Almost un-noticed, Paul Harris has sneaked his way into the world’s top ten in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers. Helped by his match figures of nine for 161 against Australia at Cape Town this March, he now sits pretty on 669 points – the highest-rated left-arm spinner in the world. He was even higher in May of this year – peaking at seventh place before the resurgence of Mohammad Asif and Shane Bond in the recent series in New Zealand. A veteran of only 24 Tests since his debut in January 2007, he has so far taken 71 wickets, so is still qualifying for a “full” rating.
South Africa has hardly been a hot-bed of spinning talent since their return to the international cricketing fold in 1991. In fact, over that period of time, just 15% of all the Test wickets taken by their bowlers have gone to spinners. In contrast, over the same period of time, spinners for the other Test playing nations have taken 34% of their total wickets – more than twice as many. This is partly due to the lack of high-quality spinners in South Africa, but also due to the exceptionally high standard of the pace-bowling in that country. Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Dale Steyn have all spent time at the top of the bowling tree in recent years, Makhaya Ntini reached number 2 and Jacques Kallis and Andre Nel both featured in the world’s top ten at various stages of their careers.
The pickings have been slimmer slow-bowling-wise. In fact, Harris is the first South African spinner to reach the top twenty – let alone the top ten – since their re-admission. Paul Adams and Nicky Boje both played more than forty Tests and took more than a hundred wickets each, but never made a big impact on the rankings. Adams peaked at 588 points and 23rd position while Boje managed 545 points and 22nd position. So – if Harris is unchallenged as the top achieving South African tweaker in recent years, if we push the boundaries back, how does he stack up historically with his fellow countrymen?
Six bowlers from the Rainbow Nation have topped the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers – the three mentioned above plus Peter Pollock, Aubrey Faulkner (who uniquely topped the batting Rankings too!) and Hugh Tayfield . Tayfield first achieved top spot after the 1955 Oval Test in which he took 8 wickets, and really made his name by bowling a record 137 dot balls in a row to the England batsmen in the Durban Test of January 1957. He ended his career with 170 wickets in 37 Tests – still the leading wicket-taker among South African spinners – having spent a total of 24 Tests at number one.
So if Tayfield is the pre-eminent spinner – although Faulkner topped the bowling ratings for 7 matches – how does Harris compare? His current points tally of 669 places him 17th among all South African bowlers. However, only three spinners are above him: Tayfield – who peaked at 895 in 1957, Bert Vogler (750) and Cyril Vincent (713). Of them, only Vincent was a slow-left-armer like Harris. So – already early in his career, he can be considered one of the leading South African exponents of spin bowling.
All things considered, the recent South African attack is a far cry from arguably the most famous one in their history. For the first Test of the 1905/06 series with England at Johannesburg, the Proteas picked four leg-spinners - Faulkner, Vogler, Reggie Schwarz and Gordon White. They would go on to record their first-ever series victory 4-1 with the four leggies taking 43 wickets between them. However Schwarz and White died young in the First World War so it was very much a case of what might have been with them.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Keeping it real
A total of 241 men have taken the gloves in Test Match cricket and 203 in One Day International cricket. Historically it has always proved very difficult to combine both jobs of batting well and keeping wicket. However, a number of players have bucked the trend in these forms of the game and here we pay tribute to them.
The rapid onset of the one-day game in the recent years has persuaded international teams that they need to consider their wicket-keeper more as a front-line batsman, with the admission that they wouldn’t necessarily take the chances that the pure stumpers of old may have done. Long gone are the days of the wicket-keeper hidden away down the batting order in case of emergencies.
One of England’s finest glovemen was Bert Strudwick who played 28 Tests between 1910 and 1926 but ended with a Test batting average of 7.93 and a highest batting rating of just 104. George Duckworth replaced him in the team and held his place for most of the next decade but he ended with an average of 14.62 and a highest rating of 127. Other examples of the ‘all-field, little-bat’ keeper include Ken James (highest rating 41 in 11 Tests), Gil Langley (highest rating 223 in 26 Tests), and Narendra Tamhane (highest rating 251 in 21 Tests).
To illustrate this paradigm change, in the 1980s Test wicket-keepers averaged 23.61 with the bat. In the 1990s it was 27.29 and in the 2000s it had risen to 30.76.
Of course, some have flourished despite keeping wicket for the vast majority of their careers. Andy Flower managed to combine his role as key batsman and wicket-keeper and became the first keeper to reach the number one spot in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen in 2001. He was followed the following year by Adam Gilchrist, who hit 17 Test centuries and single-handedly revolutionised the way wicket-keepers are viewed in the longer format of the game.
Despite the current trend to choose fast-scoring wicket-keepers, especially in the shorter format of the game, only two have ever reached top spot in ODI cricket. Unsurprisingly, the first was Gilchrist who first topped the pile in February 2004 and spent a total of 396 days as the number one. The next to achieve the feat was the current incumbent – MS Dhoni. An innings of 96 against England at Jamshedpur in April 2006 took him to number one – a mere 16 months after his international debut for India. He has currently spent a total of 428 days on top of the world.
Even Flower occasionally hung up his gloves as Wayne James and Tatenda Taibu took the gloves in eight of his 63 Tests. However, Zimbabwe was possibly better served with their premier batsman sharing both duties as he averaged just 35.45 in those eight Tests as opposed to 53.70 when he combined both roles. This flies in the face of the other two recent players to play a significant number of matches as both batsmen and keeper. Kumar Sangakkara averages 40.48 with the gloves on and 72.79 without and Alec Stewart 34.92 with and 46.70 without. Back in 1948, Sir Clyde Walcott started his career behind the stumps and played his first fifteen matches in that position, but with a Test batting average of 40.36 he gave up the gloves and averaged 64.66 in his remaining 29 Tests.
