Ploughing your own furrow or making hay?

Following discussion of the oft-repeated stat about Ian Bell never scoring 100 if no-one else has, Spaceman! of the TMSB Exiles wanted to know

... who has the best average when no-one else in the innings has scored a 50/100?

This is a really neat little question, with what I think are some quite revealing answers.

Table 1 shows the career records of batsmen in innings in which no-one (other than the batsman himself) made it to 50. For comparison, the remainder of each player's career (i.e. innings where at least one team-mate scored a half-century) is shown alongside, and the relative difference between batting averages in the two scenarios is given in the final column.

Table 1: Test batting records divided into innings in which no other batsmen made 50 and those in which at least one did

                         <--- no other batsman made 50 --->  <----- other batsmen made 50 ----->
       Name               I NOs      R    Ave    HS  50 100    I NOs      R    Ave    HS  50 100   Diff%
   1.  BL D'Oliveira     14   5    614  68.22  114*   3   2   56   3  1,870  35.28   158  12   3  193.4%
   2.  SJ McCabe         13   4    594  66.00  189*   1   2   49   1  2,154  44.88   232  12   4  147.1%
   3.  DL Amiss          17   7    657  65.70  262*   2   1   71   3  2,955  43.46   203   9  10  151.2%
   4.  KS Ranjitsinhji   10   3    437  62.43  154*   2   1   16   1    552  36.80   175   4   1  169.6%
   5.  KF Barrington     29   7  1,314  59.73  132*   6   3  102   8  5,492  58.43   256  29  17  102.2%
   6.  DL Haynes         53  20  1,968  59.64   143   8   5  149   5  5,519  38.33   184  31  13  155.6%
   7.  JB Hobbs          21   6    893  59.53  126*   9   1   81   1  4,517  56.46   211  19  14  105.4%
   8.  AI Kallicharran   17   5    708  59.00   126   4   2   92   5  3,691  42.43   187  17  10  139.1%
   9.  Saleem Malik      24   8    927  57.94    99   8   0  130  14  4,841  41.73   237  21  15  138.8%
  10.  H Sutcliffe       17   5    676  56.33   135   2   2   67   4  3,879  61.57   194  21  14   91.5%
  11.  NCL O'Neill       15   6    505  56.11   134   2   1   54   2  2,274  43.73   181  13   5  128.3%
  12.  DM Jones          20   5    838  55.87  184*   3   2   69   6  2,793  44.33   216  11   9  126.0%
  13.  L Hutton          46  13  1,817  55.06  202*  10   3   92   2  5,154  57.27   364  23  16   96.1%
  14.  RA Smith          25   6  1,031  54.26  148*   6   3   87   9  3,205  41.09   175  22   6  132.1%
  15.  RC Fredericks     24   5  1,029  54.16   138   5   3   85   2  3,305  39.82   169  21   5  136.0%
  16.  GC Smith          24   4  1,053  52.65  154*   6   2  113   5  5,386  49.87   277  20  16  105.6%
  17.  KC Wessels        13   2    578  52.55   118   4   1   58   1  2,210  38.77   179  11   5  135.5%
  18.  TT Samaraweera    16   2    723  51.64   125   5   2   74  11  3,215  51.03   231  16   9  101.2%
  19.  HP Tillakaratne   27   8    981  51.63   119   4   3  104  17  3,564  40.97  204*  16   8  126.0%
  20.  BC Broad          10   2    409  51.13   139   0   2   34   0  1,252  36.82   162   6   4  138.8%
  21.  IVA Richards      31   4  1,378  51.04   130  11   3  151   8  7,162  50.08   291  34  21  101.9%
       ...
  27.  BC Lara           63   2  2,976  48.79   226  15   8  167   4  8,936  54.82  400*  33  26   89.0%
  28.  G Boycott         51  13  1,828  48.11  121*  12   3  142  10  6,286  47.62  246*  30  19  101.0%
       ...
  31.  JH Kallis         40   9  1,466  47.29   162   7   3  183  23  8,930  55.81  189*  45  29   84.7%
       ...
  36.  KP Pietersen      19   1    812  45.11   142   3   3   81   3  3,987  51.12   226  13  13   88.3%
  37.  DCS Compton       36   7  1,308  45.10   158   7   3   95   8  4,499  51.71   278  21  14   87.2%
       ...
  46.  DG Bradman        13   2    485  44.09   131   1   3   67   8  6,511 110.36   334  12  26   40.0%
       ...
  54.  WR Hammond        31   5  1,095  42.12   113   4   1  109  11  6,154  62.80  336*  20  21   67.1%
       ...
  66.  V Sehwag          26   3    939  40.83   195   4   2   95   1  5,226  55.60   319  14  15   73.4%
       ...
  73.  GA Headley        17   1    631  39.44   107   3   2   23   3  1,559  77.95  270*   2   8   50.6%
  74.  AJ Strauss        28   5    905  39.35   128   4   2   98   0  4,462  45.53   177  14  16   86.4%
       ...
  77.  SR Tendulkar      52   5  1,837  39.09   122   9   5  213  23 11,133  58.59  248*  45  38   66.7%
       ...
  79.  SR Waugh          50  11  1,520  38.97  122*   7   3  210  35  9,407  53.75   200  43  29   72.5%
       ...
  84.  RS Dravid         49  13  1,387  38.53   118   8   1  186  14  9,846  57.24   270  50  27   67.3%
       ...
 106.  AC Gilchrist      16   2    516  36.86   144   2   1  119  18  4,959  49.10  204*  23  16   75.1%
       ...
 109.  RT Ponting        31   4    991  36.70   156   5   2  201  22 10,434  58.29   257  44  36   63.0%
       ...
 115.  AR Border         60  12  1,734  36.13   163   8   4  205  32  9,440  54.57   205  55  23   66.2%
       ...
 122.  GS Sobers         27   2    893  35.72   168   3   2  133  19  7,139  62.62  365*  27  24   57.0%
       ...
 139.  Yousuf Youhana    30   0  1,027  34.23   115   5   3  116  12  6,220  59.81   223  26  21   57.2%
       ...
 195.  IR Bell           15   2    385  29.62    83   3   0   76   7  2,906  42.12   199  18   9   70.3%
       ...
 252.  VT Trumper        29   2    704  26.07   159   2   1   60   6  2,459  45.54  214*  11   7   57.3%
       ...
 298.  PD Collingwood    13   2    251  22.82    74   1   0   83   8  3,481  46.41   206  17   9   49.2%
       ...
 387.  KR Miller         20   3    288  16.94    61   1   0   67   4  2,670  42.38   147  12   7   40.0%
       ...
 483.  RA Woolmer        10   2     73   9.13   19*   0   0   24   0    986  41.08   149   2   3   22.2%
       ...
 487.  LEG Ames          11   1     90   9.00   17*   0   0   61  11  2,344  46.88   149   7   8   19.2%
       ...
 538.  BS Chandrasekhar  14   7     20   2.86     6   0   0   66  32    147   4.32    22   0   0   66.1%
 539.  HK Olonga         10   1     19   2.11     5   0   0   35  10    165   6.60    24   0   0   32.0%
 540.  TM Alderman       13   6     10   1.43     4   0   0   40  16    193   8.04   26*   0   0   17.8%
 541.  CS Martin         17   6      6   0.55    4*   0   0   59  34     77   3.08   12*   0   0   17.7%

