Significant Test innings, and their architects
A look at the significant innings played by batsmen in Tests, based on a certain set of criteria
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| Shivnarine Chanderpaul has a significant innings percentage of 46.7%, which places him fourth in the all-time list © Getty Images |
In this article I have gone back to the reader's suggestions, specifically Xolile. He had suggested a few months back that I should look at separating the significant Test innings based on runs scored and balls faced, wherever such information is available, and rating batsmen using this information. I have taken that suggestion and completed the analysis after significantly improving the basis.
He had suggested that I take 80 runs and 160 balls as the basis. I have instead worked on a dynamic fixing of the cut-off points based on the specific match conditions. The idea is that I should achieve the following inclusions and exclusions through this analysis.
The analysis should be done so that the following innings (just a few examples) are included.
- Gillespie's 9 (off 51) out of Aus total of 93 a.o (30 overs) at Mumbai
- Guptill's 30 (off 122) out of Nzl total of 157 a.o (59.1 overs) at Wellington
- Srinath's 76 (off 159) out of Ind total of 416 a.o (128.3 overs) at Hamilton
- Hutton's 30 (balls n/a) out of Eng total of 52 a.o. (42.1 overs) at Oval
- A.H.Kardar's 69 (balls n.a) out of Pak total of 199 a.o (91.3 overs) at Karachi
and so on.
and the following innings (just a few examples) are not included.
- Collingwood's 60 out of Eng total of 569 for 6 at Chester
- Clarke's 83 out of Aus total of 674 for 6 at Cardiff
- Ranatunga's 86 out of Slk total of 952 for 6 at Colombo
- Walcott's 88* out of Win total of 790 for 3 at Kingston
- Rae's 63* and Stollymeyer's 76* out of Win total of 142 for 0 at Trinidad
and so on.
I have taken one decision, slightly reluctantly. Any 100 would be considered to be significant. Although I do not consider a 100 by itself to be anything special, I think this is a correct decision since out of the 68,879 innings played to date only 3370 hundreds have been scored and this constitutes around 5%. It is not a bad premise to start with, banking one in twenty innings.
As far as the often quoted instances of batsmen scoring 100s in dead match situations, the following example will show the pitfalls.
Take a match where two days have been washed out. The match scores are
Team 1: 300 for 5. Team 2: 300 for 6. Team 1: 300 for 7 (Xyz 100+).
If the first two days are lost due to rain, the third innings century is a totally irrelevant one scored on the last day. On the other hand if the last two days have been washed out, the third innings century is a very relevant one made in a live match situation on the third day. If the rain had occurred on other days, the value of the 100 would oscillate significantly. Hence pre-conceived notions of the significance or non-significance of innings should not be used to come to conclusions. Also incorporating rain factor, when it happened, on what day the runs were scored all are virtually impossible in any analysis because of the absence of dependable data.
Since 80 and 160 are arbitrary, I have worked on a dynamic determination of the cut-off for each match, separate for either team. This makes sense since I should include an innings of 9 and exclude a 88* innings. There cannot be common cut-off criteria.
The cut-off methodology is explained below. Based on the cut-off points 2 to 5, 12,529 innings below 100 have got selected.
An innings is considered to be significant if it satisfies any one of the following five conditions.
1. The runs scored is greater than or equal to 100 (already talked of).
2. The balls faced is greater than or equal to 200.
3. The runs scored is greater than or equal to the cut-off figure for the team, as explained below.
- For batsmen 1-7, 1.333 times the Runs per wkt value for the team for the two innings together.
- For batsmen 8-11, 1.167 times the Runs per wkt value for the team for the two innings together.
4. The balls faced is equal to or higher than the cut-off figure for the team, as explained below.
- For batsmen 1-7, 1.667 times the Balls per wkt value for the team for the two innings together.
- For batsmen 8-11, 1.333 times the Balls per wkt value for the team for the two innings together.
5. To take care of very low innings totals, see Hutton example above, the runs scored is greater than or equal to one third of the team total. The team should have lost 5 wickets or more. Otherwise Stollymeyer-type innings would get through.
Seems complicated but all conditions are logical once the above 5 conditions are understood properly, and the fact that an innings has to adhere to at least one of these in order to be seen as significant in this analysis. Of course, a cursory glance would be woefully inadequate. These cut-off numbers have also been determined after a lot of trial work during the past few days. A higher cut-off will mean missing out of some significant innings while a lower cut-off will mean inclusion of ordinary innings. Overall this method is slightly unfair to older batsmen since they have only the "Runs scored" criteria available to them. However nothing can be done about that.
I got a massive list of 15,899 innings, which is about 23% and this figure looks good. Then I posted these into the player database and got the player table. This table is sequenced on the % of significant innings since the number of innings played varies considerably. The cut-off for batsman selection is 3000 runs and above. 159 batsmen qualify.
The top 20 entries are listed below.
Table of batsman by % of significant innings
Now the biggest surprise. The unheralded and unsung Chanderpaul clocks in at 46.7% ahead of his more illustrious contemporaries. It shows the solidity and quality Chanderpaul brought to position No. 6. He could very well improve in the years to come. Barrington and Sutcliffe come in next, both great defensive batsmen. Hutton chips in in the 10th position.
Now we have two modern greats, Lara and Dravid. Lara's playing in a weaker team has helped a bit in this regard, but there can be few detractors to the claims of his greatness. Same applies to Dravid. What he has achieved for India has not been acknowledged, especially on the Test front. It is very pleasing to see some of the Indian greats of the past eras, viz., Viswanath, Umrigar, Manjrekar and Gavaskar appear in the top-20. They played in tough times and this has been recognised. Rounding this table in the 9th position is Andy Flower, one of the greatest modern batsmen ever, slightly benefiting from playing for a weaker team.
To view/down-load the complete table, please click/right-click here.
I have also given below the top 10 batsmen in terms of number of significant innings.
Table of batsman by number of significant innings
To view/down-load the complete table, please click/right-click here.
I have also made available the complete list of significant performances for all the 159 qualifying batsmen.
To view/down-load the table for the first 999 tests, please click/right-click here.
To view/down-load the table for tests 1000-1957, please click/right-click here.
Finally the grand-daddy of all tables. Let me warn you these tables are huge, 500kb each. These are the lists of all significant innings, all 15899 of them, covering all 1957 tests played.
To view/down-load the complete table for tests 1-999, please click/right-click here.
To view/down-load the complete table for tests 1000-1957, please click/right-click here.
Finally a usual note. This is a unique attempt to apply a common set of criteria across 1957 Tests spread over 133 years. There are bound to be anomalies. Readers are better off suggesting improvements rather than pointing out such stray instances.
A few readers have asked for spme summarized figures based on criteria. I have given these, and more below. I have not done the %. I leave it for the readers.
Total: 15908 100s: 3372 200 balls but < 100 runs: 312 Out of other 12224 innings, Both rpw & bpw criteria: 2517 Rpw criteria: 9270 Bpw criteria: 410 50-99: 6944 Lt 50: 5592 BPos 1-7: 13932 BPos 8-11: 1976 Ist inns: 8791 2nd inns: 7117 Wins: 4587 Draws: 4713 Losses: 6608
Anantha Narayanan has written for ESPNcricinfo and CastrolCricket and worked with a number of companies on their cricket performance ratings-related systems