So – which wicket-keeper has achieved the highest rating in terms of points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings? Well – there are several answers to that question depending on how you define the word “wicket-keeper”
If we look at players who were picked as wicket-keeper for every match they played, the answers are:
Tests:
Adam Gilchrist (874)
Alan Knott (650)
Brad Haddin (623)
ODIs:
MS Dhoni (837)
Mark Boucher (622)
Rod Marsh (559)
How about those players – like Sangakkara, Flower and Stewart – who were picked as wicket-keeper for their side in at least half their total matches?
Tests:
Kumar Sangakkara (938)
Andy Flower (895)
Adam Gilchrist (874)
ODIs:
MS Dhoni (837)
Adam Gilchrist (824)
Kumar Sangakkara (755)
Before anyone says anything – early in his career, Gilchrist played five matches purely as a batsman while Ian Healy kept wicket.
Lastly, we should reserve a special place for the Honourable Alfred Lyttelton. He was picked as England’s wicket-keeper in all four of his Test Matches in the 1880s, but ironically is best remembered for an inspired bowling spell. In his final match, at The Oval in 1884, he was the tenth bowler tried in a massive Australian first innings. However, he proceeded to take four wickets for just 19 runs in 12 overs as Australia was bowled out for 551. That effort gave him a bowling Rating of 158 – the highest for anyone who has played exclusively as a Test wicket-keeper.
The rapid onset of the one-day game in the recent years has persuaded international teams that they need to consider their wicket-keeper more as a front-line batsman, with the admission that they wouldn’t necessarily take the chances that the pure stumpers of old may have done. Long gone are the days of the wicket-keeper hidden away down the batting order in case of emergencies.
One of England’s finest glovemen was Bert Strudwick who played 28 Tests between 1910 and 1926 but ended with a Test batting average of 7.93 and a highest batting rating of just 104. George Duckworth replaced him in the team and held his place for most of the next decade but he ended with an average of 14.62 and a highest rating of 127. Other examples of the ‘all-field, little-bat’ keeper include Ken James (highest rating 41 in 11 Tests), Gil Langley (highest rating 223 in 26 Tests), and Narendra Tamhane (highest rating 251 in 21 Tests).
To illustrate this paradigm change, in the 1980s Test wicket-keepers averaged 23.61 with the bat. In the 1990s it was 27.29 and in the 2000s it had risen to 30.76.
Of course, some have flourished despite keeping wicket for the vast majority of their careers. Andy Flower managed to combine his role as key batsman and wicket-keeper and became the first keeper to reach the number one spot in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen in 2001. He was followed the following year by Adam Gilchrist, who hit 17 Test centuries and single-handedly revolutionised the way wicket-keepers are viewed in the longer format of the game.
Despite the current trend to choose fast-scoring wicket-keepers, especially in the shorter format of the game, only two have ever reached top spot in ODI cricket. Unsurprisingly, the first was Gilchrist who first topped the pile in February 2004 and spent a total of 396 days as the number one. The next to achieve the feat was the current incumbent – MS Dhoni. An innings of 96 against England at Jamshedpur in April 2006 took him to number one – a mere 16 months after his international debut for India. He has currently spent a total of 428 days on top of the world.
Even Flower occasionally hung up his gloves as Wayne James and Tatenda Taibu took the gloves in eight of his 63 Tests. However, Zimbabwe was possibly better served with their premier batsman sharing both duties as he averaged just 35.45 in those eight Tests as opposed to 53.70 when he combined both roles. This flies in the face of the other two recent players to play a significant number of matches as both batsmen and keeper. Kumar Sangakkara averages 40.48 with the gloves on and 72.79 without and Alec Stewart 34.92 with and 46.70 without. Back in 1948, Sir Clyde Walcott started his career behind the stumps and played his first fifteen matches in that position, but with a Test batting average of 40.36 he gave up the gloves and averaged 64.66 in his remaining 29 Tests.
So – which wicket-keeper has achieved the highest rating in terms of points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings? Well – there are several answers to that question depending on how you define the word “wicket-keeper”
If we look at players who were picked as wicket-keeper for every match they played, the answers are:
Tests:
Adam Gilchrist (874)
Alan Knott (650)
Brad Haddin (623)
ODIs:
MS Dhoni (837)
Mark Boucher (622)
Rod Marsh (559)
How about those players – like Sangakkara, Flower and Stewart – who were picked as wicket-keeper for their side in at least half their total matches?
Tests:
Kumar Sangakkara (938)
Andy Flower (895)
Adam Gilchrist (874)
ODIs:
MS Dhoni (837)
Adam Gilchrist (824)
Kumar Sangakkara (755)
Before anyone says anything – early in his career, Gilchrist played five matches purely as a batsman while Ian Healy kept wicket.
Lastly, we should reserve a special place for the Honourable Alfred Lyttelton. He was picked as England’s wicket-keeper in all four of his Test Matches in the 1880s, but ironically is best remembered for an inspired bowling spell. In his final match, at The Oval in 1884, he was the tenth bowler tried in a massive Australian first innings. However, he proceeded to take four wickets for just 19 runs in 12 overs as Australia was bowled out for 551. That effort gave him a bowling Rating of 158 – the highest for anyone who has played exclusively as a Test wicket-keeper.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
England v South Africa – a tale of Number One’s
As England prepares to take on South Africa in their ODI series, there is little doubt that the home team start as favourites, despite their disappointing showing in the recent ICC Champions Trophy 2009. Little more than a month ago, England upset the Proteas by 22 runs at Centurion in that competition to extend their unbeaten run against them to six matches, their best-ever.
