G&C 249
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 249
September 2023
Out and About with the Professor
Lunchtime at Scarborough
It is autumn in Yorkshire and as the light grows slightly more pale, the leaves begin to turn and the migrating birds all line up facing south, it is, obviously, time for the return of Championship cricket.
Championship cricket in September in Yorkshire is synonymous with Scarborough. It is, in my experience, a town without a temperate climate: it is either boiling hot or freezing cold. This was, happily, the former, and so a delightful day in the sun was spent watching Yorkshire beat the only other side in the League they might defeat, at a bottom of Division 2 “clash”.
Before the game I read that the Team’s objective was to gain sufficient points from the last four games to be able to proclaim that without the ECB deduction of 48 points, they would have been promoted.
I’m not entirely sure of the value of this aspiration, but I suppose it helps to have a target of some sort.
In the event a solid innings by Finlay Bean and a masterful knock by the Yorkshire captain, Shaun Masood, was enough to see off Derbyshire and send Yorkshire souring up the table to er…still bottom.
Scarborough, on a nice day, must be one of the nicest venues in the country to play county cricket - certainly among the “out grounds”. The capacity of 8,000 is exceptional.
Traditionally, Scarborough attracts a crowd of holiday makers, especially, one suspects, Dads who have had three days on the beach and are looking for something a touch more exciting. The tradition of allowing spectators on the field at each interval adds to the family appeal, when dozens of impromptu games take place. In short, it is a splendid place for watchers of cricket. My initial location was in one of the hospitality tents (courtesy of some Hertfordshire chums), a very comfortable spot and a good place to catch up with some Yorkshire grandees who I had not spoken to for some time. But for a better view of the game a few of us wandered up to the pavilion balcony, to watch Yorkshire take some wickets.
I was told by a member of the Derbyshire committee, that Wayne Madsen was 39 years old. Since he seems to have been playing for about three decades I found this hard to accept but a 40th birthday appears to be upcoming. Whatever his age, he is still a very fine player and it was something of a surprise when he got out just short of his hundred. After that the Derby innings slightly fell apart and Bean et al ensured a sizeable first innings lead.
Yorkshire meanwhile seem to be slipping further and further into the mire. The ECB “fine” of money and points has simply added to the collapse of (arguably) England’s finest county. Moreover, it is difficult to see a way out of the financial problems of an organisation which has very modest income and £20 million of debts. The rumour that the Board are considering selling Headingley has only added to the mix. Corporate sponsorship has, for some reason, dried up – it seems that being aligned with an organisation that admits to institutionalised racism is somehow bad for business.
The County owes the Graves Foundation a £500,000 payment on their loan now and the remainder (£14 million) in the not too distant future. I was told that Colin Graves has said that he will return to the Board (on “his terms”…whatever that might mean) and sort out the finances (again) …but the Board has declined the offer. AGMs and EGMs have presented reports of planned “re-financing” which all sounds very sensible until it becomes clear that there is no one to re-finance with. So now what? One answer appears in the shape of a Mr Mike Ashley. He, so it seems, might be preferred by the Board, in the guise of saviour to Colin Graves…quite a tricky choice I should have thought. Why Mr Ashley might want to buy the place, I can’t imagine. Yorkshire will presumably pay him a rent but if they should default, what could he do with it then? Even the Leeds council might blanch at covering Headingley in a housing estate (“Executive homes with a view of back-to-back student accommodation”). I suppose there are marketing opportunities but the customer base for designer trainers and tracksuit bottoms among the regulars on the North East Terrace Upper is, I think it might be fair to warn Mr Ashley, a little thin. Still, if he wants it, I suppose he will get it. Could be an interesting next AGM.
Meanwhile, the cricket continues, Bean is a very useful player and next year…
This & That
Australia not only hold the Ashes but are also World Test Champions and England are making it hard for themselves to topple them in the recently started World Test Championship as they were docked nineteen of the twenty-eight points they earned for two wins and a draw. Teams are docked a point for each over they are short. England have lost two points for two missing overs at Edgbaston, nine from the Lord's Test, three for Old Trafford and five for The Oval. As a result, England are currently fifth in the standings with Pakistan top and Australia third.
Australian Spencer Johnson took three wickets on his Hundred debut as Oval Invincibles beat Manchester Originals by 94 runs. The 27-year-old left-arm quick finished with extraordinary figures of 3-1 from 20 balls, regularly bowling over 90mph. His spell was the most economical 20-ball effort in The Hundred. Bowling to England pair Jos Buttler and Phil Salt, Johnson conceded only one run in his first spell of 10 before returning to take three wickets in 10 consecutive deliveries without conceding a run.
At Southampton the Southern Braves were 56 for 6 when Chris Jordan came to the crease. He scored 70 not out from 32 balls hitting seven sixes enabling his side to reach 147 for 8 which was just enough to beat Welsh Fire who ended up 145 for 7.
There was a time when Prithvi Shaw looked to become India’s opening bat for the foreseeable future but he seems to have been overtaken by Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal. However, playing for Northants he scored 244 from 153 balls in a one-day cup match. He fell short of Ali Brown’s record of 268 scored for Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002.
