Statistician's Delightful start to 2014!!!

An eventful 2013 got wrapped up and 2014 has arrived. And what a start to the first test match of 2014 at the SCG – a pure delight from a statistician’s point of view. So many records happened on the first day’s play in the final Ashes test of the 2013/14 series and in this edition of the Blog we will look into all of it.

Australia have the wood on England right from the first test at Gabba. And they have been relentless too. As a result they are leading the series 4-0 coming into this test. Only 4 times has Australia went into the 5^th match of an Ashes series with a possibility of a 5-0 whitewash. Twice they managed to inflict the humility on Poms and twice England managed to get salvage some pride just by the skin of their teeth.

Ashes Series in which Australia won the first 4 tests

Year	Aus Captain	Host country	Result of 5th test	Final Result
1920/21	W Armstrong	Australia	Aus won by 9 wkts (SCG)	Aus won 5-0
1950/51	Lindsay Hasset	Australia	Eng won by 8 wkts (MCG)	Aus won 4-1
2001/02	Steve Waugh	Australia	Eng won by225 runs (SCG)	Aus won 4-1
2006/07	Ricky Ponting	Australia	Aus won by 10 wkts (SCG)	Aus won 5-0
2013/14	Michael Clarke	Australia

 Australia have went in with the same XI for all the 5 test of this series – a testament of their form and fitness, especially for players like Ryan Harris & Shane Watson, who remained injury free throughout the whole series. It’s only the 4^th time in history a side has played with an unchanged XI for all 5 tests of a series and just the second time in last 100 years. England also played with an unchanged XI for the first 4 tests of 2005 Ashes series in England, where the regained the urn after 18 years, but was forced to replace an injured Simon Jones with Paul Collingwood for the final test at The Oval. On the other hand England used 18 players in this series, which is the joint most for a touring side in a 5-test series. West Indies also used 18 players in their dreaded 5-0 series whitewash in the tour to South Africa in 1998/99.

Teams playing same XI in all 5 tests of a series

Team	Series	Year	Host country	Result
England	Ashes	1884/85	Australia	Won (3-2)
South Africa	Eng in SA	1905/06	South Africa	Won (4-1)
West Indies	Frank Worrell trophy	1990/91	West Indies	Won (2-1)
Australia	Ashes	2013/14	Australia

 England are fielding 3 debutants in this game – batsman Gary Balance, leggie Scott Borthwick & lanky Irish Boyd Rankin. This is just the 2^nd time since 2000 England are fielding 3 debutants in a test. Last time it happened was Against India in Nagpur when the current captain Alistair Cook made his test debut alongside Monty Panesar and Ian Blackwell. Since then Alistair Cook has just missed a single test in his whole career spanning over almost 8 years, which was the 3^rd test of his debut series due to a stomach upset. Today he became the 4^th player to play 100 or more consecutive tests for a team.

 Most consecutive tests for a team

Player	Team	Tests	From	To
Allan Border	Aus	153	10 Mar 1979	25 Mar 1994
Mark Waugh	Aus	107	3 Jun 1993	19 Oct 2002
Sunil Gavaskar	Ind	106	23 Jan 1975	3 Feb 1987
Alistair Cook	Eng	100*	11 May 2006	3 Jan 2014
Adam Gilchrist	Aus	96	5 Nov 1999	24 Jan 2008

·         Gilchrist played all 96 tests of his career consecutively.

England are fielding 8 left handers in this match which is the joint highest for a test along with WI against Pakistan at Guyana,2000 and WI against England,Oval,2000. In the WI vs Pak test of 2000, 8 of the top 9 were lefties, the only right hander being Sherwin Campbell. However all the lefties of England are right arm bowlers.

England landed in Australian shores with hopes of a 5-0 whitewash but they were caught off guard right from the first test at Gabba. Who has been the man from Aussies responsible for this unexpected – David Warner for his explosive innings at the top? Or Mitchell Johnson for instilling fear and skepticism in English batsmen’s mind? Or a combined team effort under the ever outstanding skipper Michael Clarke? For me the most important man for Aussies in this series has been their man behind the stumps - the 36 year old Brad Haddin. Not only his glove work has been impressive but he has bailed out Australia every time they were under trouble. He came to the crease with scores on 100/5, 257/5, 143/5, 112/5 and 97/5 and has always bailed his team out with his aggressive and calculated batting.