qual. 10 innings in which no 50 was scored by other players; full list available here

The batsmen at the top of this list are those who scored most heavily when their team-mates went missing. Consequently, it is interesting to see a good proportion of individuals who are known for backs-to-the-wall grit amongst them, including McCabe, Barrington, Dean Jones, and Graeme Smith. By and large, the highest ranked players fall into one of two categories: those who consistently averaged well, regardless of what was going on around them (Barrington, Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hutton), and those who appear to have raised their performance when their team-mates were doing less well. Our leader, Basil D'Oliveira, is the most conspicuous example of the latter: his average in innings in which the other ten failed to reach fifty is very nearly twice what he achieved when team-mates passed that landmark.

Perhaps the most notable feature of this analysis, though, is that it doesn't have a certain, familiar name at the top; indeed, it arguably does not reflect especially well on Bradman at all. When you spend as much time staring at cricket statistics as I do, you end up looking at Donald Bradman's record very closely indeed. This is the first time I have seen anything approaching objective evidence to corroborate the fairly pervasive anecdotal view that Bradman may have fallen short of his usual superhuman standards when circumstances were most hostile for batsmen. If we interpret the absence of 50-plus scores as a proxy for the presence of such conditions, perhaps it is significant that there are 45 test batsmen who have outperformed Bradman in those innings.

Mind you, if we're raising an eyebrow at the Don, we probably have to wag a finger at the Nugget. Keith Miller's record in innings in which none of his team-mates passed 50 is conspicuously dreadful. Only one of his 12 50s and none of his seven centuries came in such knocks, with the result that his stats have the appearance of a batsman who was most at home making hay while the sun shone (maybe he was just so damned sociable that he couldn't bear to make runs on his own).

It is also a bit surprising to note the terrible records of a couple of Ashes-winning Kent stalwarts. Neither Les Ames nor Bob Woolmer once passed 50 unless at least one of their team-mates had also registered a half-century; in fact, neither of them ever scored as much as 20 in such innings.

In contrast to the kinks in the middle of the table, it's reassuring to see things return to form at the bottom end. Poor old Chris Martin is as far adrift as ever: when no-one around – let's face it, above – him has made it to 50, he can only be expected to score a run every other innings.

Table 2 shows exactly the same kind of analysis but, this time, the threshold is the magical three figures.

Table 2: Test batting records divided into innings in which no other batsmen made 100 and those in which at least one did

