The darkest day in Pakistan's cricket history

I went for lunch in the afternoon and I got a call from my colleague. I was shocked by hearing the news of attack on Sri Lankan cricketers. This is a obnoxious act from the Pakistani terrorists. Any game will have some ethics and most important of them would be nobody should lose their life over a game. This is such a cheap act and this would not fulfill any purpose for the terrorists. I hope this would be the start of their downfall. This will definitely affect both Pakistani cricket as well as the Pakistani government very badly.

After India opting out of the series, Sri Lanka was the team who filled this gap. But I would not call them a brave team to go there. They just went there to get the money into their board. They should have been more cautious before taking such a decision. As there are no causalities this doesn't seem as bad as it looks, but what if there was a causality of a big name? As Indians know about these issues in Pakistan they have taken a wise decision of opting out of this series. After this incident the Sri Lankan team would deserve some sympathy.

As Pakistan government has promised security measures for the players, after such and incident questions will inevitably be asked about their security arrangements. This tour was a high profile one and many were following this because of the controversy of not going to Pakistan. I did not understand how they could simply ruin away this chance of proving their country to be safe. Now the main question would be what do Pakistani security guarantees count for?

After this incident no international team will visit Pakistan for any sort of series or tournament. The PCB can only use some neutral venues to play or arrange all their future tours. This day is definitely the darkest day in the history of Pakistan cricket. I would say this is the end of any international cricket in Pakistan for next many years.

Paes win US Open mixed doubles title

Finally after 2 years an Indian player have again shown some talent in Grand slam. The last I saw was the 2006 US and Australian Open Mixed doubles titles that Paes and Bhupati have won respectively. Hope next year we see more of these.

A Tribute to Sir Donald Bradman

1. Best ever batting performance in a test

During 2001, Wisden came out with a list of the 100 best Test innings of all time. Don Bradman's 270 played at Melbourne in 1937 was adjudged the best ever test innings. This was closely follwed by Lara's match-winning 153* and Gooch's 154*.

Playing on a gluepot, Bradman declared at 200 for 9 and Gubby Allen countered by declaring at 76 for 9. The wicket was still very difficult and Bradman sent his tailenders in. Soon they were 97 for 5. Then Bradman and Fingleton added 346 for the sixth wicket, . Bradman continued on and was ninth out at 270. England fought gamely but lost by a big margin. A tactical battle which was won by Bradman, the captain and he also led from the front. A potted summary of the match is given below.

Test # 257. Australia vs England.
Played on 1,2,4,5,6,7 January 1937
at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Australia won by 365 runs.
Australia: 200 for 9 wkt(s)
England: 76 for 9 wkt(s)
Australia: 564 all out (Bradman 270, Fingleton 136)
England: 323 all out

2. The best 10-innings stretch

Bradman's best 10-innings stretch was during 1937-46, when he scored 1236 runs at an average of 154.50

The scores were 212, 169, 51, 144*, 18, 102*, 103, 16, 187 and 234.

Also relevant here is "Alex"'s comment, reproduced below.

Also, regarding the 'best 10-innings stretch'. Bradman scored 1370 runs in 10 innings during 1930 and 1931: 131, 254, 1, 334, 14, 232, 4, 25, 223, 152. There were no not-outs during this period however, so his average was 'only' 137.0.

3. The worst 10-innings stretch

Bradman's worst 10-innings stretch started during the second body line test during 1932-33 and continued until 1934 when he scored 426 runs (in 11 innings) at an average of 38.72. He finished this streak with his monumental 304 at Headingley during 1934.

The scores were 8, 66, 76, 24, 48, 71, 29, 25, 36, 13 and 30.

4. Highest average reached (after 10 innings)

Bradman reached his highest career average of 112.29 after the Adelaide Test against South Africa, in which he scored 299*.

5. Lowest average reached (after 10 innings)

Bradman reached his lowest career average, after passing the initial period of 10 tests, of 89.56 after the Old Trafford Test against England during 1934. Not surprisingly this was the end of his worst streak, referred to elsewhere in this article.

6. When the average of 100.00 was reached

Surprisingly Bradman did not have a great start to his career. He reached an average of 100.00 (agreed very few have ever touched this milestone) only after 15 innings

7. Quality of opposition bowling

Surprisingly the bowling Bradman faced in his career was slightly below all time average. 29.62 against 29.50. However it must be noted that he faced this level of bowling almost all the time. The all-time average arrived consists of 40s and 20s scattered across the 1800 odd Test matches.

8. Runs scored in each batting position

Batting Position      3      4      5       6      7
Runs scored         5078    485    427     681    325
Batting Average    103.63  53.89  142.33  97.29  162.50

The No. 7 total is bolstered by that amazing innings of 270 referred to elsewhere in this article.

9. Analysis by batting position

Bradman's Batting Position Average is 3.65, indicating that he batted at No. 3 most of the time. For the record he batted at No. 3 a total of 56 times (70%).

10. Analysis of 100s

This is the one measure where he has yielded to a contemporary batsman. The average of the 29 hundreds Bradman has scored in Test cricket is a very high 185.97. Till a few weeks back, he was the No.1 batsman in this regard. Sehwag overtook this figure with his 319 at Chennai. However Bradman's 100s frequency of 1.8 Tests per hundred is way ahead of any one else.

11. Home/Away runs scored

Not so surprisingly, considering his success in England, Bradman's away performance is superior to his Australian performances. He has scored 2674 runs away at an average of 102.85 while in Australia, he has scored 4322 runs at an average of 98.22.

12. How far ahead of the next

Just to show how far ahead Bradman is of the other batsmen, a relative scale table is shown below.

Measure          Bradman     %    Next Best    %     Difference

Batting Avge      99.96    100.0    68.38    68.47     31.53    (Hussey)
Runs per test    134.53    100.0    99.54    74.00     26.00    (Headley)
Tests per 100      1.79    100.0     2.20    81.00     19.00    (Headley)
Inns per 100       2.76    100.0     4.00    69.00     31.00    (Headley)

13. Man of the Match awards

Hey what is this, no Man of the Match awards were given when Bradman played. True. So I have gone through the scorecards and using the Innings Rating points, determined which player could have got the MOM awards, if these were given. Bradman would have got no less than 16 MOM awards in the 52 tests played, a frequency of 3.25 tests per award. Compare this with the current leaders. The best is a frequency of 6.00.

Kallis         123     20    6.15
Muralitharan   123     19    6.47
Wasim Akram    104     17    6.12
Shane Warne    145     17    8.52
Ambrose         84     14    6.00

14. Movement of averages

Finally a footnote. I am not sure whether I would jump with joy if someone, as reported recently, conclusively proved that Bradman scored those elusive four runs, by mistake credited to Jack Ryder, during 1929. The figure of 99.94 is etched into the memory of people and sounds far better than 100.00. It also confirms a nice human element to one pervceived to be a super-human.