Some statistics, like Bradman's average and the number of centuries Gavaskar made, are known to pretty much every cricket buff. But The List will bring you facts and figures that aren't so obvious, adding fuel to those fiery debates about the most valuable middle-order bat, and the most useless tailender. If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.

Brian Lara: a phenomenal batsman who played majority of his career in a mediocre team © Getty Images Enlarge

Brian Charles Lara is arguably one of cricket's most celebrated and charismatic players. He held the record for highest Test innings, then lost it, and now has it again. He's probably not the most welcomed person in Durham and he's just 315 runs shy of eclipsing Allan Border's record of 11,174 Test runs. The List has decided to acknowledge another distinction Lara recently achieved, dubious though it may be.

With the loss of the Super Test under his belt, Lara nudged out Alec Stewart to become the cricketer with the highest number of Test defeats, a whopping 55. This unenviable record is likely to stay with Lara for a while because his closest active competition is his team-mate Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with 41 defeats. Given Zimbabwe's appalling run of form, Heath Streak, 11th on The List with 37 losses, would have been your best bet but he's probably played his last international game.

Four Englishmen figure in the top seven courtesy Australia, who handed Stewart 22 of his 54 defeats (20 to Mike Atherton, and 18 to Graham Gooch). Curiously, in the top 20, there are just two bowlers - Courtney Walsh, because of his 18-year career, and Streak because of Zimbabwe's ineptness. Give it further thought and you'll realise that West Indies and England kept changing their bowlers during their 1990s slump, and Zimbabwean bowlers just haven't played enough. Allan Border and Steve Waugh, who played crucial roles in reviving Australia from a terrible run in the mid-1980s , are the only two Australians on The List.

You would have noticed an evident relationship between players from the same country in The List. Lara, Walsh, Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper played the majority of their careers during a bad time for the West Indies. As did Stewart and Atherton, Gooch and David Gower, and Streak and Grant Flower.

When a team's linchpin fails, the team often tends to struggle. The superhuman Don Bradman averaged a human 43.27 in the matches he lost. Sachin Tendulkar and Inzamam-ul-Haq average 20 runs below their career averages of 57.25 and 50.13 in defeats.

Best batting averages in lost Tests (qualification: minimum 20 innings)

Player	Span	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	100
H Sutcliffe (Eng)	1924-1935	11	22	1198	176	54.45	4
V Sehwag (ICC/India)	2001-2005	10	20	1063	201	53.14	3
L Hutton (Eng)	1946-1954	20	39	1700	202*	50.00	3
JB Hobbs (Eng)	1908-1930	22	42	1889	154	46.07	6
DG Bradman (Aust)	1928-1938	12	22	952	131	43.27	2
A Flower (Zimb)	1992-2002	34	68	2713	199*	43.06	7
VS Hazare (India)	1946-1953	11	22	902	145	42.95	2
BC Lara (ICC/WI)	1992-2005	55	110	4695	221	42.68	12
AD Nourse (SAf)	1935-1951	17	34	1331	115	41.59	2
CL Walcott (WI)	1950-1958	13	26	1039	155	41.56	4

For the pundits: We've looked at the highest percentage of Tests lost for players who've played more than 25 Tests. Understandably, the list is dominated by Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

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