However, despite those recent reversals, South Africa still holds a healthy 22-16 lead in the ODI matches between the two teams, with one match tied and two no-results. It is also very much the case that South Africans have dominated the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings far more in recent years than their English counterparts.
It could be argued that England’s best days in terms of ODI Rankings performances are long behind them. When the shorter format of the international game first started in the early 1970s England players dominated with both bat and ball. Keith Fletcher and Dennis Amiss had a near-monopoly on the number one position for batsmen in the four year period from 1973 to 1977, and it was John Snow, Geoff Arnold and Chris Old who were the pre-eminent bowlers over an even longer period – stretching all the way to late 1979. However, that was as good as it got for English bowlers, and none have been able to look down on the rest of the world since Andy Roberts usurped Old in December 1979. With so little to choose between the current top ten bowlers, could Stuart Broad be the first English bowler to reach top spot for more than three decades?
For South Africa, the pickings bowling-wise are even slimmer. Admittedly, the rest of the world had already played 685 matches by the time they returned from the international wilderness in Kolkata in 1991, but only one bowler from that country has reached top spot. However – once he reached it, he spent more matches than anyone else in that position. Shaun Pollock first reached number one in December 1997 and was in that position when he retired in February 2008 after spending 844 matches – and 1,964 days on top of the world. Hopes are high that Dale Steyn – currently in sixth place and still qualifying for a full Rating – will be able to emulate his former team-mate.
Since that initial dominance from Amiss and Fletcher (and the solitary match John Edrich had as number one after the very first ODI of all) three other England batsmen have spent fleeting amounts of time on top. First was Allan Lamb, who had a brief moment in the sun after slamming 91 against India at Kanpur in October 1989. Next was Marcus Trescothick who enjoyed a fortnight at the top after scoring heavily in the home series with South Africa in the summer of 2003. And most recently it was Kevin Pietersen who achieved the feat during the 2007 World Cup and stayed there for five months.
Four South African batsmen have enjoyed the number one spot. The first was Hansie Cronje – a four-match stay in late 1994 in an era dominated by Brian Lara. Surprisingly, the honour of the highest number of batting points by any South African – and the only man to reach 900 - goes to Gary Kirsten. He achieved this after an unbeaten innings of 105 against Australia at Indore in 1996 – at the end of a period in which he hit six centuries in 21 matches. Since then both Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith have enjoyed 60-odd matches in top spot and with a good series against England, AB de Villiers could become the fifth Protea to reach the batting pinnacle.
It is in the all-rounder stakes – however – that the South Africans really come into their own. Between them, the foursome of Kallis, Pollock, Cronje and Lance Klusener have racked up 1,211 matches in top spot – all of them among the top six in the history of the game in terms of matches spent at number one. England also boasts four all-rounders who have been number one (plus John Snow who was top for two days after the second ODI ever played). However, the sum total of matches that Messrs Old, Botham, Greig and Flintoff spent there comes to just 316 in reply.
However, despite those recent reversals, South Africa still holds a healthy 22-16 lead in the ODI matches between the two teams, with one match tied and two no-results. It is also very much the case that South Africans have dominated the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings far more in recent years than their English counterparts.
It could be argued that England’s best days in terms of ODI Rankings performances are long behind them. When the shorter format of the international game first started in the early 1970s England players dominated with both bat and ball. Keith Fletcher and Dennis Amiss had a near-monopoly on the number one position for batsmen in the four year period from 1973 to 1977, and it was John Snow, Geoff Arnold and Chris Old who were the pre-eminent bowlers over an even longer period – stretching all the way to late 1979. However, that was as good as it got for English bowlers, and none have been able to look down on the rest of the world since Andy Roberts usurped Old in December 1979. With so little to choose between the current top ten bowlers, could Stuart Broad be the first English bowler to reach top spot for more than three decades?
For South Africa, the pickings bowling-wise are even slimmer. Admittedly, the rest of the world had already played 685 matches by the time they returned from the international wilderness in Kolkata in 1991, but only one bowler from that country has reached top spot. However – once he reached it, he spent more matches than anyone else in that position. Shaun Pollock first reached number one in December 1997 and was in that position when he retired in February 2008 after spending 844 matches – and 1,964 days on top of the world. Hopes are high that Dale Steyn – currently in sixth place and still qualifying for a full Rating – will be able to emulate his former team-mate.
Since that initial dominance from Amiss and Fletcher (and the solitary match John Edrich had as number one after the very first ODI of all) three other England batsmen have spent fleeting amounts of time on top. First was Allan Lamb, who had a brief moment in the sun after slamming 91 against India at Kanpur in October 1989. Next was Marcus Trescothick who enjoyed a fortnight at the top after scoring heavily in the home series with South Africa in the summer of 2003. And most recently it was Kevin Pietersen who achieved the feat during the 2007 World Cup and stayed there for five months.
Four South African batsmen have enjoyed the number one spot. The first was Hansie Cronje – a four-match stay in late 1994 in an era dominated by Brian Lara. Surprisingly, the honour of the highest number of batting points by any South African – and the only man to reach 900 - goes to Gary Kirsten. He achieved this after an unbeaten innings of 105 against Australia at Indore in 1996 – at the end of a period in which he hit six centuries in 21 matches. Since then both Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith have enjoyed 60-odd matches in top spot and with a good series against England, AB de Villiers could become the fifth Protea to reach the batting pinnacle.
It is in the all-rounder stakes – however – that the South Africans really come into their own. Between them, the foursome of Kallis, Pollock, Cronje and Lance Klusener have racked up 1,211 matches in top spot – all of them among the top six in the history of the game in terms of matches spent at number one. England also boasts four all-rounders who have been number one (plus John Snow who was top for two days after the second ODI ever played). However, the sum total of matches that Messrs Old, Botham, Greig and Flintoff spent there comes to just 316 in reply.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Test 800ers
A couple of months ago, we examined the players who had remained above the threshold of 800 points for the longest in One Day International cricket. Now, as Test Match hostilities commence between Sri Lanka and India it is time to investigate their Test Match equivalents.
