Cricket Statistics and Trivia

[puneets]

Today, Sourav Ganguly became the fourth player ever to score 11,000 ODI runs.

Sachin heads the list, having scored runs in the excess of 15K, followed by Jayasuriya and Inzi. Dravid is placed 5th.

[gbelday]

All these don't matter (to me ).  Show me the wins....

[puneets]

The title of the thread says it all...it's "trivia"

[puneets]

What a phenomenal year for Gautam Gambhir!
Everything he touched turned gold, be it test cricket, ODI, T20 or IPL20-20.
In 2008:
Tests: 1134 runs in 8 matches (16 innings), @ 70.87 runs per innings, with 1 double ton, 2 100s and 6 50s.

ODIs.: 1109 runs in 27 matches (27 inngs), @ 46.62 runs per innings (SR: 90.5), with 3 100s and 7 50s.

[prasen9]

India's record as of today in ODIs still reeks. The numbers follow below. Abysmal against any decent team of the last 30 years: Australia, RSA, Pak, and WI. Slightly better than England, New Zealand. Somewhat better against Sri Lanka -- but remember they were minnows 15 years ago. Horrible against the trash: Bangla, Zim, and Kenya --- we do not break 90%. Earlier on, almost never have I seen an Indian team really thump a non-minnow. It was always 3-2. For the first-time ever, I have hope that India will be able to erase some of these deficits. Time for Dhoni's team to create some more gap with New Zealand and take revenge for years of futility against the top-4 (although Pak and WI are no longer at the top) and get over 60% against the lower middle class.

--pm

Result summary

India - One-Day Internationals

Opposition Span Mat Won Lost Tied NR %
v Australia 1980-2008 96 32 57 0 7 35.95
v Bangladesh 1988-2008 19 17 2 0 0 89.47
v England 1974-2008 70 38 30 0 2 55.88
v Kenya 1996-2004 13 11 2 0 0 84.61
v New Zealand 1975-2009 79 39 35 0 5 52.70
v Pakistan 1978-2008 117 45 68 0 4 39.82
v South Africa 1991-2007 57 20 35 0 2 36.36
v Sri Lanka 1979-2009 111 59 42 0 10 58.41
v West Indies 1979-2007 90 35 53 1 1 39.88
v Zimbabwe 1983-2005 49 39 8 2 0 81.63

[Sam Millington]

Hi,
I want to say that indian cricket is better than other till this time .
there are many player who have great experience.
and dhoni is best captain i ever seen in indian cricket
he is young and powerful.i saw his mach between shri lanka he scored 183 not out.
He have different style for play this game.

[prasen9]

In ODIs, the worst batsmen (by average) for India who got a long rope (30 ODIs) have been Dinesh Mongia (57 matches @ 27.95/71.47), Sandeep Patil (45 matches @ 24.51/82.17), Yashpal Sharma (42 matches @ 28.58/63.02), Raman Lamba (32 matches @ 27/67.15), Praveen Amre (37 matches @ 20.52/64.2), and Srikkanth (146 matches @ 29.01/71.74).

This shows that Dinesh Karthik is the worst batsman (by average) considering all batsmen who have played more than 45 matches. So he should only play as a wicket-keeper if there is no better alternative. And, his SR of 73.51 is marginally better than Mongia's. Given all the batting friendly reforms, that is abysmal.

Sandeep Patil was an exception in that he had a poor record but he could get you runs quickly. And, I will always remember '83 semis against England. I was listening on a radio getting goose bumps. A strike rate of 82 was superb for his time. Maybe he did better in tests. Note that Srikkanth, who had a reputation as a dashing batsman only scored at 71.74. Actually, I was surprised to find Srikkanth that much slower than Patil.

I liked Amre's batting. But, I think that was based on his test batting. His ODI batting looks pretty poor. Lamba was a hack. The other batsman Yashpal Sharma was surprising too. He was somewhat useful in '83.

The truly bad batsmen who got national caps did not last 30 matches. And, the averages and strike rates were rather poor in those days.

I am not considering Kapil, Shastri, Yusuf Pathan, etc. --- calling them allrounders.

[Prashant]

Srikanth was truly abysmal. He managed to charm the selectors (and perhaps a lot of fans) with his quirky behavior & occasional flash of hand-eye coordination, but he was just a bad batsman in technique, temperament & situational ability. He had all of Sehwag's flaws & none of his qualities.

I wish I could say he was any better as a selector, but if anything he was worse.

[suresh]

Srikanth was truly abysmal. He managed to charm the selectors (and perhaps a lot of fans) with his quirky behavior & occasional flash of hand-eye coordination, but he was just a bad batsman in technique, temperament & situational ability. He had all of Sehwag's flaws & none of his qualities.

I wish I could say he was any better as a selector, but if anything he was worse.

I couldn't have said it better.

