The edge of greatness: Cricket’s '49 club' and how close they came to the coveted 50 average in Tests

Now … let’s examine your parroted claim that Mark used to get out in the 60s to benign deliveries. Three innings spring to mind: his 99 in first innings of match at Lords in 1993, his 15 in 3rd innings of match in Brisbane in 1994-95 and his 61 in first innings of match in Melbourne in 1995-96. In all three innings, he played a seemingly outrageous shot and threw his wicket away when he supposedly had the bowling at his mercy. We will look specifically at the position in which Mark’s dismissal left Australia placed in each match … The 99: The two batsmen already dismissed ahead of him had scored 152 and 111, and the other of the top 3 who went in ahead of him finished 164 not out, and the two who batted below him scored 77 and 13 not out. Mark’s dismissal left Australia at 3 for 452 in an eventual team total of 4 for 632 declared, so it is downright impossible to mount an argument that Mark jeopardised Australia’s fortunes. He just got bored because the situation was not in any way even remotely challenging enough for him. The 15: why Mark Taylor declined to enforce the follow on is a complete mystery, had he done so, Australia would have left with a mop up task in 4th innings of 65, so it’s unlikely Mark would have even got a second bat. His infamous reverse sweep left Australia 3 for +398, a mere 20 runs away from forcing the opposition to have to score more in subsequent 4th innings than has ever been successfully chased down in test cricket to this very day. Once again, it is impossible to mount an argument that Mark jeopardised Australia’s fortunes, in fact his 140 in the first innings had been one of only three scores above 50 across the whole of that completely bowled out first-up team total of 426. The 61: Mark went in at 2 for 116 after lunch on first day. This does not represent pressure in a home test against an absolute minnow, but as the game is in its very early stages, Mark made a contribution before playing another of those outrageous shots to leave Australia comfortably placed at 3 for 219. Once again, there was no genuine challenge for him in terms of the match situation and he got bored. From there, Australia had a mere 40 or so runs to mop up in 4th innings after Sri Lanka followed on, and given Australia lost a mere 6 wickets in that first innings, it’s pretty impossible to claim that every single one of Steve’s ‘cool’ 131 not out was priceless to Australia’s fortunes in the match. All you need to do is think where would it have left Australia placed in such an easy setting had Steve done the exact same thing on 61? Wouldn’t have jeopardised Australia’s position in the match one little bit. Now … these are the occasions that spring to my mind – if you can quote me others, by all means, let me have them, and I’ll look into the surrounding circumstances … Moving on … these are situations in which Mark DID NOT play outrageous shots to throw it away: 5 for 124 v England in Adelaide 1990-91, 3 for -44 v South Africa in Durban 1994, 3 for 73 v West Indies in Kingston 1995, 2 for 30 chasing 270 to win in 4th innings in Port Elizabeth 1997 (a total Australia had not successfully chased in two decades), 2 down, 100 overs still to survive v South Africa in Adelaide 1997-98, 3 for +180 v Pakistan in Karachi 1998, a country Australia had not won a series in for 39 years, and 3 for 52 v England in Sydney 1998-99. Now … what do all those situations in the preceding paragraph have in common apart from all of them being excruciating pressure situations? THEY WERE ALL DECIDING TESTS IN SERIES and just look at the opponents: all of them either Ashes cricket or the top three attacks of the 1990s. What were Mark’s scores in these critical situations? 138, 113 not out, 126, 116, 305 balls faced to deny opposition series a squaring victory, 117 and 121. His average strike rate in the six innings excluding the 305 balls one was 57.7. In the Adelaide innings on the last day against South Africa, 100 balls to burn up was par for each of the 1-6 batsmen plus another 60 for keeper Healy, Mark, the only one of the seven undefeated at the end made 3.05 x par, next best was Steve, a mere 0.93. Those other six counting Healy superseded between them the 305 balls Mark absorbed by a mere 12. Now here’s the other thing: in those seven series defining innings, there were a mere seven other half centuries in total – a mere one per innings – and only one other