Black Cap collapses, and the Brown Bradman
Perhaps numbers never do reveal the full story, but they tell a large part of it
Five Test matches in a row against Australia usually does nothing to help a team's confidence levels, and it certainly hasn't done much for New Zealand. Four times they were thrashed, and were saved once only because the weather gods took pity. New Zealand sparkled once, though, in the first match of the return leg at Christchurch, when they first had the temerity to amass 433, and then take five Australian wickets for only 160. Then, after an Adam Gilchrist-led revival, came an aspect of New Zealand's cricket that has been as infuriating for their supporters as it has been encouraging for the opposition - the inevitable second-innings collapse.
Runs per wkt since 2003 | 1st innings | 2nd innings | Difference |
New Zealand | 43.66 | 21.41 | 22.25 |
India | 47.17 | 30.94 | 16.23 |
South Africa | 48.70 | 33.97 | 14.73 |
Sri Lanka | 40.56 | 29.71 | 10.85 |
West Indies | 37.69 | 28.50 | 9.19 |
Zimbabwe | 28.10 | 22.45 | 6.65 |
Bangladesh | 24.87 | 20.37 | 4.50 |
Australia | 46.63 | 42.57 | 4.06 |
Pakistan | 33.87 | 30.86 | 3.01 |
England | 36.79 | 41.04 | -4.26 |
201, 173, 164, 155, 309, 195. These have been Virender Sehwag's last six Test centuries. A few years back, the common perception was that Sehwag was a cavalier, hit-or-miss cricketer, who'd throw it away after getting starts, who wouldn't put any value to his wicket. Not many would make those allegations against him now. Sehwag has so far scored ten centuries in 34 Tests - that's a hundred every 3.4 Tests, which puts him seventh in the all time list - but even more impressive is the contribution of hundreds to his overall aggregate. Sehwag's ten centuries add up to 1685 runs, which is 54.73% of his total runs. Only Don Bradman and the Black Bradman have a higher percentage of runs in hundreds.
Hundreds | 100s aggregate/ total aggregate | Percentage | |
Bradman | 29 | 5393/ 6996 | 77.09 |
George Headley | 10 | 1484/ 2190 | 67.76 |
Sehwag | 10 | 1685/ 3079 | 54.73 |
Walcott | 15 | 2000/ 3798 | 52.66 |
Amiss | 11 | 1879/ 3612 | 52.02 |
Tendulkar | 34 | 5196/ 10134 | 51.27 |
Hundreds | Ave of 100s | |
Bradman | 29 | 185.97 |
Zaheer | 12 | 179.83 |
Lara | 26 | 175 |
Amiss | 11 | 170.82 |
Sehwag | 10 | 168.50 |
Jaysuriya | 14 | 168.29 |
After playing out of their skins to draw the Test series, Pakistan will go into the one-dayers believing they can win. And what'll give them confidence is the strength of their lower middle order - the Shoaib Maliks and the Abdul Razzaqs - who have regularly converted totals of 160 after 40 overs into 250-plus scores.
ODIs since 2003 | ODIs batting first | Ave in 1st 40/ last 10 | Ave total |
Pakistan | 27 | 166/ 75 | 241 |
South Africa | 17 | 166/ 75 | 241 |
Australia | 34 | 191/ 74 | 265 |
West Indies | 11 | 184/ 72 | 256 |
England | 19 | 161/ 63 | 224 |
Sri Lanka | 20 | 180/ 60 | 240 |
India | 23 | 180/ 58 | 238 |
New Zealand | 17 | 158/ 57 | 215 |