                        <--- no other batsman made 100 --->  <----- other batsmen made 100 ---->
       Name               I NOs      R    Ave    HS  50 100    I NOs      R    Ave    HS  50 100   Diff%
   1.  J Ryder           15   4    843  76.64  201*   5   2   17   1    551  34.44   112   4   1  222.5%
   2.  DG Bradman        44   5  2,860  73.33   334   7  11   36   5  4,136 133.42   304   6  18   55.0%
   3.  VG Kambli         13   1    843  70.25   227   0   4    8   0    241  30.13    82   3   0  233.2%
   4.  CAG Russell       13   2    708  64.36   140   0   5    5   0    202  40.40    96   2   0  159.3%
   5.  KS Duleepsinhji   10   2    484  60.50   173   2   1    9   0    511  56.78   117   3   2  106.6%
   6.  CP Mead           16   2    838  59.86  182*   2   3   10   0    347  34.70   102   1   1  172.5%
   7.  A Melville        10   2    475  59.38   117   1   3    9   0    419  46.56   189   2   1  127.5%
   8.  WR Hammond        90  13  4,569  59.34  336*  18  11   50   3  2,680  57.02   227   6  11  104.1%
   9.  JB Hobbs          68   7  3,518  57.67   187  21   9   34   0  1,892  55.65   211   7   6  103.6%
  10.  SJ McCabe         34   5  1,661  57.28   232   7   4   28   0  1,087  38.82   149   6   2  147.5%
  11.  RG Pollock        26   3  1,310  56.96   209   7   5   15   1    946  67.57   274   4   2   84.3%
  12.  JDB Robertson     15   2    729  56.08   133   6   2    6   0    152  25.33    44   0   0  221.4%
  13.  H Sutcliffe       51   8  2,400  55.81   161  13   7   33   1  2,155  67.34   194  10   9   82.9%
  14.  IVA Richards     112  10  5,661  55.50   291  25  17   70   2  2,879  42.34   178  20   7  131.1%
  15.  GA Headley        34   3  1,714  55.29  270*   4   7    6   1    476  95.20  169*   1   3   58.1%
  16.  KC Sangakkara     89   8  4,474  55.23   232  15  13   58   2  3,075  54.91   287  17   8  100.6%
  17.  KC Bland          27   4  1,263  54.91  144*   6   3   12   1    406  36.91    78   3   0  148.8%
  18.  CL Walcott        46   5  2,216  54.05   220  10   8   28   2  1,582  60.85   152   4   7   88.8%
  19.  EAB Rowan         38   5  1,760  53.33   236  11   3   12   0    205  17.08    67   1   0  312.2%
  20.  SR Watson         12   1    584  53.09  120*   4   1    9   0    236  26.22    53   2   0  202.5%
  21.  DR Jardine        17   3    740  52.86   127   7   1   16   3    556  42.77    98   3   0  123.6%
  22.  KF Barrington     87  10  4,035  52.40  151*  20  11   44   5  2,771  71.05   256  15   9   73.8%
  23.  L Hutton          93  14  4,102  51.92   205  21  10   45   1  2,869  65.20   364  12   9   79.6%
  24.  G Boycott        136  22  5,907  51.82   191  28  18   57   1  2,207  39.41  246*  14   4  131.5%
  25.  Yousuf Youhana    87   7  4,126  51.58   202  20  13   59   5  3,121  57.80   223  11  11   89.2%
  26.  RT Ponting       121  19  5,260  51.57   242  20  17  111   7  6,165  59.28   257  29  21   87.0%
       ...
  40.  GS Sobers         95  12  4,036  48.63   198  17  11   65   9  3,996  71.36  365*  13  15   68.1%
       ...
  43.  BC Lara          177   5  8,349  48.54   375  32  25   53   1  3,563  68.52  400*  16   9   70.8%
       ...
  46.  KP Pietersen      61   2  2,830  47.97   158  10  10   39   2  1,969  53.22   226   6   6   90.1%
       ...
  52.  JH Kallis        144  21  5,788  47.06  189*  33  13   79  11  4,608  67.76   186  19  19   69.4%
       ...
  59.  RS Dravid        148  22  5,873  46.61   270  31   9   87   5  5,360  65.37   233  27  19   71.3%
       ...
  68.  DT Lindsay        20   0    912  45.60   182   3   3   11   1    218  21.80    65   2   0  209.2%
       ...
  71.  ED Weekes         48   1  2,126  45.23   162  11   6   33   4  2,329  80.31   207   8   9   56.3%
       ...
  84.  GC Smith          80   9  3,152  44.39  154*  22   4   57   0  3,287  57.67   277   4  14   77.0%
       ...
  91.  V Sehwag          75   4  3,121  43.96  201*  10   8   46   0  3,044  66.17   319   8   9   66.4%
  92.  SR Tendulkar     166  17  6,544  43.92  248*  29  19   99  11  6,426  73.02  241*  25  24   60.1%
  93.  G Gambhir         27   3  1,051  43.79   167   5   2   21   0  1,502  71.52   206   5   6   61.2%
  94.  AJ Strauss        73   5  2,977  43.78   161   9  11   53   0  2,390  45.09   177   9   7   97.1%
       ...
 146.  VT Trumper        72   7  2,564  39.45  214*   9   7   17   1    599  37.44  135*   4   1  105.4%
 147.  PD Collingwood    53   7  1,813  39.41   135  11   3   43   3  1,919  47.98   206   7   6   82.2%
       ...
 188.  RA Woolmer        25   2    852  37.04   149   1   3    9   0    207  23.00    82   1   0  161.1%
       ...
 211.  AC Gilchrist      51   6  1,605  35.67   144  10   2   84  14  3,870  55.29  204*  15  15   64.5%
       ...
 267.  DW Randall        59   5  1,809  33.50   174   8   6   20   0    661  33.05   164   4   1  101.4%
       ...
 336.  IR Bell           49   3  1,400  30.43    97  14   0   42   6  1,891  52.53   199   7   9   57.9%
       ...
 456.  KR Miller         51   5  1,199  26.07  145*   3   2   36   2  1,759  51.74   147  10   5   50.4%
       ...
 481.  LEG Ames          40   5    892  25.49   126   4   1   32   7  1,542  61.68   149   3   7   41.3%
       ...
1140.  JV Saunders       15   5     19   1.90     9   0   0    8   1     20   2.86   11*   0   0   66.5%
1141.  M Mbangwa         20   7     24   1.85     8   0   0    5   1     10   2.50     5   0   0   73.8%
1142.  CS Martin         58  31     46   1.70     7   0   0   18   9     37   4.11   12*   0   0   41.4%
1143.  Mohammad Akram    11   3     11   1.38     5   0   0    4   3     13  13.00   10*   0   0   10.6%

qual. 10 innings in which no 100 was scored by other players; full list available here

Although he is pipped to top spot by his first test skipper, Bradman's reputation might be restored somewhat by this analysis. It speaks volumes for his astonishing weight of runscoring that his unsupported average is the second-best in test history and is still only just over half as good as his performance when other batsmen got to three figures! On the opposite side of the coin, it is in keeping with Douglas Jardine's reputation as a batsman that his one test hundred and seven of his ten test fifties came in innings in which none of his team-mates had reached 100.

I love that Jack Hobbs is right near the top of the list (as he was in the 50s table), with a better record when he was going it alone than when his team-mates were joining in the fun. This finding is perfectly reflective of a quotation from Hobbs to which TMSB Exiles contributor rob.cricketpunk drew our attention in a related discussion. Speaking to John Arlott about batting for Surrey, Hobbs said,

If Sandy [Andy Sandham] was going well, we had plenty of batting to come and I would give one of my old bowler mates a chance; but if Sandy and Tom [Shepherd] and Andy [Ducat] got out, then I had to earn my money from Surrey and get some runs.

It also doesn't surprise me to find Viv Richards in the upper reaches, with quite a pronounced discrepancy between his unsupported and supported knocks. The fact that 17 of his 24 tons were achieved as sole centurion is characteristic of a man who loved to raise his game to meet an occasion.

So what about the man who sparked the whole debate off? Is it fair to get on Ian Bell's back for his apparently lopsided record? The defence has to plead guilty to the charge as it is commonly formulated: nobody in the history of test cricket has scored as many as Bell's nine centuries without ever being a lone centurion (Bill Woodfull is second with seven). Still, it's worth highlighting the extent to which, in terms of relative levels of performance between the two scenarios, Bell is far from the worst offender generally. He scores getting on for 60% as many runs in innings where no-one has reached three figures as he does when there is at least one centurion other than him, which puts him in the same ballpark as Weekes, Headley, Laxman, and Tendulkar, and a little way ahead of Miandad, Worrell, Dexter, and Miller. Although Bell has yet to be the only man to reach three-figures in a test innings, he has 14 half-centuries in innings in which no one passed 100 which, from 49 attempts, isn't terrible.

Moreover, when you look back at the innings in which no-one else passed 50 (which you have to think of as the most challenging circumstances of all – those in which Bell is supposed to be at his most inadequate), his record looks pretty okay. For example, we've all seen Bell's supposed mental frailty compared unfavourably to Paul Collingwood's supposed capacity for dogged resistance. Actually, Collingwood's record, in this area, is quite a lot worse. Of Collingwood's 27 test innings of 50 or more, there was one solitary occasion on which no-one else on the team registered at least a half-century (though, it has to be said, that was quite an important one), and his average of 22.82 in such innings is a fair bit worse than Bell's 29.62.

