Author: Matt

The last two days I have written about the top two fastest ODI centuries in the knockout stages of a major tournament.

Today: number three.

The match: the Final of the 2011 World Cup.

As anyone who’s anyone knows, the match damn near bled intangible cricketing moments – it was soaked in players recognizing the situation and upping their game just one more notch to compensate.

The match was played in a pressure cooker, and a handful of players responded with the performances of their lives.

It also included a fabulous century from Sri Lankan batsman, Mahela Jayawardene, the third fastest ODI century in the knockout stage of a major tournament: and just like Clive Lloyd yesterday, it happened in the final of the World Cup.

Two out of the top three so far, amazing.

The scene: India v Sri Lanka. Mumbai, April the 2nd, 2011. 42,000 people at the Wankhede Stadium and the whole of India watching, the whole of world cricket watching…

I don’t need to go too much into detail, but Sri Lanka were 122-3 through 27.5 overs when Jayawardene strolled to the crease. He went on to score 103 runs off of only 88 balls, an efficient and much needed knock for Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately, he could not quite put together a long enough partnership to get his team over three hundred, and Sri Lanka ended at 274, setting an achievable target for India, the hosts.

Fortunately, however, Lasith Malinga also siezed the moment: getting Sehwag out lbw for a duck, and getting Tendulkar out for only 18.

But the final drop of magical waters were left for the captain, MS Dhoni, who hit a lovely 91 not-out off of 79 deliveries…

…and of course, he hitting the game winning runs with a magnificent six…

Go ahead, watch it again, you know you want to:

This is where we come to the crux of this whole argument, as Dhoni’s 91 will long be remembered as a phenomenal performance under the most extreme pressure imaginable, but Jayawardene’s is long forgotten, despite the fact that he hit that random number of 100, and that he did it under just as much pressure.

Well, not just as much, but still a great deal….

I am really enjoying researching these posts, but I don’t know how much I enjoy writing them, as I feel like they are one giant contradiction, a touch farcical, largely inaccurate, and a little aimless.

But I guess I am proving my own point from a few days ago: the only way to know which cricketers step up their game when it matters, is to watch a whole lot of cricket…

I will never forget Dhoni’s innings, surely, despite the fact that he didn’t reach a meaningless triple digit amount of runs.

Tomorrow, parts four and five, combined into one post.

*

On the pitch: test cricket!

So, if you will excuse me…

Until tomorrow.

This is part two of the five fastest ODI hundreds in a major international tournament.

Today we travel to London, Lord’s, on the 21st of June, 1975.

The final of the very first World Cup.

The West Indies versus Australia.

And our featured performer: Clive Lloyd.

(One quick note about the tournament, though I don’t think it necessarily affects the soul of this particular post, but the matches played were 60-over innings, not 50-over innings as is now the case.)

Australia won the toss and elected to field.  The West Indies lost one of their openers, Roy Fredericks, in a rather bizarre manner: after hitting a six, he fell back into his own wicket.  Fellow opener, Gordon Greenridge, then scored thirteen runs at an excruciatingly slow pace: a strike rate of 21 and change. 13 runs off of 80 balls…

His partner, Alvin Kallicharran, fell for just 12, and then Greenridge fell. Leaving the West Indies at 50-3 with 1/3 of their overs gone.

Up stepped the incomparable Clive Lloyd, who blasted the Australian quicks around Lord’s. 102 runs off of 108 deliveries. A strike rate nearly six times that of Greenridge’s. His fellow batsman for the entirity of his knock was Rohan Kanhai, who quietly blocked ball after ball as Lloyd brought Lord’s to its feet with his 12 fours.

The West Indies ended their innings with 291 runs, setting Australia’s target at 292 to win.

They fell 17 runs short, thanks mostly to five run outs, three of which were secured by Sir Viv Richards.

Clive Lloyd also bowled 12 overs in that match, allowing a paltry 3.16 runs per over, the lowest by an entire run of all his fellow bowlers.

He also took a wicket. Bowling out the dangerous Australian folk hero, Doug Walters.

All told: 102 runs when his team sorely needed them, at a pace that kept them in the match; followed by 12 overs of stingy bowling and a wicket.