The first player to reach 800 batting points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings was Clem Hill. After scoring 119 in Australia’s second innings against England in Sheffield’s only Test in July 1902, which helped his team to a convincing triumph by 143 runs, he reached 827 points, good enough to lead the batting charts by more than one hundred points. He remained the only player to have reached this high level until team-mate Victor Trumper three years later.
The bowling mark was first crossed much earlier. In fact, nine different bowlers had achieved 800 points by the time Hill did, and a tenth – Monty Noble – reached the landmark in the same Test. However, someone had to be first and that man was Joey Palmer. At Old Trafford in 1886 England may have won a narrow victory by four wickets, but Palmer took 3-41 and 1-11 in the match to follow-up his great successes on 1884 when he took 14 wickets in the three-Test series. Palmer didn’t have a long wait for company as Fred ‘the Demon’ Spofforth took 4-73 in 56 overs in the following match at Lord’s to move up to 803 points.
Since those initial trailblazers, a total of 86 batsmen and 81 bowlers have achieved that landmark of cricketing greatness – 800 points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings. Some had fleeting moments in the sun like Marcus Trescothick who enjoyed a brief 8-day period at this level in late 2005. Or John Ferris, who managed to represent both England and Australia, and enjoyed an even briefer, 5-day stay at the end of his career.
So what can the Rankings tell us about supposed ‘Golden Ages’ of cricketing batsmen or bowlers? Three times there have been nine batsmen above 800 points – all relatively recently. Matthew Hayden led the way in April 2004, Jacques Kallis led a nine-pronged attack the following year, and most recently it was Ricky Ponting whose 936 points in January 2007 headed eight other batsmen over 800 points. The last time no Test batsman enjoyed such a high standing was in February 1995 when Jimmy Adams’ 786 points were good enough for top spot.
With the ball, seven bowlers have topped 800 points at two separate times in Test history. The first was in early 1984 when Geoff Lawson, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Bob Willis, Kapil Dev, Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding were the leading seven. Not a spinner among them! In fact the leading spinner at that time was Pakistani Iqbal Qasim down in 13th place with 619 points. The other occasion bowlers ruled the world was in February 1998 when the men were Curtly Ambrose, Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald, Shane Warne, Shaun Pollock, Mushtaq Ahmed and Wasim Akram. There has always been at least one bowler above 800 points since August 1978 when Bob Willis briefly topped the charts with 792 points.
So – who of all these players managed to spend the longest time at this level of performance? Can anyone topple Donald Bradman in the batting charts and how do the modern greats compare? Here are the top ten batsmen in terms of days spent above 800 points:
Both Tendulkar and Ponting will have opportunities to move further up this list, whereas at the top it is very close for first place, but Bradman just holds off Jack Hobbs by a mere two months. Here are the bowlers:
Here, as with the batsmen, we have a nice mix of past and present stars with Sri Lankan world Test wicket record-holder Murali on top. He first moved above 800 points after taking 16 wickets at The Oval in 1998 and has scarcely dropped below that level since then. With plenty of time to go on his career, and having overtaken Bill O’Reilly earlier this year, he has the opportunity to put this particular record way out of reach.
The first player to reach 800 batting points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings was Clem Hill. After scoring 119 in Australia’s second innings against England in Sheffield’s only Test in July 1902, which helped his team to a convincing triumph by 143 runs, he reached 827 points, good enough to lead the batting charts by more than one hundred points. He remained the only player to have reached this high level until team-mate Victor Trumper three years later.
The bowling mark was first crossed much earlier. In fact, nine different bowlers had achieved 800 points by the time Hill did, and a tenth – Monty Noble – reached the landmark in the same Test. However, someone had to be first and that man was Joey Palmer. At Old Trafford in 1886 England may have won a narrow victory by four wickets, but Palmer took 3-41 and 1-11 in the match to follow-up his great successes on 1884 when he took 14 wickets in the three-Test series. Palmer didn’t have a long wait for company as Fred ‘the Demon’ Spofforth took 4-73 in 56 overs in the following match at Lord’s to move up to 803 points.
Since those initial trailblazers, a total of 86 batsmen and 81 bowlers have achieved that landmark of cricketing greatness – 800 points in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings. Some had fleeting moments in the sun like Marcus Trescothick who enjoyed a brief 8-day period at this level in late 2005. Or John Ferris, who managed to represent both England and Australia, and enjoyed an even briefer, 5-day stay at the end of his career.
So what can the Rankings tell us about supposed ‘Golden Ages’ of cricketing batsmen or bowlers? Three times there have been nine batsmen above 800 points – all relatively recently. Matthew Hayden led the way in April 2004, Jacques Kallis led a nine-pronged attack the following year, and most recently it was Ricky Ponting whose 936 points in January 2007 headed eight other batsmen over 800 points. The last time no Test batsman enjoyed such a high standing was in February 1995 when Jimmy Adams’ 786 points were good enough for top spot.
With the ball, seven bowlers have topped 800 points at two separate times in Test history. The first was in early 1984 when Geoff Lawson, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Bob Willis, Kapil Dev, Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding were the leading seven. Not a spinner among them! In fact the leading spinner at that time was Pakistani Iqbal Qasim down in 13th place with 619 points. The other occasion bowlers ruled the world was in February 1998 when the men were Curtly Ambrose, Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald, Shane Warne, Shaun Pollock, Mushtaq Ahmed and Wasim Akram. There has always been at least one bowler above 800 points since August 1978 when Bob Willis briefly topped the charts with 792 points.