Ultimately, though, I remain to be convinced that any of this matters very much. It seems to me that successful teams need batsmen who can capitalise on good starts every bit as much as they need those whose heroics might rescue a parlous situation. The accepted wisdom is that the players who perform best when circumstances are least favourable are the most valuable; these are the kind of players we tend to call "matchwinners". But you'd never win any matches if you had to rely solely on batsmen who only turn it on when the spotlight is dialled up to sufficient wattage (I'm on record, elsewhere, advancing a similar argument in – slight – criticism of Viv Richards who, certainly over the later two-thirds of his career, was still capable of astonishing performances, but only tended to pull them out of the bag on a whim). After all, someone needs to score runs when they are most obviously there to be scored. So maybe we should stop repeating that stat about Ian Bell and start circulating a new one: England have never lost a test match in which he scored a century.

---

I feel obliged to offer a little postscript, here. Statistically speaking, I've done something deeply questionable, in these analyses. Assuming that apparent discrepancies between different subsets of batsmen's careers are meaningful on face value alone is pretty dumb. Actually, there is enough variation in all batsmen's records that, if you cut their record up into two random halves, you'd expect a good number of them to end up with two very different looking sets of performance. (David Barry gave a neat demonstration of this on his blog a little while ago.) This means that, even if all batsmen were equally good regardless of how well their team-mates got on in each of their innings, random variation alone would result in some of their records looking very different when you cut them up in the way I have, above. Distinguishing meaningful signal from random noise is at the heart of proper statistical analysis (it's what commonly gets labelled as identifying "statistical significance"), and it's really bad practice to stick up lists of numbers without doing anything of the sort. However, I'm not alone, in this respect: I'm not aware of anyone, ever, in the history of cricket stats taking this basic step. As it happens, I have (what I think are) some really good methods for beginning to make robust comparisons within and between batsmen's careers, but I'm unlikely to introduce them to this blog for a while, yet (partially because it'll take forever to write them up; partially because I'm kinda hoping to get them published in an academic journal, first). I just wanted to register the fact that all the above has a very good chance of being – like the vast majority of things presented as cricket statistics – absolute rubbish.

... and the less said about the rest, the better

This is a quick trivia post in response to some queries raised by MiPiL on TMSB Exiles. He wanted to know

What's the lowest completed innings to contain
— 1 individual 100
— 1 individual 200
— 2 individual 100s?

To begin with, I assumed he was talking about test cricket. Altogether, there have been a dozen occasions on which an all-out test innings of less than 200 has included one individual three-figure score; details are given in Table 1.

The top two both took place at the same ground, albeit getting on for half a century apart. It wasn't all that unusual for the New Zealand side of the late 1950s and early 1960s to rely on John Reid to salvage a little respectability from some otherwise one-sided encounters, but this was never more dramatically the case than in the match identified here. Reid had top-scored in New Zealand's first innings, but his second-innings ton was even more isolated: despite Reid's score of exactly 100, the Kiwis were able to scrape together just 159, and the skipper was the only batsman to pass 22.

Note that the entry in sixth place on the list is a very recent one: as more experienced heads were lost around him, Adrian Barath – playing in his debut test match at the age of nineteen – was the only West Indian batsman to mount any resistance to the Australian bowlers during the first test of the current series, at Brisbane. If he can repeat the success of his very well received 104 (and the rest of the team can fail to replicate their less distinguished performances), the future of West Indies cricket may appear somewhat brighter than it has been painted, of late.

Table 1: Lowest all-out test innings to feature an individual century

Total  Team           Centurion        Match
159    New Zealand    JR Reid          2nd inns -v- England at Lancaster Park, Christchurch, 1962/63
170    Sri Lanka      KC Sangakkara    2nd inns -v- New Zealand at Jade Stadium, Christchurch, 2006/07
177    South Africa   JH Sinclair      1st inns -v- England at Newlands, Cape Town, 1898/99
182    South Africa   HW Taylor        1st inns -v- England at Lord's, Durban, 1913/14
184    Australia      MJ Slater        2nd inns -v- England at Sydney Cricket Ground, 1998/99
187    West Indies    A Barath         2nd inns -v- Australia at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 2009/10
191    Australia      DG Bradman       2nd inns -v- England at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1932/33
191    England        MC Cowdrey       1st inns -v- Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1954/55
193    West Indies    GA Headley       1st inns -v- Australia at Exhibition Ground, Brisbane, 1930/31
194    West Indies    RR Sarwan        2nd inns -v- South Africa at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, 2004/05
198    Australia      GN Yallop        1st inns -v- England at Sydney Cricket Ground, 1978/79
198    Australia      KJ Hughes        1st inns -v- West Indies at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1981/82

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

The lowest all-out test innings to feature an individual double-century is also a fairly recent one. Virender Sehwag's 201* at Galle last summer was, notably, the only three-figure score of an otherwise low-scoring match, and certainly proved to be the difference between the two sides. Interestingly, this innings is the third-highest rated innings in test history according to the ICC rankings (the highest of Sehwag's three entries in the top ten). Opinions vary about the validity of the ICC rankings (it would help me make up my mind if they ever published how the blessed things are actually calculated), but one factor they seek to reward is runscoring that stands in contrast to a lower level of achievement by team-mates and opponents. This being the case, it is unsurprising to see Sehwag's sore thumb of an innings accorded very high value. All in all, there have been ten test innings in which a double-hundred is found amongst an all-out total of fewer than 400 runs.

Table 2: Lowest all-out test innings to feature an individual double-century

Total  Team           Centurion        Match
329    India          V Sehwag         1st inns -v- Sri Lanka at Galle International Stadium, 2008
344    England        L Hutton         1st inns -v- West Indies at Kennington Oval, 1950
353    South Africa   RG Pollock       1st inns -v- Australia at Newlands, Cape Town, 1966/67
371    Australia      AR Morris        1st inns -v- England at Adelaide Oval, 1950/51
374    India          AD Gaekwad       1st inns -v- Pakistan at Gandhi Stadium, Jalandhar, 1983/84
383    West Indies    CL Walcott       1st inns -v- England at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, 1953/54
386    New Zealand    GM Turner        1st inns -v- West Indies at Sabina Park, Kingston, 1971/72
387    India          DN Sardesai      1st inns -v- West Indies at Sabina Park, Kingston, 1970/71
390    West Indies    BC Lara          1st inns -v- Sri Lanka at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo, 2001/02
391    Australia      ML Hayden        1st inns -v- India at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai, 2000/01

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

The answer to MiPiL's third question also features a game from the last twelve months. This time, our heroes are Jesse Ryder and Daniel Vettori. Between them, they scored 220 (79%) of the 279 runs New Zealand scraped together against India at Hamilton earlier this year. After their centuries, the next-highest score in the innings was just 18. In sixth place on the list, Allan Border and Greg Matthews had cause to be even more fed up with their colleagues: Border's 152* and Matthews's 115 amounted to over 80% of Australia's innings total, as they succumbed to an innings defeat in a match which is best remembered for Richard Hadlee's tour de force performance with the ball.