Fantastic performance.

And he did it all while wearing glasses!

And my favorite part of the whole thing: he was the West Indian captain.

He did what captains do in big matches: he puts his teammates on his back and dragged them over the line.

He played in 87 ODIs in his career, but that Sunday in June in England was his only century.  That about says it all, as far as I am concerned.

Clive Lloyd did not get a single mention in my earlier posts on clutch performances, and therefore those analyses are inherently flawed.

Lovely performance, Clive.

Tomorrow: part three.

Some of you might remember the match quite fondly…

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There is some controversy on these posts. Well, controversy in my own head anyway. Clive Lloyd was a fantastic cricketer. And so of course it follows that he was fantastic in the World Cup. It really has nothing with any sort of intangible “clutchiness”, he was simply a good batsman and a serviceable medium pace bowler who had one of his better days.

His performance at Lord’s that day does not transcend stats, it just further supports them.

I agree 100% with all of that.

But still: only one century in his entire ODI career and it came in the FINAL of the WORLD CUP!?

Sometimes it’s okay to believe in Santa Clause.

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Back on the pitch: tonight is the 2nd final of the seriously interminable but nonetheless entertaining Commonwealth Bank series. Australia could end it all tonight in Adelaide with a victory over Sri Lanka.

Also, the first test between New Zealand and South Africa starts on the 7th (the 6th on my calendar): that’s right, test cricket is back in less than 24 hours. Happy days.

Oh, and hey, the Asia Cup starts on 11th, and Willow.tv will have all seven of the matches live on their YouTube Channel. I am pretty excited, even if the matches will be starting at 02:30 CST.

Pakistan plays India on a Sunday morning, however, so I am going to figure out a way to watch that one.

*

Finally, today, sad news: West Indian cricketer Runako Morton was killed in a road accident. He was only 33.

Proper tributes here and here.

Until next time.

Today: first in a series: the five fastest ODI hundreds in the knockout stages of a tournament.

This is my effort to use stats to find those batsmen that perform best on cricket’s biggest stages, that have that certain bit of chutzpah that few cricketers have.

The ability to hit in the clutch, in other words.

Now, mind you, I don’t think this is a definitive list, nor do I think this the best stat to use, but it is one gauge, I think.

Plus it is something fun to write about, which is why we all do this in the first place.

Oh, and by “quick”, I mean number of balls faced. And by “tournament”, I mean every tournament, as long as the majority of the teams involved were nations of test status.

Our first stop: The Final of the Pepsi Champions Trophy on November the 5th, 1993, at the Sharjah National Stadium, in the United Arab Emirates.

The tournament itself was a tri-nation series involving Pakistan, the West Indies, and Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka had lost all four of its matches, while the West Indies and Pakistan had each won three and lost one, and so they met in the final.

The West Indies won the toss and elected to field.

Pakistan were slow out of the blocks. They lost their first three batsmen, having only scored 56 runs off of 127 deliveries.

The fifth batsmen was Basit Ali.

Only 23 years old at the time, playing in only his 11th One Day International.

His highest score to date was 60 against the West Indies at Kingstown the previous spring.

A flashy batsmen, a risk taker, he was already a favorite among the Pakistani faithful.

That day in Sharjah, he scorched the West Indian attack for 127* off of a lightning fast 79 balls.

12 fours, five sixes. A strike rate of 160.75.

His display gave Pakistan a reasonable total of 284 for the West Indies to chase.

Which they did, successfully, with 27 balls to spare, thanks to Brian Lara’s 153.

But without Basit Ali standing up and taking charge when Pakistan needed him, the Final would have been over before the lunch break.

Good on you, Basit Ali. You made the list.

And for that, I won’t even talk about the match fixing allegations that ruined your career.

Until tomorrow.

The other day, I asked about those cricketers that transcend stats, and received a very succinct reply from Benny, aka @tracerbullet007. He lists just about every active cricketer known to, well, known to bring it when it matters.  They might not be the best players on the planet, but if you had to go to war, those are the guys I would want with me. Hat tip.

Also, long time reader, @dbackwardpoint, tweeted his simple reply: Javed Miandad.

Full stop.

