Name	Avg	Test	Date
Ricky Ponting	59.99	107	1/12/06
Kumar Sangakkara	58.94	127	6/8/14
Rahul Dravid	58.75	104	30/6/06
Sachin Tendulkar	58.46	103	30/10/02
Jacques Kallis	58.20	111	16/11/07
Javed Miandad	57.41	100	1/12/89
Mahela Jayawardene	54.67	108	16/11/09
Brian Lara	54.09	117	3/6/05
Allan Border	53.58	112	12/1/90
Viv Richards	53.09	101	2/12/88
Shivnarine Chanderpaul	52.89	154	8/6/14
Michael Clarke	52.20	100	13/12/13
Steve Waugh	51.87	139	23/8/01
Matthew Hayden	51.87	100	28/11/08
Sunil Gavaskar	51.79	102	28/11/84
Inzamam-ul-Haq	51.79	110	13/7/06
Virender Sehwag	50.51	100	23/11/12
Graeme Smith	50.16	101	2/8/12

Since it's the end of another decade for cricket , I thought why not reminisce about they great decade of cricket we had. I would focus on team India as it's the team of which I can claim to have followed the majority of the matches.
2011-12
The first year of the decade , Indian team was the No: 1 test side since 2009 , dominating at home and being extremely competitive abroad winning in NZ , Eng, drawing in SA and fighting well with Ponting's Australia down under all in a span of 3-4 years. To add cherry on top of that winning the World Cup meant this was the peak of Indian cricket and given where we were at the turn of the century it was one heck of an achievement to reach this position.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still pretty shit.
2012-13
As big as the highs were , who knew the lows were going to be just as deep. The no 1 test team team crashed and burned in incredible fashion and got white washed in two consecutive series in Eng and Aus , tons of legends had to retire and if that wasn't enough the nail to the coffin was hit by Sir Alistair Cook and his men when they beat India in their own fortress after 28 years when Panesar and Swann taught Indians how to bowl spin and I think at this point the stumps , bails , bat and ball basically anything to do with cricket should have been burnt and sent to England at that point. Funnily this series was my introduction to cricket as a 11 year old who despite being in india didn't know the name of a single cricketer other than Sachin Tendulkar.
Phew, Anyways the horror show ends here, or does it..? Though it doesn't feel like much now , but at that time when Pakistan was visiting for the first time after the terrorist attack and beat India in an odi series in India , it felt like a huge deal, I guess it was the series where we discovered Bhuvi, and during those days he used to swing like a banana albiet a bit slower, his wickets of the first balls on debut where fucking ridiculous. Regardless we did fine in ODi compared to our standards back then when we never used to win odi series in SENA , and Virat Kohli's thrashing in Hobart stands out even to this day , and to think that his 183 is still his highest after 43 fucking hundreds is a miracle.
Anyways the redemption in test cricket came when Australia visited India. We didn't know at the time , but in retrospect the worst Australian side I have ever seen play test cricket and poor bastards thought they could sneak a victory against this depleted indian side and they rightfully got demolished due their pathetic attitude towards homework and trust me Nathan Lyon back then was so bad that it felt like he was a club bowler , didn't know the dude would develop into the beast he is now. Luckily wade was shit then and now , the loud mouth's constant though.
That 4-0 victory over the fake team which tried to convince us that they were thev real Aussies is what I consider to be the beginning of our journey in becoming one of the best test teams in the world again, though is was not to happen any time soon , still this is where I can trace it all back , this is where Ashwin and Jadeja showed a glimpse of what they were going to do to the poor visiters for the rest of the decade , plus by this point Pujara and Rahane where abvious standouts in the middle order , along with Kohli, even Murli Vijay who a lot of people don't like , which goes over my head as he is unironically the best test opener for us this decade and yeah we were never able to find him a proper opening partner , and by the time he went completely shit , we had zero openers performing well for us in any conditions other than home.
Also who can forget Shikhar Dhawan's debut test century and Dhoni's double century.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still shit.
2013-2014
Now this was the year where we won our last ICC trophy of any kind, it's a shame they scrapped champions trophy after this year.Who knew Rohit Sharma's move to the opening spot would give us one of the finest batsmen in coloured clothing the world has ever seen. By that point even with his ridiculous talent™, it seemed like the final days of him getting anymore chances , if he had failed miserably there.
There was a great odi series against aus at home, Rohit scored the first of his three double hundreds, poor Ishant have away 30 runs off an over to end his loi career forever.
Faulkner was a good cricketer during this time who was supposed to achieve big things , he batted and bowled pretty well in this series.
Sachin played his last series , at the time it was quite a relief , and also very emotional , never seen a test match as jam packed as that in India , maybe the pink ball test against Bangladesh was close. Shami was the revelation of the series , and his reverse swing exploits in his debut match is still the best spell of reverse swing I have seen by any Indian this decade.
Now as the winner of champions trophy which basically means we where the champions among champions at a time when we ourself where the world champions , we went with all our super sayen power to tour South Africa.
This was my first away tour as a fan to any country let alone the land where Steyn breathes fire.
First odi of the match , SA comes wearing pink , I laugh and make a few cringey pink = girly jokes. My first introduction to Steyn on Live telly and bruh the talented Rohit Sharma didn't touch the ball for his first 30 deliveries. I dunno how one can miss so many consecutive edges, maybe the balls where too good to get an edge , in that match Virat scored a four of Steyn with a straight drive when Rohit was being treated as if he was a drunk no 11 , and to this day that reminds me of how Virat is a cut a above Rohit regardless of how many mental gymnastics the mentally challenged brohit fans do to claim otherwise. Anyways we lost 3-0 in that series as expected but during those days even ODIs felt like impossible to win in SA for us. Also de dock announced himself with three centuries in all the matches that series.
That test series was Kohli's first in SA and he had a lot to prove back in those days , and he did and iirc so did Pujara. The second test is what everyone would remember where SA almost chased down the world record total, god the bowling was pathetic then.
During this time an awkward young kid with an even more awkward bowling action bowled for MI on debut , and it didn't seems like much at the time , just that he was awkward.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still pretty shit.
2014- 15
Then we go to New Zealand and baz scores a triple century and makes us fuck off.
The t20 worldcup was pretty good for us we went into the finals , Sri Lanka bowled really good at the death, basically every ball was a wide yorker and this was the beginning of a long stretch of losing on the finals or semi-finals for us in the decade.
Now comes the groups first test series in England , I meant just in essence , dhoni and Ishant had played their before but still this was the India in transition, the first test was a draw all I remember is Murli Vijay had a great knock . The next match at lords is one of the most important matches for us this decade , before this I guess we hadn't won a test match in SENA countries since I guess 2008 when we won in NZ 1-0 , I mean come on , I guess we all should be glad things aren't that bad now and we do win atleast a test in most places we play and other teams have to, lots of the times , work there asses of to win against us in their own backyard. Now Rahane scored probably the Indian test century of the decade according to me , and also his favorite century as claimed by the man himself after his exploits in the Boxing Day test recently.
Now hear me out , Ishant got his career best figures in the second innings here , but this is still a time when he was pretty mediocre, and even though I don't want to take any credit away from him , a lot has to do with a collective brain fade from England while playing the short balls from Ishant. Anyways we won and it was a great day, sweet victory in SENA after a long time after two matches we led the series 1-0 , and tbh if we were Sri Lanka or Pakistan we would be going on home after avenging our home test series loss, but no the big boys have to play 5 test matches FFS, nothing much to say here Bhuvneshwar Kumar was our best batsman and bowler that series , we got fucked really fucking bad by Anderson and yeah 3-1.
But even more than that the series would be known as Virat Kohli's lowest point in his test career [ yet (๑•﹏•)]. The world found out that he is no Tendulkar and does have a severe flaw in his technique playing the out swinger. And to be honest we all know that to some extent he still has that flaw , unlike Williamson and Smith who basically have no major flaws in their technique. Yet I would say he is the second best test batsman of the generation after Smith.
Atleast back in the day England used to be a piss poor odi side who played like it was the 70s , and we won that series , but it was not sweet enough to compensate for the thrashing in tests.
Now next we move on to the Border Gavaskar Trophy in Aus, Dhoni called it quits as a test cricketer and Virat takes the helm ,it was basically a run fest, Virat and Smith both scored tons of runs , and we almost won a test in Adelaide , but it could have been worse given how Mitchell Johnson blew England away and South Africa too, but the pitches maybe weren't that conducive or he declined a bit or both , anyways it was basically chat shit get banged for him that series anyways. We lost 2-0 , but this was a series where we could say we played respectable cricket.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still quite shit.
2015 - 2016
We weren't in great form as an odi side around the time of the world cup as we lost a series pretty badly to Australia , who where eventually the champions , Starc was breathing fire back then.
But we won every match in the group stages , and finally lost to Australia in the semi-finals. Fuck Starc , he's too good. No problem we'll win in 2019.
Now in the test world we have had lots of back to back tough series , all the players where new , but by now lots of them where quite experienced and settled in the squad.
Now many people like to say that Indian wins in Sri Lanka shouldn't be counted as away wins and it's still the sub continent etc etc , but before 2015, the last and only time india beat Sri Lanka in Lanka was in the early nineties. Now during this time Sri Lanka was still a great team especially at home they still had Sangakara , Herath both at their best and on top of that they had Karunaratne , Thirimanne and Chandimal. Also remember the time when Angelo Mathews was one of the best test batsman in the world? Yeah he was the captain. The first test match went to them after a second innings collapse from India , that would be the last test Sri Lanka wins against India and they played 8 more tests after this. Anyways India came back triumphantly to win the next two tests to get only their second ever test series victory in the supposedly easy land Sri Lanka and this was to be the beginning of a very dominant period of test cricket for India after which, eventually they'd become the country with the second most number of months as world no 1 in test cricket after Australia since 2003 when the icc ranking begun.
This was the first series where Ishant Sharma started to show some improvement.
Next , South Africa visits India for a test series. Now South Africa has drawn their last two test series in India and I would even go on as far as to say they were even better than the legendary Australia when it came to test cricket in India. Virat Kohli at this time wanted to get really spin friendly wickets as according to him many teams around the world create green wickets and all to get home advantage , there was lots of complaining from faf , but any ways they got thumped 3-0 for the first time ever in India and that was the beginning of a very dominant home stretch.
One highlight was the blockathon from ABD -Amla and also twin centuries from Rahane in that test which where the only centuries in the whole series iirc.
Now India goes to west Indies and get a convincing test series victory, now WI us still a good test team at home , they have beaten good sides like England and Pakistan but they always fail to show up against India, so that's that.
Note than Ishant was still a bit shit.
2016-2017
Next New Zealand visits India , and get ravaged 3-0 with huge margins , India used to always be a dominant side at home , but this was starting to get scary, Ashwin and Jadeja were unplayable literally every match.
Next comes England , the winners of the last series between the two in India. Oh the revenge was cold and sweet , the way we destroyed them was something else , huge scores , losing after scoring almost 500 runs multiple times , triple hundreds , who can forget the hundred from jayant yadav. This was a massacre, and it was due since a long time.
Now as you know Kohli and Shastri were quite cocky by this time, so were the fans and I mean can you blame us? Australia came after a lot of preparation, fuckers where praising Ashwin as the Bradman of bowling to jinx him. The Pune test was a shock, this was before Steve Smith's redemption in the Ashes and as an Indian fan the only other time I really saw him scoring lots of runs it wasn't really tough conditions and on top of that it was at home. This Pune test changed that, I think I have seen the best test batsman of the generation , and maybe even for the next 30 years. Kohli went fishing for that series , and we were again in the backfoot after the first innings of the second test. But then as Ashwin had warned Aussies didn't get a considerable lead , and Ashwin had them for soup . The last test was again won by India to finish a well fought test series.
We all know what happened in the t20 world cup, we reached the semi , and WI thumped us. Who can forget the Ashwin no ball , atleast I mean maybe it's just an anomaly surely an Indian bowler can't bowl a no ball in another major icc knockout match right? Right?
Note that Ishant is very very slightly shit
2017-2018
Okay I have a confession to make. I may have lied about something , ok I admit there was a champions trophy in 2017. And yeah we got thumped so bad , that idk what to say, fairytale stuff for pakistan though , tbh I don't remember them beating us in any other match since 2013 , but probs to them they won the second most important match between us this decade , after the icc wc semi final.
Atleast after the champions trophy we decided to bring in Kuldeep and Chahal and with the rise of Bumrah and even Shami we started to actually become a good bowling side in one day internationals.
We started to not only win at home in loi but in SA , NZ , Aus and that too convincingly, the only loss I remember during this time was probably against the future worldcup champions England at their home , but then again they are probably the greatest odi side probably only second to the legendary Aussie side.
Now we tour Sri Lanka again and by this time Sri Lanka has detoriated quite a bit , they aren't their previous self and don't have Sanga , Herath and Mathew is not his former self. They get thumped 3-0 at home and it's probably our first overseas whitewash.
Next they tour us and we are arrogant enough to act as if this is practice for upcoming overseas tour and make green pitches and all. I remember the Delhi test with pollution and yeah two matches where drawn rather surprisingly still India won 1-0.
By this time you can see that Ishant is slowly improving and his performances are becoming much better.
Now India visits SA and this time India is an experienced side , they are still not a world class bowling line up , but that was going to change , and that happened here when Bumrah was given his test cap. There were lots of questions about this , people where saying that he cannot get swing or seam and his action was not meant for test cricket etc etc, anyways it didn't even take much time tbh , he was an instant success just like he was in loi and took decent amount of wickets every innings , India lost the first two test matches , but all those matches were close , popular consensus is that ABD was the diffrence , India won the last test match which was on a green mamba of a picth, and Bumrah takes his first fifier in the last test match and rest is history. It's too early , but still he is easily the best fast bowler India has ever had, greatest not yet solely due to the fact that some others have more years of service.
Note that Ishant is finally bowling as one of the best bowlers.
2018-2019
Now we go back to England , all eyes were on Kohli , I think he played one of his best innings that match playing with the tail to keep India in the game. Yeah India was in the game a lot of the times infact , yes the scoreline was 4-1 , but this series was well fought , still England were the better team , but India got one famous victory in Nottingham and yeah that's that.
Pretty disappointing , a similar result was predicted down under. Who knew Warner and Steve Smith had diffrent plans , they did their noble deed and we're kicked out of the sport for an year , and yeah this did play a part in giving India a huge advantage.
So yeah we visited down under and as we all know we thumped Australia , should have been 3-1 if not for the rain in Sydney , it was a historic series win , the bowling we faced was still the best in the world. Pujara played the series of his life , and Indian bowling was as good if not better.
In ODIs we are doing really well but still haven't found a good middle order. And yeah we never found that before the world cup.
Note that Ishant Sharma is one of the best bowlers in the world.
2019-2020
Back to back odi series against Australia , both win one of the series at the opposition's home , but we beat them in the WC. We again reach the semi finals and again just like last time lose in the semi's , at this point if we didn't have a decently stacked trophy cabinet we would be the chokers of the decade.
We visit west indies and I think I see Bumrah bowling the best he ever has , he was literally unplayable before getting a stress fracture , which gave real scares to all of us.
Next South Africa visits India again and if last time was a thumping , this time was a complete annihilation , even the pitches where pretty balanced and our pacer out bowled their pacers , tbh it wasn't even a contest , they looked like club cricketers , except faf, he was the lone warrior. 3-0 , but we all know SA is going through a crisis, so nothing surprising.
Bangladesh visit India for 2 tests and again if SA had one batsman doing well , Bangladesh had zero. The day-night test was the most fun test match in terms of crowd participation since Tendulkar's farewell series. But in terms of cricket it was completely one sided.
Note thatIshant is one of the best bowlers in the world
2020
By this time we have been the world no 1 test side for 4 consecutive years , and rightly so according to me , we haven't been world dominators or something , but we where still the best of the lot.
But the biggest disappointment atleast for me in the decade after the England series in 2012 , came when we toured NZ , yeah Ishant Sharma wasn't available , but the way we got rolled over in both the tests after making so much progress in all these years was very disappointing , but we can consider it of as only 2 off tests but still it was very disappointing.
On top of that being white washed in odi series was also pretty humiliating and one concern has to be the ineffectiveness of the odi bowling side recently. But one thing is the middle order is doing slightly better plus the world cup is in India , so bowling won't be that much of a problem I hope. It's still a long way.
We white wash them 5-0 is a T20 series with two of them in super overs and that was very satisfying.
Then Covid hits and the world goes into a frenzy.
We visit Australia again in 2 years , and start by very poorly losing the first two ODIs , the bowling looks problematic.
We redeem ourself in the t20s though and since the next two world cups are t20s I guess that's good that we are consistently winning.
And at the fag end of the decade we play the first test in Adelaide , we start well considering Ishant isn't available again , we get them quite cheaply getting a handy lead , at the end of day two we where thinking of scoring another 200 runs atleast to get a good enough lead to win the test match. In probably the worst session of cricket India has ever played in their 88 years of playing this game , we get all out for 36 , and rightly everyone starts prediction a 4-0 whitewash , I mean who wouldn't.
I guess one of the best test match victories for the country not just in this decade but in our entire history came as the last test match of the decade.. Coming back from an all time low , not having Kohli , Ishant , Bhuvi , Shami and Umesh getting injured mid game , with two debutants India makes a great comeback coming back from a historic low.
That's that, it has been a great decade , certainly India's best decade in terms of win rates and results and all and even icc trophies , not getting atleast one ICC trophy in the later end of the decade dampens the fun a bit , let's hope that changes in the future. The biggest thing to happen is certainly getting good fast bowlers in the second half of the decade.
Exciting times ahead , we probably have more talent coming through every year in domestic than ever before, especially in fast bowling , currently very excited for Kartik Tyagi , and also hope nagarkoti and Mavi don't get lost , Natrajan , Siraj , Saini are all good. As usual lots and lots of batting talent coming through, also a couple of exciting wicket keepers in Rishab and Ishan kishan and even Sanju , if Rahul can keep well , that's the best case scenario for the loi teams.
All through the decade IPL has evolved into a mature league and is only going strength to strength .
One thing which has detoriated a bit I feel is our fielding which was top notch for a long time from champions trophy 2013 untill recently. Lots of catches being dropped and there's no excuses for that.
I think in the first decade of the century we went from a average team to a good team , this decade after a blip early on , we have transitioned easily into a top 3 team irrespective of the format. Without a doubt the most successful decade for Indian cricket in terms of results , the 2000s died for this.
At the end I want to have a word for Ishant Sharma , for the majority of his career he was the most mediocre cricketer I have ever seen , he was statistically the worst fast bowler to play the number of tests he did with a bowling avg of about 38-40 , I don't think anyone except Ishant himself would have ever thought that he would be averaging around 17-18 accross the world over a 3 year span , and I for one never thought I would say that he is one of the best test bowlers in the world. It's one of the greatest cricket career redemptions ever and I for one respect the hell out of the dude. Being mediocre wasn't his fault , he was still the best the country had produced for a long time and that was probably more frustrating, that we had no choice. Regardless he has 3 tests to go to reach 100 tests and I think he is certainly among the Indian greats and without doubt a vital part of the greatest Indian bowling unit ever.