Table 3: Lowest all-out test innings to feature two individual centuries

Total  Team           Centurions                     Match
279    New Zealand    JD Ryder; DL Vettori           1st inns -v- India at Seddon Park, Hamilton, 2008/09
284    Australia      WM Lawry; IM Chappell          1st inns -v- West Indies at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 1968/69
313    England        H Sutcliffe; GE Tyldesley      1st inns -v- South Africa at Old Wanderers, Johannesburg, 1927/28
328    Sri Lanka      RP Arnold; RS Kaluwitharana    1st inns -v- Pakistan at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, 1998/99
329    West Indies    RR Sarwan; S Chanderpaul       2nd inns -v- South Africa at Sahara Stadium, Kingsmead, Durban, 2003/04
333    Australia      AR Border; GRJ Matthews        2nd inns -v- New Zealand at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 1985/86
335    Australia      WM Woodfull; CG Macartney      1st inns -v- England at Old Trafford, Manchester, 1926
339    Australia      GN Yallop; KJ Hughes           2nd inns -v- England at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 1978/79
344    England        JH Hampshire; R Illingworth    1st inns -v- West Indies at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, 1969
347    Australia      GHS Trott; SE Gregory          2nd inns -v- England at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, 1896
347    Sri Lanka      RS Madugalle; A Ranatunga      1st inns -v- India at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo, 1985
348    West Indies    CH Gayle; RR Sarwan            2nd inns -v- South Africa at Centurion Park, 2003/04
349    Australia      ML Hayden; AC Gilchrist        1st inns -v- India at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, 2000/01
350    Pakistan       Hanif Mohammad; Saeed Ahmed    1st inns -v- India at Brabourne Stadium, Bombay, 1960/61

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

In case MiPiL (or anyone else, for that matter) was interested in casting his net further than the test arena,
Tables 4–6, below, present analogous information to Tables 1–3 for all first-class cricket.

Table 4: Lowest all-out first-class innings to feature an individual century

Total  Team                     Centurion        Match
143    Gujranwala               Rizwan Malik     1st inns -v- Bahawalpur at Bahawal Stadium, Bahawalpur, 14 Jan 2002
143    Nottinghamshire          CEB Rice         1st inns -v- Hampshire at Dean Park, Bournemouth, 04 Jul 1981
144    Kent                     FE Woolley       2nd inns -v- Warwickshire at Cheriton Road Sports Ground, Folkestone, 24 Jun 1931
148    Parsees                  RP Meherhomji    2nd inns -v- Europeans at Gymkhana Ground, Bombay, 27 Aug 1907
153    Gloucestershire          TW Graveney      1st inns -v- Essex at Gidea Park Sports Ground, Romford, 23 May 1956
156    Gloucestershire          GM Emmett        1st inns -v- Oxford University at The University Parks, Oxford, 01 May 1948
157    Leicestershire           S Jayasinghe     1st inns -v- Northamptonshire at County Ground, Northampton, 22 Aug 1964
157    Northamptonshire         JE Timms         1st inns -v- Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, 15 Aug 1934
158    Kent                     TG Evans         1st inns -v- Leicestershire at Grace Road, Leicester, 25 Aug 1951
159    New Zealand              JR Reid          2nd inns -v- England at Lancaster Park, Christchurch, 15 Mar 1963
159    United South of England  WG Grace         1st inns -v- United North of England Eleven at Argyle Street, Hull, 03 Aug 1876
159    Worcestershire           TW Graveney      2nd inns -v- Leicestershire at Grace Road, Leicester, 01 Jun 1968
160    Nottinghamshire          KP Pietersen     1st inns -v- Worcestershire at County Ground, New Road, Worcester, 29 Jun 2001
160    Wellington               JR Reid          2nd inns -v- Auckland at Eden Park, Auckland, 01 Feb 1952

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

Table 5: Lowest all-out first-class innings to feature an individual double-century

Total  Team                     Centurion        Match
282    Namibia                  G Snyman         2nd inns -v- Kenya at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium, 29 Jan 2008
298    Gloucestershire          TW Graveney      1st inns -v- Glamorgan at Rodney Parade, Newport, 08 Aug 1956
311    Glamorgan                Javed Miandad    2nd inns -v- Essex at Castle Park Cricket Ground, Colchester, 29 Aug 1981
315    Victoria                 WH Ponsford      1st inns -v- South Australia at Adelaide Oval, 03 Dec 1926
321    Midlands                 DA Marillier     2nd inns -v- Manicaland at Kwekwe Sports Club, 12 Apr 2005
326    Sind                     Naoomal Jaoomal  1st inns -v- Nawanagar at Karachi Gymkhana Ground, 24 Dec 1938
328    Southern Punjab          S Wazir Ali      1st inns -v- Bengal at Eden Gardens, Calcutta, 18 Feb 1939
329    India                    V Sehwag         1st inns -v- Sri Lanka at Galle International Stadium, 31 Jul 2008
329    Middlesex                EH Hendren       1st inns -v- Northamptonshire at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, 26 Aug 1931
331    Canterbury               GT Dowling       1st inns -v- Wellington at Lancaster Park, Christchurch, 29 Dec 1962
332    Hampshire                CG Greenidge     1st inns -v- Yorkshire at Headingley, Leeds, 30 Jul 1977
333    Northamptonshire         L Livingston     1st inns -v- Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 28 Aug 1954
337    Nottinghamshire          CJ Poole         1st inns -v- Derbyshire at Rutland Recreation Ground, Ilkeston, 26 Jul 1952
338    Mysore                   V Subramanya     1st inns -v- Madras at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Madras, 21 Jan 1967
338    New South Wales          SG Barnes        1st inns -v- Queensland at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 23 Nov 1945