So – who of all these players managed to spend the longest time at this level of performance? Can anyone topple Donald Bradman in the batting charts and how do the modern greats compare? Here are the top ten batsmen in terms of days spent above 800 points:
| Player | Total days |
| Donald Bradman | 6,480 |
| Jack Hobbs | 6,419 |
| George Headley | 6,106 |
| Garry Sobers | 5,070 |
| Walter Hammond | 4,241 |
| Viv Richards | 3,023 |
| Brian Lara | 2,791 |
| Neil Harvey | 2,516 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 2,271 |
| Ricky Ponting | 2,230 |
Both Tendulkar and Ponting will have opportunities to move further up this list, whereas at the top it is very close for first place, but Bradman just holds off Jack Hobbs by a mere two months. Here are the bowlers:
| Player | Total days |
| Muttiah Muralitharan | 3,972 |
| Bill O'Reilly | 3,843 |
| Glenn McGrath | 3,555 |
| Curtly Ambrose | 3,503 |
| Johnny Briggs | 3,185 |
| Richard Hadlee | 3,087 |
| Ray Lindwall | 2,854 |
| Malcolm Marshall | 2,763 |
| Lance Gibbs | 2,497 |
| Imran Khan | 2,398 |
Here, as with the batsmen, we have a nice mix of past and present stars with Sri Lankan world Test wicket record-holder Murali on top. He first moved above 800 points after taking 16 wickets at The Oval in 1998 and has scarcely dropped below that level since then. With plenty of time to go on his career, and having overtaken Bill O’Reilly earlier this year, he has the opportunity to put this particular record way out of reach.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
One-match Wonders
International cricket is littered with players who were only fortunate enough to represent their country on one occasion. As it currently stands, there are 386 One Test wonders, 173 One ODI wonders and 65 women have played just the solitary One Day International match. Of course, some may yet continue their international careers, but here we present a tribute to those cricketers who achieved the highest Reliance Mobile ICC Player Ranking after their fleeting moment in the sun.
Starting in the Test arena, there is a surprising name at the top of the list. Drafted into England’s team for the final Ashes match this summer, Jonathan Trott distinguished himself with 41 in the first innings before becoming the eighteenth Englishman to make a century on his Test debut second time around. That double enabled him to reach 445 points and 52nd place overall. Of course, when he plays his next Test – in all likelihood on England’s upcoming tour of South Africa – the record will revert to New Zealander Rodney Redmond, who reached 434 points after scoring 107 and 56 against Pakistan at Auckland in February 1973. He couldn’t adapt to wearing contact lenses and never represented his country again.
With the ball, it is far more clear cut. Charles “Father” Marriott was picked to play the final Test for England against the West Indies at The Oval in the summer of 1933. Things didn’t look so good when he was dismissed for a duck by Manny Martindale, but he roared back to take 5-37 and 6-59 with his leg-breaks as England triumphed by an innings and 17 runs. Marriott turned 38 before England toured India the following winter, but he wasn’t selected for any of the Tests and never played again. In a distant second place is Aubrey Smith – the only England captain to star in a Hollywood film with Elizabeth Taylor – who reached 262 points after taking seven wickets in England’s first-ever Test in South Africa in 1889.
The late 1980s and early 1990s was a time when the England selectors were notoriously fickle with their selections, so it is perhaps unsurprising that two more Englishmen top the respective lists in the shorter format of the game. Kim Barnett only played one ODI which was against Sri Lanka at The Oval in September 1988. His innings of 84 from 146 deliveries enabled England to chase down their target of 243 with fourteen balls to spare. He was rewarded with the man-of-the-match award and a Reliance Mobile ICC Player Ranking of 243, one point clear of Ashok Mankad who made 44 for India against England at The Oval in 1974.
For David “Syd” Lawrence, his career was very much a case of what might have been. Often considered too wild to be viable in limited overs cricket, he was playing just his fifth Test when his knee gave way against New Zealand at Wellington in early 1992 at the age of just twenty-eight. His solitary ODI came the previous summer against the West Indies at Lord’s when he took 4-67 in eleven overs in a West Indies total of 264-9. Graeme Hick and Neil Fairbrother added a memorable 213 as England cantered home by seven wickets. Lawrence achieved 211 points for his effort, clear of Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s 188 for his 4-50 against Australia at Perth this January.
Looking at the women’s game, the same player heads both batting and bowling charts. Patricia Whittaker made her only One Day International appearance for the West Indies against England at Worksop in July 1979. Her 3-36 in ten overs helped restrict the home side to 167-6 and she followed up with an unbeaten 40 to help her side to a narrow two-wicket victory with just two deliveries to spare. After that sole appearance her batting rating stood at 216 and her bowling rating 128. However, that was the Caribbean team’s last taste of international action until the Women’s World Cup 1993 and so thirty years on from her moment in the sun, Whittaker is still top of both tables.
Starting in the Test arena, there is a surprising name at the top of the list. Drafted into England’s team for the final Ashes match this summer, Jonathan Trott distinguished himself with 41 in the first innings before becoming the eighteenth Englishman to make a century on his Test debut second time around. That double enabled him to reach 445 points and 52nd place overall. Of course, when he plays his next Test – in all likelihood on England’s upcoming tour of South Africa – the record will revert to New Zealander Rodney Redmond, who reached 434 points after scoring 107 and 56 against Pakistan at Auckland in February 1973. He couldn’t adapt to wearing contact lenses and never represented his country again.