He also told me of a famous quote that Sunil Gavaskar’s wife might have said, which I just love, no matter who said it:

“If I wanted someone to bat for my pleasure, I would ask my husband. If I needed someone to bat for my life, I would ask Javed Miandad.”

Now, I would love to be able to write eloquently like that on the cricketers I would trust my life to, if need be, but unfortunately, and simply: I have not watched enough cricket.

Being able to write lucid and brillant prose on the poetry of batting is something beyond me. I think quite honestly that in order to write like that, and do it well, you need to have been a cricket fan your entire life.

I firmly believe that.

A few weeks ago, one of my favorite tweeters, @legsidelizzy, tweeted about her favorite individual performance by a Nottinghamshire cricketer. I cannot find the specific tweet, unfortunately, but she basically summed up a transcendent bowling performance that would have an otherwise been ignored on a stat sheet, and she did so beautifully, in fewer than 140 characters!

She has followed cricket her entire life, and it shows.

And therefore while I want to write such prose, I have decided to instead stick to basing my posts on cold, hard stats.

And so: for the next five days: I will be posting about the five fastest hundreds in the knockout round of an ODI tournament. Not just the World Cup, but every tri-series, quad-series, World Series.

The only caveat is that the tournament has to involve teams with full test status. For instance, Gayle’s immense 110 off of 77 balls in the final of the 2008 Scotiabank Series does not count.

Great knock though.

Scorecard here.

After I write about the batsmen, I will write about the bowlers. Though I have yet to pick a stat on which to rate them, so I am not sure how that is going to go.

All of this starts tomorrow. Because I am tired. It has been a long week. And I was up at 6:45am CST to watch Arsenal.

Speaking of players that transcend stats, how about that Robin van Persie, eh?

You need a goal?

He will score you one.

Need another goal?

He will score that one, too. 

And the stats support his brilliance, too.

For instance Liverpool has 30 league goals this season.

Robin alone has 25.

Anyway, this is a cricket blog.

Until tomorrow.

A lot has happened in the world of cricket since my last post.

Matches were played, runs were scored, wickets were taken.

England beat Pakistan; South Africa beat New Zealand.

But the most important event?

Virat Kohli’s brilliant century for India against Sri Lanka in the Commonwealth Bank series, to pull his country out of the fire, and give them life.

It was a wonderful knock. Simply wonderful. We all saw every reason why most see him as World Cricket’s next great talent.

Unfortunately, the videos of it are long gone from YouTube. But I suggest signing up for Willow.tv simply to watch the highlights. Trust me.

In fact, excuse me for a second…

It has been simply a brutally awful tour for India. And I am sure that most of the players are ready to board the jet back home.

But not Virat Kohli.

He blistered his way into the hearts of every cricket fan the world over that evening.

It was just wonderful.

A master-class, as the pundits like to say.

Over the last few days, I had been talking about who are the best cricketers, who can perform both when it matters, and over the long term.

I posted some stats and came to a couple of conclusions. More or less.

But after watching Kohli, my mind changed a bit: the best cricketers in the world are the ones that perform at their best when their team needs them the most.

Whether it be the big wicket at the right time of a test match, or a big innings in a must win ODI.  It’s the players who stand up and own the moment that are the most valuable to their team, to their country.

Unfortunately, cricket is a stats driven game, and the above, this je ne sais quois, is unmeasurable.

Being able to name those players that have this quality takes time, and experience. You have to have watched a great deal of cricket.

And so I ask, dear reader, who are these cricketers?

Until next time.

Today’s topic: Jacques Kallis and The Theory of the All-Rounder.

First of all: Is he the best all-rounder of all time?

Let’s start from the batting side.

Here are the top ten test batsmen of all time, based on average runs scored, 100 innings minimum:

And here are the top test bowlers of all time, based on economy rate, 100 innings minimum

Kallis does not appear on both lists. Only Gary Sobers does, in fact, the man who most cricketing pundits considered the greatest all arounder of all time, before Kallis came along.

(One quick note on fielding statistics, I am going to ignore them for the most part, except in cases where a tie-breaker of sorts is needed. For the record however: Kallis has 180 test dismissals and counting, while Sobers retired with only 109…for whatever that’s worth).