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

Table 6: Lowest all-out first-class innings to feature two individual centuries

Total  Team                     Centurions                 Match
250    Otago                    BE Congdon; KO Campbell    1st inns -v- Central Districts at Carisbrook, Dunedin, 28 Dec 1972
252    Marylebone Cricket Club  L Hutton; MC Cowdrey       1st inns -v- New South Wales at Sydney Cricket Ground, 12 Nov 1954
258    Hampshire                CL Smith; KD James         1st inns -v- Derbyshire at Queen's Park, Chesterfield, 23 Jul 1991
268    Essex                    N Hussain; GA Gooch        1st inns -v- Hampshire at County Ground, Chelmsford, 16 Sep 1993
268    South Australia          TC Plant; CJ Ferguson      2nd inns -v- New South Wales at Sydney Cricket Ground, 02 Dec 2004
269    Karachi Port Trust       Ahmer Saeed; Saad Wasim    2nd inns -v- Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad, 14 Feb 2005
271    Burgher Recreation Club  DM Perumal; DN Pathirana   1st inns -v- Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club at Burgher Recreation Club Ground, Colombo, 31 Oct 2003
271    Lancashire               W Place; BJ Howard         1st inns -v- Northamptonshire at Old Trafford, Manchester, 16 Jul 1947
272    Worcestershire           NH Whiting; LF Outschoorn  1st inns -v- Oxford University at The University Parks, Oxford, 28 May 1952
275    Gentlemen of the South   WL Murdoch; W Newham       1st inns -v- Players of the South at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, 17 Sep 1894
279    New Zealand              JD Ryder; DL Vettori       1st inns -v- India at Seddon Park, Hamilton, 18 Mar 2009
279    Warwickshire             FC Gardner; AVG Wolton     1st inns -v- Sussex at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 02 May 1956
280    New South Wales          HSB Love; HL Collins       2nd inns -v- Victoria at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 24 Dec 1921

figures correct at 27-Nov-2009

Going downhill quickly

This post started off as quite a mundane analysis of workaday stats, but I think that analysis led to a reasonably interesting conclusion.

The catalyst was the recent match between India and Sri Lanka in Kanpur and, in particular, India's innings. They amassed 642, which proved quite enough to see Sri Lanka off by an innings and plenty; nevertheless, that impressive total was a bit of a comedown, given they had been 613/4 a dozen or so overs before they were bowled out. That's quite a collapse. A contributor to the Cricinfo text commentary summed it up rather neatly:

I have never seen such an unbalanced score card. When we look at the runs it is so lopsided on the the top that I feel my Cricinfo page will roll over by 180°.

I was party to some related discussions on both TMSB Exiles and Grockles. On the latter, Frome Exile came up with an interesting way of looking at the collapse: he worked out that there had only been one instance in test history of a larger absolute difference between the contributions of the first five partnerships and the last five. That was England's monstrous first innings of 849ao v. West Indies in Kingston, 1930, in which the fifth wicket fell at 720, meaning the first five wickets added 591 more than the last five (11 more than the corresponding discrepancy in India's Kanpur innings). In case anyone's interested, I've put a full list of test innings sorted in this way here.

A similar – though, I think, ever-so-slightly more informative – way of looking at the question is to concentrate on the relative difference between the amount of runs scored for the first five wickets and the amount scored for the second five – in other words, the proportion of the the final, all-out total that was contributed by the first five partnerships. The table below shows score at the fall of the fifth wicket, final total, and the relationship between the two for all all-out innings in test history (obviously, it doesn't make sense to ask the same question of innings that were declared or otherwise prematurely curtailed). The match at the top of the list is a famous, though statistically anomalous one, which only technically counts as an all-out innings.

The Sabina Park massacre aside, the most lopsided innings is one in which Australia's first 5 partnerships scored 61 times as many runs as the rest. In fact, the collapse was more dramatic than even that stat suggests, because the fifth-wicket partnership also realised no runs, so Australia – chasing 382 to win the match – fell from 305/3 to 310ao. The prime architect of Australia's demise was Sarfraz Nawaz, who took 7/1 in a spell of 33 balls, to finish with career-best figures of 9/86. Some sources refer to Sarfraz's feat as the first great spell of reverse-swing bowling in tests; others note that he took the new ball just before the rampage began, which would make such an interpretation unlikely. One way or another, it was a sensationally effective burst.

            5thWkt   Total       (%)   Team           Inns     Match
       1.       97      97   100.00%   India          2nd inns -v- West Indies at Sabina Park, Kingston, 1975/76
       2.      305     310    98.39%   Australia      2nd inns -v- Pakistan at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1978/79
       3.      261     266    98.12%   New Zealand    1st inns -v- Pakistan at Basin Reserve, Wellington, 1964/65
       4.      147     150    98.00%   England        2nd inns -v- Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1990/91
       5.      244     249    97.99%   Australia      1st inns -v- England at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 1953
       6.      493     507    97.24%   England        1st inns -v- Pakistan at National Stadium, Karachi, 1961/62
       7.      127     131    96.95%   New Zealand    2nd inns -v- Pakistan at Eden Park, Auckland, 2000/01
       8.      221     228    96.93%   England        2nd inns -v- Australia at Adelaide Oval, 1950/51
       9.      204     211    96.68%   India          2nd inns -v- England at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 1996
      10.      169     175    96.57%   Sri Lanka      2nd inns -v- England at P Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo, 1981/82
      11.      418     433    96.54%   Australia      1st inns -v- England at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane, 1970/71
      12.      554     576    96.18%   West Indies    1st inns -v- India at Sabina Park, Kingston, 1952/53
      13.      275     286    96.15%   Pakistan       2nd inns -v- India at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai, 1998/99
      14.      323     336    96.13%   West Indies    1st inns -v- England at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 2004
      15.      213     222    95.95%   Australia      1st inns -v- England at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 1968
      16.      535     558    95.88%   West Indies    1st inns -v- England at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 1950
      17.      507     529    95.84%   England        1st inns -v- Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1974/75
      18.      247     258    95.74%   Australia      1st inns -v- England at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1978/79
      19.      134     140    95.71%   South Africa   1st inns -v- England at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, 1907
      20.      488     510    95.69%   Australia      1st inns -v- West Indies at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1968/69
      21.      350     366    95.63%   India          1st inns -v- Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 2003/04
      22.      368     385    95.58%   Sri Lanka      1st inns -v- India at P Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo, 1985
      23.       85      89    95.51%   West Indies    1st inns -v- England at Kennington Oval, 1957
      24.      613     642    95.48%   India          1st inns -v- Sri Lanka at Modi Stadium, Kanpur, 2009/10
      25.      376     394    95.43%   West Indies    1st inns -v- India at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, 2001/02
      26.      285     299    95.32%   Pakistan       1st inns -v- Sri Lanka at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo, 2009
      27.      240     252    95.24%   Pakistan       1st inns -v- South Africa at Newlands, Cape Town, 2002/03
      28.      198     208    95.19%   England        1st inns -v- South Africa at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 1947
      29.      270     284    95.07%   England        1st inns -v- Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1920/21
      30.       77      81    95.06%   India          2nd inns -v- New Zealand at Basin Reserve, Wellington, 1975/76
     ...
     ...
    4909.        7      70    10.00%   Australia      2nd inns -v- England at Old Trafford, Manchester, 1888
    4910.       32     323     9.91%   Australia      1st inns -v- England at Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1897/98
    4911.       18     185     9.73%   Zimbabwe       2nd inns -v- India at Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo, 2005/06
    4912.       23     258     8.91%   England        1st inns -v- West Indies at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, 1934/35
    4913.       14     169     8.28%   Bangladesh     2nd inns -v- Zimbabwe at Harare Sports Club, 2003/04
    4914.       15     212     7.08%   Pakistan       2nd inns -v- Sri Lanka at Jinnah Stadium, Sialkot, 1995/96
    4915.        6      98     6.12%   India          1st inns -v- England at Kennington Oval, 1952