With the ball, it is far more clear cut. Charles “Father” Marriott was picked to play the final Test for England against the West Indies at The Oval in the summer of 1933. Things didn’t look so good when he was dismissed for a duck by Manny Martindale, but he roared back to take 5-37 and 6-59 with his leg-breaks as England triumphed by an innings and 17 runs. Marriott turned 38 before England toured India the following winter, but he wasn’t selected for any of the Tests and never played again. In a distant second place is Aubrey Smith – the only England captain to star in a Hollywood film with Elizabeth Taylor – who reached 262 points after taking seven wickets in England’s first-ever Test in South Africa in 1889.
The late 1980s and early 1990s was a time when the England selectors were notoriously fickle with their selections, so it is perhaps unsurprising that two more Englishmen top the respective lists in the shorter format of the game. Kim Barnett only played one ODI which was against Sri Lanka at The Oval in September 1988. His innings of 84 from 146 deliveries enabled England to chase down their target of 243 with fourteen balls to spare. He was rewarded with the man-of-the-match award and a Reliance Mobile ICC Player Ranking of 243, one point clear of Ashok Mankad who made 44 for India against England at The Oval in 1974.
For David “Syd” Lawrence, his career was very much a case of what might have been. Often considered too wild to be viable in limited overs cricket, he was playing just his fifth Test when his knee gave way against New Zealand at Wellington in early 1992 at the age of just twenty-eight. His solitary ODI came the previous summer against the West Indies at Lord’s when he took 4-67 in eleven overs in a West Indies total of 264-9. Graeme Hick and Neil Fairbrother added a memorable 213 as England cantered home by seven wickets. Lawrence achieved 211 points for his effort, clear of Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s 188 for his 4-50 against Australia at Perth this January.
Looking at the women’s game, the same player heads both batting and bowling charts. Patricia Whittaker made her only One Day International appearance for the West Indies against England at Worksop in July 1979. Her 3-36 in ten overs helped restrict the home side to 167-6 and she followed up with an unbeaten 40 to help her side to a narrow two-wicket victory with just two deliveries to spare. After that sole appearance her batting rating stood at 216 and her bowling rating 128. However, that was the Caribbean team’s last taste of international action until the Women’s World Cup 1993 and so thirty years on from her moment in the sun, Whittaker is still top of both tables.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Associating with the Best
It is a tough life being an Associate cricketer. Twenty-five representative teams have played official One Day Internationals, and it is often in just the major tournaments that the smaller nations have the opportunity to pitch themselves against the big boys. In that respect, it is especially hard for those players to make an impact on the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings as the matches they play are so few and far between. However, by virtue of their performances on the highest stage of all, some have managed to make their presence felt in the higher reaches of the tables.
Perhaps the greatest sustained performance by any Associate Member was Kenya’s staggering effort in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003. Buoyed by victories over Canada, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, it reached the semi-finals before it was out-gunned by a Sourav Ganguly-inspired India at Durban. It was in that tournament that opening bowler Martin Suji achieved the highest-ever Rating by an Associate Member player. He ripped out the Zimbabwean top order at Bloemfontein on his way to figures of 3-19 in eight overs to set up a convincing seven-wicket triumph. By doing so, he lifted his bowling rating to 646 – good enough for twelfth place overall in a list headed by Shaun Pollock.
Suji’s team-mate Peter Ongondo is the only other Associate player to have reached the lofty heights of 600 points with either bat or ball. In October 2007, he sneaked up to 610 after taking 3-16 and 1-10 in consecutive victories against Bermuda in Nairobi. He is still hovering around the 500-point mark with young left-arm spinner Hiren Varaiya close behind him who could possibly be the man to challenge Suji’s long-standing record. Another one to watch is Kyle McCallan of Ireland who is also currently in the top fifty with the ball.
Moving to the batsmen, one player currently stands head and shoulders above the rest and that is the Netherland’s Ryan ten Doeschate. He reached 1,000 runs in One Day International cricket in just 23 innings – a feat only surpassed by Viv Richards and Kevin Pietersen – both of whom took twenty-one. He currently stands 32nd with the bat with 593 points – the second-highest by an Associate player in the history of the game only behind Zimbabwean David Houghton.
Long before Zimbabwe were elevated to Full Member status, its batsman/wicket-keeper achieved the giddy heights of 597 points and 29th position overall after making a half-century against New Zealand at Kolkata in the Cricket World Cup 1987. Third on that particular list comes Canadian tyro Rizwan Cheema, whose big-hitting to the tune of twenty-one sixes in just eleven ODIs saw him rise to 551 points and 39th overall in August this year. In fourth is Steve Tikolo – long regarded as possibly the finest batsman outside the Test arena. The mainstay of the Kenyan batting for more than a decade, he has been incredibly consistent over that period, peaking back in 1999 at 535 after an innings of 67 against South Africa at Nairobi.
One final word on ten Doeschate. Not content with achieving the highest-ever batting Rating by a Dutch player, his bowling Rating of 473 after he bowled his side to a narrow eight-run victory over Afghanistan at Amsterdam this August is also the current national record. This unique double is without parallel for any of the other countries to play ODI cricket.
So we should celebrate these fine cricketers who – despite limited exposure to big-time cricket – have put together some great performances and thrilled crowds around the world.
Perhaps the greatest sustained performance by any Associate Member was Kenya’s staggering effort in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003. Buoyed by victories over Canada, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, it reached the semi-finals before it was out-gunned by a Sourav Ganguly-inspired India at Durban. It was in that tournament that opening bowler Martin Suji achieved the highest-ever Rating by an Associate Member player. He ripped out the Zimbabwean top order at Bloemfontein on his way to figures of 3-19 in eight overs to set up a convincing seven-wicket triumph. By doing so, he lifted his bowling rating to 646 – good enough for twelfth place overall in a list headed by Shaun Pollock.