A Statistical Analysis to Determine and Improve upon the ICC's Team of the "Decade"

Let's be honest, the ICC's teams of the decade was a wee bit rubbish. Plenty have mentioned this on here, discussing it from a number of fronts. Personally, the fact that they picked a 'keeper' who didn't keep once in the decade says it all, but I figured I'd go over another way of picking such a team, just starting from a method and running with it.
Now, before I go any further, I would add that personally, the decade ended at the end of 2019. This is entirely a point about conventions, but one I feel should be noted before moving on to analyse this. I note this, in part, because I already gave my team of the decade last year, though by a slightly different method. So, what are these conventions? Well, as most would know, the Gregorian Calendar starts form 1 AD, so when noting centuries, they start from a year ending with 1, and end with a year ending 0, eg:

1st Century: 1 - 100
2nd Century: 101-200
19th Century: 1801-1900
20th Century: 1901-2000
21st Century: 2001-2100

It was also the point of contention for a bunch of people, who didn't like parties, who questioned whether 31 December 1999 was end the of the Millennium or not. Now, many would say 'who cares', and personally I agree, it's just a point about convention. That brings us perfectly to the point of decades though. There are two standard conventions:
1st: From 0-9, with decades labelled as 'the eighties' or '80s', the nineties' or '90s', etc. This aligns with how the decades are written, ie all years that start with an 8 are the 80s.
2nd: From 1-10, with decades labelled as '9th decade of the 20th century', '10th decade of the 20th century', etc. This aligns with how centuries are labelled.
Now, the second is very uncommon, and research on usage in the English speaking World tends to show that the first is overwhelmingly more common. Ask yourself, have you heard of 90s fashion, or fashion from the 10th decade? If you're in the later group, congrats, the ICC agrees with you.
Again, irrelevant, but to me it just seems odd to label the end of the decade as being now, but hey, the ICC can go against conventions if they wish. It's not really a mistake by them, but it really does set the stage for what they did.
Now, looking deeper, their convention is weirder than it first seems. The ICC lists Smith as having 7,040 runs in 69 Tests, and Kohli as having 20,396 in all international cricket. Now, the Smith figure confirms the December tests are not included, and this is also shown in the Kohli figure, which should be 20,781. The figure appears to be limited to prior to the current season, ie 2020/21, but starts with the beginning of 2011 as a year, not the 2010/11 season or the 2011. This means they've used a weird mixed convention, likely so they had time to consider things. Still, this is quite frankly just ridiculous, and I will be using figure current up to the end of the Test between New Zealand and Pakistan. This does mean that the period used by me is slightly different to the ICC's, but the ICC's period is just so silly that I won't be using it.
Anyhow, into methodology. I'll be using similar methods to my previous post. You can read that if you want a full rundown, but now the range is 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2020 (there is no international cricket tomorrow). The team will be, as before:

5 × Batsmen
1 × Allrounder
1 × Wicketkeeper batsman†
4 × Bowlers

There will be no preference towards bowling or batting allrounders, nor will there be a preference to style of bowling.
Unlike last time, I will not be providing a breakdown by number and fraction of matches played, etc, instead opting for one team, ICC style. The only requirement for consideration is at least 10 Tests played, with the issue of small sample size dealt with more directly. To achieve this, I'll be using a similar manner to this post, where uncertainty in averages will be considered, as well as what the 'average player' achieves. This will gives us a kind of 'Bayesian rating', which in effect tells us the rating for that skill that we can be confident of, given the amount of data we have. That is, we'll be using Bayesian inference to convert the average we have, to the certainty given by the sample size, to see how good we can be confident they are. The 'average player' will be the average player for that skill set, this being batting in the top 6 for batters, and top 4 for bowlers, with an additional requirement of bowling at least 1 innings per match. All roles for batting and bowling are collapsed into one for the calculations themselves, ie openers, number 3, all rounder batting etc will all use the same average as part of the prior. All rounders and wicket keepers will follow their own ratings, and this will be discussed later.
What's more, I'll 'cheat' a bit with the uncertainties. For batsmen, it will be their batting average divided by the square root of dismissals. This works as the standard deviation of batting scores is approximately the average (within about 5-10% for virtually all players with 40+ innings); the impact of this difference is very small in almost all cases. For bowlers, the same will be done for average, while the uncertainty for WPM is estimated from 0.6×WPM divided by the square root of wickets taken. This is being used for keeping dismissals per match as well. This works about as well as the estimate for uncertainty of averages, though the reasons why this is the case is unknown to me at this time. Figuring out the reasons why might be an interesting investigation in and of itself, though I'd suspect more niche.
In terms of actual ratings, for batsmen, they will be rated by batting average, and selection will be broken into several groups, including openers, the number 3, and 2 middle order batsmen. Openers will only be compared in terms of statistics while opening, with the same going for the number 3. The other two positions will consider batting across any and all positions, ie openers and number 3 are deemed specialists, while 4-5 are not.
For bowlers, I'll be using a rating based on two metrics, the bowling average and wickets per match. That is, bowlers will be valued for both their contribution to wicket taking, and taking wickets cheaply. This is combined with a geometric mean of WPM and 1/average, and in effect includes economy and SR as part of the definition. Bowlers will be selected as either seamers or spinners, and the best 3 seamers and best spinner will be selected for the side.
As to allrounders, the geometric mean of batting and bowling ratings will be used, and the best allrounder by this will be added to the side. In order to generate a usable definition of the 'average allrounder', statistics only from players who have batted in the top 8 in at least 10 matches, and bowling at least 1 innings per match played, will be considered. This said, their full records are considered the ratings themselves.
For wicket keepers, I'll be using the disgusting metric from this post, just so it's not purely about batting average. This is just the geometric mean of batting average and dismissals per match. It's sickening, but it will do for our purposes, and will at least give some value to keeping, though biased by the kinds of dismissals their team gets. The 'average player' used here will be the average of all eligible wicket keepers, this will smooth out players who dominate, or struggle, with the bat to some extent.
The final side will be put in order of batting average, highest to lowest, excluding the specialist positions of openers and number 3. Players will also be picked for roles in the following order:

Wicket Keepers
All Rounder
Opener
Number 3
Top Order Batsman
Bowler

ie if a player would make it on their batting or bowling alone, they will still go in as an allrounder first. The same with batsmen as keepers.
Anyhow, below are the results, top 10 for each role:

Openers

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Ave	B-Ave
DA Warner (AUS)	84	152	7205	49.69	47.60
AN Cook (ENG)	97	176	7482	44.54	43.61
Azhar Ali (PAK)	20	37	1556	45.76	42.03
CJL Rogers (AUS)	24	46	1996	44.36	41.81
TWM Latham (NZ)	54	94	3867	42.97	41.78
MA Agarwal (INDIA)	13	21	1005	47.86	41.67
CH Gayle (WI)	12	23	841	46.72	40.89
GC Smith (SA)	27	48	1843	41.89	40.25
D Elgar (SA)	56	100	3757	40.40	39.77
S Dhawan (INDIA)	34	58	2315	40.61	39.63

So, Warner and Cook are the picks here, and fairly decisively, as would be expected.

Number 3

Player	Match	Inns	Runs	Ave	B-Ave
KC Sangakkara (SL)	39	71	4068	61.64	51.84
KS Williamson (NZ)	72	124	6283	56.10	51.44
SPD Smith (AUS)	17	29	1744	67.08	46.99
CA Pujara (INDIA)	72	115	5314	48.31	46.06
HM Amla (SA)	61	100	4503	48.42	45.82
M Labuschagne (AUS)	10	17	1203	70.76	44.56
Azhar Ali (PAK)	56	95	4000	43.96	42.54
GS Ballance (ENG)	16	29	1254	46.44	41.80
IR Bell (ENG)	11	15	742	53.00	41.65
R Dravid (INDIA)	13	24	943	42.86	39.83

Williamson narrowly misses out to Sangakkara here, though given how good he was at 3, it's understandable. Smith sneakily into third is a surprise to me, but honestly, the field is pretty weak outside Sangakkara and Williamson.

Other Top Order

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	Average	B-Ave
SPD Smith (AUS)	71	127	7050	64.09	56.00
KC Sangakkara (SL)	40	77	4156	57.72	50.52
V Kohli (INDIA)	87	147	7318	53.42	50.24
KS Williamson (NZ)	79	138	6665	53.32	49.93
S Chanderpaul (WI)	35	61	2804	60.96	49.40
Younis Khan (PAK)	53	97	4659	54.17	49.32
AB de Villiers (SA)	49	80	4063	54.17	48.83
MJ Clarke (AUS)	47	86	3946	51.92	47.57
DA Warner (AUS)	84	155	7244	48.95	47.05
Misbah-ul-Haq (PAK)	54	95	3994	49.93	46.48

So, Smith in comfortably, and Virat joins him with Sangakkara already in at 3. Williamson again misses out, and narrowly as before.

All Rounder

Player	Mat	Bat-A	WPM	Bowl-A	Rating	AllRond	B-AllRond
R Ashwin (INDIA)	73	27.48	5.137	25.22	0.4513	3.521	3.034
RA Jadeja (INDIA)	50	35.67	4.320	24.49	0.4200	3.871	2.996
Shakib Al Hasan (BDESH)	35	44.72	3.857	30.57	0.3552	3.985	2.977
BA Stokes (ENG)	67	37.85	2.358	31.41	0.2740	3.220	2.898
VD Philander (SA)	64	24.04	3.500	22.32	0.3960	3.085	2.814
JO Holder (WI)	45	32.05	2.578	27.95	0.3037	3.120	2.783
MA Starc (AUS)	59	22.16	4.271	26.75	0.3996	2.976	2.760
MM Ali (ENG)	60	28.98	3.017	36.60	0.2871	2.884	2.727
MG Johnson (AUS)	32	22.47	4.250	27.07	0.3963	2.984	2.700
CR Woakes (ENG)	38	27.52	2.947	29.30	0.3171	2.954	2.698

Lack of cricket over the period costs Shakib here, and honestly, I'd give it to Jadeja over Ashwin personally, but Ashwin it is. Stokes' rise in the last few years is notable however, but he remains some way behind the big 3 here. For those who demand a 4th seamer, he'd be the pick.