James Bracey has been promoted to captain at Gloucestershire and he decided to open the batting and celebrated by scoring 224 not out against Somerset in the 50 over cup.
Phil Salt is an extraordinary hitter of a cricket ball and batted for half an hour, faced 32 balls and scored 86 against the Trent Rockets.
Just occasionally recently Harry Brook has seemed human but the Welsh Fire didn’t find him so in the Hundred when he scored 105 not out from 42 balls.
Warwickshire are having a wretched season and perhaps reached their depths when non-turning left armer Liam Dawson bowled them out for 93 taking 7 for 15.
The Big Bash draft pick has taken place and it is a good indicator of how international players are ranked by the franchises. The number in brackets indicates their order of selection.
Melbourne Renegades
Quinton de Kock (5), Mujeeb ur Rahman (12)
Melbourne Stars
Harry Brook (2), Haris Rauf (9), Usama Mir (25)
Brisbane Heat
Colin Munro (7),Sam Billings (15), Paul Walter (18)
Sydney Sixers
Tom Curran (3), James Vince (14), Rehan Ahmed (30)
Adelaide Strikers
Rashid Khan (1), Jamie Overton (10), Adam Hose (26)
Perth Scorchers
Zak Crawley (16), Laurie Evans (17)
Sydney Thunder
Alex Hales (6), Zaman Khan (13)
Hobart Hurricanes
Chris Jordan (4), Sam Hain (11), Corey Anderson (22)
Sussex set Leicestershire 498 to beat them in the County Championship and Leicester failed by just 15 runs. Ackerman with 136 was out at 283 for 4 but Leicester kept pressing led by Scriven who made 78.
The South Africa v Australia white ball series have swung back and forth with many notable performances but none more so than Heinrick Klaasen’s 174 from 83 balls in an innings that featured 13 sixes. During the course of this carnage Adam Zampa recorded the most expensive analysis in international white ball cricket of 0 for 110 from his ten overs.
Stokes’ decision to come out of retirement because he fancies some glory in the World Cup is ridiculous. As long as the selectors go along with it he will just continue to pick and choose his games. He should instead be honest and not announce retirement but say that he will only be available for certain matches of his choosing.
Thompson Matters
Steve Thompson confesses to a Tuesday night weakness with his chums
It’s Tuesday night and Quiz Night at your local The Bat and Ball. You’re with Sachin, Brian and Virat your fellow team members in One Ball Left the reigning pub quiz champions. Mike, the landlord, announces the start of Round 4, the Sports Round. You give the other three a knowing, ‘Leave this one to me boys’ wink. ‘This is for the so-called cricketers on Table 3.’ Mike says as he mimes a ridiculous faux belly laugh in our direction. Sachin mumbles something about ‘shit beer.’
‘Question one, who first played the reverse sweep? Was it:
A) Mushtaq Mohammed in 1964 for Rothman’s Cavaliers off the bowling of Fred Titmus
B) Mike Gatting in 1987 off the bowling of Alan Border in the World Cup Final
C) James Anderson off Shane Warne at The Adelaide Oval in 2006, or was it
D) Cinderella off an Ugly Sister circa 1690.
I give a thumbs up to the others and immediately ink in ‘B) Gatting’. The remainder of the round proceeds without too many disputes although Virat’s continued insistence that Mark Lazarus captained Rangers to victory over West Brom in the 1967 League Cup Final at Wembley results in you calling him a ‘spoilt tosser’.
We swap papers with No Balls Left, a team of lady golfers. Mike chimes up again, ‘So for question one, those of you who put B) Gatting don’t know your Ramps from your Dilscoops. The answer to who first played the reverse sweep was Mushtaq.’ Virat makes a typically wristy gesture in my direction. Google research certainly suggests that Mike is probably correct although it may have been his brother Hanif who really invented the shot and it may have been a full decade later that Mushtaq played it in a Test Match against the West Indies as a way of counteracting the stifling spin of Lance Gibbs.
However, from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties unorthodox stroke development seems to have stuttered somewhat but with the increase in popularity and frequency of the shorter format matches innovation became almost of necessity increasingly evident. I fully admit to being quite out of touch with the modern game. That is not to say that I pay little or no interest to it but save Test Matches and a cursory glance at the County Championship (to ascertain whether Middlesex are doing as badly as Rangers will almost certainly do come the change of seasons) my contact with the shorter forms of the game, in particular the newest and most commercial version of it, are limited to Best of the Day clips on BBC Sport on my I Phone.
Of course, all sports develop technically over time but there can be few that have changed so relatively quickly in the past two decades as batting, bowling and fielding techniques and skill levels notch up season by season. The sight of arguably England’s best technician (though one may argue his successor as Test captain is at least as good) attempting to ramp the first ball of a Test Match day was all the evidence one needs to prove that the innovation generated by white ball is now, certainly for the current iteration of English Test batsman, very much a part of red.