Suji’s team-mate Peter Ongondo is the only other Associate player to have reached the lofty heights of 600 points with either bat or ball. In October 2007, he sneaked up to 610 after taking 3-16 and 1-10 in consecutive victories against Bermuda in Nairobi. He is still hovering around the 500-point mark with young left-arm spinner Hiren Varaiya close behind him who could possibly be the man to challenge Suji’s long-standing record. Another one to watch is Kyle McCallan of Ireland who is also currently in the top fifty with the ball.
Moving to the batsmen, one player currently stands head and shoulders above the rest and that is the Netherland’s Ryan ten Doeschate. He reached 1,000 runs in One Day International cricket in just 23 innings – a feat only surpassed by Viv Richards and Kevin Pietersen – both of whom took twenty-one. He currently stands 32nd with the bat with 593 points – the second-highest by an Associate player in the history of the game only behind Zimbabwean David Houghton.
Long before Zimbabwe were elevated to Full Member status, its batsman/wicket-keeper achieved the giddy heights of 597 points and 29th position overall after making a half-century against New Zealand at Kolkata in the Cricket World Cup 1987. Third on that particular list comes Canadian tyro Rizwan Cheema, whose big-hitting to the tune of twenty-one sixes in just eleven ODIs saw him rise to 551 points and 39th overall in August this year. In fourth is Steve Tikolo – long regarded as possibly the finest batsman outside the Test arena. The mainstay of the Kenyan batting for more than a decade, he has been incredibly consistent over that period, peaking back in 1999 at 535 after an innings of 67 against South Africa at Nairobi.
One final word on ten Doeschate. Not content with achieving the highest-ever batting Rating by a Dutch player, his bowling Rating of 473 after he bowled his side to a narrow eight-run victory over Afghanistan at Amsterdam this August is also the current national record. This unique double is without parallel for any of the other countries to play ODI cricket.
So we should celebrate these fine cricketers who – despite limited exposure to big-time cricket – have put together some great performances and thrilled crowds around the world.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Number Ones to Watch
The ultimate achievement for any international cricketer is to be ranked number one in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings. Not many have managed it but the upcoming Champions Trophy in South Africa will give viewers the opportunity to watch some of the all-time greats of the game who have dominated over the past decade or more. So here we present the ‘number ones to watch’ – in other words – the players who will be featuring in South Africa who at some stage have topped the ODI batting, bowling or all-rounders table, ranked by the length of time they spent at the number one spot in terms of days:
Batsmen
Ricky Ponting (547 days). He first hit the top spot after his unbeaten 57 against the West Indies at Kingston in May 2003 and fell from the number one place for the last time in March 2008 after three consecutive scores of one in the space of five days against Sri Lanka and India.
MS Dhoni (379 days). He had a one-match stay on top sandwiching Ponting and Adam Gilchrist from 19-22 April 2006 after scoring 59 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, but returned to the number one spot in August 2008 with a vengeance and has hardly been bettered since.
Sachin Tendulkar (338 days). He became the youngest player to top the ODI Batting Ratings as a 22-year-old in February 1996, and after a four-year gap managed to return to the top of the tree for five days in March 2008 after scoring 91 against Australia at the Gabba.
Michael Hussey (177 days). Mr Cricket first reached number one in September 2006 when his batting average stood at 81.75! But after a six-month stay on top his form started to dip and he fell behind team-mate Ponting and England’s Kevin Pietersen.
Graeme Smith (168 days). An unbeaten century against Bangladesh in Chittagong in early March 2008 sent the South African powerhouse to number one, and he held the position unchallenged until Dhoni snatched it away from him in August.
Jacques Kallis (150 days). Ratings-wise the 2004-5 period was Kallis’s golden period as an ODI batsman. He nudged ahead of Adam Gilchrist in February 2004 after scoring 95 not out and 139 in consecutive matches against the West Indies. He enjoyed his last day on top was in July 2005.
Sanath Jayasuriya (142 days). The original pinch-hitter really made his name in the 1996 World Cup but it wasn’t until 2002 that he topped the World Ratings. By April 2003 his time in the sun had come to an end, but he continues to ply his trade very effectively at the age of forty.
Mohammad Yousuf (2 days). Blink and you would have missed it. On 10 and 11 October 2003 the world had a new number one after the Pakistani maestro scored 60 against South Africa at Rawalpindi. However, he was out for a duck in the next match, and that was that.
Bowlers
Muttiah Muralitharan (687 days). No spinner has spent as long as the ODI number one bowler as the Sri Lankan wizard. He reached top spot following his seven for 30 against India at Sharjah in October 2000 and he was eventually overtaken for the last time by long-term team-mate Chaminda Vaas four years later.
Nuwan Kulasekara (199 days). The surprise package on the list, he has led since 3 March this year despite never having managed to break the 750 point barrier. Whether or not this points to a lack of depth in ODI bowling talent nowadays, he still enters the competition on top of the world.
Nathan Bracken (196 days). 2008 was very much Bracken’s year as the Aussie one-day specialist rose to the top of the tree in late June after an excellent series in the Caribbean. Not quite as dominant this year, but a good Champions Trophy could push him back into contention.
Daniel Vettori (189 days). The first Kiwi spinner to top either Test or ODI Bowling Ratings, he achieved this feat on 12 February 2008 during the home series with England. He was top for most of the rest of the first half of the year, before returning for another month on top in early 2009.
Brett Lee (21 days). Lee managed to upset the Glenn McGrath / Shaun Pollock double act in early 2006 albeit very briefly. Five for 22 against South Africa at Melbourne did the trick and four for 30 against the same opposition a fortnight later also helped, but Pollock recovered his form and Lee’s time at the top was done.
All-rounders
Jacques Kallis (1175 days). The world’s leading all-rounder of the decade first reached number one in March 2000 and held onto that position for the vast majority of the next three and a half years, before finally relinquishing it to Andrew Flintoff in November 2003.
