She's Out!

An amazing thing happened in the Women’s Provincial League match between KwaZulu-Natal and South Western Districts at Chatsworth last weekend: Johmari Logtenberg got out.

This is the first time since the 2003/04 season that she has been dismissed before January in this competition. In 2004/05 she was dismissed (for 110) on 15 January in her 5th innings of the season. She made 377 runs before being dismissed that season. In 2005/06 she was not dismissed until 1 April in her 9th and final innings of the season, having made 464 runs before this dismissal. And, last season she was not dismissed until 25 February in her 4th innings, having scored 227 runs before being dismissed.

Her career record in 29 matches in this competition is 1462 runs at an average of 146.20. She has been not out 17 times in 27 innings and scored 3 centuries and 11 fifties.

Sir Donald would be impressed.

Nelson, Nelson and Nelson

Pete le Grange has pointed out that Western Province lost wickets on 111, 222 and 333 in their second innings of their South African Airways Provincial Three-day Challenge match against KwaZulu-Natal at Cape Town last weekend. With the help of CricketArchive, I can reveal that, as far as can be ascertained, this is the first time in first-class cricket that wickets have fallen on each of these scores in the same innings. I wonder what Napoleon would have made of this?

In Test cricket a total of 175 wickets have fallen on 111, but a few more (186) have fallen on 112. Do players relax slightly on getting past 111? Or, as is more likely, is it pure coincidence? If you are Australian you may be interested to know that your team have only lost 23 wickets on 87 while losing 31 on 86 and 29 on 88.

There are two occasions in Test cricket where a team has lost 3 wickets on 111: South Africa v England at Lord’s, Durban in 1913/14 and England v South Africa at Lord’s (the one in London) in 1955. In the first example it was South Africa’s last three wickets of their second innings that fell on 111 to end the game, while in the second case England lost 3 wickets on 111 in their first innings. Somewhat weirdly, this match ended with South Africa losing their last two wickets in the second innings on 111 (these were the 8th and 9th wickets as Jack Cheetham did not return from retiring hurt). This one may be beyond even Napoleonic explanation.

In first-class cricket, Ireland lost 4 wickets on 111 v Derbyshire at Buxton in 1947 and Transvaal B did likewise against Rhodesia at Salisbury in 1970/71. And in 1988 at Nuneaton, Warwickshire lost 5 wickets on 222 against Lancashire. What would Richie have made of that?

NFL at Wembley

I see the New York Giants are playing the Miami Dolphins in an NFL (American Football) game at Wembley this weekend. Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? Or, the beginning of civilization as we know it? Or both? Or neither?

West Indies Under-19

For those who may not have noticed, West Indies Under-19 lived up to their name by being bowled out for 18 by Barbados in a KFC Cup game last week. This is the lowest List A total ever.

The Partnership Breakers

“He is a good partnership breaker, isn’t he?” We have all heard this statement quite often when a bowler like Sourav Ganguly or Paul Collingwood comes on to bowl. Most notably a TV commentator once said it as Collingwood was coming on to bowl. His career stats flashed on the screen. At that stage he had a career record of 0 for about 200. “So which partnership did he break then?”

So, who are the partnership breakers of Test cricket? We can work out the average partnership broken. The clear leader of bowlers with 20 or more wickets is former England captain Norman Yardley. He took 21 wickets at an average of 33.66 in 20 Tests. But more significantly the average partnership that he broke was 92.19. This is well clear of 2nd placed Viv Richards’ average of 67.18 for his 32 wickets. The top five are:

Name	Years	Wkts	TotParts	AvgPart
NWD Yardley (Eng)	1938-1950	21	1936	92.19
IVA Richards (WI)	1974-1991	32	2150	67.18
GA Hick (Eng)	1991-2001	23	1524	66.26
RR Sarwan (WI)	2000-2007	23	1465	63.69
CD McMillan (NZ)	1997-2005	28	1707	60.96

Yardley, incidentally, was also the first captain to be dismissed for 99 in a Test which he did against South Africa at Nottingham in 1947.

Paul Collingwood now has 6 Test wickets with quite a decent Average Partnership Broken of 57.16. Ganguly’s figure is a lower, but still respectable 44.53 for 28 wickets.

Strike-rates in declared 3rd innings

When teams are looking to declare in the 3rd innings and set a target it obviously helps if you can score your runs quickly. We have already seen in the earlier post which players have good averages. Now, let’s look at players for whom we have full details of balls faced in their career with over 500 runs in declared 3rd innings in Test cricket. Kumar Sangakkara has the highest strike-rate here of 64.95, followed by Inzamam-ul-Haq (63.70) and Sanath Jayasuriya (63.69). Perhaps of more interest though is the degree to which the batsman can increase his strike-rate in this situation. So, ranking these players by the difference in their 3rd innings strike-rate and their overall strike-rates the leader is Graham Thorpe, who scored 959 runs in 16 declared 3rd innings at an average of 106.55 and a strike-rate of 58.76 compared to his career strike-rate of 45.89. The following are the top five:

Name	Decl 3rd inns	Career	Difference
GP Thorpe (Eng)	58.76	45.89	12.87
SC Ganguly (Ind)	62.43	49.68	12.75
WJ Cronje (SA)	55.94	44.50	11.44
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pak)	63.70	54.00	9.70
Younis Khan (Pak)	63.30	53.75	9.55

At the other end of the scale Justin Langer has a strike-rate of 46.48 in declared 3rd innings, which is 7.75 lower than his career 54.23 and Herschelle Gibbs is 45.49 compared to a career 50.07. Not surprisingly, it seems that batting lower down the order when the declaration is imminent helps here rather than opening the batting when the game may still be in the balance.

If we decrease the qualification to 300 runs an interesting name appears at the top: Freshly retired Craig McMillan scored 305 runs in 5 declared 3rd innings at a strike-rate of 79.63 which is 24.71 ahead of his career strike-rate of 54.92.

And Jacques Kallis? His strike –rate is 44.08, slightly higher than his career figure of 43.13.

Bradman celebration

On 6 August next year Sir Donald Bradman would have been 99 years, 345 days old had he been alive. What, you may well ask, is the significance of this? Well, 345 is 0.94 of 366 (next year being a leap year). So, Bradman would have been 99.94 years old on this day.

Now, his centenary is on 27 August 2008. But, I submit that 6 August 2008 is a far more appropriate day to celebrate the great man.

So, where’s the party?