The advent of the helmet has presumably played its part too but if as I suspect most readers are of an age when head protection was nothing more than a cap, you may like me find it fascinating to recall those we played with and wonder who would have been the reverse sweepers and the scoopers of our generation. At South Hampstead in the 70’s and 80’s I can imagine perhaps Nigel Ross or Lincoln Sylburne reverse sweeping or switch-hitting and I can vividly remember Keith Hardie playing some sort of on-drive behind his back, but only ever in the nets. Whilst MS Dhoni is credited with inventing the helicopter, the sadly rarely seen but joyous swivelling flick for six off his toes by Ossis Burton will forever remain in the memory of those who saw him play it and that was well before Dhoni!
However, I have no doubt who would have been the most likely and most proficient exponent of the modern-day range of shots, Len Stubbs. It would have been wonderful to have seen Len reverse sweep Peter Ray for six into the bowls green and to have heard Peter’s no doubt profanity-riddled repost made all the more profane by a giggling Terry Cordaroy at the non-striker’s end. I must admit if there was any shot I played half-decently it was the sweep but I cannot conceive of my being able to play the reverse. With this in mind I now ask myself, how do you coach the aspiring modern batsman? Indeed, if the MCC Coaching Manual still exists has it been adapted?
Coaching has been very much a part of my cricketing life and from two perspectives as a youngster being coached and then later as a coach of school and county school sides. Five individuals shaped my coaching experience as a boy and player and as an adult and coach. At school, Russ Collins, who I will always remember bending his head forward, tapping his crown with an accompanying, ‘Erm-er-ye-know Steve, I don’t want to see your handsome smiling face, I want to see this...’ tapping his crown again. Russell was himself a good sweeper. Low to the ground as he inherently was, he played it to great effect but the reverse sweep came too soon for him to coach it. With Middlesex Young Cricketers I was fortunate to have had Jack Robertson at the end of the net. Almost from a different era it was a little like having Cary Grant coaching you. Serene, elegant and correct in every way but probably not someone who would have you venture into the experimental. Similarly, at Finchley, in the nets with Middlesex, Don Bennett - analytically professional in every way as one would expect but possibly not a great fan of too much that was too different, although I may well be wrong. Teaching and coaching alongside the inimitable Jim Conroy at Enfield Grammar School in the eighties I suspect any youngster getting out to a reverse sweep may not have been selected for the following game although I know that no one would be prouder to see Root play his full range today than Jim. Finally, Micky Dunn, with whom I coached at the Hertfordshire indoor school for several years and from whom I learnt most as a coach.
Of all five, Micky is the one who would have coached the reverse sweep, the ramp, the switch hit and no doubt in time he would have added all the others to his coaching repertoire as they came to prominence. This is because of all of these great coaches Micky was the one who would have played these shots and therein lies the coaching rub. To coach effectively one surely needs to be able to demonstrate. I have no idea to what extent the range of let’s call them ‘alternative shots’ are played in the club game. My guess is quite regularly. But how effectively? One thing does strike me however and that is that the greatest exponents of these wonderful shots are almost always technically the most adept. Stokes, Root, Brook, Bairstow and Buttler are all it seems to me, to a greater or lesser extent, as good in defence as attack. The modern day coaching motto must surely be that you can’t scoop until you can play backward and forward defensively. If that all sounds a little negative and dismissive, nothing could be further form the truth. I have watched Harry Brook play in three forms of the game this summer. I cannot recall being more excited by a young player since I cannot remember anyone hitting a cricket ball so cleanly. I would love to know who coached him and how! And so dear Editor, to paraphrase the misquoted Spock, It’s cricket and coaching Jim, but not as we knew it.
Jack Morgan
Jack’s funeral took place in August. Steve Caley spoke at it and here are some extracts from his address:
Jack was a year and a bit younger than me and was, therefore, technically a “weed” 1st year at SCD when I was (at about 4ft 11ins) a strapping 2nd year! Fast forward 3 years or so and Jack had caught up, physically, intellectually and athletically…………
We shared a few interests:
Football at which we were probably both adequate without being on the wish list of QPR or anyone else, Cricket at which we were probably a bit more proficient, and which was shown in due course by 4 years in the school 1st XI and going on to better club level type achievements,
Beer drinking at which we probably, like all 17 year olds, lied about our capacity to consume, Some rock music although I never really fully understood what he did and did not like, I learnt more at his funeral than I did in the last 50 years in this regard! Chasing girls at which we were probably both equally hopelessly unsuccessful!
But, sitting next to Jack for two years in the Lower and Upper 6th form we were both very good at classroom cricket. At SCD we had some wonderfully eccentric teachers, especially in English (no, not Andrew Davies of BBC fame). Like all schools, we had our share of dodgy teachers and some very good ones. Ben Bilsborow was one of the latter and instilled in me, and many others I think, a continuing love of literature, poetry and drama.
He was also very demonstrative with arm movements but also on occasions going on a roll taking wickets with a raised finger. During one such game in a double period the score was running along quite well until he became all fired up about Tom Jones and, wagging his finger, went on about Squire Trelawny indicating that he would qualify TJ for the Gelding Plate if he did not treat his niece, Sophia, “properly”.