[prasen9]

You guys are a tad harsh on Srikkanth. I am not a big fan of the Srikkanth/Sehwag types. I think keeping wickets is more important as long as you are going at a basic rate ~ say around 4 runs/over and then you can accelerate at the end if you have wickets in hand. However, logically, given the powerplay overs, a case can be made to hit at the top. Srikkanth's contribution was to show that you can hit and should hit a bit more. T20s etc. have shown that batsmen used to play way more conservatively than is warranted. Batting is all about choosing the ball to hit. I think batsmen of yesteryears chose not to hit balls that they could have hit. Srikkanth showed that you can throw caution to the wind a bit more up the order. Srikkanth's SR was 72, Shastri's was 61 (at about the same average), Gavaskar 62, Prabhakar 60, Yashpal 63, Patil 82, Lamba 67, Binny 60, Malhotra 71, Amarnath 57.7, Raman 56, More 70. Apart from Gavaskar, the others were at an average near to Srikkanth's or less. Malhotra's was slightly higher than that of Srikkanth. So what you see is that Srikkanth showed that taking risks up in the order does not result in lowering the average. He was quite useful at his time. It may be because we did not have players who were much better. Of course, once Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Sidhu came up, then Srikkanth was rendered useless.

[PKBasu]

Statistics are pretty useless in evaluating the impact of players in different eras. ODIs were just beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, and scoring was much slower then. Srikkanth was among those who changed the complexion of the game with his flair and ability to score quickly. It might appear slow according to today's standards, but pitches were probably much more bowler-friendly in those days as well. We won the World Cup in 1983 with a crew of players who are all supposed to be abysmal or poor (Srikkanth -- top-scorer in the final -- Jimmy Amarnath, Yashpal Sharma, Sandeep Patil...). Absolute nonsense. They were good enough to beat the rest of the world, not once but twice! (1985 WCC being the second occasion). Viv Richards was probably the big exception in that era.

[prasen9]

Which is why I put forward the SRs of his peers. You can then see the real difference. They were not poor. They were slow. The whole world was slow at that time. A score over 200 was competitive and above 250 near impossible to match. Bowlers did not have so many restrictions either. The pitches were not deliberately flattened and the boundaries of the grounds not brought in. I think Srikkanth and Patel were good enough. I loved Patel even more than Srikkanth because he could finish things after the MO batsmen slowed things down too much and perhaps because of his daring test century in Australia and attacking play abroad. Both scored quickly. The rest Gavaskar, Amarnath, Yashpal, Shastri, etc. scored slowly but steadily. Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, and Amarnath were great batsmen. So, you could have two sloggers bookend them. We had a genuine all-rounder Kapil and a solid wicketkeeper-bat. The combination was great. And, the bowling was pretty good. Shivaramakrishnan was in a dream as was Sadanand Vishwanath in the WCC. Vishwanath's is a curious case. Our dibbly-dobbly bowlers have always been good in England for the last 30 years until recently because they no longer play county cricket and haven't learnt how to bowl. Chetan Sharma made England cry in a test series, if I recall correctly.

The other big hitters of that time were Lance Cairns, Ian Smith, Manzoor Elahi, Wasim Akram, Rumesh Ratnayeke, Wayne Phillips, Ian Healy, Phil DeFreitas, Rod Marsh, Simon O'Donnell all lower down the order, capable of cameos. Viv could sustain his hitting for long innings. Our best hitter was Kapil Dev. Chetan Sharma could hit too. I will remember the surprise pinch-hitter century at #3, I believe. He was a decent bat --- almost an allrounder in ODIs. And, Sandeep Patil. But, all said and done, Viv's average of 47 at that strike-rate was insane. The nearest proper batsman would be Zaheer Abbas. He averaged about the same as Viv but was slightly slower. Apart from Zaheer, I cannot remember another person. A notch further down would be Clive Llyod and Aravinda da Silva.

If I needed people to hit, I would choose Viv, Zaheer, and Lloyd as my middle order followed by Kapil and maybe Smith as the keeper.

[prasen9]

Statistical evidence of what we already knew. Indian ODI bowlers are hapless.

[PKBasu]

Which is why I put forward the SRs of his peers. You can then see the real difference. They were not poor. They were slow. The whole world was slow at that time. A score over 200 was competitive and above 250 near impossible to match. Bowlers did not have so many restrictions either. The pitches were not deliberately flattened and the boundaries of the grounds not brought in. I think Srikkanth and Patel were good enough. I loved Patel even more than Srikkanth because he could finish things after the MO batsmen slowed things down too much and perhaps because of his daring test century in Australia and attacking play abroad. Both scored quickly. The rest Gavaskar, Amarnath, Yashpal, Shastri, etc. scored slowly but steadily. Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, and Amarnath were great batsmen. So, you could have two sloggers bookend them. We had a genuine all-rounder Kapil and a solid wicketkeeper-bat. The combination was great. And, the bowling was pretty good. Shivaramakrishnan was in a dream as was Sadanand Vishwanath in the WCC. Vishwanath's is a curious case. Our dibbly-dobbly bowlers have always been good in England for the last 30 years until recently because they no longer play county cricket and haven't learnt how to bowl. Chetan Sharma made England cry in a test series, if I recall correctly.

.

I was wondering which Patel you meant (Brijesh perhaps..). But I think you mean Sandeep Patil -- given the reference to the daring test century in Australia.

[prasen9]

Sandeep. Brijesh was somewhat before my time. Sorry for the misspelling resulting in misattribution.