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ESPNcricinfo's stats editor S Rajesh looks at the stories behind the stats

The Friday Column

Hameed's struggle, and Caribbean capers

Perhaps numbers never do reveal the full story, but they tell a large part of it

S Rajesh

April 16, 2004

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Perhaps numbers never do reveal the full story, but they tell a large part of it. Every Friday, The Numbers Game will take a look at statistics from the present and the past, busting myths and revealing hidden truths:

Hameed's lean trot
Since getting two centuries in his first two Tests, Yasir Hameed has lost the art of converting starts: in 14 completed innings since those two hundreds, he has fallen between 16 and 26 an incredible nine times, most recently in the second innings of the Rawalpindi Test. (His scores read 23, 18*, 39, 18, 16, 20*, 21, 17, 80, 3, 59, 91, 23, 19, 16*, 26, 20.) In 18 Test innings, Hameed only has one sub-10 score, but unless he learns to convert his starts, his career average will drop off from its current lofty perch of 49.

Contrast that to the conversion rate of his counterpart at No. 3 in the Indian batting line-up. In his last 31 innings - since the start of the England tour in 2002 - Dravid has gone past ten 24 times, and converted 13 of those into fifties or hundreds (six half-centuries, seven centuries, including four double-hundreds). Little wonder then, that Dravid averages nearly 82 during that period.

* * *

Caribbean capers
After six consecutive failures, Brian Lara finally ended his run-drought in some style, but there were still a couple of England bowlers who could honestly say that Lara didn't conquer them: Stephen Harmison - undoubtedly their hero of the series - and Andy Flintoff only went at two an over against Lara in Antigua when the rest of the bowlers were all being tonked around: Lara helped himself to 50 from 38 balls against Matthew Hoggard, while Simon Jones's 88 balls went for 83.

In fact, Harmison troubled Lara throughout the Test series, not only restricting the runs on the placid St John's pitch, but also nailing his man three times on wickets which had more juice on them. Lara ended up with an average of 21 against Harmison, a record he will want to set right when West Indies travel to England for a return series later this year.

Lara v England's seamers
  Runs Balls Out  Ave SR
Harmison 64 186 3 21.33 34.41
Flintoff 55 173 1 55 31.79
Hoggard 83 102 1 83 81.37
Jones 117 104 1 104 88.89

England's fast bowlers may have had far more success that their West Indian counterparts, but Fidel Edwards and co. did have their moments, most notably when bowling to a hesitant and out-of-form Marcus Trescothick, who came out a distant second-best in his battles against both Edwards and Tino Best.

Trescothick v Runs Balls Out  Ave SR
Best 21 56 3 7.00 37.50
Edwards 53 113 3 17.67 46.90

Of course, the West Indian lower-order incompetence with the bat came to the fore once again. Here's what the last four wickets of both teams achieved during the series.

The tale of the last four wickets
  Runs Out Ave
England 370 16 23.13
West Indies 189 24 7.88

It was a series dominated by the left-handed batsmen from both teams - Lara and Ridley Jacobs topped the averages list for West Indies, while England had Graham Thorpe and Mark Butcher leading the way. Thorpe's hundred at Barbados was also remarkable for the fact that the next highest score was 17 - by Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain - that's one-seventh of Thorpe's score. In the history of Test cricket, there are only five instances of a greater difference - in terms of ratio - between the highest and second-highest score.

One-man acts
Highest scorer Runs (a) 2nd-highest Runs (b) a/b versus
Bannerman 165 Garrett 18 9.17 Eng, 1877
Border 163 Bright 20 8.15 Ind, 1985
Cullinan 103 Kirsten/Boucher 13 7.92 SL, 1998
Kapil Dev 129 Prabhakar, More, 17 7.59 SA, 1992
    Kumble      
Yallop 121 Hughes 16 7.56 Eng, 1979
Thorpe 119 Vaughan/Hussain 17 7.00 WI, 2004

S Rajesh is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

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S Rajesh Stats editor Every week the Numbers Game takes a look at the story behind the stats, with an original slant on facts and figures. The column is edited by S Rajesh, ESPNcricinfo's stats editor in Bangalore. He did an MBA in marketing, and then worked for a year in advertising, before deciding to chuck it in favour of a job which would combine the pleasures of watching cricket and writing about it. The intense office cricket matches were an added bonus.

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