Cricket Stat Snippets

Every often we see some reference or other to the famous Indian Spin Quartet, a team with a dream variety. Indeed, it was a group of talent with a variety you can think of. Bishan Singh Bedi , (the left arm spinner), Bhagwat Chandrashekhar (the meverick leg spinner), Erappalli Prasanna (the guileful offspinner) and Srinivas Venkataraghavan (another master offspinner). But surprise, surprise .... They haven't played much together. In fact, all of them have played together only in one test , against England at Birmingham in 1967. And they lost the test. They did take 18 wickets together, but that wasn't sufficient to pull out a win, the batting failure in the first innings cost them the match. However, the Quartet was the main force behind India's tests during that period. In total, at least one of them have appeared in 98 out of the 136 tests India played, after Prasanna debuted in 1962 to Venkat playing in last test in 1983. In the 38 tests that India played wi...

Some say bowlers hunt in pairs. While it is important that bowlers from both ends should keep up the pressure to force wickets, does having an equally attacking bowler help? Or, rather, does it help each other? A look purely from career stats perspective. First look is ofcourse to the best proponents of swing bowling, a bowling combination which proved deadly to teams all over the world (wait, let me check the facts to fully endorse the last phrase). Fondly(?) called the Sultans of Swing, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were most dreaded pair for their ability to extract reverse swing and hurl out toe-crusher yorkers.  During their career, put together, they have taken more than 38% of the wickets that Pakistan bowlers had got, and when playing together, they had a healthy share of 56% . This has remained fairly the same, irrespective of the result, Win or Loss. Akram started his career in 1985, with the series in New Zealand. In the second test, Akram had his first (...

In the history of Cricket Test Matches, there were 30 players who captained their teams while being the designated wicket keeper. Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa had 5 players carrying out this double duty. The earliest Captain-WK role was taken up by JM Blackham , who captained Australia for 8 tests while being the Wk. The latest entrant too is an Australian, TD Paine , who took over from Steve Smith last year. There is no surprise to note that the Wicket Keeper who has captained his team the most is our own MS Dhoni . Dhoni has captained India in 60 Tests , winning 27 of them (6 Away Tests) with a win % of 45%. Mushfiqur Rahim , the Bangladesh keeper has captained in 28 tests with a 25% win. Ridley Jacobs , the West Indies player has a 100% track record, with his team winning both the tests he captained. There have been 16 instances (7 different players) of the Captain-WK scoring hundreds. PW Sherwell (South Africa) was the first such player to score a hundred, in ...

The last of the previous century men bowing out. Now only millennials to play test cricket. Probably, one of the players who rarely got his due because of the presence of a giant, the master of the trade himself . Just a look into the stats would prove how much Murali 's presence affected Herath 's career. They played 15 tests together, Herath took 24 wickets at an average of 48 , Murali 52 at an average of 27 . Those were early days for Herath, but the picture would be tru e only when we look at the facts more closely. From his debut in 1999, Herath played only 24 tests till 2009, while Murali played 91 (he retired in 2010). Herath became a regular in the SL team only after retirement of Murali, and from 2010 onwards, when Murali retired, Herath played 71 tests. Herath averaged more than 36 during those years, while Murali kept it below 22 taking an absurd looking 589 wickets, striking at a wicket every 52 balls as against Herath's 73 balls for 70 wickets. But onc...