Wicket Keeper

Player	Mat	Inns	Ave	Dis	DPM	Rating	B-Rating
Q de Kock (SA)	46	77	40.31	206	4.478	13.435	11.98
AB de Villiers (SA)	21	33	63.06	83	3.952	15.788	11.80
BJ Watling (NZ)	64	97	40.17	249	3.891	12.501	11.69
JM Bairstow (ENG)	48	85	37.85	181	3.771	11.947	11.34
RR Pant (INDIA)	14	23	38.32	65	4.643	13.338	11.18
MJ Prior (ENG)	40	63	39.04	142	3.550	11.772	11.15
TD Paine (AUS)	29	45	31.39	134	4.621	12.043	11.13
Sarfaraz Ahmed (PAK)	48	84	37.34	163	3.396	11.260	10.95
LD Chandimal (SL)	24	43	41.08	72	3.000	11.101	10.77
MS Dhoni (INDIA)	37	63	34.84	126	3.405	10.892	10.72

So, the top three really stand out. AB's excellent cameo as a keeper stands out, but is too few matches to have high certainty. There's no surprise about the other two, but ultimately BJ's handy work this decade isn't enough to finish de Kock off, who is ultimately the pick here.

Seamers

Player	Mat	W	WPM	Ave	Rating	Bayes
PJ Cummins (AUS)	32	153	4.781	21.52	0.4714	0.4133
K Rabada (SA)	43	197	4.581	22.96	0.4467	0.4091
DW Steyn (SA)	48	207	4.313	22.56	0.4373	0.4056
JM Anderson (ENG)	100	395	3.950	24.33	0.4029	0.3918
JJ Bumrah (INDIA)	16	76	4.750	20.68	0.4792	0.3900
N Wagner (NZ)	51	219	4.294	26.33	0.4039	0.3848
MA Starc (AUS)	59	252	4.271	26.75	0.3996	0.3837
VD Philander (SA)	64	224	3.500	22.32	0.3960	0.3811
RJ Harris (AUS)	22	93	4.227	23.33	0.4256	0.3801
TG Southee (NZ)	65	271	4.169	27.00	0.3929	0.3798

So, the three to go through are Cummins, Rabada and Steyn. Anderson misses out, and fairly comfortably in the end, with Bumrah already challenging him due to a simply sublime start to his test career; those are crazy good numbers in your first 16 Tests. That said, Anderson would have missed out just going by average as well, of course. The ICC's own pick, Broad, is 11th on this list, and even that is largely just on the raw amount of cricket played decreasing uncertainty compared to those around him.

Spinners

Player	Mat	W	WPM	Ave	Rating	Bayes
R Ashwin (INDIA)	73	375	5.137	25.22	0.4513	0.4255
HMRKB Herath (SL)	69	355	5.145	26.30	0.4423	0.4180
Saeed Ajmal (PAK)	26	145	5.577	25.46	0.4680	0.4064
RA Jadeja (INDIA)	50	216	4.320	24.49	0.4200	0.3955
Yasir Shah (PAK)	43	227	5.279	30.85	0.4136	0.3899
PP Ojha (INDIA)	13	71	5.462	24.27	0.4744	0.3829
Abdur Rehman (PAK)	18	79	4.389	26.85	0.4043	0.3666
S Shillingford (WI)	11	56	5.091	29.00	0.4190	0.3624
NM Lyon (AUS)	98	394	4.020	31.64	0.3565	0.3527
Shakib Al Hasan (BDESH)	35	135	3.857	30.57	0.3552	0.3467

As would be expected, Ashwin would be the pick, but because he's in as the allrounder, Herath is in instead. There's a good argument that on balance it should be Ashwin in here, and Jadeja in as the allrounder, but I'll stick with the 'top of the list' method here. You could also argue Ashwin and Jadeja being in just to strengthen the batting, but again, we'll stick to that method.

Final XI

Position	Player	Bat Ave	DPM	WPM	Bowl Ave
1	Warner	49.69	NA	NA	NA
2	Cook	44.54	NA	NA	NA
3	Sangakkara	61.64	NA	NA	NA
4	Smith	64.09	NA	0.197	57.64
5	Kohli*	53.42	NA	0.000	NA
6	de Kock†	40.31	4.478	NA	NA
7	Ashwin	27.48	NA	5.137	25.22
8	Cummins	16.54	NA	4.781	21.52
9	Herath	14.92	NA	5.145	26.30
10	Steyn	13.53	NA	4.313	22.56
11	Rabada	11.43	NA	4.581	22.96

Please note that while the adjusted averages were used in the decision, the final list is just given with the raw figures for comparison. Virat was given the captaincy as I'm not convinced he'd play if he wasn't, even in a hypothetical best XI.
In any case, I feel that's a better take on this than the ICC's, particularly given the keeper has actually kept wicket this decade. The choice of time, and team, was poor by the ICC, but ultimately all this is just for a laugh anyhow. The figures themselves could also justify some different permutations, like AB in for de Kock, and Jadeja in for Herath if you want a more batting allrounder, with Ashwin playing primarily as a spinner. The latter may be useful, as that side has a very long tail. That said, they're notionally taking 24 wickets per match, so they'll be right. In all seriousness, it's an interesting question of what would happen if you put 5 players who are so dominant with the ball together in one side. Would their averages improve while the WPM decrease? That's an interesting investigation in and of itself.
In any case, while there are a few rough edges in this analysis, particularly around the keeper, hopefully it's a bit of food for thought. At the very least, it actually covers the 'decade', and has a keeper that kept this decade, so there's that.

Edit: Now that I reread it, that title's a bit poor. It should have been: A Statistical Analysis to Determine a Team of the "Decade" to Improve Upon the ICC's. Oh well, too late now.

Kane and the Fab 4: Average progression during innings since 2017

Unusual Bowling Feats (Part One)

Player	Innings	Runs	Average
Williamson	41	2467	66.68
Smith	45	2568	62.63
Kohli	57	3109	58.66
Root	79	3229	42.49

Player	Runs needed to average > 100
Williamson	10
Smith	26
Kohli	20
Root	58

Introduction

Hello again! Last time round, I did a post documenting some unusual batting feats (wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?), and it did much better than I expected it to. Of course, I couldn't then ignore the other side of the great game of cricket (despite my best efforts to delay this whole thing), so today, I'll be looking at some unusual fielding feats.
Ha, just kidding. I might actually do that at some point (sometime within the next millennium), but I'd imagine bowling would be more interesting for the majority of users here, so let's have a look at some of the most bizarre bowling stats and records in the history of international cricket. Note that this post got so long that I had to split it into three parts to fit everything in, so you're in for a wild ride.

They See Me Rollin', They Hatin'

Warning: The following section contains material which may trigger traumatic memories in Kiwi fans. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to be a New Zealand supporter then I'd strongly suggest skipping this section and distracting yourself with something less traumatic for the time being. Perhaps you could look at highlights of the 2015 World Cup Fi...actually, on second thoughts, maybe not. Instead, you could view the highlights of the 2019 World Cu...no, never mind. Well, there are always the highlights of the most recent T20I se...ah, perhaps not. You know, maybe just read some Jimmy Neesham tweets right now.
Anyway, here's a question: Why is bowling called bowling? Well, in Ye Olden Days, before the crash-bang-whollop of county cricket and the emergence of, ugh, professionals, the ball used to be rolled along the ground as in lawn bowls and tenpin bowling. Sometime around the 1760s, someone got the bright idea of pitching the ball to make things actually challenging for the batsman, which meant that cricket bats changed from being essentially hockey sticks (seriously, look up how bats used to look in the early eighteenth century) to something resembling modern cricket bats.
Some bowlers even became 'lob bowlers', which involved essentially lobbing the ball on the full to the batsman and relying on movement through the air to deceive him (kind of like in baseball, when you think about it). George Simpson-Hayward (who retired in 1914) is usually considered to be the last great 'lob bowler', though unlike most lob bowlers, he relied more on off-spin than on trajectory. That being said, Trevor Molony appears to be the last specialist underarm bowler in FC cricket (having played three first-class matches for Surrey in 1921), and is listed in Cricinfo as bowling 'right-arm slow (underarm)'.
However, in truth, underarm bowling had already been practically extinct for decades at that point. In the 1790s, owing to the fact that batsmen were playing underarm deliveries with too much ease, Tom Walker decided that he'd see more success with roundarm (i.e. bowling with the arm 90 degrees to the body). Unfortunately, the Batriarchy^TM was having none of it and the MCC banned roundarm bowling in 1816; however, bowlers, being as Ethical^TM as ever, simply ignored the directive and continued to bowl roundarm, and so the MCC was forced to cave in and legalise roundarm bowling in 1835 (roundarm has since largely gone extinct in the modern game, with the notable exception of Lasith Malinga).
To bowl underarm in the modern era would be truly unusual, and I think you know where this is going. For though Trevor Molony is considered to be the last true underarm bowler, he wouldn't be the last Trevor to bowl underarm. Yes, I am referring to the infamous 'underarm incident' of 1981 which took place in an ODI between Australia and New Zealand.
The Australian captain, Greg Chappell, realised going into the final over of the match that he had already used all of Dennis Lillee's allotted overs and was thus forced to rely on his brother, Trevor Chappell, to prevent New Zealand from scoring the 15 runs required for victory. Trevor didn't actually do too badly, conceding just eight runs from the first five balls of the over, leaving New Zealand needing to hit a six off the final ball of the over just to tie the match. What happened next has since gone down in cricket infamy.
Despite New Zealand needing a six just to tie, and despite the fact that the #10 batsman Brian McKechnie (who averaged 13.50 in ODIs) was on strike, Greg Chappell felt that it was too risky to allow Trevor to bowl a normal delivery. For context, underarm bowling had already been banned in the English game by this point, but it was still legal in international cricket provided that the umpires were notified prior to the delivery. The umpires were duly informed that the final ball would be bowled underarm, and so Trevor Chappell rolled the final delivery along the ground towards McKechnie, who could only block it and throw away his bat in disgust.
Obviously, there was a huge uproar over the fact that underarm bowling, while legal at the time, blatantly went against the spirit of the game, and so the ICC immediately banned underarm deliveries in international competition. Thus, Trevor Chappell holds the unusual distinction of being the last bowler to deliver a legal underarm delivery in international cricket (disappointingly, Cricinfo only lists him as bowling 'right-arm medium').
Personally, I think that the whole 'spirit of the game' thing is nonsense. Underarm bowling was completely legal at the time and should not have been shamed; this is just another attempt by the batgeoisie to use the 'spirit of the game' to maintain their dominance over the bowletarian class. All the pundits talk about the "unfair advantage" gained by the bowler as a result of underarm bowling but no-one talks about the unfair advantage gained by the batsman as a result of only having to face overarm and roundarm deliveries; in fact, it is the batsmen who are really going against the so-called 'spirit of the game'. Maybe New Zealand should have just learned to play underarm deliveries properly rather than whining about the 'spirit of the game' and changing the rules to maintain the Batriarchy^TM's oppression of honest and Ethical^TM bowlers.

^{yes i know that mankads and underarm deliveries aren't comparable because the former is the bowler removing an advantage from the batsman whereas the latter is the bowler providing an advantage to himself this is just a joke please don't downvote me for speaking out against daddy ashwin}

I think there are some important lessons to be gained from this story. The first is that the conflict over whether cricket should be more batsman-friendly or bowler-friendly has existed for centuries; these are not new questions by any means. You wanna know why the LBW law is the way that it is? It's because every other iteration was criticised for being either too batsman-friendly or too bowler-friendly. I might do an entire post on that particular topic in the future, but the point is that even if the present mankad debate is resolved in one side's favour, there will be new stuff to argue about.
The second is that strategy changes as the rules change, so bear that in mind before declaring that a rule change will kill the sport on the basis that current tactics will be rendered unviable, because trust me when I say that the players will adapt (that's not to say that there's no such thing as a bad rule change, of course). Roundarm and overarm were initially criticised on the basis that they were too difficult for batsmen to play compared to underarm; by 1981, it was underarm that was being criticised on the basis that it was too difficult for batsmen to play compared to roundarm and overarm. Oh, how the turns table.
The final lesson is that etymology is weird. In cricket, the act of delivering the ball is called 'bowling', even though deliveries haven't actually been bowled since the eighteenth century (that one incident in 1981 aside). In baseball, the act of delivering the ball is called 'pitching', even though deliveries don't actually pitch (with a few exceptions). FWIW, it's called 'pitching' in baseball because initially, balls had to be delivered underarm (just like in the early days of cricket) in an action comparable to pitching horseshoes. As with 'bowling' in cricket, the term 'pitching' in baseball stuck even when the action changed (as far as I can tell, the term 'pitching' in baseball was never related to the term 'pitching' as it is used in cricket).

The Best Since Lohmann

Cricinfo will tell you that George Lohmann had the lowest Test bowling average of all time, with an impressive 10.75. This is fake news, of course; for example, the great England all-rounder, Sir Alastair Cook, has a Test bowling average of 7.00. Who has the lowest bowling average of all time in each format, then?
In Tests, three players hold the distinction of having a career bowling average of 0. The first one I want to talk about is England's Wilf Barber. In a 1935 three-day Test against South Africa (people gave the ICC flak for considering four-day Tests; imagine the reaction if they had opted for three-day Tests instead!), with England 1-0 down in a five-match series, South Africa in their second innings required 340 runs to win with just four-and-a-half hours remaining, so of course they blocked everything that they could. England used eight bowlers in that innings before eventually handing the ball to Wilf 'Golden Arm^TM' Barber, who took the fifth wicket in his second delivery, resulting in a draw. This was the only time Barber bowled in a Test match, so he ended up with career figures of 0.2-0-0-1.
The second person to mention would be New Zealand's Bruce Murray. This incident occurred in a 1968 Test against India: India required just 59 runs to win in their second innings with over a day left to play, so it's fair to say that the result was a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, New Zealand trialled seven different bowlers, and one of them was Bruce Murray. The mad lad actually managed to dismiss one of the Indian openers and secure a maiden in his only over in Test cricket, ending with career bowling figures of 1-1-0-1 and a bowling average of 0.
The true GOAT, however, is a bowler to be feared. Just the mere mention of his name strikes horror into the heart of every batsman. His name is a truly terrifying name, for who wouldn't cower at hearing the name...Monkey Hornby? No, I'm not making this up; his actual name was Albert, but for whatever reason, Cricinfo lists him by his nickname 'Monkey'.
Anyway, in only the third ever Test match, Hornby bowled seven four-ball overs (28 balls in total) for zero runs and one wicket. Despite this stellar bowling performance, Australia only required 18 runs in their second innings to win the Test, so of course the Aussies seized the victory. England's defeat might have seemed inevitable given the low target, but they foolishly decided not to bowl Hornby in the final innings; no doubt he'd have dragged England to victory had he been given the chance to bowl. Hornby not only holds the record for the most balls bowled in Tests for an average of 0 but he also holds the record for the most balls bowled in Tests without conceding a run (Xavier Marshall and Roger Prideaux hold joint-second with 12 balls bowled, though neither took any wickets).
Unfortunately, no bowler has achieved a career ODI bowling average of 0, but Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf holds the record for the lowest career ODI bowling average of all time, ending his career with an average of 1.00. His first bowling stint didn't go too well; in a 2004 Champions Trophy match between the Windies and Pakistan, the former required just one more run from 132 balls to win with seven wickets left. Pakistan decided to employ Mohammad Yousuf's mystery off-spin in a last-ditch attempt to win the match, but alas, he conceded a run off his first delivery, ending up with figures of 0.1-0-1-0 and an economy rate of 6.00.
However, this is where the Mohammad Yousuf redemption arc begins. In the 2007 World Cup, rain meant that Zimbabwe required 193 runs from 20 overs to beat Pakistan (say, this 20-over thing seems quite fun; someone should create a franchise league based on this format). With Zimbabwe 99/9 going into the final over, it's fair to say that the match was decided, so the Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq decided to have some fun and bowl Mohammad Yousuf. He immediately took the final wicket with his first delivery, ending up with innings figures of 0.1-0-0-1, career figures of 0.2-0-1-1 and a bowling average of 1.00.
As with ODIs, no bowler has finished their career with a T20I bowling average of 0, but two have finished with a bowling average of 1.00. The first person I want to mention in this regard is Zimbabwe's Cephas Zhuwao. In a 2008 T20I, Zimbabwe set Canada a target of 185, but the latter slumped to 74/9 going into the final over. This is where Zhuwao comes in with his slow left-arm orthodox, conceding a single off his first ball but taking a wicket off his second. He ended with career figures of 0.2-0-1-1.
More interesting is Pakistan's Mansoor Amjad. Supposedly selected as an all-rounder in a 2008 T20I against Bangladesh, he didn't bat at all in Pakistan's innings (despite his team losing five wickets) and didn't bowl until the sixteenth over of Bangladesh's innings (at which point they were 98/7 requiring 106 runs from 30 balls to win). Amusingly, Cricinfo lists him as bowling 'legbreak googly', which I can only imagine means that he's either the second coming of Shane Warne or the most village bowler ever to have played international cricket.
To determine which is the case, we have to look at how Amjad actually performed. He took wickets in the second, fifth and sixth balls of his one over, and although he conceded a no-ball in the third ball of the over, the subsequent free hit resulted in a dot. Ultimately, Amjad ended up with innings (and career) figures of 1-0-3-3 and a bowling average of 1.00. How Mansoor 'The Pakistani Warne' Amjad never played another T20I is beyond me; clearly, taking three wickets in his only over wasn't considered good enough to get another game, so I can only assume that Pakistan at that time contained a star-studded bowling attack consisting of the likes of, erm, Sohail Tanvir and Shoaib Malik.