At this time, Jack who was “batting” slipped from let’s say 35 for 2 to 42 all out and was heard to say, very much NOT sotto voce, “steady on Sir, you have just cost me 8 wickets in 10 seconds”! At this juncture, as we were in the back row, about 15 heads from up front swivelled to see what sort of nonsense those in the back row were up to now.
We left school (not because of the foregoing) and went our separate ways – me to a few odd places and Jack, after polishing his “A” Levels for another year, to Sheffield University and then the Post Office where he prospered and became very senior, although, unlike the PO workers we all know from our daily lives, he seemed to only wear shorts after he had retired and in fact I do not think I saw him in any other mode of dress when we ever met up again in later life.
That later life consisted, post-retirement, of our meeting sometimes at OD reunions at Shepherds Bush CC and also twice a year along with stereo Mills boys to drink beer at riverside pubs where we probably again, having long passed our peak, graduated to the intake capacity of 17 year olds!
Jack had on retirement become a life member of Middlesex CCC and was often seen like a beached whale with no upper body covering (as mentioned by all who spoke of him on the day) (irrespective of the weather) at the Nursery End of Lords surrounded by cricket stats books and an awful lot more as I found out on the day of his funeral. Despite being able to if he had dressed “nicely” he never allowed himself to cross the threshold of the sacred Lords Pavilion, the only Pavilion he ever entered being the licensed premises on Wood Lane aka the alternative SCD 6th Form Common Room - but even his frequenting Lords and other Middlesex out-grounds came to an end for reasons best known to himself although I would guess that covid was a further contributory factor.
Jeff, Steve and I had our first pub meet sans Jack a few weeks ago – all I can say is that it was not the same and there was a real gap on the 4th quarter of the table.
Nobody knows what happens after death and we will all have our own thoughts in this regard. BUT, if we do all get together at some future time, although like all of us here no doubt, I am not yet actually volunteering, ….. Jack – having got there ahead of us, I’m afraid it will be your round! A privilege to have known him and there will be a hole in many lives I am sure.
Jeff Coleman sent me this:
After retiring I started watching the 2’s and, as you do, noticed the same regular faces around the boundary. One starts by acknowledging individuals with a friendly nod, this moves on to a good morning then a few words about the weather or state of play.
There was often one chap, generally sitting alone alongside the sightscreen who looked sort of familiar. Was he someone I had seen at Lord’s, perhaps a fellow City worker. One day at Richmond I decided to do the very un-English thing and ask where we might have met before. He said are you Jeff Coleman? It all fell in place and I had met again with Jack some 30+ years after we had gone our separate ways on leaving Danes in July ’66.
After that we met many times at out-grounds and on the ‘sun deck’ at Lord’s where I would wander over for a chat during the lunch break until he retired from spectatorship. Meeting latterly at the Bush reunions. Many at Lord’s asked about ‘naked Jack’ as his presence was much missed.
He gifted me half a dozen copies of The Dane of which he had duplicates and his knowledge and memory of events was astounding. I bet he could name every one of the SCD U12's 1960.
I helped Jeff out here: Mike Thackery, Jim Sharp, Brian Godber, Mark Shaw, Jack Morgan, Brian Shaw, Bob Gregory, Paul Press, Peter Ellins, Alan Kinnear, Jeff Coleman.
The Ashes Stats
Andy Zaltzman reviews the July events and reflects on the unlikely outcomes
Woakes to win the Compton-Miller medal for player of the series
The Brummie Bradman/Barnes/Botham had not played a Test since the pre-Bazballic era and had taken only 27 wickets - average 46 - in his previous 12 Ashes Tests. In his last season of Test cricket, in Australia and the West Indies in 2021-22, he had taken 11 wickets in six Tests at an average of over 50.
Woakes to take more wickets (19) in the series than Ollie Robinson (10), James Anderson (5) and Scott Boland (2) combined
Robinson had taken 66 wickets at 21 in a superb start to his Test career, Anderson had 45 at 17 in his previous 10 Tests, a sumptuous cherry on top of the 640-wicket cake he had already baked, and Boland, with 33 wickets at the positively 19th-Century average of 14, seemed the perfect bowler for English conditions.
Woakes to finish the series with a bowling average less than half that of Pat Cummins
The Warwickshire Wizard took 19 wickets at 18.1 apiece. Australia's captain finished with 18 at 37.7.
Woakes to take second place in the all-time list of best series average by an England seam bowler with at least 18 wickets in a home Ashes in an English summer in which ball-tracking data shows that seamers collectively extracted less lateral movement than in any other season since at least 2005, when such technological witchcraft first became available.
The only England seamer with 18-plus wickets in a home Ashes series at a better average than Woakes is post-war medium-paced magician Alec Bedser (39 at 17.4 in 1953).
Woakes became the first England bowler to take more than 12 wickets in an Ashes series at an average below 20 since 1985, when Richard Ellison, the Kent swingster, hooped his way to a total of 17 for 185 in his two matches at the end of the series.
Openers to be consistent
Zak Crawley and David Warner to be the two players with most innings of 20-plus.
