Bettering your best

Had Stuart Broad scored ten more runs in England's second innings against South Africa at Headingley, he would have improved on his career-best of 76, which he achieved in the first Test at Lord's. It would have been the sixth time in eight matches that Broad had scored his career highest. He improved his high score five times, scoring 2 in his debut Test, 16 in his second, and 42, 64 and 76 in his third, sixth and seventh. This week we look at batsmen who bettered their highest scores most times in their Test and one-day international careers.

The tables feature batsmen who had subdued starts to their careers, for they have greater scope for improvement than those who begin with hundreds. Damien Martyn's 36 is the highest score on debut for a batsman who improved his best at least ten times. Rahul Dravid's 95 at Lord's is the highest among batsmen who bettered it at least eight times.

No batsman has improved individual high scores more times than Dilip Vengsarkar, who did so on 12 occasions. He had a slow start, and by the end of his eighth Test, his highest score, which he had already improved six times, was 49. Vengsarkar's unbeaten 157 against West Indies at Eden Gardens in 1979 was his longest-standing high score, lasting for 48 Tests. Vengsarkar also improved his best in one-day internationals eight times. He scored 105 against England in Pune in his 46th match and that remained the highest score of his 126-ODI career.

England batsman Billy Gunn , who played 11 Tests, from 1887 to 1899, improved his high score in 40% of his innings (eight out of 20). Gunn began his career with a duck and his subsequent high scores were 4, 9, 10, 15, 34, 77 and 102 not out. He scored his only hundred in his ninth Test, in 1893, and his final two appearances for England spanned six years.

Darren Gough leads the table of batsmen who played the most innings without improving their high score after their first innings. Gough played 86 Test innings but never bettered the 65 he made on debut against New Zealand at Old Trafford in 1994. His next best was 51, scored in his seventh Test, in Sydney in 1995.

Jacques Rudolph and Mathew Sinclair began their careers with double-centuries against Bangladesh and West Indies respectively. Sinclair came close to beating his debut score of 214 not out when he scored an unbeaten 204 against Pakistan in Christchurch. Rudolph has also been unable to surpass his unbeaten 222 in 62 subsequent innings.

Pakistan's Shakeel Khan Jr improved his individual best in every innings. He batted five times in three Tests and scored 0, 5, 7, 29 and 33. England allrounder Arthur Hill's career comprised three Tests in South Africa in 1896, and over the course of them he gradually increased his average to 62.75 by improving his score every time he batted. He made 25, 37, 65 and 124 in his four innings.

Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya, the only two players with more than 400 one-day caps, have improved their best scores the most times in ODIs. Tendulkar's 186 not out against New Zealand in his 226th ODI was the 13th and final time that he improved his highest score. Jayasuriya last bettered his score in his 217th match when he scored 189 against India in Sharjah.

For such an aggressive strokeplayer, Michael Slater famously had an underwhelming one-day career. He began on the right note by scoring 73 off 69 balls against South Africa at the MCG in 1993, but that was as good as it got. That score remained his highest, although he went past 50 eight more times before finishing his 42-match career effectively demoted to the lower order.

Robin Uthappa broke the Indian record for the highest score on debut when he made 86 against England in Indore in 2006 but he hasn't been able to improve on that in his next 33 attempts.

Click here for the full tables.

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