Three Strikes...Wait, Wrong Sport

What about strike rate, though? In Tests, that honour once again goes to Wilf Barber, who ended up with a career strike rate of 2.0. This means that he would have required just 1600 balls to match Muralitharan's record of 800 wickets. Of course, this is just an extrapolation; it is ridiculous to conclude from such a small sample size that Barber would have maintained a strike rate of 2.0 over his career. For all we know, he could have been a much better bowler than his stats showed and he could have equalled Murali in far fewer than 1600 balls.
As for ODIs and T20Is, Mohammad Yousuf, Cephas Zhuwao and Mansoor Amjad all feature, each having a career strike rate of 2.0. However, England's Derek Randall also matches Mohammad Yousuf with an ODI strike rate of 2.0. Opening alongside Geoffrey Boycott (who somehow managed to score 105 runs from just 124 balls) in a 1979 ODI against the Aussies, England's bowling attack at the time consisted of such greats as Graham Dilley, Ian Botham, Bob Willis, Derek Underwood and, uh, Graham Gooch(?)
With Australia at 190/9 (having been set a target of 265), England decided to hand the ball to Randall, who went on to take one wicket for two runs in his first (and only) two deliveries in ODIs. With career figures of 0.2-0-2-1, Derek Randall ended up with a career ODI strike rate of 2.0, which is joint-first with Mohammad Yousuf.

It's The Economy, Stupid

I've already mentioned that Monkey Hornby holds the record for the most balls bowled in Tests without conceding a single run, but what about in the other formats of international cricket?
In ODIs, the record is held jointly by India's Ashok Malhotra and New Zealand's Glenn Turner, both of whom bowled one six-ball over in their careers without conceding a single run. Not much of interest here.
As for T20Is, no player has retired with a career economy rate of 0, so that achievement is one to look out for in the future. The West Indies' John Campbell holds the record for the lowest career T20I economy rate, though, having an economy rate of 1.00. It was March 2019 and the Windies were batting first against England, but they didn't put up much of a fight, collapsing to 71 all out after 13 overs (David Willey took a 4fer that game; why was he dropped again?).
England found themselves needing a mere 12 runs to win with 11 overs and eight wickets left, but Bairstow had just been bowled in the previous over (because of course he had), so all Jason Holder needed to do was to bring on a bowler who could cause England some trouble. Unfortunately, Roston Chase wasn't playing, so Holder had to settle for John Campbell's filthy offies instead.
Surprisingly, Campbell actually posed some threat for the England batsmen. Root was struck on the front pad on the fourth ball of the over (though the umpires decided it wasn't LBW) and nearly ran himself out going for the leg bye. Morgan then faced Campbell on the last ball of the over and nearly got clean-bowled. No doubt Campbell would have finished the job for the West Indies had Devendra Bishoo not ruined it by conceding eleven runs in his next three balls, but he can hang his head high knowing that he has the best economy rate in the history of T20Is.
All that is well and good, but how about individual innings? Who holds those records?
In Tests, India's Bapu Nadkarni holds the record for the most balls bowled in an innings without conceding a single run. In a 1962 Test against England, India had put on 428 runs in the first innings, leaving England with a lot to do in order to stay in the match. Nadkarni, a left-arm finger-spinner, performed his role to perfection, bowling 37 balls without conceding a single run; he even took a wicket (albeit that of the #11 batsman David Smith), leaving him with innings figures of 6.1-6-0-1. Unfortunately, he couldn't replicate this feat in England's second innings, conceding 25 runs off of 72 balls but taking another wicket (this time that of the great England batsman Sir Ken Barrington).
If we want to take a look at matches rather than innings then there are two places we could go. Hornby holds the record for the most overs bowled in a Test match without conceding a run, with his aforementioned seven-over effort, but if we're looking for the most balls bowled in a Test without conceding a run, we have to look elsewhere.
Enter the West Indian all-rounder John Goddard. The year was 1950 and England were being absolutely destroyed at Lord's; in fact, they ended up being set a target of 601 runs in their second innings, so as you can imagine, they simply didn't bother trying to score runs (they went at a run-rate of just 1.43 RPO), but credit has to go to Cyril Washbrook for scoring 114 runs in 330 minutes (including a six!).
In this situation, the West Indies needed a proper wicket-taker to skittle the England lineup regardless of how expensive it was; they instead got John Goddard, who bowled 36 balls without conceding a run or taking a wicket, ending up with innings (and match) figures of 6-6-0-0. Solid contribution from him. Thank goodness the Windies ended up winning, or else I'd imagine that Goddard would have received quite the earful from his captain.
By the way, I have to mention Sonny Ramadhin here. He bowled a whopping 72 overs in that innings (including 43 maidens), taking six wickets and conceding 86 runs. Jokes aside, that is actually very impressive. I get tired after bowling one ball, and I'd probably collapse from exhaustion by the time I reach the five-over mark, so hats off to Ramadhin for his immense endurance (note that this wouldn't be the last time Ramadhin would be forced to bowl a ridiculous number of overs, but we'll get to that later).
Moving on to ODIs, Ireland's Andrew White holds the record for the most balls bowled in an innings without conceding a run. This was achieved in 2010 against the Netherlands, when White bowled 14 balls without conceding a run; he also took a wicket (taking a catch off his own bowling), ending with figures of 2.2-2-0-1. The Netherlands finished on 125 all out, a target which Ireland chased with ease.
In T20Is, I was thinking that no-one would have bowled more than one over without conceding at least one run, given the nature of the format. However, Sri Lanka's Nuwan Kulasekara somehow achieved this unusual feat against (once again) the Netherlands in 2014, taking a wicket in the process.
To be fair, the Netherlands were frankly pathetic in that match, finding themselves at 1/3 after two overs and at 9/4 after four overs. They finished on 39 all out after 10.3 overs (thanks mainly to a hard-fought 16 from Tom Cooper; the next-highest score in that innings was 8) but weirdly, Kulasekara only bowled the first and third overs, ending with figures of 2-2-0-1. My theory is that the Sri Lankan captain (Dinesh Chandimal) realised that Kulasekara would take the record for the most balls bowled in a T20I without conceding a run provided that he didn't concede any runs, so he deliberately prevented Kulasekara from bowling again in order to enter the record books. I, for one, applaud Chandimal's dedication to the performance of unusual bowling feats.

'Wait, It's All One Bowler?' 'Always Has Been 🌎 👨‍🚀 🔫👨‍🚀'

Cricket is a team sport, or so they say. In reality, that isn't always the case, as one or two star bowlers can carry an entire bowling attack. Even in those cases, you'd expect the other bowlers to chip in with the wickets, but what about situations when all the wickets in an innings falls to one bowler? Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to find all such instances on Cricinfo, so I'll have to settle for cases where one bowler has taken all ten wickets.
In Tests, this has only occurred twice. The first such instance was in a Test between England and Australia in 1956. In Australia's second innings (after being forced to follow-on), left-arm spinner Tony Lock bowled the most overs at 55, but he failed to take a wicket. In fact, off-spinner Alan Oakman, as well as pacers Brian Statham and Trevor Bailey, failed to take any wickets. It was Jim Laker who took 10/53 at an economy rate of 1.03 to win the match for England. As we'll soon see, he was basically carrying England's back throughout that entire match as far as bowling was concerned, but before that, let's move on to the second occasion in which this has occurred.
For this example, we have to go back to the ancient days of 1999, when there was an occasional occurrence of a mythical phenomenon known as an 'India-Pakistan Test match'. Pakistan were set a target of 420 (haha le funny weed number) in their second innings but were well-set for the draw after scoring 101 without loss by lunch on the fourth day. That was until Anil Kumble ripped through the Pakistani batsmen, taking 10/74 at an economy rate of 2.79. Kumble bowled 26.3 of the 60.3 overs, or 44% of India's bowling overs, so it's fair to say that it was an incredible effort.
Unfortunately, never in the history of Tests has one bowler taken all 20 wickets, and it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. The closest to achieve this feat was Jim Laker, yes, the same Jim Laker who took 10/53 against Australia. That was in the second innings, but in the first innings, he took 9/37, leaving him with match figures of 68-27-90-19. That's right: He single-handedly took every Australian wicket except for one. That one wicket? Opener Jim Burke, who was caught by Colin Cowdrey off the bowling of Tony Lock. I'm not sure what to think of this: On the one hand, Lock ought to be praised for being the only England bowler in that match apart from Laker who actually did his job (i.e. taking wickets), but on the other hand, Lock prevented us from witnessing the unusual feat of one bowler taking all 20 wickets in a Test match. Mixed bag, if you ask me.
Has one bowler taking all ten wickets in an innings ever occurred in ODIs or T20Is? Unfortunately, no, or at least not yet. This feat is still up for grabs, so watch out for it the next time you decide to follow an ODI or T20I. In fact, no bowler has even taken nine wickets in an innings in either of those formats, so this isn't a case of a Tony Lock denying us the opportunity.

Anyway, that's all for Part One. On to Part Two!

Unusual Bowling Feats (Part Two)

Welcome to Part Two of my 'Unusual Bowling Feats' post! Link to Part One here.