Both reached 20 seven times. Many had claimed, with strong statistical evidence, that Crawley would "never be consistent, but would play the occasional match-changing innings".
This summer he was strikingly consistent, as well as playing the occasional match-changing innings. Prior to this summer Crawley had failed to reach 20 in 62% of his innings in England's top three, then the highest such figure of the 157 men who had batted 50 or more times as an opener or number three.
Warner had made it past single figures in two of his 10 innings in England in 2019, and in one of those he was out for 11. Before this summer, since the start of 2021 more than half of his Test innings had resulted in him failing to reach 20.
Leaky Australia and rampant England
Australia to obliterate the all-time record for fewest maidens in a Test series of five or more matches
Even with England's unprecedented fast-scoring approach over the previous year, few would have predicted that Australia would managed only 34 maidens in the entire series without the assistance of a world-ending asteroid strike.
As well as the ageless craft-filled tweakery of Nathan Lyon, Australia, in Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, possessed two of the modern game's more parsimonious pace probers, each of whom had bowled, on average, one maiden every four overs during their careers.
The previous record for fewest maidens bowled in a series of five or more Tests was 66 (India, against Australia, in 1947-48, when the overs were eight balls long and maidens commensurately rarer), and the previous record by a team in a six-balls-per-over five-Test series was 74 (South Africa, in England, in a rain-affected 1924).
Only 5.3% of the complete overs bowled by Australia were maidens. Never had a bowling team in a series of four or more Tests had a maiden percentage below 9%. The previous lowest figure in a six-balls-per-over Ashes series was 13.6% (Australia in 2005).
Australia to use 11 bowlers in the series, for nine of them to concede at least four runs per over, and for the only two exceptions to be ropey occasional leg-spinners Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne
Smith and Labuschagne bowled one over each in the series, conceding one and three runs respectively. Australia's next most economical bowler was the much-missed Lyon, who conceded exactly four runs per over and had a decisive impact in the Edgbaston Test before his injury.
Pat Cummins to have an economy rate of more than 4.5 an over in five consecutive innings
Before Leeds, Cummins had conceded 4.5 runs per over in one of his 96 Test innings. He went for more than 4.9 an over in each of his last five innings this summer.
Ignoring the fact that cricket, and particularly Bazballic cricket, does not obey statistical rules, the chances of a one-in-96 shot happening five times in a row is about one in 8 billion. This stat has basically cured world poverty on its own.
The final run-rate disparity between the teams was 1.39, the fourth highest in any Test series of three or more Tests and comfortably the highest in an Ashes series.
England's run-rate of 4.74 was the second fastest by a team in a Test series of three or more Tests, behind the 5.50 England themselves clattered in last December's series in Pakistan. Australia's 3.35 was their third slowest in the 13 Ashes series played this millennium
The flip side of this StokesioMcCullumesque statistic is that, despite being pummelled to all parts for much of the series, Australia's bowlers collectively returned their second-best strike-rate in a series in England since the start of the 20th Century - a wicket every 45.8 balls, fractionally behind their figure of 45.7 in 2001, when they secured a 4-1 victory.
Mitchell Starc's strike-rate of 33.4 was the second best since 1904 by a bowler who bowled at least 100 overs in an Ashes series, just ahead of Simon Jones' 34.0 in the 2005 spellbinder and behind only Mitchell Johnson's 30.5 in his 2013-14 pace masterpiece.
Starc's economy rate (4.86) is the highest in any Test series by a bowler with 15 or more wickets, ahead of two other victims/beneficiaries of the high-risk-high-reward batting of Stokes' England - Pakistan spinner Abrar Ahmed, who took 17 wickets but went at 4.73 per over last December, and Hazlewood in this series (15 wickets, 4.56 per over).
The stats that best sum up the tight and brilliant nature of the series
Neither team to be dismissed for less than 220
This was a series in which the bat, albeit without dominating other than in England's volcanic innings in Manchester, held sway over the ball.
The lowest total in a completed innings was Australia's 224 in the second innings at Headingley, making this the first Ashes series without a total of less 220 and putting the bowling achievements of Woakes, Mark Wood, Starc and Stuart Broad in particular into impressive context.
The highest-averaging batter on each side to be (a) Crawley (see above), and (b) Mitchell Marsh, with (a) Woakes and (b) Todd Murphy as the lowest-averaging bowlers
We live in a completely ridiculous universe.
Marsh scored 250 runs at 50, almost exactly twice his previous career average after not playing a Test for nearly four years.
Murphy, a rookie off-spinner with minimal red-ball experience who was almost certain not to play any part in the series, took seven wickets at 25.8.
Six England players to post a series aggregate of 300 runs or more
This had never happened in any previous Ashes series.
The Oval Test to feature neither a century nor a five-wicket haul
It was only the 10th Ashes Test to fail to trouble to honours board, and only the second in England since 1930 (excluding a handful of significantly rain-shortened drawn matches).
It was only the fourth Test in England in the past 25 years not to result in at least one player scoring a hundred or taking five wickets in an innings.
Four matches to be decided by margins of fewer than 50 runs or by three or fewer wickets
Ashes history had, on average, featured approximately one such match out of every 14 played. We have just seen four in a five-Test series.