century in any of the seven innings. Six of those seven series deciding tons came in the period between 1993 Ashes and 1999 in the West Indies and this involved 18 test series of 3, 4, 5 and 6 tests duration. Apart from the six tons in the series deciders, Mark also scored 50 or more on 11 other occasions – let that sink in for a moment: during one of Australia’s most dominant eras, Mark made 17 scores of 50 or more in 18 successive series deciding tests, the times he got out between 52 and 86, the team was not in anywhere near as much trouble as in those situations I outlined for the tons. And yet, bleating sheep choose to zero in on a meaningless raw average of only 41.8, a highest score of only 153, even though we have ascertained that his team only needed him to score more than this on one solitary occasion among the 20 test tons he scored. These numbers merely represent the tip of the iceberg, but let’s look at what dragged his average down, apart from the low percentage of not outs, and we have also ascertained that on the majority of small number of occasions his team needed him to remain not out, he did so. Mark played in three high scoring draws in which bowlers from neither side were ever a chance of snaring 20 opposition wickets for scores of 57, 36, 43 and 42. One of these was the pointless bore fest in Peschawar 1998 in which 1468 runs were scored for only 18 wickets falling over five full days of test cricket. Do you think Mark should have expanded pointless energy racking up an impressive looking 243 or even 342 in such meaningless circumstances? Finally, there were 10 rain ruined tests across Mark’s career, games in which so much time was lost, there was never any hope of either side snaring 20 opposition wickets. Mark’s scores in these matches were: 64, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, 84, 33, 10, 13, 0 and 12. These are the kinds of nothing situations players like David Warner love to use to bloat their stats with meaningless unbeaten tons, whereas Mark had not a single score higher than 84 and a half ton only every 5.3 innings compared to his overall career number of 3.1, which obviously decreases if we eliminate the afore outlined types of situations that simply did not matter at any individual batsman’s level. Another rich source of stat bloating that players like Warner exploit is going into a 3rd innings already well and truly in control of the match courtesy of a large first innings lead. Again, in this particular type of situation, Mark did not register any score higher than 78, and along with 3rd innings lost causes where nothing anyone did was ever going to matter, Mark reached 50 a mere 8 times in 41 innings. So eliminating these high scoring draws, rain ruined draws and 3rd innings situations where runs from any specific individual batsman were completely non-critical, Mark’s innings per 50+ score already reduces to 2.8 for his remaining 155 test innings. Mark has outstanding numbers for genuine pressure situations, as does Steve, but when a situation reached crisis levels, he displayed a genuine Bradmanesque domination over his team mates, including Steve. There were 18 team innings of legitimate crisis in Mark’s career, and he scored 5 of the 8 tons scored, the others being one each to Mark Taylor, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist, as well as 8 of the 25 scores over 50. It is not a matter of Mark over Steve or vice versa in anyone’s team. It is a matter of if either one of them had not been born, or simply chosen another sport, Australia would have ranked no higher than 3rd in test cricket in the 1994-2001 period, with both of West Indies and South Africa comfortably above us, and possibly Pakistan as well. We would have also have had to settle for a drawn series in at least one of those eight successive Ashes series wins and would not have registered a ground breaking individual test match victory in India either in 1998, to set up for a much more disciplined effort three years later. Although Steve didn’t actually even play in that aforementioned ground breaking test match win in India 1998, having both Waughs from 1994 onwards was every bit as vital as having both Warne and McGrath. The only two Australian batsmen from the subsequent post 2000 generation you might rate fractionally higher than Mark are Ponting and Steve Smith, and I’d even baulk slightly at that one, somewhat; the only others even anywhere near as highly, Adam Gilchrist, and possibly Michael Clarke.