only all-out innings considered; figures correct at 27-Nov-2009; full list available here

India's Kanpur innings is 24th on the list, one of 30 test innings in which the last five wickets contributing less than five percent of the all-out total. At the other end of the table, there are seven instances of the first five partnerships providing 10% or less of the final score. That entry at the bottom isn't, as I immediately imagined, Trueman's debut, when India were famously reduced to 0/4; it's the fourth match of that series, in which they managed a whole 6 runs before losing their 4th wicket, but lost their 5th the next ball. On this occasion, it was Trueman's opening partner, Alec Bedser, who was the main destroyer; Norman Preston's Wisden write-up describes the carnage – and the subsequent revival led by Indian skipper Vijay Hazare – in detail.

Here's where the story begins to get a bit interesting. Having assembled all these stats, I casually had a glance at the typical relationship between these two variables (the amount of runs scored for the first five wickets, and the amount of runs scored in the remainder of the innings). The results were nothing like what I was expecting.

It turns out that score at the fall of the 5th wicket is a terrible predictor of the amount the last five wickets will contribute. I would have imagined that instances in which the first half of an innings was high-scoring would – noteworthy collapses aside – have been those in which the second half also went well for the batting team. Similarly, you'd guess that, if the first 5 fall over cheaply, the tail are unlikely to contribute much. It turns out that you can't make those sorts of assumption at all.

The graph below shows every all-out innings in test history, with runs for the first five wickets on the x-axis plotted against runs for the last 5 on the y. Before generating this plot, I expected to see a fairly noticeable positive correlation, with the datapoints lining up from the origin of the graph in a positive trend up and right. No such thing. It's all scatter and no plot, and r² (which quantifies the strength of association between two variables – see this earlier post) is a dismal 0.0041.

Figure 1: All-out test innings – runs for the first five wickets and runs for the last five

If you stick a linear regression line through the dataset (as I have, above), you get y = 95.5 + 0.0414x, which means that, at the fall of the fifth wicket, our best guess of what the all-out total will be is

runs scored so far + (0.0414 × runs scored so far) + 95.5

... but what this analysis shows very clearly is that you'd be an idiot to head off down the bookie's armed with that equation, because our best guess is dreadful. In fact, if it tells us anything, it suggests that dramatic collapses and dramatic tail-wagging are much more likely than you might imagine (maybe there's some value to be had there!) The lesson is clear: what happens in the first half of an innings tells us nothing about what we can expect in the second half. For example, on average throughout test history, whenever the fifth wicket has fallen at a score between 50 and 99, the remaining batsmen have added a further 95.7; whenever the first five partnerships have realised between 400 and 449, the last five wickets have typically amassed... 95.3.

Further investigation shows that this finding is not confined to the fifth wicket. At any stage of a test innings, what has happened up until the fall of a given wicket is a useless predictor of what's going to happen afterwards. Figure 2 shows analogous graphs to that shown above for all other wickets. In every case, there's a whole lot of noise and no noticeable signal. The highest r² for any of these analyses is that calculated for the ninth wicket – just 0.0053 (that is: only half a percent of the variance in the tenth-wicket partnership scores is explained by variability in totals at the fall of the ninth).

Figure 2: All-out test innings – correlations between scores before and after the loss of each wicket

I don't quite know what to make of these findings. At extreme ends of the spectrum, one can just about understand how two halves of an innings might compensate for each other. As Wickham observed on Grockles,

Part of the explanation may be that tail-enders are more likely to dig in if the top-order batsmen have scored relatively few runs and that this tendency helps to counteract the impact of wickets which are more difficult to bat on.

I am sure this is a useful observation. It seems to me that the reverse may be true, as well: if the top order have scored heavily, maybe the tail play with abandon in search of the quick runs that the match situation is likely to demand, and thereby score less heavily than they might have done. I don't know that these explanations help us with the majority of test innings, however. After all, most times, the tail are neither digging in for grim death nor swinging with carefree abandon.

The alternative explanation is that we massively overinterpret those factors we identify as significant in shaping an innings. We watch five batsmen fall quickly, and we conclude that the wicket is unreliable, or the bowlers irresistible; when the runs have come easily for the top order, we imagine that the conditions are favourable, or the attack toothless. But maybe we've got a bad appreciation of the random and – pace Louis MacNeice – cricket is crazier and more of it than we think. This is far from the first time that, having had a good dig into the evidence, I've reached the conclusion that the game is far more susceptible to dumb luck than we ever acknowledge.

Nervous noughties

Over on TMSB Exiles, groovyshortlegs noted

[Doug] Bollinger faces his first ball in ODIs, in his 5th match, and [he's] run out without facing another. He has one test, one innings 0*. 6 internationals, no runs, what's the longest streak I wonder?

Turns out the answer to groovy's question is Venkatesh Prasad. He had played in 12 internationals (all ODIs) before he registered his first international run. That run consisted of 2 ducks and 10 DNBs. Nathan Bracken played 11 ODIs before he even got a bat, but got off the mark at the first time of asking. Roger Harper played in 9 matches (3 ducks) before he scored his first run.