The series to finish with no batter having been run out
This was only the second Test series of five or more matches which did not feature a run-out. The other was the 1998-99 Ashes in Australia.
A Test to be played in which a three was not scored
The Headingley Test was a dreadful game for fans of threes. In more than 2,000 Tests for which CricViz has ball-by-ball data, it was the first instance (excluding a handful of games in which fewer than 45 overs were bowled because of rain or abandonment) of a match containing no threes, as a combination of the rapid outfield and deep-set fielders conspired to restrict the batters to singles, twos and boundaries.
Stuart Broad to swap the bails around on the stumps twice in the series, and each bail-swappage to be followed by a wicket next ball
There were many more statistical fascinations and achievements worthy of note: Broad taking 20 wickets in an Ashes series for the fifth time, two more than any other England bowler; Bairstow becoming the first England wicketkeeper to make three scores of 75-plus in a single Test series; Usman Khawaja batting for more balls (1,263) than any player in a series in England since Rahul Dravid for India in 2002, and more than any Australian in England since David Boon in 1993. I could go on - and I will go on, but only to my wife and children over the rest of the summer holidays.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 249
September 2023
Out and About with the Professor
Lunchtime at Scarborough
It is autumn in Yorkshire and as the light grows slightly more pale, the leaves begin to turn and the migrating birds all line up facing south, it is, obviously, time for the return of Championship cricket.
Championship cricket in September in Yorkshire is synonymous with Scarborough. It is, in my experience, a town without a temperate climate: it is either boiling hot or freezing cold. This was, happily, the former, and so a delightful day in the sun was spent watching Yorkshire beat the only other side in the League they might defeat, at a bottom of Division 2 “clash”.
Before the game I read that the Team’s objective was to gain sufficient points from the last four games to be able to proclaim that without the ECB deduction of 48 points, they would have been promoted.
I’m not entirely sure of the value of this aspiration, but I suppose it helps to have a target of some sort.
In the event a solid innings by Finlay Bean and a masterful knock by the Yorkshire captain, Shaun Masood, was enough to see off Derbyshire and send Yorkshire souring up the table to er…still bottom.
Scarborough, on a nice day, must be one of the nicest venues in the country to play county cricket - certainly among the “out grounds”. The capacity of 8,000 is exceptional.
Traditionally, Scarborough attracts a crowd of holiday makers, especially, one suspects, Dads who have had three days on the beach and are looking for something a touch more exciting. The tradition of allowing spectators on the field at each interval adds to the family appeal, when dozens of impromptu games take place. In short, it is a splendid place for watchers of cricket. My initial location was in one of the hospitality tents (courtesy of some Hertfordshire chums), a very comfortable spot and a good place to catch up with some Yorkshire grandees who I had not spoken to for some time. But for a better view of the game a few of us wandered up to the pavilion balcony, to watch Yorkshire take some wickets.
I was told by a member of the Derbyshire committee, that Wayne Madsen was 39 years old. Since he seems to have been playing for about three decades I found this hard to accept but a 40th birthday appears to be upcoming. Whatever his age, he is still a very fine player and it was something of a surprise when he got out just short of his hundred. After that the Derby innings slightly fell apart and Bean et al ensured a sizeable first innings lead.
Yorkshire meanwhile seem to be slipping further and further into the mire. The ECB “fine” of money and points has simply added to the collapse of (arguably) England’s finest county. Moreover, it is difficult to see a way out of the financial problems of an organisation which has very modest income and £20 million of debts. The rumour that the Board are considering selling Headingley has only added to the mix. Corporate sponsorship has, for some reason, dried up – it seems that being aligned with an organisation that admits to institutionalised racism is somehow bad for business.
The County owes the Graves Foundation a £500,000 payment on their loan now and the remainder (£14 million) in the not too distant future. I was told that Colin Graves has said that he will return to the Board (on “his terms”…whatever that might mean) and sort out the finances (again) …but the Board has declined the offer. AGMs and EGMs have presented reports of planned “re-financing” which all sounds very sensible until it becomes clear that there is no one to re-finance with. So now what? One answer appears in the shape of a Mr Mike Ashley. He, so it seems, might be preferred by the Board, in the guise of saviour to Colin Graves…quite a tricky choice I should have thought. Why Mr Ashley might want to buy the place, I can’t imagine. Yorkshire will presumably pay him a rent but if they should default, what could he do with it then? Even the Leeds council might blanch at covering Headingley in a housing estate (“Executive homes with a view of back-to-back student accommodation”). I suppose there are marketing opportunities but the customer base for designer trainers and tracksuit bottoms among the regulars on the North East Terrace Upper is, I think it might be fair to warn Mr Ashley, a little thin. Still, if he wants it, I suppose he will get it. Could be an interesting next AGM.