Peaking Too Soon

Whenever cricket has a discussion regarding comparisons between different bowlers, some people always pipe up with 'yes, but if you take this bowler at their peak, then...', as if comparing Bowler X at their peak to the entire career of Bowler Y is remotely fair. All players have peaks; purple patches are not restricted to player who you happen to like. With all this nonsense about restricting stats to the last ten years, to the 1980s, to the period after reaching the age of 25, to after that one innings of 5/6 against the mighty Zimbabwe back in 1996, and even to the past year or two years (because that's a representative sample), there's nothing stopping me from looking at a bowler's first delivery and declaring that to be their 'peak'.
There have been 65 cases in which a bowler has taken a wicket off their first ball in a particular format: 20 in Tests, 26 in ODIs and 19 in T20Is. The first to accomplish such a feat was Australia's Tom Horan, who dismissed England's Walter Read in only the second ever Test in January 1883 with his first ball in international cricket. As with the unusual dismissals section of my previous post, I won't go through everyone, but I'll highlight some notable bowlers who went above and beyond when it comes to achieving unusual bowling feats.
Firstly, there are seven bowlers who can truly be said to have 'peaked too soon'. What do New Zealand's Dennis Smith and South Africa's Hardus Viljoen have in common? Both of them took their first wicket with their first ball in Tests...and both of them took their only wicket with their first ball in Tests. In fact, both of them were one-Test wonders, and in Smith's case, a one-innings wonder. At their peaks, they had a bowling average of 0 and a strike rate of 1, but alas, they both went through a decline as they ended up averaging 113 and 94 with the ball respectively. Just imagine how great they would have been had the rest of the careers not taken a nosedive after their excellent first deliveries. 😔
In ODIs, three bowlers took their only wicket with their first ball: India's Sadagoppan Ramesh, New Zealand's Andrew Mathieson and Zimbabwe's Ainsley Ndlovu. However, Ndlovu hasn't yet retired from what I can tell, so there's still time yet. Bangladesh's Taijul Islam and England's Lewis Gregory round off the list for T20Is, but both of them are still playing, so they also have time. These seven bowlers are nonetheless all united in the fact that if you take just their peak (i.e. their first delivery), they end up with better stats than Sydney Barnes, Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan and Dale Steyn. This should solve those 'who is the GOAT bowler' debates once and for all.
There are other bowlers who I want to mention, however. In Tests, I've spoken about all the bowlers who I feel went above and beyond when it comes to unusual bowling feats, but in ODIs, there are two bowlers who I want to single out. The scorers among us will know that when it comes to bowling figures, no-balls and wides are added to the 'Runs' column but not to the 'Balls' column, as they don't count as legal deliveries in an over. Remember also that those 65 cases are of bowlers taking wickets off their first ball, not necessarily of bowlers taking wickets off their first delivery. A no-ball or a wide counts as a delivery but not a ball, as the latter term applies only to legal deliveries. Thus, if you count all the legal deliveries and throw out all the illegal deliveries (bowled by dead people), you'll find that I've bowled the most balls, BY A LOT!
Anyway, the first bowler I want to talk about is Sri Lanka's Charitha Buddhika Fernando. In a 2001 ODI against Zimbabwe, Buddhika bowled his first ever delivery in ODIs...and it was a no-ball. Bit of an anti-climax. He then got a second opportunity to make some magic happen...and it was another no-ball. Not the best start. However, third time's the charm, and Buddhika finally dismissed Dougie Marillier LBW. Thus, although Buddhika had technically taken a wicket with his first ball in ODIs, it was actually his third delivery.
Secondly, we have the West Indian allrounder Keemo Paul. Against Afghanistan in a World Cup qualifier in 2018, he was brought on to bowl in the second over of Afghanistan's innings. His first delivery was a wide outside off, so a bit of a nervy start. However, he then dismissed Javed Ahmadi LBW on his very next delivery, which was also technically his first ball in ODIs.
Now, some of you will complain that I'm strawmanning the argument a bit. Of course 'one-ball peaks' are ridiculous, but they're hardly comparable to periods of, say, ten years. I hear you, so why not double that timeframe and consider those bowlers who peaked with their first two balls? Oh, yeah, now things are getting spicy. Two bowlers have taken two wickets with their first two balls in an international format, and both of them did so in T20Is.
The first was Australia's Michael Kasprowicz. What's interesting about this one is that this happened in the very first T20I back in 2005 between Australia and New Zealand, back when the format was dismissed by many as a mere novelty. Kasprowicz bowled Stephen Fleming with his first ball, before then dismissing Mathew Sinclair (thanks to a catch from Simon Katich) for a golden duck (which also happened to be the first ever golden duck in a T20I). How fitting that the first ever instance in international cricket of a bowler taking two wickets from their first two balls would occur in the first ever T20I.
The second such instance occurred in a 2017 T20I between New Zealand and Bangladesh. Lockie Ferguson, who was on his debut, was brought on in the sixth over, and started by bowling a full toss outside off. Somehow, this resulted in a wicket, as the batsman, Sabbir Rahman, completely messed up the execution of what should have been an easy shot and ended up being caught. Ferguson's second delivery was much better: An outswinger that found the outside edge of Soumya Sarkar's bat and ended up in the hands of Corey Anderson at gully. Ferguson's third delivery was a yorker on off stump, but Mahmudullah somehow managed to keep it out, thus denying Ferguson a hat-trick from his first three balls in T20Is.
Both Kasprowicz and Ferguson, at their peak, had T20I bowling figures of 0.2-0-0-2, which gives us a bowling average of 0, an economy rate of 0 and a strike rate of 1 over the course of their first two balls. Unfortunately, no bowler has ever taken a hat-trick on their first three balls in an international format, or at least not yet. Similarly, as far as I can tell, no bowler has ever taken a wicket off their first ball in two different international formats, let alone in all three. These two feats have yet to be achieved; who will be the first?
There is one last bowler who I want to cover. Out of all the feats in this post, this one has to be my favourite just for its meme value alone. Remember when I mentioned that an illegal delivery did not count as a ball bowled? Some of you may be wondering if it's thus theoretically possible for a bowler to take a wicket without having bowled a ball at all. Let's consider the two situations in which a bowler delivers a ball without it actually counting as a ball.
The first such situation is a no-ball. Unfortunately for us, a no-ball precludes the possibility of a batsman being dismissed bowled, caught, stumped, LBW or hit wicket, which is a problem as those are the only forms of dismissal which are credited to the bowler. A batsman can still be dismissed run out, hit the ball twice or obstructing the field, but those aren't credited to the bowler. No luck here, then.
What about wides? Well, this is where things get interesting. As with a no-ball, a batsman cannot be dismissed bowled, caught or LBW off a wide. However, unlike a no-ball, a batsman can be dismissed stumped or hit wicket. I don't know the rationale behind this, but the implications are mouth-watering for anyone who is interested in unusual bowling feats. It is theoretically possible for a bowler to deliver a wide on their first delivery yet still dismiss a batsman stumped or hit wicket. The question is: Has this ever actually happened in international cricket? The answer? Yes, it has, on exactly one occasion.
It's the 31st of August 2011, and India is playing in a one-off T20I against England. This match is notable for marking the T20I debuts of Alex Hales, Jos Buttler, Rahul Dravid and Ajinkya Rahane. More notable for our purposes, however, is an incident which occurred in the eighth over of England's innings. Given a target of 166 to chase, England were cruising along at 60/2 after seven overs, requiring 106 runs from 78 balls to win. A task that is more than doable, I'm sure you can agree, especially considering that at that moment in time, Eoin Morgan and Kevin Pietersen (arguably England's two greatest ever T20I batsmen) were at the crease. MS Dhoni needed to conjure up a masterstroke to have any chance of beating England.
Thankfully, he had in his arsenal a truly special bowler. You see, batsmen are used to playing pace bowlers at various speeds, ranging from medium to fast, and they're also used to playing spinners, both finger-spinners and wrist-spinners, both left-handed and right-handed. However, the England batsmen were not prepared for MS Dhoni to make the 900IQ move of bringing on right-arm quick^TM bowler Virat Kohli to break the partnership. As the very first right-arm quick^TM bowler in the history of the sport, England were not prepared for the havoc which Kohli was about to unleash on their sorry excuse of a batting lineup.
Kevin Pietersen evidently underestimated Kohli, however, as he launched himself forwards, presumably wishing to slog him for six. The bad news for Kohli was that his first delivery in T20I cricket was a leg-side wide, so he ended up conceding a run from it. The good news was that Dhoni was ready to whip off the stumps before Pietersen could return to his crease in time, and thus the Virgin KP was outsmarted by the Chad Kohli. At that exact moment, since the wide was not a legal delivery, Kohli's bowling figures read 0-0-1-1. Many bowlers have taken wickets off their first balls in international cricket, but only the Chad Kohli could take a wicket off his zeroth ball in an international format. 🐐
England ended up winning that match by six wickets (though with only three balls remaining), but it's fair to say that Dhoni achieved the moral victory in that game. If dismissing one of the GOAT T20I batsmen off your zeroth ball is a chad move then bringing on that bowler when your team is struggling to take wickets is a gigachad move. Eoin Morgan would never.
Anyway, that's it for Part One. The post ended up being so long that I had to split it in two, which I wasn't expecting.

Why Bowl Many Deliveries When One Delivery Do Trick?

Some of the most bizarre and unusual bowling innings are those in which a bowler delivers just one ball and nothing else. The reasons for this can vary: Perhaps a bowler is injured after five deliveries and someone has to bowl the final delivery of an over; perhaps a bowler only makes it to one delivery before breaking down; perhaps a bowler takes the final wicket off their only delivery; perhaps a batsman scores the winning runs off a bowler's only delivery.
In any case, such an achievement is quite unusual, but not unique by any stretch. It has occurred 29 times in Tests, 56 times in ODIs and 18 times in T20Is. Generally speaking, what ends up happening is that the ball results in a dot or in a single; if a bowler is really unlucky, it'll end up as a boundary four. However, occasionally, something truly strange happens. For starters, let's deal with the two occasions on which a bowler has ended a Test innings with figures of 0.1-0-6-0.
The first instance occurred in a 1982 Test between Australia and Pakistan which took place in Karachi. The Test was marred by such incidents as a marquee being set alight and missiles and rocks being thrown onto the field as a result of political agitation; there was even a full-blown pitch invasion by the spectators at one point, driving Aussie captain Kim Hughes to remove his players from the field and even to consider cancelling the tour outright and to call for a ban on all international cricket in Pakistan (as if they'd ever actually ban international cricket in a country as crazy for the sport as Pakistan due to a violent incident).
Anyway, as far as the match itself, we actually witnessed an unusual batting feat, as opener Mohsin Khan was given out on 58 for handling the ball in Pakistan's first innings. Despite this, by the fourth innings, Pakistan had to chase down just 45 runs to beat Australia, and from Cricinfo's account, the pitch was pretty flat as well. Nonetheless, after eleven overs, with Pakistan requiring a boundary four to win, Kim Hughes decided to turn his arm around and see if his military mediums could do the trick. They couldn't; Mohsin Khan promptly finished it off in style, hitting Hughes' first (and only) ball of his spell for six.
The second instance occurred in Bangladesh's 50th Test match, which was against New Zealand in 2008. After Bangladesh collapsed to 137 all out in their first innings, New Zealand managed to score 357 in the second innings of the match. Matthew Bell scored 107(184) while Jacob Oram scored 117(166); the lack of quality in the Bangladeshi attack can be gleaned from the fact that this was the match in which Chris Martin famously made his Test high score of 12*. New Zealand ended up needing to chase just 35 runs in their second innings, which they succeeded in doing after Peter Fulton smacked Mohammad Ashraful for six off the all-rounder's first delivery in the innings. How did this humiliation occur?
Well, you see, the inside part of Oram's bat was made up of rubber and the outside part was covered by some wood, so all he had to do was touch the ball and it flew to the boundary; that's the secret why he was scoring runs. The ICC didn't check his bat because ICC=NZC=PIG3, so don't respect them. BD would still win, however, because their daddy Tamim made his debut, and they couldn't threaten him with a Super Smash contract to play badly like they did to Aftab Ahmed (seriously, though, Tamim Iqbal did very well, scoring 53 and 84 in his two debut innings and being involved in an opening partnership of 161, a record for Bangladeshi openers at the time, whereas Aftab Ahmed was dismissed for a pair).
On the other end of the spectrum, let's discuss the only instance in the history of Test cricket in which a bowler has finished an innings with figures of 0.1-0-0-1. It was 1912, and England were playing Australia in Melbourne. The Aussies were favourites for the clash, but a spectacular 5/44 from the great Sydney Barnes (at an economy rate of 1.91 as well; no other bowler who bowled an over or more had an economy rate below 2.20) resulted in them falling to 184 all out in their first innings. Despite England needing 219 runs to win in their final innings, a graceful 126*(206) from Jack Hobbs ensured a comfortable victory.
It is in the first innings to which we must look for this feat. Frank Woolley was a batting all-rounder whose first-class statistics would put Garry Sobers and Imran Khan to shame, and he holds the record for the second-most FC runs scored and the second-most FC matches played (behind only Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes respectively). Unfortunately, while his batting in Tests was solid enough, he could never replicate his bowling form, and in this particular match, he wasn't given the ball until the 63rd over, by which time Australia were 184/9. He proceeded to bowl the tail-ender Bill Whitty, thus ending up with innings figures of 0.1-0-0-1.
Now, last time round, I made a glaring omission. I'd mentioned situations in which batsmen had finished on scores of 6(2), 6*(1) and even 6(1), but as a commenter pointed out, scores of 5*(1) and 5(1) are arguably even more impressive on the scale of unusual achievements. I'm not making the same mistake this time, so now I'll move on to the two occasions in the history of Test matches in which a bowler finished an innings with figures of 0.1-0-5-0.
The first occurred in a 1992 Test between England and Pakistan. The two sides were similar in many respects: both had recently been forced to move on from their star all-rounders (Ian Botham in England's case and Imran Khan in Pakistan's case); both had recently emerged from a World Cup Final (which Pakistan had won); and both had just dropped two promising young batsmen who were struggling to make the step-up to Test cricket (Graeme Hick in England's case and Inzamam-ul-Haq in Pakistan's case).
However, one metric on which the teams were clearly unequal was the bowling. The Pakistani bowling attack consisted of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, whereas England had Neil Mallender, Devon Malcolm and Chris Lewis. Slight mismatch there, methinks. Thanks to the two kings of swing (they both bowled so well with the old ball that the England coach, Micky Stewart, accused them of ball-tampering), Pakistan needed just two runs in their final innings to secure victory. A straightforward task, you'd think, but they were not prepared for England's secret weapon: Mark Ramprakash.
Unfortunately for Ramps, his first delivery was called a wide, meaning that the scores were already level. He knew, however, that the tie was still on so long as he took the next ten wickets without conceding any runs. The very next delivery was smacked by Aamer Sohail for four, meaning that Ramprakash ended up with innings figures of 0.1-0-5-0.
The second such occurrence was in a Test between England and South Africa in 1998. Alec Stewart won the toss and went 'we'll have a bowl, thanks', which seemed a masterstroke at first as Dominic Cork swiftly dismissed Bacher, Kirsten, Kallis (for a duck) and Cullinan, leaving the Saffers at 46/4. However, with Darren Gough injured, England lacked bite once Cork's spell was over, and South Africa would go on to produce a fifth-wicket stand of 184 runs (a record fifth-wicket stand for South Africa at the time). Specialist fielder Jonty Rhodes chipped in with a score of 117, and England collapsed to 110 all out in their first innings, which allowed South Africa to enforce the follow-on.
The result was that South Africa required 15 runs in their second innings to win. Angus Fraser conceded ten runs in his first over, and it was left to Dominic Cork (who had taken 6/119 in the first innings) to try to save the match. Cricinfo states that Cork conceded a boundary four and a no-ball (both were definitely separate as the two openers faced eight balls between them), but it doesn't give the order. Thus, I'm going to pretend that it was a four followed by a no-ball, as I love the mental image of a Test bowler conceding a no-ball when the scores are level. Like Ramprakash before him, Cork finished with innings figures of 0.1-0-5-0.
Right, time for ODIs! There have been seven different instances of bowlers finishing on 0.1-0-0-1, and I'm not going through all of them. Let me just say that the seven bowlers in question are Clive Lloyd, Martin van Jaarsveld, Dinesh Mongia, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Mohammad Yousuf (who I've already talked about), Sanath Jayasuriya and Kedar Jadhav. I checked all of them to try to spot anything unusual, but they were all situations in which the opponent was nine wickets down and the tenth wicket was taken on the first ball of the over, so there's nothing interesting to say about any of them. Let's move on to the two incidents in which a bowler finished on figures of 0.1-0-6-0.
First, let's look at a 2008 ODI between South Africa and Bangladesh. The Saffers were set a target of 174 runs (this was despite a record fifth-wicket partnership for Bangladesh of 119 runs between Shakib Al Hasan and Raqibul Hasan), so you'd think it'd be more than comfortable for them, especially with AB de Villiers in the middle order. However, it appears that the pitch was a bit of a minefield, as South Africa were still short of the target after 48 overs (albeit by just one run). Bangladesh decided to bowl Tamim Iqbal (who had never bowled a ball in his entire ODI career at that point), who was promptly smashed for six by AB.
For the second case, it's time to return to our old friend Cephas Zhuwao (the guy who averages 1.00 with the ball in T20Is). This ODI took place between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in 2018, and Zimbabwe did decently well in their innings, scoring 246/7. However, Bangladesh were left requiring three runs from 36 balls, so Cephas Zhuwao was brought into the Zimbabwe attack (presumably due to his stellar T20I record). It didn't work, as Mohammad Mithun hit a long-hop for six.
I don't think figures of 0.1-6-0 would be regarded as too unusual in T20Is (it's happened three times if you're curious), so now it's time to consider the two occasions on which a bowler has taken a wicket in a T20I innings despite bowling just one ball. The first such situation happened in a 2012 T20I between England and South Africa. A rain-affected match saw the Saffers score 77/5 from nine overs, which England then had to chase down within their nine overs. However, after four overs, the rain started to pour down again, and since five overs is needed for a result, South Africa tried to continue bowling by bringing on Morne Morkel. England, for their part, required twelve runs for a victory (or thirteen if a wicket fell) thanks to the very simple and very intuitive Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method. Unfortunately, the match had to be abandoned as soon as Morkel took the wicket of Luke Wright on the first ball of the over as the rain just continued to drop. Morkel ended up with innings figures of 0.1-0-0-1.
The second instance is special for a particular reason: We've seen examples of a bowler finishing with figures of 0.1-0-0-1, but this is the one and only time in the history of international cricket that a bowler has ended with innings figures of 0.1-0-1-1. How is that even possible? Well, allow me to tell the story. Before I begin, have a guess at which bowler achieved this feat. I have to say personally that if Kohli's zeroth-ball wicket is my favourite story of the bunch, this is my second-favourite. Out of all the bowlers who have played international cricket, I find it fitting that this particular bowler is the only one to have achieved these unusual figures. In a way, they represent a perfect microcosm of his international career in a way that no other innings bowling figures do.
The year was 2009, and Australia was touring England and Scotland. After 20 overs, the Aussies had managed a total of 145/4, which was a pretty decent total for the time. However, England's innings was delayed due to rain, but the target remained 146 from 20 overs. England's two greatest all-rounders, Ravi Bopara and Joe Denly, opened that day (the latter making his T20I debut), but poor old Dendulkar was dismissed by Brett Lee in the first over for a golden duck. Then came the second over, with Bopara on strike. The person bowling? None other than Mitchell 'bowls to the left, bowls to the right' Johnson.
The very first delivery by Johnson was a wide. How typical. Of course, the partisan England crowd did not hesitate to jeer Johnson for this (this was before that infamous 2010-11 Ashes during which we first heard that chant). Much like in the Ashes, however, it was Mitch who got the last laugh, as he then dismissed Bopara on his very next delivery. Unfortunately, the match was then immediately abandoned due to rain, leaving Johnson as the only bowler in the history of international cricket to finish an innings with figures of 0.1-0-1-1. A wide followed by a wicket; I don't think any two deliveries have summed up a bowler's entire career like those two did.
Speaking of which, I'll briefly discuss entire careers rather than just individual innings. In ODIs, six bowlers have bowled just one ball in their entire career (though Australia's Wally Edwards holds the unique distinction of having his sole delivery be a dot ball, even though looking at the scorecard, I can't for the life of me figure out how), whereas in T20Is, four bowlers have achieved this feat. This has yet to be achieved in Tests, however. The next person to bowl their first ball in Test cricket should thus retire due to a "permanent injury" and go down in history as the only one-ball wonder in Tests.

