to make a point. The point is that I wish cricket got appropriate coverage a decade earlier than it did, only then could have we truly realized the value and meaning of being Kapil Dev, a man who bowled fast in an era when, at times, Sunil Gavaskar used to open the bowling for India, bowling a token 3-4 overs before the spinners came on. Gavaskar himself remembers with relish the experience of watching Kapil’s deliveries thud into Syed Kirmani’s gloves during his debut vs Pakistan in 1978/79.

And Kapil far surpassed this one moment of glory, he retired in 1994 as cricket’s most prolific wicket-taker (687) until overtaken by Wasim Akram.

Now I’ll get to the numbers.

Kapil Dev took 434 wickets in 131 test matches, his average of 3.3 wickets per test is lower than most prominent fast bowlers of his era. By his own admission, after breaching the 300 wicket mark, Kapil started focusing on his match-fitness rather than his bowling per se because he had his sights set on overtaking Richard Hadlee’s tally of 431 wickets.

But what often gets overlooked, is a nuanced analysis of Kapil when he was at the peak of his bowling prowess. Between 12 July 1979 and 12 Nov 1983, Kapil Dev was the cream of the crop, taking wickets at a regularity which was mind boggling.

Not only was Kapil Dev the highest wicket taker during the period in consideration, he also took 5 wickets or more in an innings with a remarkable regularity. His Inns-per-5 wkts ratio of 4.44 was bettered only by Richard Hadlee (3.8) and Imran Khan (4.28).
Keeping a cut-off of min 50 inns, Kapil has the best ratio by a distance, followed by Dennis Lillee (6.3), Ian Botham (6.7) and Dilip Doshi (9.2).

Not only this, Kapil Strike Rate (52.3) was also bettered only by Imran Khan (43.4), Geoff Lawson (50.0), Len Pascoe (51.8), and Malcolm Marshall (51.8).

Player Name	Mtch	Inns	Runs	Wkts	Avg	S/R	5W	Inns/5W
Kapil Dev	50	80	5657	214	26.43	52.3	18	4.4
Ian Botham	46	80	5250	190	27.63	57.3	12	6.7
Dennis Lillee	34	63	3925	165	23.78	51.8	10	6.3
Imran Khan	27	47	2292	139	16.48	43.4	11	4.3
Bob Willis	36	65	3357	134	25.05	52.4	5	13.0
Dilip Doshi	33	55	3502	114	30.71	81.7	6	9.2
Michael Holding	26	49	2697	112	24.08	52.9	6	8.2
Bruce Yardley	22	38	2930	99	29.59	63.9	6	6.3
Joel Garner	25	47	1978	93	21.26	60.6	2	23.5
Sir Richard Hadlee	18	34	1939	93	20.84	53.5	9	3.8
Iqbal Qasim	23	40	2312	86	26.88	72.2	4	10.0
Colin Croft	20	38	2067	83	24.9	54.5	2	19.0
Lance Cairns	18	34	1842	68	27.08	69.2	4	8.5
Malcolm Marshall	17	32	1626	67	24.26	51.8	1	32.0
Terry Alderman	16	29	1890	66	28.63	62.2	4	7.3
Andy Roberts	18	34	1728	63	27.42	62.5	2	17.0
Geoff Lawson	14	25	1504	62	24.25	50	5	5.0
Abdul Qadir	17	29	2012	56	35.92	73.9	2	14.5
Ravi Shastri	24	34	2100	56	37.5	96.4	2	17.0
Geoff Dymock	13	21	1258	53	23.73	55.1	4	5.3
Jeff Thomson	17	30	1627	52	31.28	58.4	2	15.0
Len Pascoe	11	22	1305	51	25.58	50.5	1	22.0
Karsan Ghavri	21	36	2087	50	41.74	81.6	2	18.0

Qualification: Minimum 50 wickets.

The period in consideration includes some of his most memorable spells like: 5/28 vs Australia, Melbourne (1981 – had taken pain killers to subdue a thigh injury to hand India a rare overseas victory), 8/85 vs Pakistan, Lahore (1982/83- Conjured a magical opening spell which effectively ended Majid Khan’s test career), 9/83 vs West Indies, Ahmedabad (1983/84 – Dismissed the much vaunted West Indies’ batting for 281).

For a more detailed analysis of his overall stats, click here.

Kapil Dev would have my vote if Wisden, or any cricket body, carries out a similar exercise today. How many of you would vote for him?