Last action heroes

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.

England stumbled in their second step towards cricket-world domination as they fell short in a relatively low run-chase in the first Test against Pakistan at Multan. After racking up a formidable 418 in the first innings, England coughed, spluttered and eventually ran out of gas on 175 in the second, 23 runs shy of victory. Marcus Trescothick had battled for a gritty 193 in the first innings but could manage just 5 before getting bowled in the second. This week The List looks at players who have under- and over-achieved in the fourth innings of a Test.

A mathematical quirk and the man's sheer genius puts Sir Donald Bradman atop the list of highest last-innings averages as well as the list of highest differences between the career average and the fourth-innings average. His fourth-innings average of 73.40 is well below the immortal 99.94 but still is miles ahead of the rest. Geoffrey Boycott and Sunil Gavaskar, arguably cricket's most 'correct' batsmen rank just below Bradman with averages of 58.76 and 58.25.

A common bone of contention in the debate about Sachin Tendulkar being cricket's best batsmen is his shortage of substantial scores in the final innings of a Test. He averages just 34.88 in the last innings with only two fifties and two centuries of his total tally of 34 hundreds and 41 fifties. Another surprising underachiever in the last essay of a Test match is Steve Waugh who averages just 25.54. In fact, in matches that Australia lost, that stat drops to an abysmal 15.45. He did sign off in style by making an invaluable 80 in his last Test, defying a rampant Anil Kumble and saving the series against India at Sydney. Keith Stackpole, the Australian opener, had a modest career average of 37.42 but when it came to the chase, he weighed in with 53.50. He went past 50 seven times in 19 fourth-innings opportunities.

Keeping with the wear and tear a pitch takes going into the fourth and fifth day, you would expect a spinner to top fourth-innings bowling averages. And Bishan Singh Bedi obliges with a marvellous strike rate of 47.2 and a miserly average of 14.46. Surprisingly Chaminda Vaas has a marginally better average and a much better strike rate than Sri Lanka's wrecker-in-chief, Muttiah Muralitharan.

Imran Khan has a surprisingly bad final-innings average when compared to his overall 22.41. Ian Botham also took just 31 wickets in 37 last-innings efforts. Perhaps what's most striking, is that several spinners - Srinivas Venkatraghavan, Stuart MacGill, Intikhab Alam and Paul Adams, to name a few - have better career averages than final-innings averages.

Trivia

If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.