Participation Trophies

So far, we've mostly been looking at bowlers taking wickets, as that tends to be the entire point of bowlers. However, for some bowlers, taking wickets is optional, and it's amazing how long some bowlers can keep on going without dismissing a single batsman. In a way, they ought to be praised for their perseverance, even if their bowling clearly isn't up to scratch.
Firstly, there are Test matches. West Indian all-rounder Denis Atkinson (who could apparently bowl both right-arm medium and right-arm offbreak) holds the record for the most balls bowled in a single Test innings without taking any wickets. The year was 1957 and the Windies were up against England in the first Test of a five-match series. Atkinson actually took 1/30 in his first innings, but it then unravelled in the second. This particular Test match was bizarre in so many ways.
Following the first two innings, England were behind by 288 runs and seemed to face certain defeat. However, a mammoth fourth-wicket partnership of 411 runs between Colin Cowdrey and the captain Peter May (which is still the highest ever partnership by England for any wicket) turned the match on its head, and England declared on 583/4. The partnership lasted for 8 hours 20 minutes, with May finishing on 285* after batting for nearly ten hours! Think the Buttler-Crawley partnership against Pakistan, but on steroids.
Having been set a target of 296 runs, the West Indies nearly conspired to lose the match, finishing on 72/7 (the world-class quartet of Garry Sobers, Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott somehow made just 48 runs between them in that innings). I'm not sure many Test matches have had the momentum shift that drastically!
Anyway, as you can guess, it was during England's second innings in which this unusual record was broken. Poor Denis Atkinson bowled 72 overs, but spare a thought for his partner Sonny Ramadhin, who bowled 98 overs that innings and took two wickets (FYI, that's still the record for the most balls bowled in a single Test match innings, though that record, while frankly incredible, unfortunately isn't 'unusual' enough to make this list). If the name Sonny Ramadhin rings a bell then that might be because he was the same guy who bowled 72 overs in that Test match in 1950 when John Goddard bowled six maiden overs out of six while trying to prevent the draw; the poor guy just can't catch a break, can he?
Anyway, back to Atkinson. Unlike Ramadhin, he failed to take any wickets, but can you blame him? The West Indies didn't take the second new ball until 96 overs had passed, and they then proceeded to bowl 162 overs using the second new ball without ever taking the third, so that can't have helped. At least Atkinson's economy rate was a low 1.90, and he finished with innings figures of 72-29-137-0. Fantastic effort from him, it has to be said, as well as from Ramadhin (again).
It should be remembered that Denis Atkinson did in fact take a wicket in the first innings, so who holds the record for the most balls bowled in a single Test match without taking any wickets? For that, we have to go back even further to 1929 where we find an even more bizarre Test match between England and Australia. For one, this happened to be a timeless Test, and is still the longest Test match to be played on Australian soil, lasting nine days in total (though the third day was a rest day, so in actuality, there were only eight days of play).
Due to an injury to Herbert Sutcliffe, Douglas Jardine was forced to open alongside a 47-year-old Jack Hobbs. England's innings was very slow, with Jardine scoring 19(126), Wally Hammond scoring 38(100) and Ernest Tyldesley scoring 31(116). Nonetheless, it worked, as England scored 519 in their first innings, with Hobbs and Maurice Leyland scoring centuries (the former top-scored with 142 from 301 balls). England probably felt good about themselves, until it was Australia's turn to bat.
Somehow, Australia were even slower than England, scoring at a run-rate of just 1.81 RPO. Particular lowlights included Bill Woodfull's 102(381), Alan Kippax's 38(145), Jack Ryder's 30(125) and Alan Fairfax's 65(242). Even the tailenders got in on the (lack of) action, with Clarrie Grimmett and Percy Hornibrook putting on a partnership of 59 runs, with the former scoring 38(170) and the latter scoring 26(106). Only Don Bradman, with his comparatively swashbuckling 123(247), looked to be positive. Then again, perhaps this should just be expected with timeless Tests and zero pressure to get the match over with. I'm beginning to see why these aren't a thing anymore. I mean, it worked, I guess, as Australia scored 491.
Despite all this scoring, England only made 257 runs in their second innings (Jack Hobbs once again top-scored with 65 runs from 126 balls; how the heck he was playing this well in his late 40s, I have no idea), leaving Australia with a target of 286 runs and infinite time in which to achieve it. There was a chance for Bradman to be stumped while on 5*, but the opportunity was missed, and Australia ended up winning comfortably with a score of 287/5 (three of the five wickets were taken by Wally Hammond of all people, though that included the two openers who were essentially nightwatchmen anyway).
As I said, a bizarre match, but this is all tangential. England's Maurice Tate bowled 62 overs in Australia's first innings (which somehow was only the third-most) and 38 overs in the second innings, for a total of 100 overs throughout the match. In those 100 overs, he failed to take a single wicket. Let me be clear: That's 600 balls bowled without a single wicket being taken...in one match! He ended up with figures of 100-39-184-0 for the entire match, so he was pretty economical, though that might just have been the result of the Aussies batting quite defensively. An unusual feat for an unusual game.
Anyway, that's only two out of the three pieces of the puzzle. Who has bowled the most balls without taking a single wicket in their entire Test career? The answer to that is the Lancashire all-rounder Len Hopwood, who was given an England cap in 1934 following good performances with bat and ball. In his first Test against Australia, he scored just 2(4) in his only innings with the bat and failed to impress with the ball, ending up with match figures of 47-25-62-0. No matter; he can redeem himself in the next match.
Except he didn't. In the first innings, he scored 8(50), then was thrashed about in the second innings by Don Bradman, who ended up scoring 304(473). Say, this Bradman fellow seems like a decent batsman (he's still got nothing on Andy Ganteaume and Kurtis Patterson, though). To be fair to Hopwood, he scored 2*(39) in the third innings, but the match was drawn before he could kick on and score his century. He was subsequently dropped and never selected for England again following his poor performances. All in all, Len Hopwood bowled 462 balls in Test cricket without taking a single wicket, which is still the record by quite a distance.
I should note that right now, Bangladesh's Khaled Ahmed sits in third place, having bowled 360 balls in Test cricket so far without taking any wickets. Can he be the one to break Hopwood's record? It won't be easy: Even if he reaches the 463-ball mark without taking a wicket, any subsequent wickets will cause him to lose the record. Definitely one to keep an eye on, though (in all seriousness, I hope it clicks for him sooner rather than later; it can't feel good as a bowler to bowl that many deliveries and not have anything to show for it).
Now, when it comes to ODIs and T20Is, there is not much use looking at individual innings, as I don't think anyone would find it particularly unusual for a bowler to make it through their allotted overs without taking a single wicket. However, we can look at entire careers, which is precisely what I'm going to do.
For ODIs, the record belongs to Sri Lanka's Athula Samarasekera. Selected as an all-rounder, he bowled 56.2 overs (or 338 balls) of medium pace between 1983 and 1989 at an economy rate of 5.16; he never took any ODI wickets. He continued to play in the format until 1994, but never bowled again after 1989.
In T20Is, the record-holder is still playing: Behold, 41-year-old fast-medium bowler Anasim Khan from Bahrain! Not only has he bowled 25 overs (or 150 balls) in T20Is without taking any wickets, but he's done so at an economy rate of 8.84. Beyond that, not much is known about him, which tends to be the case with these smaller associate members. On another note, much like with the batting feats post, minnows have began to pop up when it comes to T20Is, as was to be expected when every associate nation received T20I status. Opening up T20Is has had the side effect of increasing the likelihood of these unusual occurrences, so props to the ICC for that.

That's it for Part Two. Now for Part Three!

Unusual Batting Feats

Introduction

Brian Lara's 400*. Don Bradman averaging 99.94. Sachin Tendulkar scoring 15,921 Test runs. Chris Martin scoring 12*. The batsmen who achieved these Herculean feats have all gone down in cricket history. However, these are not the only batting performances which exist. There are multiple cases in which a batsman has achieved something unusual, or even at times truly unique, yet they do not get recognition. This post is dedicated to all those batsmen who have managed to achieve what few others have achieved, regardless of whether those achievements are good or bad.

Howzat?

There are ten methods of dismissal (formerly eleven) in cricket, but of these, only five can be considered 'normal': Bowled, caught, LBW, stumped and run out. One could also make a case for hit wicket, and it's common enough that I don't think it counts as being truly unusual. What about the other five, then? Has any batsman in international cricket been dismissed through any of those methods? Thankfully, Wikipedia has a list which I highly advise you to check out, so I'll just be summarising in this section.
First, there's obstructing the field. Only one batsman has ever been dismissed obstructing the field in Tests, and that batsman is Len Hutton against South Africa in 1951. After striking the ball, he noticed that it was about to land onto his stumps and thus bowl him, so he used his bat to strike the ball a second time and protect his stumps. This is actually a legal manoeuvre for a batsman provided that it doesn't prevent a fielder from taking a catch; unfortunately for Hutton, there was a fielder nearby who was ready to take a catch, so he became the first (and so far only) batsman in Test history to be dismissed obstructing the field.
Interestingly enough, there have been seven instances in ODIs of batsmen being given out obstructing the field. In all of those cases, the batsman in question obstructed throws from fielders in order to avoid being run out, in contrast to Hutton who obstructed a catch in order to avoid being caught. In three of those cases, the batsman used his bat or his body to deflect the ball away from the stumps while out of his crease, and in three other cases, the batsman changed his direction of movement while running in order to block the ball. Ben Stokes was out obstructing the field in the most unusual way, however, when he pulled a Maradona and used his hand to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps in a 2015 ODI against Australia.
There have been two instances of a batsman being dismissed obstructing the field in T20Is. Jason Roy was given out in a 2017 T20I against South Africa for changing his direction of movement while running, and Maldivian cricketer Hassan Rasheed was given out obstructing the field in 2019 for...I don't know, actually. It's pretty hard to find articles on bilateral T20Is between the Maldives and Qatar. If there's anyone here who is an expert on Maldivian or Qatari cricket then I'd appreciate finding out more about this incident.
As for handling the ball, this has happened ten times in international cricket (seven times in Tests and three times in ODIs). In 2013, the Laws were changed so that only the striker could be given out handling the ball and even then only before he had finished playing his stroke (strikers handling the ball after the completion of his stroke, and non-strikers handling the ball at any time, would be given out obstructing the field). In 2017, this method of dismissal was removed entirely and instead came under obstructing the field.
I won't go through all the players, but I will pick out some particular highlights. South Africa's Russell Endean was the first batsman in international cricket to be dismissed handled the ball in 1957 when he used his free hand to knock the ball away from the stumps, but according to a later interview, he actually wanted to head the ball away at first; I don't know whether that's actually against the Laws, but given that they didn't wear helmets back then, I can't imagine that it would have ended well. Michael Vaughan was the last player to be dismissed in this manner in Tests back in 2001, and Zimbabwe's Chamu Chibhaba holds the distinction of being the last cricketer to be dismissed handled the ball in international cricket after he was given out for handling the ball in an ODI against Afghanistan in 2015.
This post is about unusual feats, however, and when it comes to being given out handled the ball, there is none more unusual than the story of Australia's Andrew Hilditch. In a Test match against Pakistan in 1979, following a wayward throw from a fielder, Hilditch (who was at the non-striker's end) decided to return the ball to the bowler. It's actually against the Laws for a batsman to return the ball to a fielder without that fielder's permission, and controversially, the bowler (Sarfraz Nawaz) decided to appeal, which led to Hilditch's dismissal. This would be the only instance in international cricket of a non-striker being given out handled the ball, so Hilditch takes the biscuit when it comes to this unusual method of dismissal.
Retirement is rather unusual in that depending on the situation, the batsman can be considered out or not out. Generally, retirement occurs due to injury, in which case the batsman is considered 'retired hurt' and is entitled to return to the crease upon the fall of a wicket or upon another batsman's retirement. This situation is not at all unusual. What is unusual, though, is a batsman retiring for reasons other than injury, and unless there is some other acceptable reason for their absence (which I'll talk about shortly), the fielding side has the right to prevent them from returning to the crease, in which case they are retired out.
This has only occurred three times in international cricket. In a Test between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in 2001, in which Sri Lanka demolished the then-new Test nation of Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan captain (Sanath Jayasuriya) retired Marvan Atapattu after he scored his double-century, and later in the same innings, retired Mahela Jayawardene after he smashed 150(115). Obviously, this move was criticised by some for breaching the spirit of the game, and these are the only two instances of batsmen being retired out in Test cricket. The other such instance in international cricket is when Bhutan's Sonam Tobgay was retired out in a 2019 T20I against the Maldives (something about the Maldives and unusual dismissals for some reason), but I can't find any further details of the incident.
Now, this post is generally meant to be a light-hearted celebration of unusual batting achievements, but this next story is rather more sombre. In a 1983 Test between the West Indies and India, Gordon Greenidge was on 154* in the West Indies' first innings when he received news that his daughter was dying; he retired in order to be able to visit her, and she sadly passed away two days later. Although Greenidge had not been injured, he was given as 'retired not out' due to the tragic circumstances. To this day, this is the only instance in international cricket of a batsman being given retired not out.
Hit the ball twice and timed out are perhaps the most unusual dismissals of all in the sense that no batsman has ever been given out for those reasons in international cricket (not yet, anyway; there's a first time for everything). There was one instance, however, in which a batsman could have been timed out in Test cricket, but ultimately wasn't.
The Law states that a batsman must be at the crease within three minutes, else they can be timed out. In a 2007 Test between India and South Africa, Sachin Tendulkar was due to come in at #4. However, he had temporarily been off the field during South Africa's innings, and he still had unserved penalty time when two Indian wickets quickly fell, meaning that he couldn't bat at #4. As a result, India, who were confused by the whole ordeal, didn't send out a batsman for six minutes until Sourav Ganguly finally arrived at #4. Both the umpires and South Africa's captain, Graeme Smith, agreed that an appeal would be against the spirit of the game, but had Smith appealed, this would have been the only instance in international cricket of a batsman being timed out.

