Shoring up the top order

Here's an oddity from the recent Test series between England and Pakistan, spotted by Peter Smyth: Pakistan's lower-order partnerships contributed more than their top-order partnerships in the four Tests. Their first five wickets totalled 623 runs in 40 stands at an average of 15.57 each, while their last five added 684 runs in 37 stands at an average of 19 per wicket. It's not an uncommon occurrence in a Test but we thought it worth investigating how many times it's happened over an entire series. Turns out that lower-order partnerships have outscored top-order ones several times, but rarely in series with more than three Tests.

When Australia toured Sri Lanka in 1992, their partnerships for the last five wickets accumulated 1124 runs compared to 754 added by their first five wickets. Only twice in six innings did Australia get to 110 without losing five wickets, and yet they won the three-Test series 1-0. Australia's top batsman - Mark Taylor, Mark Waugh and David Boon - fared poorly but Dean Jones, Ian Healy and Allan Border shored up the innings and had substantial lower-order partnerships. They found a steady ally in Greg Matthews, who was a part of Australia's three century stands in the series - two for the sixth wicket, one for the seventh - and four of their half-century partnerships. Matthews was the highest run-scorer with 329 at an average of nearly 55. The series was Sri Lanka's first at home since a bomb blast in Colombo in 1987 and it was Australia's first victory on the subcontinent since 1969-70.

India were thrashed 5-0 during their tour of the Caribbean in 1961-62 and the fact that their last five partnerships out-scored their top five over 50 stands contributed significantly to the result. Fourteen out of India's 21 partnerships of more than 40 were for the sixth wicket or lower. The top five wickets added 1086 at an average of 21.72, while the last five made 1035 at 26.10.

Quite a few of the runs in the partnerships above were made by a top-order player batting with the tail. So, in the table below, we've listed series in which the difference between the aggregate runs scored by lower-order batsmen (8-11) and the top-order batsmen (1-7) was the least.

No team's top seven batsmen have ever been out-scored by its last four in a whole series. The closest the lower order has come to matching the top was in the 1886-87 Ashes, which England won 2-0 because their tail contributed 201 to bolster the 285 made by their top seven. In the first Test at the SCG, England were 17 for 6 in the first innings and they were eventually out for 45. In the second innings, they were 103 for 7 but their tail carried them to 184 to set up a tense victory. In the next Test, also in Sydney, England's tail more than doubled the first-innings total after it was 73 for 7, and in the second, they stretched 98 for 7 to 154. The lower order averaged 15.46 per dismissal in the series, while the top-order figure was 10.55.

It's harder for the last five wickets of a team to score more than the first five in a one-day series because it's unlikely that the lower order will get adequate chances consistently in limited-overs contests. Scotland's top order, however, was so brittle during the 1999 World Cup that they gave the lower order ample opportunity to bat, and were comprehensively out scored by them.

Scotland's three 50-plus stands in the tournament were by Gavin Hamilton and a No. 8 or 9 for the sixth and seventh wickets. The largest top-order stand was 35 for the fourth wicket followed by 19 for the first. By the time they were eliminated in the first round, Scotland's first five wickets had added 266 runs at an average of 10.64, while their last five had added 434 at an average of 19.72.

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