Of course, Sobers retired from International cricket in 1974, and only played in one ODI, and no T20s. So once the short formats become part of the discussion, everything changes.

As such, I am hesitant to see what the numbers gives us, as I feel it might punish those that played in the pre-one-day era.

But for argument’s sake:

Top ten ODI batsmen, based on average, 100 innings minimum:

And the top ten ODI bowlers, based on economy rate, 100 innings minimum:

Not one player makes both lists. In fact, no one really comes close.

And I ran the numbers for wickets taken, strike rate, and average, and still no one came close.

One Day Internationals are just a different beast, it seems, for the all rounders.

Of course, Kallis still has a lot of cricket left in him (he has fantasies of playing all the way through the 2015 World Cup), but for now, Sir Gary Sobers is still the best all rounder cricket has ever seen.

But is he the best best cricketer ever?

Using the above information: yes, surely. He is top ten in batting and in bowling. He played for 20 years, and therefore his quality was proven over many years, on many grounds, against many teams.

And his team was, well, all right during his tenure, as well. Between 1954 and 1974, the West Indies played 23 test series, winning nine of them and drawing four.

In fact, they won five series in a row at one point. Against India at home, in England, against Australia at home, in England (again), and in India.

So: greatest cricketer ever?

Nope.

Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest cricketer ever. And he will retain that seat for the next 1,000 years.

He transcends Statsguru.

Until next time.

Today: Arsenal scored five unanswered goals, and defeated the Scum 5-2 at the Emirates.  (So many jokes: but simply put: the worst Arsenal team in a generation put five past the best Tottenham team like ever…hilarious).

The fourth goal was scored by Theo Walcott. A lovely dink after a poor first touch.

But what struck me was his reaction. He simply ran to the corner flag, stopped, clenched his fists, and screamed.  In the London Sunshine. In front of 60,000 adoring fans.

It was his first goal at the Emirates in who knows how long, and quite possibly the biggest goal of his career.

It was visceral reaction. It was not showy, he did not lift his shirt to praise Jesus or whatever. He didn’t samba, or cradle an imaginary baby, or point to the sky.

He had simply been liberated by the goal. The shackles thrown off. And all he could do was stand and vent years’ worth of frustration. Frustration with himself, frustration with his team, the English press.

Watch it here.

It has been a terrible year for Arsenal. For Walcott. But that moment erased all of it, for everyone.

His reaction was everything I love about sport.

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Two of my favorite things on the Internet right now are Bon Iver’s performance of Holocene on Saturday night live:

And this article entitled “All Ten” from the incomparable Old Batsman.

They go really well together, I would suggest you listen to the song as you read the article, even if you have experienced them on their own already.

My attempt at a mash-up, with a thousand apologies to the artists:

“It had taken maybe an hour and a half. They’d only made 60-odd and we knocked them off quickly, on the ground surrounded by trees, underneath the perfect sky.

And I can see for miles and miles…”

*

There is a great deal of quality cricket happening, too. The CB series is reaching its climax, the third and decisive T20 between Pakistan and England is tomorrow, and the 2nd ODI in South Africa’s tour of New Zealand is on the 29th (my birthday).

In the first ODI of that series, Jacques Kallis took two wickets and then later added a disappointing 13 with the bat.

The announcers called him the greatest all-rounder ever. And it is hard to argue with the numbers: in 150 test matches, he has scored 12,260 runs at an average of 57.02; whilst simultaneously taking 74 wickets at an economy rate of 2.84: including seven four-fers and five five-fers.

In ODIs, his all-round numbers are equally as impressive: 11,494 runs, 269 wickets.

And those are just the 30,000ft stats.

And if he really is the greatest all-rounder ever, does that make him the best cricketer ever?

That questions begs another question: who are the most valuable cricketers? The all rounder, the bowler, the wicketkeeper, the batsman, the captain?

A subject I plan to explore in my post tomorrow.

Until then.

I have a lot of free time all of a sudden. I am winding down at the old job, waiting to start the new one – and on top of that school is out for two weeks.

And so I thought for sure I would be able to write a great deal for the blog, but I have been coming up empty.

A very real case of writer’s block.

