The Gilchrist factor, and subbed out

Almost the entire Australian batting line-up has been going through the batting horrors in the current Ashes series, but all the problems have been magnified by the repeated failures of one player. Australia have had top-order collapses in the past, but almost every time, Adam Gilchrist had been around to do the rescue-act; this time, Gilchrist's tally with the bat has been 158 from eight innings at an average of 22.57 - only the fourth time in his career that his series average has fallen below 30 - and the dip that has caused to the team's performance has been glaring.

Gilchrist's outrageously aggressive batting style sometimes seems to suggest that he takes advantage of the fact that the bowlers have already been softened up by the batsmen who have preceded him in the line-up, but that's hardly backed up by the facts. Many times in his career, Gilchrist has been the difference between the Australians getting 450 and them being bowled out for around 150 less than that. Sample this: out of the 105 innings in his career so far, Gilchrist has come in to bat with the total reading five down for less than 250 44 times, and six down for less than 300 six times. In those 50 innings, he has scored 2314 runs at 52.59 (almost as good as his career average of 52.98), with seven hundreds and 11 half-centuries. And if you restrict the study to just the first innings, then the stats look even better - 1739 runs at nearly 60 per innings (compared to his overall first-innings average of 58.04).

The table below lists some of his most memorable performances. There are many which would get high marks for bailing his team out, but even he would be hard-pressed to better the performance in his second Test, when he, along with Justin Langer, bailed Australia out an almost hopeless situation of 126 for 5 into a matchwinning 369 for 6 against Pakistan at Hobart. There have been other spectacular performances as well - Indians will remember his swashbuckling 122 at Mumbai, which turned a 99-for-5 situation into a healthy 349, while more recently, his 162 against New Zealand turned what looked like a middling total into a formidable 570. In the 32 first-innings when he has come in to bat with his team in some bother (less than 250 for 5 or 300 for 6), Australia have gone on post a 400-plus total eight times.

The team which has suffered the most at Gilchrist's hands is undoubtedly his neighbours from across the Tasman - in nine innings against New Zealand, he averages a Bradmanesque 99. South Africa, England and Pakistan have felt the heat of his onslaught too, but against the two other subcontinental teams, India and Sri Lanka, Gilchrist has struggled to live up to his career stats. Those teams have generally used spin to strangle Gilchrist, but it's probably the first time that he has consistently been found wanting against pace. That's a huge credit to Andrew Flintoff and co., but it might yet be risky to write off a performer as explosive as Gilchrist. An encore of some of his earlier displays, and Australia might still manage to keep their grasp on the Ashes.

Team-wise break-up*
Versus	Innings	Runs	Average
New Zealand	9	693	99.00
South Africa	5	256	64.00
England	9	427	61.00
Pakistan	6	294	58.80
Bangladesh	1	43	43.00
India	10	350	35.00
West Indies	5	145	29.00
Sri Lanka	5	106	21.20

* only in those innings when Australia were less than 250 for 5 or 300 for 6

Sub dismissals
Ricky Ponting's outburst against England's substitute policy raises an interesting query for the stats-minded - which team has effected the most number of dismissals through substitute fielders in Tests? The results are quite revealing - in all Tests since September 2001, it turns out that England's substitutes have been the most active on the field, causing 18 dismissals (17 catches and a run-out) in 52 matches - that's slightly less than three Tests per dismissal. The Indians and West Indians aren't far behind, while Pakistan and New Zealand are next in the list, but check out Australia's numbers: in 50 games, only four times have their substitutes effected a dismissal - that's one every 12.5 matches. Perhaps Ponting does have the authority to take the moral high ground, in this issue at least.