The players who actually got to the crease most times without scoring at the beginning of their careers were Brendon Bracewell (who started out with 5 0s - 4 in tests, 1 in an ODI) and Commandur Rangachari (who had 5 ducks before finally scoring in his fourth test).

At least Bollinger's matches have all come in 2009. Some players have taken up to a dozen years to get off the mark in international cricket. Top of the lot is Barbadian George Carew, who made his test debut for the West Indies v. England in Bridgetown on 8th January 1935. He was dismissed for nought in the first innings, and did not get the chance to bat in the second (due to what looks, from this distance, like a rather generous declaration). It was 1948 before he got another chance to break his duck, but it was an opportunity he seized, scoring 107 v. England in Trinidad. History has paid rather more attention to his opening partner, Andy Ganteaume (whose century remains the only one scored in a batsman's only test innings), but Carew set a record of his own by taking so long between his international bow and his first run.

Altogether, 65 players have seen at least a year go by between their international debut and the match in which they finally broke their duck:

      Name               InternationalDebut     FirstRun     Days
  1.  GM Carew                   08/01/1935   11/02/1948    4,782
  2.  WH Copson                  24/06/1939   16/08/1947    2,975
  3.  GP Swann                   23/01/2000   01/10/2007    2,808
  4.  CM Bandara                 27/05/1998   10/12/2005    2,754
  5.  TWJ Goddard                25/07/1930   24/07/1937    2,556
  6.  A Mishra                   13/04/2003   06/11/2008    2,034
  7.  WCA Ganegama               08/04/2001   26/01/2006    1,754
  8.  Saiful Islam               31/12/1990   05/04/1995    1,556
  9.  G Duckworth                26/07/1924   11/08/1928    1,477
 10.  GRA de Silva               14/06/1975   09/06/1979    1,456
 11.  Sarfraz Nawaz              06/03/1969   29/12/1972    1,394
 12.  Shabbir Ahmed              19/09/1999   18/05/2003    1,337
 13.  RA Gaunt                   24/01/1958   17/08/1961    1,301
 14.  GJ Hopkins                 29/06/2004   20/12/2007    1,269
 15.  RJ Bright                  30/03/1974   04/06/1977    1,162
 16.  PR Downton                 23/12/1977   13/02/1981    1,148
 17.  MG Webb                    05/03/1971   01/03/1974    1,092
 18.  DJG Sammy                  08/07/2004   07/06/2007    1,064
 19.  AS Luseno                  06/04/2003   01/03/2006    1,060
 20.  HT Davis                   18/04/1994   14/02/1997    1,033
 21.  JP Yadav                   06/11/2002   26/08/2005    1,024
 22.  NW Bracken                 11/01/2001   26/10/2003    1,018
 23.  Munir Malik                04/12/1959   05/07/1962      944
 24.  TG Shaw                    10/11/1991   08/04/1994      880
 25.  GB Troup                   16/10/1976   16/02/1979      853
 26.  A Nehra                    24/02/1999   07/06/2001      834
 27.  Arshad Khan                01/02/1993   11/04/1995      799
 28.  RD Jackman                 13/07/1974   28/08/1976      777
 29.  HAPW Jayawardene           28/06/2000   21/07/2002      753
 30.  GB Legge                   24/12/1927   10/01/1930      748
 31.  Tauseef Ahmed              27/02/1980   05/03/1982      737
 32.  BW Hilfenhaus              14/01/2007   16/01/2009      733
 33.  G Geary                    26/07/1924   10/07/1926      714
 34.  ML Patel                   14/09/2004   15/08/2006      700
 35.  PJ Ongondo                 30/09/1999   18/08/2001      688
 36.  CPH Ramanayake             08/03/1986   02/01/1988      665
 37.  G Noblet                   03/03/1950   22/12/1951      659
 38.  Shakeel Ahmed              01/05/1993   07/02/1995      647
 39.  PE McIntyre                26/01/1995   10/10/1996      623
=39.  GN de Silva                30/04/1983   12/01/1985      623
 41.  JM Patel                   26/02/1955   19/10/1956      601
 42.  W Mwayenga                 24/11/2002   29/05/2004      552
=42.  ML Nkala                   27/09/1998   01/04/2000      552
 44.  Abdur Rauf                 02/02/2008   04/07/2009      518
 45.  DB Close                   23/07/1949   22/12/1950      517
 46.  H Verity                   29/07/1931   02/12/1932      492
 47.  TB Mitchell                10/02/1933   08/06/1934      483
 48.  M Hayward                  18/08/1998   09/12/1999      478
 49.  CL White                   09/10/2005   14/01/2007      462
 50.  PK Lee                     18/12/1931   23/02/1933      433
 51.  AL Logie                   19/12/1981   23/02/1983      431
 52.  RS Ghai                    05/12/1984   26/01/1986      417
 53.  PS Vaidya                  22/02/1995   12/04/1996      415
 54.  KS More                    05/12/1984   18/01/1986      409
 55.  Alamgir Kabir              21/07/2002   27/08/2003      402
 56.  GI Allott                  13/01/1996   06/02/1997      390
 57.  Sarandeep Singh            25/11/2000   19/12/2001      389
 58.  SP Gupte                   30/12/1951   21/01/1953      388
 59.  WB Phillips                22/10/1982   11/11/1983      385
 60.  E Otieno                   18/10/2007   31/10/2008      379
 61.  MG Hughes                  13/12/1985   26/12/1986      378
 62.  DI Joyce                   13/06/2006   23/06/2007      375
 63.  VM Muddiah                 12/12/1959   16/12/1960      370
 64.  GP Wickramasinghe          31/12/1990   02/01/1992      367
 65.  AP Grayson                 10/10/2000   10/10/2001      365

By the way, the player who had most FC games under his belt without scoring had the misfortune never to record that elusive first run. John Howarth played 13 matches for Nottinghamshire in 1966 & 1967; in that time he registered 7 ducks (3 not-out) and 16 DNBs, but he never saw the scoreboard tick over next to his number. A similar fate was met by Somerset's Seymour Clark, who may have only played 5 FC games but, in that time, he managed 2 more innings than Howarth without ever scoring a run. It's probably not surprising that he got dropped after that.

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UPDATE: Doug Bollinger finally got off the mark in the second innings of Australia's third test v. West Indies at Perth. That was his fourth visit to the crease in his tenth international game, meaning he's ended up in equal-third place with Roger Harper and RL Sanghvi.