Here's something else I noticed: Greg Chappell scored his 23rd test ton in his 84th test and 147th innings at age 35. Viv Richards scored his 23rd test ton in his 101st test but only 149th innings at age 36. This would seem to lend a lot of weight to what I said in my previous comment about the strength of your bowling attack, or lack off, being a major determiner in how many 2nd innings opportunities you get in tests to score tons.

Your biggest problem Mike is that you seem to think that every batsman goes to the wicket every time with the main aim on his mind of beefing up his oh so precious stats. Viv was one of a handful that could not have cared less about his personal numbers, only cared about winning matches for his team. But for the sake of your all-important stats, Viv Richards scored his 17th test ton in mid-1984 in his 64th test, and only 95th innings. Something for you to think about: batsmen in powerful teams usually only get to bat once, or at least rarely get a second chance in same match to score a ton. Richards was 32 at the point of his 17th ton, his last 7 test tons came in 57 tests, Ponting first 33 in 107, his last 8 in 61. These two played to 39 and 38 respectively, Greg Chappell only to 35. If he had played to either of those two ages, it’s a fair assumption his century scoring would have diminished just as much. Chappell’s 24 were in 151 innings, or one every 6.3 innings, Viv’s in 182 innings or one every 7.6. To get a far more accurate idea, we would need to sift through every second innings of their respective teams and weed out the occasions where they didn’t have enough time remaining in the team innings to get anywhere near 100, such as chasing a small target, or limited time before declaring. Back to that 17th ton of Richards at which time his rate per innings was 5.6: by the time, the team need for Richards to go big all the time had greatly reduced as Greenidge and Haynes had now reached their peaks and Richie Richardson had arrived. Viv dropped down to number 5 and 6 for the rest of his career. And at this point, in 1984, Viv also had other things on his mind, he was preparing himself for the massive responsibility of taking over the captaincy of the West Indies team. Back to comparisons with Greg Chappell: I started watching cricket in 1981-82, so I caught the last six tons of his career. This encompassed 32 innings, accompanied by only three other 50+ scores, which is one only every 4 innings, which is below a top class player. The last 87 test innings of Viv’s when those last 7 tons were scored also contained another 22 50+ scores, so that is one every 3 innings, more than decent by anyone’s standards, especially when, as already noted, those other three aforementioned players were doing most of the runs scoring ahead of him in the order. These are the sorts of things you need to investigate while scratching beneath the surface instead of myopically allowing your jaw to drop at meaningless overall raw numbers. Richards wasn’t one of those leaders to hog all the run making opportunities for himself, he was one of those who gave everyone else a fair go. A good example was the 3rd innings in Melbourne 1988-89. Only leading by 38, there was an opportunity for someone to make a ton, Richie Richardson was now long since the incumbent number 3. Bradman would of course have gone in himself instead of giving someone else a go, unless the pitch was rain damaged, obviously. As for the 5 Wisden cricketers of the 20th Century, this is what very few fans realise: They were chosen, only one from specifically defined eras i.e., 1900-1927, 1928-48, 1949-73, 1974-91 and then the rest of the 90s. There was one bowler amongst them anyway, Shane Warne, if not a fast bowler. But here’s the thing: which fast bowler would you pick over any of Hobbs, Bradman, Sobers or Richards only considering those from their own individual eras? You certainly couldn’t pick any fast bowler from 1974-85 over Viv Richards as no bowler was as far ahead of the rest of the pack in one day cricket as Richards was among the batsmen. Nobody today could claim to have outperformed the 1979-85 Richards in one day cricket, not Kohli, not AB de Villiers, not anybody. As for bowlers faced, Richards faced some reasonably good Indian spinners in his first ever test series there, some decent Pakistan spinners there in 1980-81, he faced Lillee and Thomson at their peaks, Willis and Botham in the 1978-81 period, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee. Allan Border could save tests that could no longer be won, but he wasn’t a destroyer of attacks like Richards. Border’s strike rate was less than 40, Richards’s nearly 70. Your example of Richards that day in Melbourne 1981: obviously, getting the best batsman in the world (by far) cheaply helps you achieve a rare win against their team and this was a rare win indeed for Australia – it was the only non-dead rubber test they won against the West Indies in the first six Frank Worrell Trophy series played after World Series Cricket, so you could hardly rubbish Richards for shot selection on too many other occasions. I would say a far better way to sum up Viv was his 189 not out in a one dayer at Old Trafford in 1984: the rest of the team that day returned scores of 9, 1, 6, 4, 8, 0, 4, 26, 3 and 12. What some people need to really get their head around is that such majestic shot playing artists will also, occasionally, get out actually playing a shot, but this is in no way a reason to insist they should somehow change their game and suddenly become stoic, grafting technicians.