Meanwhile, the cricket continues, Bean is a very useful player and next year…
This & That
Australia not only hold the Ashes but are also World Test Champions and England are making it hard for themselves to topple them in the recently started World Test Championship as they were docked nineteen of the twenty-eight points they earned for two wins and a draw. Teams are docked a point for each over they are short. England have lost two points for two missing overs at Edgbaston, nine from the Lord's Test, three for Old Trafford and five for The Oval. As a result, England are currently fifth in the standings with Pakistan top and Australia third.
Australian Spencer Johnson took three wickets on his Hundred debut as Oval Invincibles beat Manchester Originals by 94 runs. The 27-year-old left-arm quick finished with extraordinary figures of 3-1 from 20 balls, regularly bowling over 90mph. His spell was the most economical 20-ball effort in The Hundred. Bowling to England pair Jos Buttler and Phil Salt, Johnson conceded only one run in his first spell of 10 before returning to take three wickets in 10 consecutive deliveries without conceding a run.
At Southampton the Southern Braves were 56 for 6 when Chris Jordan came to the crease. He scored 70 not out from 32 balls hitting seven sixes enabling his side to reach 147 for 8 which was just enough to beat Welsh Fire who ended up 145 for 7.
There was a time when Prithvi Shaw looked to become India’s opening bat for the foreseeable future but he seems to have been overtaken by Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal. However, playing for Northants he scored 244 from 153 balls in a one-day cup match. He fell short of Ali Brown’s record of 268 scored for Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002.
James Bracey has been promoted to captain at Gloucestershire and he decided to open the batting and celebrated by scoring 224 not out against Somerset in the 50 over cup.
Phil Salt is an extraordinary hitter of a cricket ball and batted for half an hour, faced 32 balls and scored 86 against the Trent Rockets.
Just occasionally recently Harry Brook has seemed human but the Welsh Fire didn’t find him so in the Hundred when he scored 105 not out from 42 balls.
Warwickshire are having a wretched season and perhaps reached their depths when non-turning left armer Liam Dawson bowled them out for 93 taking 7 for 15.
The Big Bash draft pick has taken place and it is a good indicator of how international players are ranked by the franchises. The number in brackets indicates their order of selection.
Melbourne Renegades
Quinton de Kock (5), Mujeeb ur Rahman (12)
Melbourne Stars
Harry Brook (2), Haris Rauf (9), Usama Mir (25)
Brisbane Heat
Colin Munro (7),Sam Billings (15), Paul Walter (18)
Sydney Sixers
Tom Curran (3), James Vince (14), Rehan Ahmed (30)
Adelaide Strikers
Rashid Khan (1), Jamie Overton (10), Adam Hose (26)
Perth Scorchers
Zak Crawley (16), Laurie Evans (17)
Sydney Thunder
Alex Hales (6), Zaman Khan (13)
Hobart Hurricanes
Chris Jordan (4), Sam Hain (11), Corey Anderson (22)
Sussex set Leicestershire 498 to beat them in the County Championship and Leicester failed by just 15 runs. Ackerman with 136 was out at 283 for 4 but Leicester kept pressing led by Scriven who made 78.
The South Africa v Australia white ball series have swung back and forth with many notable performances but none more so than Heinrick Klaasen’s 174 from 83 balls in an innings that featured 13 sixes. During the course of this carnage Adam Zampa recorded the most expensive analysis in international white ball cricket of 0 for 110 from his ten overs.
Stokes’ decision to come out of retirement because he fancies some glory in the World Cup is ridiculous. As long as the selectors go along with it he will just continue to pick and choose his games. He should instead be honest and not announce retirement but say that he will only be available for certain matches of his choosing.
Thompson Matters
Steve Thompson confesses to a Tuesday night weakness with his chums
It’s Tuesday night and Quiz Night at your local The Bat and Ball. You’re with Sachin, Brian and Virat your fellow team members in One Ball Left the reigning pub quiz champions. Mike, the landlord, announces the start of Round 4, the Sports Round. You give the other three a knowing, ‘Leave this one to me boys’ wink. ‘This is for the so-called cricketers on Table 3.’ Mike says as he mimes a ridiculous faux belly laugh in our direction. Sachin mumbles something about ‘shit beer.’
‘Question one, who first played the reverse sweep? Was it:
A) Mushtaq Mohammed in 1964 for Rothman’s Cavaliers off the bowling of Fred Titmus
B) Mike Gatting in 1987 off the bowling of Alan Border in the World Cup Final
C) James Anderson off Shane Warne at The Adelaide Oval in 2006, or was it
D) Cinderella off an Ugly Sister circa 1690.
I give a thumbs up to the others and immediately ink in ‘B) Gatting’. The remainder of the round proceeds without too many disputes although Virat’s continued insistence that Mark Lazarus captained Rangers to victory over West Brom in the 1967 League Cup Final at Wembley results in you calling him a ‘spoilt tosser’.
We swap papers with No Balls Left, a team of lady golfers. Mike chimes up again, ‘So for question one, those of you who put B) Gatting don’t know your Ramps from your Dilscoops. The answer to who first played the reverse sweep was Mushtaq.’ Virat makes a typically wristy gesture in my direction. Google research certainly suggests that Mike is probably correct although it may have been his brother Hanif who really invented the shot and it may have been a full decade later that Mushtaq played it in a Test Match against the West Indies as a way of counteracting the stifling spin of Lance Gibbs.