This morning I was reading about the World T20 qualifiers over in Dubai next month, and then I read Test Match Sofa’s latest post and was reminded that England won the last incarnation of the tournament (2010) and that Kevin Pietersen was Player of the Tournament.

And so, I need to eat my words from yesterday: as that makes two global competitions where KP was magnificent: the 2007 World Cup and the 2010 World Twenty20.

Consider those words eaten.

And now I have World T20s on the brain.  And I find myself looking forward just a little to the 2012 version this year in Sri Lanka.

And then I thought: why not just do a post similar to yesterday’s, but only for the World Twenty20s instead.

Bingo!

First: a little history: the first Twenty20 World Cup was in 2007. The tournament was held in South Africa, and won by India.

The second tournament was in 2009: England hosted, Pakistan won.

The most recent was in 2010 (moved up a year, I am guessing, to make room for the 50-over cup). The West Indies were the hosts, and as mentioned, England won.

Cricinfo, as usual, has some great photos of England’s big day.

Over those three tournaments, the players with the best scoring averages (minimum 10 innings) are as follows:

Player	Country	Innings	Avg
RG Sharma	India	10	60.6
MEK Hussey	Australia	11	47
JH Kallis	South Africa	10	45.44
KP Pietersen	England	15	79
CH Gayle	West Indies	11	44.2
DPMD Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	18	41
Shoaib Malik	Pakistan	14	33.9
TM Dilshan	Sri Lanka	17	32.35
AD Mathews	Sri Lanka	11	32.33
Misbah-ul-Haq	Pakistan	17	30.66

And the top ten batsmen in ALL International T20s are as follows (minimum 20 innings):

Player	Country	Innings	Avg
Misbah-ul-Haq	Pakistan	31	37.94
KP Pietersen	England	33	36.68
MJ Guptill	New Zealand	27	35.81
MEK Hussey	Australia	20	35.15
BB McCullum	New Zealand	47	34.66
CH Gayle	West Indies	20	32.47
TM Dilshan	Sri Lanka	34	31.92
DPMD Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	35	31.76
JP Duminy	South Africa	33	31.76
GC Smith	South Africa	33	31.67

Six players made both lists this time: Hussey, KP, Gayle, Jayawardene, Dilshan, and Mishbah.

Sri Lanka, interestingly enough, had two players make both lists, and had a third make the World Cup list only, but has only advanced to a final once in the three tournaments.

This bodes well for their chances this year, at home, however.

Now, none of the players that appear on both lists above also appeared on two lists in yesterday’s post on the ODIs.

But that is probably because those posts were based on the full history of ODIs – from 1971 until the present day.  While Twenty20s of course have only been around since 2005.

And so I pulled similar numbers for ODIs between 2005 and 2012.

The top ten batsmen for ODIs in the two World Cups (10 innings minimum)

Player	Country	Innings	Avg
MJ Clarke	Australia	15	83.62
ML Hayden	Australia	10	73.22
Yuvraj Singh	India	11	71.14
SR Watson	Australia	12	62.14
DPMD Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	18	56.8
JH Kallis	South Africa	16	54.61
KC Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	19	54.33
SB Styris	New Zealand	15	53.41
RT Ponting	Australia	15	53.21
AB de Villiers	South Africa	15	51.78

The top ten batsmen overall, between 2005 and 2012, 50 innings minimum:

Player	Country	Innings	Avg
HM Amla	South Africa	53	56.35
MS Dhoni	India	177	52.1
ML Hayden	Australia	51	51.91
S Chanderpaul	West Indies	96	50.43
MEK Hussey	Australia	141	50.35
AB de Villiers	South Africa	116	49.03
V Kohli	India	77	45.95
JH Kallis	South Africa	104	45.82
MJ Clarke	Australia	151	45.15
SR Tendulkar	India	114	44.8

Four players made both lists: Hayden, Clarke, Kallis, and de Villiers.

And still no one player stands out.  Not one was brilliant both in the long term and in the short term, in the two one-day formats, from 2005 through 2012.

The conclusion: there are a lot of world class one-day cricketers actively playing right now – and we are blessed to all be around to see them.

And maybe that’s why Twenty20 is so popular, because there are so many cricketers worth watching.