Victor Trumper never captained Australia either – are you going to rubbish him? Your assertion is not correct in any case, because in the second half of the 1998-99 WSC when one day captain Steve Waugh was out injured, and his one day VC Warne leading the side, Mark was Warne’s deputy, so Mark was completely in the minds of the board to step in and lead should Warne also succumb to injury before Steve returned. And Mark also captained a first class match once in similar circumstances. Fair dinkum, all these regular Australian players from 1984-2008 either captained their state, at least one first class match or a token one-dayer or two, or even tests, for Australia or were vice-captain for Australia either regularly or under Mark Waugh’s aforementioned circumstances: David Boon, Ian Healy, Mark Waugh, Stuart Law, Darren Lehmann, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Damian Martyn, Shane Warne, Justin Langer, Simon Katich, Geoff Lawson. In an early 2002 test match, among the line-up of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, Gillespie and McGrath, the first eight in that line-up, including Mark had either captained their state, been vice-captain for Australia, or at least captained at least one first class match, and Mark fulfilled two of these three criteria. The best Australian sides from history have been full of potential captains and Mark was among those from his own era. Your conjecture about what Mark would have done in the Shane Warne case is nothing but that – pure conjecture. Do you even know that on-tour selector Allan Border originally sided with Steve, but was swayed in the end by Warne’s emotional pleading? Are you going to rubbish AB? Your comment was so mind numbingly dumb, do I really need to go into a statistical analysis of batting? How about you tell me what rules I have adjusted to suit what outcome? Also, how about you lose this obnoxious idea that Steve’s ‘200’ was a lone hand. How about you praise Mark for his equally important 126?? We can go into the relevant stats there too if you would like? And so many more. I have not been personally abusive one little bit to anybody. You seem to be endorsing a comment that says that Mark was lucky to be in those great sides – those sides would not have been great without Mark, any more than they would have been great without any of Warne, McGrath, Healy, Taylor’s captaincy or even Steve himself. Mark made 20 test tons, only the 6th Australian to do so, and of the five before him, only one debuted prior to 1970, from which point international cricket increased many fold. Only one of those was in a loss, and there was only one other 50+ score for Australia in that game in two complete bowled out innings, and only two for the opposition in a game all 40 wickets fell – this should be to bed the notion that Australia needed more from Mark once he reached 100. The average score needed by a centurion is around 120, in most cases, and of the three occasions Australia needed Mark to go beyond that, he did so on two of those occasions, only to be left stranded on 139 and 153 when his team was properly bowled out. That should put to bed your ridiculous assertion that Mark should have aspired to remain not out more often. Also revisit his 72 not out in New Zealand in early 2000. Also, of the 47 50-99 scores Mark made, only 8 of them were in losing tests. His rate of a 50+ score once every 3.1 innings is outstanding at face value in any case, even before scratching beneath the surface and finding how rarely he cashed in soft situations such as 3rd innings when his team was already bossing the game. If you choose to keep arguing with me, I will smash you with Mark’s performances in deciding tests in series, the point in series against the strongest oppositions where lesser players drop by the way side, including Steve on all bar one occasion in comparison to Mark. Finally, no campaign of mine has ever been to rubbish Steve. But it is so offensive that Mark does not get equal kudos as Australia’s other, equal, premier test batsman of the 1994-2000 period when we dominated when the Waugh twins were at their peaks. And Mark was the superior one day batsman by quite a bit. Get rid of this idea that elevating Mark to his rightful place is demeaning to Steve. I am pretty sure their parents would agree with me, rather than you, on this score.

Hey Nii, No need to be personally abusive because somebody has clearly not agreed with your "Mark is better than Steve" campaign. I've read all your previous comments and find that you adjust the rules to suit the outcome you want. I noticed no comment of praise in brackets following Steve's amazing 200 against the Ambros-angry Windies. Also, Steve's too early selection in Test cricket was not something he thought was good for him. He feels he was selected too early as well. For me, his reaction when his brother was selected to take his own place shows the measure of the man. Interestingly, Mark was never put forward as a potential Aussie captain. I thought he had a good cricket brain but quite frankly I don't think think he would've been capable of making the hard (and correct decision) of not playing Warnie in that 3rd Windies Test. My expectation of Mark is, if in the same position as Steve, he would've taken the easy "blokey" path, retained Warne, lost the Test, and protected his great mateship with Shane. Also my comment about Mark is that he wasn't a scorer of long big innings. Of the sample you had in your previous analysis it is noteworthy that the two biggest innings are Steve centuries. Mark batted one spot ahead of Steve and one behind Ricky, yet of the three, was the least capable of scoring 150+. Mark batted in the absolute primo position of 4, where Sachin, Lara and Kallis also preferred to bat, and was far less capable of scoring 150+ than them. Mark would've scored many more not outs if he'd been more capable of staying in for longer! I loved watching Mark but also grew frustrated over the years. I don't think I've ever seen, in my long history of following Test cricket (since 1971), such a talented batsman get out to so many benign deliveries. Typically, he would lose concentration and play a lazy shot, when in his 60s, to a boring delivery. He may have been naturally more talented than Steve (although I'm not convinced about that) but Test cricket is won between the ears and Steve was way ahead of Mark there. Overall, Steve in my team ahead of Mark every day of the week!