Haddin now has scored 465 runs in this series with one century and 5 fifties. He now has the most runs in an Ashes series for a wicket-keeper and is joint 6^th with Alec Stewart in most runs in a series for a designated wicket-keeper. Haddin now has went past 50 in each of the 5 first innings in this series. He is the 2^nd wicket-keeper after Gerry Alexander of WI to score 6 or more fifties in a series.

Most runs for a wicket-keeper in an Ashes series

Name	Year	Runs	Inngs	Avg	100/50	Highest
Brad Haddin	2013/14	456*	7	66.42	1/5	118
Alec Stewart	1993	378	12	31.50	0/3	78
Alan Knott	1974/75	364	11	36.40	1/3	106*
Brad Haddin	2010/11	360	9	45.00	1/3	136
Wayne Philips	1985	350	11	35.00	0/2	91

Fifties in all 5 first innings of a series

Player	Team	Vs	Host	Year	Runs	Avg	100/50	1st inngs Scores
Warren Bardsley	Aus	SA	Aus	1910/11	573	63.66	1/5	132,85,54,82,94
Everton Weekes	WI	Ind	Ind	1948/49	779	111.2	4/2	128,194,162,90,56
Brad Haddin	Aus	Eng	Aus	2013/14	465*	66.42	1/5	94,118,55,65,75

Most 50s in a series batting at No. 7

Name	Year	Runs	Inngs	Avg	100/50	Highest
Brad Haddin	2013/14	456*	7	66.42	1/5	118
Greg Matthews	1992	329	6	54.83	0/5	96
Alan Knott	1974/75	346	10	38.44	1/3	106*
Wasim Raja	1976/77	368	7	61.33	1/3	117*
Andrew Flintoff	2003	423	7	52.87	1/3	142

 Haddin is also no. 2 on the list of maximum runs scored at No.7 position in a series behind Adam Gilchrist’s 473 against SA in 2002/03.

Australia's sixth wicket put together a century stand for the 3rd time in this series. This is only the second series in which their 6th wicket has had 3 century partnerships. The last such instance came in the Ashes in 1920-21 when Warwick Armstrong’s Australia won the series 5-0.

Brad Haddin : The game Changer

Century partnerships for the 6^th wicket for Australia in this series

Michael-Clarke - Brad Haddin (200 at Adelaide)
Steve Smith - Brad Haddin (128 at SCG)
Steve Smith - Brad Haddin (124 at WACA)

 In a series of massive drubbing one of the rare positives that have come out for England is the emergence of the young all-rounder Ben Stokes. He scored a valiant second innings century at WACA and today he took his maiden 5-wicket haul in tests. He became the 5^th youngest overall visiting bowler and 3^rd youngest (22 years & 213 days) Englishman to take a 5-wicket haul at SCG. He is the first English bowler to take 6 wickets or more at SCG since Andrew Caddick’s 7/94 in 2003.

Michael Carberry’s wicket was Mitchell Johnson’s 32^nd of the series, drawing level with England’s Frank Foster’s 32 in 1911/12 Ashes in Australia. He is 6 short of the all-time record of 37 wickets by WJ Whitty against SA in 1910/11 – a record which he should be holding at the end of the series given his current form.

Most wickets for left arm bowlers in an Ashes series

Player	Team	Inngs	Wkts	Avg	BBI	5 wkts	Year
Frank Foster	Eng	10	32	21.62	6/91	3	1911/12
Mitchell Johnson	Aus	9	32*	13.96	7/40	3	2013/14
Wilfred Rhodes	Eng	10	31	15.74	8/68	3	1903/04
Jack Saunders	Aus	10	31	23.09	5/28	3	1907/08
Bobby Peel	Eng	9	27	26.70	6/67	1	1894/95