Mitchell Johnson joins Craig McMillan & Brian Lara

Mitchell Johnson, has just scored 26 off an over from Paul Harris, but was stranded one boundary hit short of his first test century.

122.1 Harris to Johnson, FOUR, kneels down and slog-sweeps this one behind square leg
122.2 Harris to Johnson, FOUR, down he skips, whipping a flatter delivery off his pads over midwicket
122.3 Harris to Johnson, SIX, even better! Its maximum! Johnson goes down and slogs this one over midwicket for six, man he's targeting Harris
And that is Mitchell J's personal Test best.
122.4 Harris to Johnson, no run, fuller of off stump and this time he leaves it alone
122.5 Harris to Johnson, SIX, he's going the distance! This one's a dinger, rows back over mid-on
122.6 Harris to Johnson, SIX, oh my word, he's just going better and better! Harris keeps it flat and wide but Johnson waltzes down and clubs it across the line, off the middle of the bat for a six over long-on and out of the stadium

He is now at joint 3rd in the most runs off an over category. The other instances of 26 in an over are Craig McMillan smacking Younis Khan's part-time legbreaks around in March 2001 and Brian Lara caning Danish Kaneria in November 2006. The record holder is Brian Lara (28 off Robin Peterson) & at #2 is Shahid Afridi (27 off Harbhajan)

Labels: australia, batting, johnson, record, south africa

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:21 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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India's one-man batting armies

The Indian team's batting performances in the last decade can be roughly divided into three phases.

Phase 1 would have been from 1998-2001 where Sachin Tendulkar was really the only one making runs. The entire batting revolved around him. Dravid, Laxman & Ganguly were yet to establish themselves while Azhar was on the downhill slope. This was the period where he had some unforgettable knocks against Australia (Chennai in 1997-98, Melbourne in 1999-2000, a double treat at Mumbai in 2000-2001 & Chennai in 2000-2001), Pakistan (Chennai in 1998-99) and South Africa (Bloemfontein in 2000-2001). Basically, it was a case of "Get Tendulkar, and the rest will follow". Almost all the knocks mentioned were of that variety, most painful of all being the one against Pakistan at Chennai.

Phase 2 would have been from 2002-2004 Rahul Dravid where was the one around whom the batting revolved. Although there were vital contributions from others, he towered over the rest with his knocks against Australia (Adelaide in 2003-2004 & indeed the rest of the series), England (Headingley in 2002), Pakistan (Rawalpindi in 2003-2004). In the last 2-3 years, he has had the odd great test/knock (e.g. see his twin gems at Jamaica), but the consistency is missing. When Dravid failed, at most you had a few instances where the likes of Laxman, Tendulkar, Sehwag or Ganguly did the job. But by and large, his was the most prized wicket.

I would say we are in phase 3 currently where Virender Sehwag is the chap around whom the batting revolves, despite him being in and out of the side recently. He scores so bloody rapidly, the bowling side is shocked at his audacity. His teammates are typically too shocked to continue the good work, and end up handing over the initiative to the opposition. Sample some of his thrillers: Pakistan (Mohali & Bangalore in 2004-2005, Lahore in 2005-2006), West Indies (nearly a century before lunch on day one). He also scored his first ever 2nd innings century (151) earlier this year at Adelaide when no-one else made more than 20!

Let's see for how much longer the Sehwag phase will continue. When it ends, whose turn will it be to pick up the baton? Raina? Rohit Sharma? Yuvraj? Dhoni? Gambhir? Or will it be someone totally out of the blue and unexpected?

Labels: batting, dravid, india, sehwag, tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:29 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Ricky Ponting gets 10000 test runs

As was perhaps widely predicted from the moment he made his debut 13 years ago, Ricky Ponting went past 10,000 test runs last week, during the second test against West Indies, 2 months after his statistical twin did so.

Of course, Dravid's recent run of inconsistency (and early-career inability to convert 50s into 100s) has meant that Ponting has gone way past him in terms of test batting average (58 v/s 54) and centuries (35 v/s 25).

Brian Lara, with 11,953 runs, currently is top of the pile, closely followed by Sachin Tendulkar (11,782).

Unless his career is cruelly cut short by injury or some other self-inflicted damage, there's absolutely no doubt that Ponting will end up breaking the test records for most runs and most centuries.

Labels: 10000, australia, batting, dravid, greats, ponting, statistic

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:54 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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South Africa beats Scotland

SA beats Scotland in a match that was another convincing victory.

Probably not more so than the one against the Netherlands. But maybe not... they were after all batting at 8.05 runs per over. That is a lot.