The Best Since Bradman

It's common knowledge among cricket fans that Don Bradman holds the record for the highest Test batting average, at 99.94. However, this isn't strictly speaking true. It is correct to say that Bradman has the highest average among batsmen who have played a minimum of twenty innings, but among all batsmen, Bradman only comes in at a measly third (what a fraud). Who are ahead of him, then?
Firstly, let us dispel with the notion that a batsman who is never dismissed has an infinite average. That is not true. A batsman who is never dismissed has an undefined average, since it is impossible to have a batting average without any dismissals. Pakistani off-spinner Afaq Hussain holds the record for the most Test runs scored without being dismissed, having scored 65 runs in four innings.
Looking at batsmen who have been dismissed, however, we come across West Indian wicketkeeper Andy Ganteaume in second place. The poor lad struggled to get into the Test team because of his slow scoring rate in tour matches, but an injury to Jeff Stollmeyer forced the selectors to play him against England. In his only Test innings in 1948, Ganteaume hit 112 but was criticised (once again) for scoring too slowly and was subsequently dropped; he would never play another Test match. Still, he can lay legitimate claim to having a higher Test batting average than Bradman, which only one other batsman has achieved.
Who's the best since Bradman, then? With a minimum cut-off of twenty innings, we have Adam Voges, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, all Australian, two of them still active international cricketers. As is tradition at this point, the batsman with the highest Test batting average of all time is an active Australian cricketer, Kurtis Patterson to be precise. He forced himself into the team after scoring twin centuries in a tour match and although he only scored 30 in his first innings, he scored 114* in his second to end up with an average of 144.
Australian fans go crazy over Smith and Labuschagne, declaring them to be the best since Bradman. Little do they realise that they have in their ranks a batsman who is not only statistically better than Bradman but who is also statistically better than the GOAT Test batsman Andy Ganteaume.
How about ODIs, though? Who has the highest ODI batting average of all time? I'll give you a hint: He's a Dutch player. No, it's not Ryan ten Doeschate; it is, in fact, Max O'Dowd. He scored 86* in his first innings followed by a score of 59 in his second innings to end up with an average of 145. ~~South African~~ Irish cricketer Curtis Campher comes in at second with an average of 127.
Who has scored the most runs in ODIs without being dismissed, though? Well, let me ask you a different question: Who is England's greatest ever ODI player? If you said Jos Buttler then you'd be wrong. By law, anything that Buttler can do, Foakes can do better, and Ben Foakes does in fact hold the record for the most runs in ODIs without being dismissed, having scored 61* in his only ODI innings. Buttler would never.
In T20Is, the greatest ever batsman is someone who you probably haven't even heard of. Chris Gayle calls himself 'Universe Boss', but the true Universe Boss is surely the guy who averages 126 in T20Is. Enter Portugal's Najjam Shahzad, who scored 27* in his first innings, 46 in his second and 53* in his third. Not only does he have the highest T20I average of all time but he's also improving with every innings, so it won't be long until Portugal becomes a powerhouse in T20I cricket thanks to megadaddy hundreds from Universe Boss Najjam Shahzad.
If Shahzad is the Universe Boss, however, then Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Adnan is the Multiverse Boss. He holds the record for the most runs in T20Is without being dismissed, scoring 14*, 38* and 8* in his three innings. Not only that, but he has a career strike rate of 193.54, so he doesn't waste time. Give this man an IPL contract already.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Ducks and golden ducks are not unusual in and of themselves. That doesn't mean that scoring a duck or golden duck can't still be unusual feats, however; it all depends on how those ducks or golden ducks come about.
You might be aware that New Zealand's Geoff Allott holds the record for the most balls faced for a duck in Tests, having faced 77 balls against South Africa in 1999 (he also holds the record for the longest duck, having batted for a whopping 101 minutes). What about the other formats, though? The late West Indian batsman Runako Morton holds the record for most balls faced for a duck in ODIs, having scored 0(31) against Australia in 2006 (unsurprisingly, the West Indies lost that match). Morton took 56 minutes for his duck, which is also an ODI record.
T20Is are where it gets juicy, however. Canada's Sandeep Jyoti holds the record for most balls faced for a duck in T20Is, scoring 0(12) against Zimbabwe in 2008 (it was a close match, though, as Canada only lost by 109 runs). In terms of minutes batted, however, Zimbabwe's Brendan Taylor holds that record, having batted for 19 minutes in a T20I against South Africa in 2010 for a five-ball duck; Jyoti, by comparison, batted for 15 minutes.
The record for most balls faced for a golden duck is...one. By definition, golden ducks involve the batsman facing exactly one ball. However, who took the longest time for their golden duck?
In Tests, that accolade belongs to Bangladesh's Nazmul Hossain, who spent 14 minutes at the crease against India in a 2004 match before being run out for a golden duck. England fans were probably waiting in anticipation for a superb knock from the #3 batsman, Martyn Moxon, when they were 47-1 against Australia in a 1985 ODI, but after 19 minutes of tension, Moxon was dismissed LBW off his first ball. In a 2015 T20I between England and Pakistan, Pakistani opener Rafatullah Mohmand somehow conspired to spend 17 minutes at the crease before being dismissed LBW in the third over for a golden duck; amazingly, he was only two minutes away from equalling the record for the longest duck in T20Is!
What if a batsman just doesn't feel like scoring runs, though, and ends on 0*? Obviously, batsmen can end on something like 0*(0) or 0*(1) or 0*(5), and that wouldn't be too unusual. The truly remarkable feats are when a batsman plays a marathon innings and yet still finishes on 0*. Some of these players put Geoffrey Boycott to shame.
Firstly, let's consider Tests. In 1968, England scored 351/7d in the first innings and bowled Australia out for 78, forcing them to follow on. Cricinfo states that Paul Sheahan 'never completely mastered the art of crease occupation', which is a bizarre claim to make about a player who faced 44 balls in Australia's second innings without scoring a run, thus not only securing the draw but also setting a record which remains unbroken to this day. His marathon innings took 52 minutes, which is a joint record along with New Zealand bowler Danny Morrison's 0*(30) against South Africa in 1995.
Fun fact: Had Jack Leach not scored that single at Headingley while still remaining not out, he would have broken this record having batted for 60 minutes, yet assuming that he completed his final over, he would have only faced 20 balls (fewer than half the balls Paul Sheahan faced). I think this demonstrates just how effective Stokes was at farming the strike.
Moving on to ODIs, Zimbabwean #11 batsman Chris Mpofu (who averages 2.85 with the bat) holds the record here, having scored 0*(20) in a tenth-wicket partnership of 12(38) against Bangladesh in 2006. His partner was the #10 batsman (and Zimbabwe's captain) Prosper Utseya, who certainly didn't prosper with his 21(42), thus stranding Mpofu 80 balls short of his dentury. Who holds the record for the longest 0*, though?
Picture the scene. It's March 2019 and Sri Lanka is struggling in an ODI against South Africa. It's the first innings and Lasith Malinga has been run out for a duck, leaving Sri Lanka on 131/9 after just 33.4 overs. Everyone knows about Kusal Perera's incredible 153* earlier that year, but what happened next, while not nearly as impressive, was nonetheless incredible. #9 batsman Isuru Udana and #11 batsman Kasun Rajitha put on a tenth-wicket stand of 58 runs from just 34 balls. Udana ends on 78(57). Rajitha ends on 0*(9), having batted for exactly half an hour. South Africa still won comfortably, but Rajitha's immense innings saw him enter the history books as having scored the longest 0* in ODI history. Udana's innings was alright as well.
Finally, in T20Is, the record for the most balls faced for a 0* is held by Bermuda's Rodney Trott, who scored 0*(7) against the Netherlands in 2019. Cricinfo doesn't know how long it took, however. For that, we have to look towards India's Yuzvendra Chahal, who took 15 minutes for his 0*(4) against Australia in 2019. Solid contribution from him.
All these feats are just in one innings, though. Some batsmen go above and beyond that and spend their entire career not scoring runs (either that or they don't know what a batsman's main job is). Two Sri Lankan players (Ishara Amerasinghe and Dinuka Hettiarachchi) hold the joint record for most balls faced in Tests without scoring a single run, both having faced 25 balls. In fact, the entire top four is made up of Sri Lankans; clearly, a significant proportion of Sri Lankan cricketers view run-scoring as optional. Hettiarachchi (who Cricinfo reckons is an all-rounder despite an FC batting average of 9.55) beats out everyone when it comes to minutes batted, though, having batted for 39 minutes in Tests without scoring a single run.
Bangladesh's Harunur Rashid holds the record for most balls faced in ODIs without scoring a run, having faced 17 in total. However, we have to look to our old friend Rajitha to find the player who's batted the most minutes in ODIs without scoring a run; he has batted at least 32 minutes, almost all of which comes from his partnership with Udana. Portugal's Sukhwinder Singh has faced nine balls in T20Is without scoring a run, which is the record, but Shaheen Shah Afridi and Mathew Sinclair both hold the joint-record for having batted seven minutes in T20Is without scoring a run.

Diamond Ducks Are Forever

Ducks and golden ducks aren't too unusual for the most part, but diamond ducks (in which a batsman is dismissed without facing a single ball) are. Think of what needs to happen for a diamond duck to occur. The player can't be a striker for obvious reasons, so bowled, caught, LBW, stumped, hit wicket and hit the ball twice (all of which can only apply to the striker) are out of play. Timed out is out of play as soon as a batsman enters the crease. This leaves just three possible dismissals for a diamond duck: Run out, obstructing the field and retired out. The latter two almost never happen, so diamond ducks almost always occur due to run-outs.
There have been 153 diamond ducks in ODIs and 53 diamond ducks in T20Is, so in those formats, diamond ducks aren't that unusual. This makes sense, of course, as run-outs are more likely to occur in those formats. Tests are where diamond ducks count as an unusual batting feat, as there have been in the history of Tests only 29 diamond ducks that we know of. Chris Martin holds the unfortunate distinction of being the only cricketer in the history of Tests to be dismissed for a diamond duck twice (one of which came in his final Test innings, which is a perfect summation of his batting career).
Most of these diamond ducks have of course come through run-outs, but there have been seven international diamond ducks (three in ODIs and four in T20Is) which have come through stumpings. On the surface, this shouldn't be possible; how can a batsman be stumped without facing a ball? The answer is simple: Leg-side stumpings. In white-ball cricket, any leg-side delivery tends to be given as a wide, and the odd thing about wides is that they do not count as a ball faced by the striker yet the striker can be dismissed stumped or hit wicket off of them. This would explain why this kind of diamond duck has occurred seven times in LOIs yet has never occurred in the history of Test cricket.
FWIW, there has yet to be an international diamond duck from a method of dismissal other than run out and stumped, but it is theoretically possible for a batsman who is dismissed hit wicket (off a wide), obstructing the field or retired out to achieve a diamond duck. Will any batsman be brave enough to make history and try to achieve what would be a unique feat by being dismissed for a diamond duck through one of these modes of dismissal? We'll have to wait and see.

Specialist Six-Hitters

So far, this post has been focusing largely on defensive stalwarts, but those are boring to watch. Everyone knows that real cricket is about walking up to the crease and hitting sixes from the get-go, so this section will be dedicated to those players who consider a strike rate under 600 to be too defensive. No score illustrates this mentality better than the rare 6*(1), so let's start with that.
In all the Tests throughout history, only once has a batsman finished on a score of 6*(1). The year is 1993 and Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya enters the crease with his team five wickets down but needing just four runs to beat England. Phil Tufnell is the bowler who is trying to take his wicket and help pull off a miracle for England, but Jayasuriya is having none of it and promptly smacks his first delivery for six. As far as Tests go, Jayasuriya's 6*(1) is a true case of batting scorigami (maybe I'll do a cricket scorigami post at some point).
As for ODIs and T20Is, a final score of 6*(1) is more common as you might imagine. In fact, it has occurred nine times in ODIs and thirteen times in T20Is. It appears to be the case that when a batsman is dismissed on the penultimate ball of the first innings, the batting team will send out a specialist six-hitter to get the job done. Credit goes to Afghan wicketkeeper Shafiqullah and England all-rounder Chris Jordan for being the only two players to achieve this unusual feat twice (Shafiqullah has achieved it twice in T20Is whereas Jordan has achieved it once in ODIs and once in T20Is).
A 6*(1) is probably my second-favourite score, but you know what my favourite score is? 6(2). I don't think any score illustrates the dual nature of batting quite like this one does. You can be dominating a bowler and smashing them for six one moment, then the very next moment, you can find yourself dismissed by the same bowler. It's poetic. It represents not only the duality of batsmen but the duality of man himself; you can be breezing through life one second then you could be rock-bottom the next. 6(2) is not just a score; it is a representation of life itself, cricket's ode to the erratic nature of mankind's existence.
Much like 6*(1), 6(2) has only occurred once in Test cricket, in 1958 to be precise. The West Indies were 401 runs behind Australia heading into the third innings and they required a miracle just to stay in the game. A 179-run partnership between Walcott and Sobers gave the West Indies hope, but they then proceeded to collapse from 244/3 to 283/8. In comes Frank King at #10 with his team needing over a hundred runs just to make Australia bat again. Not wanting to go down without a fight, he heaves the bowler for six off his first ball. Alas, his very next ball results in him being caught, but one cannot fault King for his effort in the face of certain defeat (apart from the fact that he had Everton Weekes at the other end, but we'll just ignore that).
This scoreline of 6(2) has occurred ten times in ODIs and eleven times in T20Is. No batsman in international cricket has ever achieved it twice. The first player to achieve it twice will thus have their names etched in the history books for their unique feat.
South Africa's Mangaliso Mosehle deserves special mention, though. He has achieved the ultimate cricket scorigami: His score of 6(1) against Sri Lanka in a 2016 T20I is the only such score in the entire history of international cricket. He came in at #6 at the end of South Africa's ninth over and hit his first international ball for six. He was then run out as the non-striker in the next over, leaving him on a score of 6(1). Not only did his team win the match, but Mosehle achieved what no other batsman has achieved before or since. Truly, his name must be counted among the likes of Lara, Tendulkar and Bradman for this one-of-a-kind feat.
In cases such as 6*(1) and 6(1), the batsman was left with a strike rate of 600. Can it go higher, though? Has any batsman done better than 600? For the first question, the answer is surprisingly yes. It is indeed theoretically possible for a batsman to finish an innings with a strike rate greater than 600. If he hits a ball for three and the fielding side then throws the ball to the boundary, the number of runs scored off of that delivery will be 3 + 4 overthrows = 7. This is how it would theoretically be possible for a batsman to conclude an innings with a strike rate greater than 600.
Does this mean that there is a batsman out there who has struck at a rate greater than 600? Unfortunately, no. Though it is doable, it has never happened in international cricket. The highest SR ever achieved in an international innings is 600; that includes Mosehle, all the players who have scored 6*(1), and Afghanistan's Dawlat Zadran, who against Oman in 2016 scored 12*(2) to win his team the T20I by three wickets with three balls remaining. He clearly did his job as specialist six-hitter very well indeed, for he is the only batsman in international cricket to have finished an innings with a strike rate of 600 having faced more than one ball.
Since no batsman has struck at greater than 600 in an innings, it stands to reason that no batsman has struck at greater than 600 over their career. Has anyone struck at exactly 600, though? Is there a batsman who hit their only ball in international cricket for six?
No-one's done it in Tests, that's for sure. The batsman with the highest confirmed career strike rate in Tests is Australia's Fred Freer, who hit 28*(21) in his only innings for a career SR of 133.33. However, Bill Howell (also Australian) may have had an SR of up to 205.88, though we don't have full ball-by-ball data for his innings.
In ODIs and T20Is, the records are undisputed. South African pace bowler Johann Louw holds the accolade in ODIs, having scored 23(7) in his only innings for a career strike rate of 328.57, and Bahrain's Qasim Zia hit a four off his only international delivery to take the record for the highest career strike rate in T20Is.
As you can see, not only has no batsmen ever finished with a career SR greater than 600, but none have even managed to finish with an SR of exactly 600. To strike at greater than 600 over the course of an innings would be unique in international cricket; to strike at exactly 600 over the course of a career would be truly special; to strike at greater than 600 over the course of a career, however, would be the holy grail of unusual batting feats. The player who manages to achieve that would surely go down in cricketing folklore for all eternity.

