Tuesday 5 January 2010

Years Of The Bat

Bowlers, those poor saps, have never had it so bad. Or maybe they've never bowled so badly. A quick glance at the Test figures for 2009 prompted this entirely arbitrary and unscientific bit of research:

Year: 2009
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 27
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 7

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 9
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 15

Year: 2005
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 18
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 7

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 15
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 22

Year: 2000
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 16
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 2

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 9
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 29

Year: 1990
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 11
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 1

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 8
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 14

Year: 1980
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 5
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 0

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 9
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 21

Year: 1970
No. of batsmen averaging more than 50: 8
No. of batsmen making 1000+ runs in the calendar year: 0

No. of bowlers taking more than 30 wickets: 0
No. of bowlers averaging less than 30 per wicket: 6

Notes:
i] I've only counted the 50+ averages of those who've scored more than 250 runs, and the bowling averages of those who've taken more than 10 wickets

ii] In 2005, Shane Warne took 96 wickets [!]

iii] In 2000, Andy Flower was one of the two batsmen to make 1000+ runs, from just 9 Tests

iv] The amount of runs and wickets becomes less relevant the further back you go, purely because of the lower number of Tests played.

v] In 1970, pre-ODIs, the most Tests played by any one player was six. Ian Redpath made the most runs in the year - 530.

vi] It's interesting to try and weigh say Boycott's average of 47.72 against for example Gautam Gambhir's 56.73 [and that's not to diminish the excellent Gautam].

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lost your email - happy birthday for tomorrow. Message me if you have time. Sarah

Tim Newman said...

On the same subject, did you happen to read this?

The Old Batsman said...

Didn't see that, thanks. That's what you can do when you research it properly!