Butting in Again

My previous post below, "Butting in with Boundaries", generated some observations from readers. Soulberry asked how do openers compare with late order batsmen in terms of percentage of runs scored in boundaries, and NAzhar mentioned that number of balls taken for every 4 hit would be a telling statistic.

I've done some work on both. Considering that I concluded in the last post that it was more remarkable to have a higher percentage of runs through 4s in ODIs than in tests, I have restricted this analysis to only ODIs.

First to NAzhar's observation. Using the same database as last time (list of batsmen with most 4s in their career), I calculated how many balls each batsmen faces for every 4 he hits. This is what the top 10 looks like:

I didn't find any batsman that hits a 4 every over. Sehwag and Gilchrist do so every over and a half, while all the big 4 hitters hit one every 2 overs. Another interesting thing to note here is that all the batsmen in the above list, apart from Yuvraj, are openers. Thus, if any of these batsmen bat the full 50 overs, they will hit at least 25 boundaries.

The record for most boundaries in an ODI innings is 24, held by Jayasuriya who averages a 4 every 10 balls. In that innings he faced 104 balls for his 157 - 61.1% of runs through 4s and a 4 hit every 4.3 balls. Remarkable indeed.

Salman Butt, who led me to work all these numbers, averages 10.5 balls for every 4 he hits. That puts him next to Herchelle Gibbs on the above list. Remember he sits only behind Sehwag in terms of percentage of runs through 4s. Thats no measure of greatness, but a measure nonetheless.

As for Soulberry's enquiry, I thought it was woo much work to do. But just from observation, I can safely say that openers have a higher percentage of runs from boundaries than middle-late order batsmen. The difference ranges from 5%-10%. Fielding restrictions in the opening overs is the obvious reason for this.

Salman Butt -we want you to be known as the best left handed opener Pakistan ever had - Go live your dream and become our next Saeed Anwar.

Rambling on and on...

A couple of days back Obaid came back from his long hiatus and now I return from a mini one after the UAE national day celebrations. I followed both the tests this week and saw Murali create a world record, Misbah announce his arrival in grand style, Akmal save his test career, Jayasuriya announce his test retirement, and Younis Khan play a captain's innings among other things. I'll talk a bit about each of this below.

Muralitharan
Whatever I say about him is not enough. Only 15 years ago the Lankans were the bunnies of international cricket - to have a world record holder among their ranks is something to be damn proud of. Although I am a diehard Shane Warne fan, Murali's feat is extraordinary and deserves credit. I am so tempted to pull out stats to prove why Warne was better than Murali but I think I'll leave that for another blog.

Kamran Akmal
The boy played a gem. This was his 5th 100 and no other Paki keeper has scored as many - that's some achievement. This is the 3rd time in as many test series (2005 Mohali, 2006 Karachi, and now) that he's played an innings to bail Pakistan out of trouble against India and help win or save a test. Again, that's some achievement. Despite his atrocious wicketkeeping, this innings has definitely secured his place in the team for another year.

Misbah-ul-Haq

He arrived at the crease when Pakistan were 85-3 in the 28th over before lunch on the 3rd day. Yousuf had just been bowled by Harbhajan and Pakistan were staring at a possible follow on and a likely innings defeat. 124 overs and 371 runs later, Misbah was still at the crease as Pakistan's innings folded. He had faced 59 of those overs and scored 161 of those runs in an innings that would have made the old Ul-Haq, the man he replaced, immensely proud. Its been a long time since I have watched such level of grit, determination, and patience from a Paki batsman in test cricket. Rameez Raja is tipping him to take over as captain of the side in 6 months if he maintains his form. I wonder if that will be a good move.

Sanath Jayasuriya
The selectors had given him an ultimatum and I think he made the right decision. Not many Asians get to retire in grace and I'm glad the trend is changing after PCB set the 'farewell test' in motion. First Atapattu and now Jayasuriya - both have bid goodbye on a high with 80 odds in their final test innings. We're lucky to have him around in the ODIs and smash those balls past point and cover for SIX!!

Younis Khan

He seems to be more in control on the field than Malik and leads from the front while batting as well. Today he scored a flawless 100 to ensure that Pakistan battles out a draw - thats the 2nd time he's done that in the last 3 tests to save Pakistan from defeat. 3 hundreds in the last 4 tests and Younis is becoming ever dependable. Anand Vasu has put it aptly that he is a reluctant captain, but a capable leader. Even though he deserves it, I doubt he would captain the side for a longer term, especially after his recent outburst against a captain's lack of control.

Thats all the rambling I had to do. Some other stuff that I enjoyed was Jaffer reminding me of a young Azharuddin, Kaneria bowling Sachin with a googly, Sami showing why he demands to bat higher up in the domestic season, and Sangakkara show the English what the Aussies experienced some time back. What an innings he played today. SL will most probably go 1 up tomorrow. I also watched Gibbs take the Kiwi attack apart with 7 sixes and a bit of the ICL where Inzi seems to be in amazing batting form.

Bangalore in 4 days. Kumble's home town. India looking to win the series and Pakistan looking to draw and keep their record in India intact. Pakistan hasn't lost a series there in 30 years and they wouldn't want to now either.