Sanath Jayasuriya (336 days). His pinch-hitting exploits coupled with some canny left-arm spin carried him to the number one spot in March 1997 and he stayed there for most of the next year. However, after Shaun Pollock’s retirement in February 2008 he became the oldest man ever to top the ODI all-rounder list at 38.
Shoaib Malik (172 days). It was a Pakistani double-act for the first half of 2008 with the former captain the first to reach the number one position after a sequence of excellent performances against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. He regained it briefly from team-mate Afridi before slipping below Andrew Flintoff and Jacob Oram.
Jacob Oram (103 days). The gentle giant of Kiwi cricket enjoyed a brief week-long stay on top in February 2008 during the home series victory against England. However he returned for a longer stint after some great performances in Bangladesh in October the same year.
Shahid Afridi (18 days). Another fleeting stay for the mercurial Pakistani all-rounder whose career has been littered with innings which could be similarly described. Three for 19 against Bangladesh at Dhaka on 8 June 2008 was enough to take him top, but eighteen days later it was all over, as team-mate Shoaib Malik nudged him down to second.
Batsmen
Ricky Ponting (547 days). He first hit the top spot after his unbeaten 57 against the West Indies at Kingston in May 2003 and fell from the number one place for the last time in March 2008 after three consecutive scores of one in the space of five days against Sri Lanka and India.
MS Dhoni (379 days). He had a one-match stay on top sandwiching Ponting and Adam Gilchrist from 19-22 April 2006 after scoring 59 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, but returned to the number one spot in August 2008 with a vengeance and has hardly been bettered since.
Sachin Tendulkar (338 days). He became the youngest player to top the ODI Batting Ratings as a 22-year-old in February 1996, and after a four-year gap managed to return to the top of the tree for five days in March 2008 after scoring 91 against Australia at the Gabba.
Michael Hussey (177 days). Mr Cricket first reached number one in September 2006 when his batting average stood at 81.75! But after a six-month stay on top his form started to dip and he fell behind team-mate Ponting and England’s Kevin Pietersen.
Graeme Smith (168 days). An unbeaten century against Bangladesh in Chittagong in early March 2008 sent the South African powerhouse to number one, and he held the position unchallenged until Dhoni snatched it away from him in August.
Jacques Kallis (150 days). Ratings-wise the 2004-5 period was Kallis’s golden period as an ODI batsman. He nudged ahead of Adam Gilchrist in February 2004 after scoring 95 not out and 139 in consecutive matches against the West Indies. He enjoyed his last day on top was in July 2005.
Sanath Jayasuriya (142 days). The original pinch-hitter really made his name in the 1996 World Cup but it wasn’t until 2002 that he topped the World Ratings. By April 2003 his time in the sun had come to an end, but he continues to ply his trade very effectively at the age of forty.
Mohammad Yousuf (2 days). Blink and you would have missed it. On 10 and 11 October 2003 the world had a new number one after the Pakistani maestro scored 60 against South Africa at Rawalpindi. However, he was out for a duck in the next match, and that was that.
Bowlers
Muttiah Muralitharan (687 days). No spinner has spent as long as the ODI number one bowler as the Sri Lankan wizard. He reached top spot following his seven for 30 against India at Sharjah in October 2000 and he was eventually overtaken for the last time by long-term team-mate Chaminda Vaas four years later.
Nuwan Kulasekara (199 days). The surprise package on the list, he has led since 3 March this year despite never having managed to break the 750 point barrier. Whether or not this points to a lack of depth in ODI bowling talent nowadays, he still enters the competition on top of the world.
Nathan Bracken (196 days). 2008 was very much Bracken’s year as the Aussie one-day specialist rose to the top of the tree in late June after an excellent series in the Caribbean. Not quite as dominant this year, but a good Champions Trophy could push him back into contention.
Daniel Vettori (189 days). The first Kiwi spinner to top either Test or ODI Bowling Ratings, he achieved this feat on 12 February 2008 during the home series with England. He was top for most of the rest of the first half of the year, before returning for another month on top in early 2009.
Brett Lee (21 days). Lee managed to upset the Glenn McGrath / Shaun Pollock double act in early 2006 albeit very briefly. Five for 22 against South Africa at Melbourne did the trick and four for 30 against the same opposition a fortnight later also helped, but Pollock recovered his form and Lee’s time at the top was done.
All-rounders
Jacques Kallis (1175 days). The world’s leading all-rounder of the decade first reached number one in March 2000 and held onto that position for the vast majority of the next three and a half years, before finally relinquishing it to Andrew Flintoff in November 2003.
Sanath Jayasuriya (336 days). His pinch-hitting exploits coupled with some canny left-arm spin carried him to the number one spot in March 1997 and he stayed there for most of the next year. However, after Shaun Pollock’s retirement in February 2008 he became the oldest man ever to top the ODI all-rounder list at 38.
Shoaib Malik (172 days). It was a Pakistani double-act for the first half of 2008 with the former captain the first to reach the number one position after a sequence of excellent performances against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. He regained it briefly from team-mate Afridi before slipping below Andrew Flintoff and Jacob Oram.
Jacob Oram (103 days). The gentle giant of Kiwi cricket enjoyed a brief week-long stay on top in February 2008 during the home series victory against England. However he returned for a longer stint after some great performances in Bangladesh in October the same year.
Shahid Afridi (18 days). Another fleeting stay for the mercurial Pakistani all-rounder whose career has been littered with innings which could be similarly described. Three for 19 against Bangladesh at Dhaka on 8 June 2008 was enough to take him top, but eighteen days later it was all over, as team-mate Shoaib Malik nudged him down to second.
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