Viv took 121 tests to score 24 centuries whereas Greg Chappell took 87 tests to score his 24 tons. A significant difference between two players whose careers overlapped a lot. Viv also didn't have to face by far the strongest bowling attack in the world during his "slow ten year decline". Other than in the nets of course. Perhaps scraping to a 50 average is actually a fair indication of Viv. Awesome and uncontainable on his day but I'd pick Border ahead of him to go out and bat for my life. Incidentally, I recall Border, with his "threatening" left arm nude balls, making Viv look silly (twice!) at the SCG. Viv didn't like the ball spinning, especially away from him. I often wonder how he would've gone against the wave of quality spinners (Warne, Murali, Harbhajan, MacGil etc) that followed the "spinless" 1980s. I've often thought that Viv was a batsman that took advantage of his era and fair enough I guess. He was great against fast and medium bowling, and that's just about all there was in the 80s. He was a player with an ego that had to dominate and, for me that was his allure and his great weakness. It meant he wasn't adaptable and lead to many failures. Let's face it, 24 centuries in 121 tests is good but far from many others' sin the strike rate dept. The myth of Viv is built around how he destroyed teams when he was "on song." That "song" could last for a whole series or sometimes it just couldn't be heard at all. For me, the last ball of the first day in the amazing 1981 Boxing Day Test sums up Viv. All he had to do was survive one ball. However his ego got in the way. Lillee knew Viv well and he bowled him with a full tempting ball that Viv dragged on. Viv was caught between wanting to slam Lillee for four off the last ball and therefore make a statement, and surviving. He did neither! He played a confused non-attacking, non-defensive shot that lacked the conviction of either option. Boycott certainly wouldn't have attacked but I would've backed him to block that same ball back to Lillee, and been back for more the next morning. The Windies lost that Test and who knows, if Viv had been able to "bat for his life" that evening, he may have been able to unleash the next day. I know there were instances where Viv did do some backs to the wall defensive efforts but not enough for a player of his standing. He was great to watch but, in my mind, not worthy of being one of the five Wisden players of the 20th century -especially as not one fast bowler made that top 5!!! Extraordinary to think that a batsman with a (only just) 50 average and 24 tons from 121 tests was rated better than any fast bowler over a 100 year period. It sure is a batsman's game!

It’s actually not true that Marvan Attapatu and Mahela Jayawardena were the first to be retired out in a test match. In early 1983, Gordon Greenidge was on 154 and had to abandon his innings because his daughter had been rushed to hospital, who sadly died a few days later. While this has recently been corrected to retired ‘not out’ at the time, it went in the book as retired ‘out’. The reason it has been altered is because of a recent law change. Previously, you could only resume your innings if an injury was the reason for retiring, but now it includes ‘any acceptable reason’ at the sole discretion of the umpire. For example, I recently allowed a young fella to retire ‘not out’ on account of having to go an sit a uni exam, which now often take place on Saturdays. If the reason for retiring had been to go and watch the rugby world cup semi-final, it would have been retired ‘out’, as another example.

Take another year off mate. And then some. Nothing for you to contribute here. What a totally dim witted comment.

I would love to watch Stan McCabe though.

Trumper would have been amazing to watch but probably even nicer to meet. Zero interest in getting in the time machine to watch to the Stockbroker

Boycott horrendous run of run outs (partners) There fixed it Knights

I was a bit surprised by Michael Clarke's average, but my memory isn't as good as it used to be. Adam Gilchrist's average of 47.6 is phenomenal given the role he played in a lot of his innings.

I have not been here for a year & people are still delusional about Mark Waugh. Lucky to be in the great sides he was in and even now only has a better average in the current team than our all-rounder.

Funny how they say brown. We have a history of blue-eyed men in our lineage of marrying brown-eyed women and all offspring being blue-eyed. -------- Seriously, do you know your dominant eye?

Brown.

Caddick... a Kiwi who played for England. Hmm....

JGK, Part of being considered great was to have a batting average of 50-plus, or a bowling average sub-30. Brett Lee took 310 wickets in 76 tests & had a very good strike rate, but he leaked too many runs, consequently his 30 bowling average drags him down.

Like most of us Rosey we are still waiting for our first/last spell in a test match!

Rowdy...yes aware of the dominant eye thing. I am a right hander. My daughter is a total left-hander so when she was little I had to learn how to cut tomatoes, catch, throw, he'll even hold a glass of wine left handed! I can say for sure now that I can do those things quite well! I remember opening the bowling once many years ago with offices, then switching mid over to Chinaman. Cleaned up!