In fact, someone at lunch the other day said... you don't need bowlers if your batsmen are good enough. And in ODI's that is true. Again SA didn't take 10 wickets. Again there wasn't a spinner that could baffle the opponents. Again the all pace attack was predictable. But if you can bat at 8.05 runs per over for 23 overs consecutively then I guess your bowlers are doing a good job if they are not going at more than 6.00 an over.

Australia will be SA's real first game, and it will be a measure on how exactly they stand. Between those two teams, they are probably favourites and second favourites. With Sri Lanka and New Zealand probably being the 3rd and 4th places.

I am biased, but if I try to be unbiased, I still think SA is the top team there. And people who disagree are biased towards whatever team they think are the top team.

Labels: 2007 world cup, batting, bias, scotland, south africa, world cup

Thus spake Reenen @ 12:26 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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He's not a bad one-day batsman, is he?

Yes, he's played 300-odd games. But that's perhaps 200 more than a a whopping majority of Indian cricket followers would have predicted for him when his one-day career came to a near standstill shortly after his 1(21) against Bangladesh. The revival came during India's tour of New Zealand where he played a fair amount of shots over the infield without ever looking ugly. Then came the 1999 World Cup. After that, no real looking back.

Today, he went past 10000 ODI runs, against Sri Lanka at Goa.

The only others who've got more international runs than Rahul Dravid (19218) are Sachin Tendulkar (25450), Brian Lara (22089), Inzamam-ul-Haq (20478) and Ricky Ponting (19224). Point to be noted: Dravid and Ponting's numbers are identical, yet again!

Analyzing the numbers further, in terms of runs per innings in tests, the rankings are BC Lara (51.52), RT Ponting (51.19), R Dravid (50.41), SR Tendulkar (49.16) and Inzamam-ul-Haq (44.51). For ODIs, the rankings (runs per innings) are SR Tendulkar (39.95), RT Ponting (37.48), BC Lara (36.07), R Dravid (35.12) and Inzamam-ul-Haq (33.71). Inzamam's numbers are clearly inferior to the rest. So I'm going to drop him from the comparison.

The next analysis is a ratio of test runs to ODI runs. My personal preference is for test cricket. So a higher ratio is preferable. The rankings are BC Lara (1.18), RT Ponting (0.95), R Dravid (0.91) and SR Tendulkar (0.72). A similar analysis of test runs/innings to ODI runs/innings gives R Dravid (1.44), BC Lara (1.43), RT Ponting (1.37) and SR Tendulkar (1.23).

Then I assign a weightage for each player's test and ODI runs per innings numbers. This is how it turns out. If I rank ODI and test runs on par with each other, the rankings are SR Tendulkar (89.11), RT Ponting (88.67), BC Lara (87.59) and R Dravid (85.53). If I gave ODI runs a 75% weightage compared to test runs, the rankings are RT Ponting (79.30), SR Tendulkar (79.12), BC Lara (78.57) and R Dravid (76.75). If ODIs get 50% weightage compared to test runs, the rankings are RT Ponting (69.93), BC Lara (69.56), SR Tendulkar (69.14) and R Dravid (67.97). If ODIs get 25% weightage compared to test runs, the rankings are RT Ponting (60.56), BC Lara (60.54), R Dravid (59.19) and SR Tendulkar (59.15).

What this analysis tells me is that there's almost no real difference between the fearsome foursome. Ricky Ponting leads on just about every count, Brian Lara comes a very close second a lot of the time. But the margins are really wafer thin. When I normalize all the rankings for each weightage system, the highest gap is between Dravid (0.9597) and Tendulkar when ODI runs getting the same weightage as test runs. In the other three weightages, the gaps are Tendulkar (0.9767) v Ponting for the 25% weightage, Dravid (0.9719) v Ponting for the 50% weightage and Dravid (0.9678) v Ponting for the 75% weightage.

Lara is due to retire after the 2007 World Cup. Tendulkar could last for another 2 years at most. The two cricketing twins will keep making bowling attacks feel miserable for at least another half a decade! It'll be awesome to follow the race.

Previous stuff on Dravid: Highest batting avg, Ponting and Dravid's similar stats, comparing Ponting and Dravid in ODIs, comparing Kallis, Ponting and Dravid, second fastest to 8000 test runs, most consecutive test appearances from debut, second highest average among those with 7000 test runs, combining well with Kumble, century in each test playing nation and drawing level with Gavaskar's catches count.

Labels: 10000, batting, dravid, greats, inzamam, ponting, tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:59 pm | Sledge/Read 10 sledge(s)
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