And maybe that’s why we have so many domestic t20 tournaments that feature international players: because there are enough players to go around.

And maybe that’s why we have seen a resurgence in ODIs as of late.

And maybe that’s why Test cricket has been sliding.

Or maybe not.

I am just free associating here.

Until next time.

Today, Kevin Pietersen hit a marvelous century for England to successfully lead their chase against Pakistan in Dubai.

It was his second ODI century in as many matches.

Over on Twitter, I opined that maybe, just maybe, KP was not a big game player. That in ODIs specifically, he didn’t come through when England needed him most: In the World Cup.

This is similar to the knock that most people had on Alex Rodriguez until 2010.

Great all season, but crap in October.

I have always thought it was a bit unfair to criticize players based on such small samples sizes, but I thought it might make for an interesting blog post.

KP’s career ODI average is 41.84 in 116 innings.  In World Cups, his average is 47.91 in 13 innings.

Again, a small sample size, but it looks as if my tweet might have been off base a bit.

However, I was referring more to the 2011 World Cup and its relation to the UAE One Day Interationals. In the former, he averaged just 32.75 in four innings; while in the latter he averaged 70.25 in the same number of innings.

So while my tweet was not incorrect, per se, it was off base, as KP had himself a monster World Cup in 2007.

And so I decided to look at more players in a similar manner.

The top ten World Cup batsmen based on average runs scored (minimum 10 innings) are as follows:

Player	Innings	Average
L Klusener	11	124
A Symonds	13	103
MJ Clarke	15	83.62
IVA Richards	21	63.31
SR Watson	12	62.14
R Dravid	21	61.42
GM Turner	14	61.2
SR Tendulkar	44	56.95
HH Gibbs	23	56.15
SC Ganguly	21	55.88

In all One Day Internationals, here are the best batsmen based on average (minimum 40 innings):

Player	Innings	Average
HM Amla	53	56.35
MG Bevan	196	53.58
MS Dhoni	180	51.44
MEK Hussey	142	50.52
IJL Trott	42	48.31
Zaheer Abbas	60	47.62
AB de Villiers	120	47.56
IVA Richards	167	47
GM Turner	40	47
V Kohli	77	45.95

Only one player shows up on both lists: the incomparable Sir Viv Richards, widely considered the best ODI batsman in history.

I then expanded it to a 100 innings minimum:

Player	Innings	Average
MG Bevan	196	56.58
MS Dhoni	180	51.44
AB de Villiers	120	47.56
IVA Richards	167	47
JH Kallis	305	45.55
MJ Clarke	191	45.14
CG Greenridge	127	45.03
SR Tendulkar	447	44.83
DM Jones	161	44.61
ML Hayden	155	43.8

Now three players appear on both lists: Michael Clarke, Viv Richards, and Sachin Tendulkar.

It is a bit of a stretch, and a bit meaningless, but those are three batsmen who best exemplify “clutch” batting as well as long term brilliance.

But I bet you could have told me that without spending 45 minutes with Statsguru.

Until next time.

Pakistan’s history can be divided into three distinct segments.

1947 – 1972: Not actively seeking nuclear weapons

1972 – 1998: Actively seeking nuclear weapons

1998 – Present: Nuclear

On the cricket field, between 1952, the year they gained full test status, and January the 19th, 1927 (the day of the Multan meeting), they played in 62 test matches.

They won 10, lost 18, drew 34. A winning percentage of around 16%.

Between the Multan meeting and May 28th, 1998 (the date of their first successful weapon’s test), they played in 189 test matches: winning 61 of them. A winning percentage of around 33%.

And finally, as a nuclear power, Pakistan played in 119 test matches. They won 44 of them, a winning percentage of nearly 37%.

Non-nuclear: 16%

Pursuing nuclear: 33%

Nuclear: 37%

I don’t think there is any correlation to the above, not in the slightest.

All it tells us is that Pakistani cricket has been improving over the last half century.

I think Pakistan is a fascinating topic. Both on the cricket field and in more global issues such as nuclear power.

I look forward to continuing to post on their two sources of national pride.

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Other posts upcoming next week: inspired by Levi’s magnificent innings down in New Zealand yesterday: the quickest international hundreds in test matches.