To Be Or Not To Be On Strike

All of the aforementioned batting feats require that the batsman has actually faced a ball. What if that's not the case, though? What if a batsman's dedication to weirdness is so great that they do not even bother to get themselves on strike? Or, perhaps more accurately, what if a batsman's dedication to weirdness is so great that they do not allow their partner to take the strike?
That is precisely what happened in 2012 when England faced Pakistan in the first Test of the tour. With Pakistan on 319/9 in their first innings, Adnan Akmal evidently didn't trust his partner Aizaz Cheema to face even one delivery, with the result that the two batsmen put on a 19-run partnership for the tenth wicket despite Cheema not facing a single ball. What makes this notable is that Cheema batted for 20 minutes without facing a delivery, which is a Test match record. Amusingly, Cheema ended his career with five innings batted, five not-outs, a high score of 1*, 23 balls faced and a strike rate of 4.34.
As for T20Is, I must admit that I am rather bemused. Afghanistan's Amir Hamza holds the record for the most minutes batted in a T20I innings without facing a ball, having batted for 10 minutes against the Netherlands in 2013. However, I'm confused as to how he managed to achieve this. Afghanistan's ninth wicket fell on the final ball of the nineteenth over, and so Hamza's partner faced the first ball of the final over. However, Hamza was also run out for a diamond duck on the first ball of the final over. This means that the gap between the end of the nineteenth over and the beginning of the final over was 10 minutes. How is that even possible in a T20I? Cricinfo isn't helping me at all here.
Now for the reason I wanted to make this post in the first place. This particular innings took place in 2017, during an ODI between Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand had set the Aussies a target of 287 and the chasing side found themselves facing certain defeat on 226/9, with only Marcus Stoinis and Josh Hazlewood left at the crease.
What happened next was nothing short of spectacular. Stoinis somehow managed to farm the strike with such effectiveness that immediately prior to the final ball of the 47th over, the two batsmen had put on a tenth-wicket partnership of 54 runs and needed just six more runs to win. The kicker? Hazlewood didn't face a single ball. Stoinis had faced every single delivery in the partnership. Australia's innings finally ended on the final ball of the 47th over when Hazlewood was run out for a diamond duck while attempting to take a single, but if Stoinis had pulled it off, it would surely have been one of the greatest ODI innings of all time.
All in all, Hazlewood batted for 26 minutes, which is by far the longest innings by a batsman without facing a single ball in the history of international cricket. When I first heard about this stat, I couldn't believe it; I found it so unusual and so unique that I decided to look for more weird and wonderful batting feats, and that's how this post came about. Hats off to specialist non-striker Josh Hazlewood, then, for inspiring me to do this.
You might think that any batsman who faces zero balls in an innings can only end up with a score of either 0 or 0*, and if you think that, you'd be right. Nonetheless, while searching through Cricinfo's database to find the weirdest batting feats out there, I came across this scorecard. Apparently, this is due to a scoring error as the scorer incorrectly neglected to count the no-ball as a ball faced. The fact that this is the only such instance of this happening in Cricinfo's database supports this theory.
Hazlewood's achievement was superb, but even he only managed it in one innings. How about over an entire career? Who holds the record for the most minutes batted over a career without facing a ball? Unfortunately, Cricinfo won't let me find that out for Tests, and the ODI and T20I data present nothing at all unusual (the record is 2 minutes for ODIs and 5 minutes for T20Is, in case you're wondering).
Matches played is somewhat more interesting. Once again, Cricinfo won't let me do this for Tests, but India's Jaydev Unadkat holds the record for the most ODIs played without facing a single ball, having played in seven ODIs. However, he's also never had to bat; if we restrict our search only to those who have batted at least one innings, Lance Gibbs and Pakistan's Mohammad Khalil come out on top, both having played three ODIs without facing a ball.
The West Indies' Krishmar Santokie holds the record for the most T20Is played without facing a single ball, having played in twelve of them (talk about specialist bowler!), although India's Mohammed Shami and Scotland's Hamza Tahir are closing in on that record, both having played in eleven T20Is without facing a single ball. Unlike Unadkat (and Shami and Tahir, for that matter), Santokie actually batted in one innings (against Ireland in 2014), though that would be his only international innings with the bat.

Extra, Extra!

I don't think Extras gets enough credit. The dude's been batting for 144 years and yet no-one praises his longevity. This final section will thus be dedicated to the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Extras himself.
Despite his long and illustrious career, Extras has only top-scored in 19 completed Test innings. The lowest such score came in 1924; England scored 438 in the first innings while South Africa could only manage 30, with Extras scoring a swashbuckling 11 to lessen South Africa's humiliation. The skipper, Herbie Taylor, was the next-highest scorer with 7; a true captain's knock from him. Extras' highest score was a 76 for Pakistan against India in 2007 (he had also scored 38 and 41 in India's two innings, so it was a good match for him), but this was not the highest score in the innings.
In total, Extras has top-scored in 39 completed ODI innings. This includes a 2004 ODI between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, in which Extras scored 7 of Zimbabwe's 35 runs (tied with Dion Ebrahim for Zimbabwe's top scorer that game). Extras has also scored three half-centuries in ODIs, his highest score of 59 occurring twice in 1989 and 1999, both for Pakistan. For some reason, Extras just really loves scoring for Pakistan.
Extras has top-scored in 10 completed T20I innings, the lowest of which was once again a score of 7, this time coming for Turkey against Luxembourg in 2019 (Turkey scored just 28 runs in that match). Extras has never scored a half-century in T20Is, with his top score being 39 for Czechia against Turkey in 2019.
That's strange. This Extras fellow, despite having a 144-year-long batting career, has never scored a century, or even approached a century. I personally think that he's been given enough chances and should be dropped. I've heard that he can't even field or bowl, so what's the point in having him in the team if he's not scoring?

Conclusion

When discussing impressive batting feats, a lot of people place emphasis on comparisons: Who has the better average? Who has scored more runs? Who has the better strike rate in white-ball cricket? Who has the better beard? Who has the lower dot-ball percentage when batting in the third innings of the second Test in the series on a Tuesday with a lead of 100 runs or more?
However, the most unusual achievements in the art of batting tend not to derive from excellence in the craft but rather from unique circumstances which lead to bizarre stats or scorelines. To achieve what no batsman has achieved before in international cricket, even if it's something terrible such as becoming the first batsman in the history of international cricket to be out hit wicket for a diamond duck, is impressive in its own way. Also, the subsequent memes can be pretty funny.
I hope you enjoyed the read. Next time, I'll be doing the same thing but for bowling. Get ready for first-ball wickets and economy rates of 0.

highest career batting average cricket video

Read about Records, / , Test matches, / , Highest averages Cricket Team Records only on ESPNcricinfo.com. Check the Stats & Records of Records, / , Test matches, / , Highest averages Players in Wicket keeper Batting Bowling Test Cricket - Batting Records and Statistics - Averages / Scoring Rates Highest Batting Averages for Players Batting 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Innings for <All Countries> Afghanistan Australia Bangladesh England India Ireland New Zealand Pakistan South Africa Sri Lanka West Indies Zimbabwe This is a list of Test and One Day International cricket batting averages. 1 Career Test average leaders 1.1 Top 20 retired Test batsmen 1.2 Top 10 active Test batsmen 2 Career One Day International average leaders 2.1 Top 10 retired ODI batsmen 3 External links Current as of 8 February 2009 Qualification = 20 innings (1,898 Tests Source Cricinfo Statsguru). * denotes not out * denotes not out ... Batting Career Summary. M Inn NO Runs HS Avg BF SR 100 200 ... but his average of just 34 runs is far below his Test match average of 49.34. ... and the highest ever score in ODIs until Rohit ... Database of all International Cricket Players Displaying Statistics and Records for all Matches since 1877. HOME; PLAYERS. ... Highest Batting Average Test ODI Highest Career Strike Rate ODI T20. Partnerships Highest Partnerships (Overall & By Team) ... Lowest Bowling Average Test Lowest Career Strike Rate Test ODI Best Career Economy Test ODI ... World Series Cricket Other... IPL: Upcoming Milestones: ... Statistics - Averages / Scoring Rates Highest Average Batting as (minimum 30 innings) Career : Batting as Opener Player Country Career Inns NO Runs Avg Inns NO Runs Avg 1: Sharma, R G* India 2007- ... Read about Test matches, / , Records, / , Highest averages Cricket Team Records only on ESPNcricinfo.com. Check the Stats & Records of Test matches, / , Records, / , Highest averages Players in Wicket keeper Batting Bowling Sobers set the world record for the highest score in Test cricket of 365 against Pakistan in 1968, which stood until compatriot Brian Lara broke it in 1994. 6: Everton Weekes (1948-58) 4 of 11 M: Inns: NO: Runs: HS : Avge: 100: 50: DG Bradman: 234: 338: 43: 28067: 452* 95.14 117: 69: Bahir Shah: 25: 42: 10: 2323: 303* 72.59 8: 8: VM Merchant: 150: 234: 46 ... He scored 1788 runs in 11 matches and 19 innings with an average of 99.33 in 2006. Q-Most Century in Test Cricket A-Sachin Tendulkar has record 51 centuries in Test cricket. He has scored 68 half-centuries as well.

highest career batting average cricket top

Ashes Cricket batting career biggest 6 ever - YouTube

10 Best Batting Averages in ODI everAbout Simbly Chumma:A channel with Ranking style videos on some of the most interesting subjects based on INDIA!Chumma in... பேட்டிங் சராசரி 60க்கும் மேற்பட்டு வைத்திருக்கும் வீரர்கள் ... Get Your WE COACH CRICKET MERCH here:https://seriouscricket.co.uk/teamwear/stores/we-coach-cricketEvening everyone! We wanted to try something a bit differen... Ashes Cricket batting career biggest 6 ever song= shivers if you guys enjoy leave a like and subscribe join my pro club aussie roos to be in a video Cricket is our passion and is most popular sports game in sub continental i.e India and Pakistan. Cricket has also become among most sports games all over th... Highest Career Batting Average in ODI Cricket 🔥 BEST BATSMEN EVER CRICKETDrop a LIKE if you enjoyed!Please share this video for your friendsSubscribe for ne... Here is the list of Test Players with highest career average. This list includes players with at-least 2000 runs in their career.10. Kumar Sangakkara (Srilan... Highest Career Batting Average in Twenty20 Internationals 🔥 BEST BATSMEN EVER CRICKETDrop a LIKE if you enjoyed!Please share this video for your friendsSubs... Sports News - Highest Career Batting Average - Top 10 Batsmen With Highest Batting Average in ODI CricketThanks For Watching Video#SportsNews#Top10Batsman#Hi... Best batting average stats players MLB - Line Bar Chart Race 2011 - 2019 - Duration: 1:31. Data Race 203 views. 1:31. Scully calls every out of Kershaw's no-no - Duration: 7:26. ...

Virender Sehwag Profile - ICC Ranking, Age, Career Info ...

highest career batting average cricket

highest career batting average cricket - win

Highest Career Batting Average in ODI Cricket

Highest Test cricket career batting averages achieved after 100 Tests played. Sangakkara moves up to number two of all time.

Donald Bradman (cricketer with the highest ever career batting average) in the '30s.

Indian Cricket In The Decade 2011-20 Review.

A Statistical Analysis to Determine and Improve upon the ICC's Team of the "Decade"

Openers

Number 3

Other Top Order

All Rounder

Wicket Keeper

Seamers

Spinners

Final XI

Edit: Now that I reread it, that title's a bit poor. It should have been: A Statistical Analysis to Determine a Team of the "Decade" to Improve Upon the ICC's. Oh well, too late now.

Kane and the Fab 4: Average progression during innings since 2017

Unusual Bowling Feats (Part One)

Introduction

They See Me Rollin', They Hatin'

The Best Since Lohmann

Three Strikes...Wait, Wrong Sport

It's The Economy, Stupid

'Wait, It's All One Bowler?' 'Always Has Been 🌎 👨‍🚀 🔫👨‍🚀'

Unusual Bowling Feats (Part Two)

Peaking Too Soon

Why Bowl Many Deliveries When One Delivery Do Trick?

Participation Trophies

Unusual Batting Feats

Introduction

Howzat?

The Best Since Bradman

Duck, Duck, Goose

Diamond Ducks Are Forever

Specialist Six-Hitters

To Be Or Not To Be On Strike

Extra, Extra!

Conclusion

highest career batting average cricket video

highest career batting average cricket top

Ashes Cricket batting career biggest 6 ever - YouTube