However, from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties unorthodox stroke development seems to have stuttered somewhat but with the increase in popularity and frequency of the shorter format matches innovation became almost of necessity increasingly evident. I fully admit to being quite out of touch with the modern game. That is not to say that I pay little or no interest to it but save Test Matches and a cursory glance at the County Championship (to ascertain whether Middlesex are doing as badly as Rangers will almost certainly do come the change of seasons) my contact with the shorter forms of the game, in particular the newest and most commercial version of it, are limited to Best of the Day clips on BBC Sport on my I Phone.
Of course, all sports develop technically over time but there can be few that have changed so relatively quickly in the past two decades as batting, bowling and fielding techniques and skill levels notch up season by season. The sight of arguably England’s best technician (though one may argue his successor as Test captain is at least as good) attempting to ramp the first ball of a Test Match day was all the evidence one needs to prove that the innovation generated by white ball is now, certainly for the current iteration of English Test batsman, very much a part of red.
The advent of the helmet has presumably played its part too but if as I suspect most readers are of an age when head protection was nothing more than a cap, you may like me find it fascinating to recall those we played with and wonder who would have been the reverse sweepers and the scoopers of our generation. At South Hampstead in the 70’s and 80’s I can imagine perhaps Nigel Ross or Lincoln Sylburne reverse sweeping or switch-hitting and I can vividly remember Keith Hardie playing some sort of on-drive behind his back, but only ever in the nets. Whilst MS Dhoni is credited with inventing the helicopter, the sadly rarely seen but joyous swivelling flick for six off his toes by Ossis Burton will forever remain in the memory of those who saw him play it and that was well before Dhoni!
However, I have no doubt who would have been the most likely and most proficient exponent of the modern-day range of shots, Len Stubbs. It would have been wonderful to have seen Len reverse sweep Peter Ray for six into the bowls green and to have heard Peter’s no doubt profanity-riddled repost made all the more profane by a giggling Terry Cordaroy at the non-striker’s end. I must admit if there was any shot I played half-decently it was the sweep but I cannot conceive of my being able to play the reverse. With this in mind I now ask myself, how do you coach the aspiring modern batsman? Indeed, if the MCC Coaching Manual still exists has it been adapted?
Coaching has been very much a part of my cricketing life and from two perspectives as a youngster being coached and then later as a coach of school and county school sides. Five individuals shaped my coaching experience as a boy and player and as an adult and coach. At school, Russ Collins, who I will always remember bending his head forward, tapping his crown with an accompanying, ‘Erm-er-ye-know Steve, I don’t want to see your handsome smiling face, I want to see this...’ tapping his crown again. Russell was himself a good sweeper. Low to the ground as he inherently was, he played it to great effect but the reverse sweep came too soon for him to coach it. With Middlesex Young Cricketers I was fortunate to have had Jack Robertson at the end of the net. Almost from a different era it was a little like having Cary Grant coaching you. Serene, elegant and correct in every way but probably not someone who would have you venture into the experimental. Similarly, at Finchley, in the nets with Middlesex, Don Bennett - analytically professional in every way as one would expect but possibly not a great fan of too much that was too different, although I may well be wrong. Teaching and coaching alongside the inimitable Jim Conroy at Enfield Grammar School in the eighties I suspect any youngster getting out to a reverse sweep may not have been selected for the following game although I know that no one would be prouder to see Root play his full range today than Jim. Finally, Micky Dunn, with whom I coached at the Hertfordshire indoor school for several years and from whom I learnt most as a coach.
Of all five, Micky is the one who would have coached the reverse sweep, the ramp, the switch hit and no doubt in time he would have added all the others to his coaching repertoire as they came to prominence. This is because of all of these great coaches Micky was the one who would have played these shots and therein lies the coaching rub. To coach effectively one surely needs to be able to demonstrate. I have no idea to what extent the range of let’s call them ‘alternative shots’ are played in the club game. My guess is quite regularly. But how effectively? One thing does strike me however and that is that the greatest exponents of these wonderful shots are almost always technically the most adept. Stokes, Root, Brook, Bairstow and Buttler are all it seems to me, to a greater or lesser extent, as good in defence as attack. The modern day coaching motto must surely be that you can’t scoop until you can play backward and forward defensively. If that all sounds a little negative and dismissive, nothing could be further form the truth. I have watched Harry Brook play in three forms of the game this summer. I cannot recall being more excited by a young player since I cannot remember anyone hitting a cricket ball so cleanly. I would love to know who coached him and how! And so dear Editor, to paraphrase the misquoted Spock, It’s cricket and coaching Jim, but not as we knew it.
Jack Morgan
Jack’s funeral took place in August. Steve Caley spoke at it and here are some extracts from his address:
Jack was a year and a bit younger than me and was, therefore, technically a “weed” 1st year at SCD when I was (at about 4ft 11ins) a strapping 2nd year! Fast forward 3 years or so and Jack had caught up, physically, intellectually and athletically…………
We shared a few interests:
Football at which we were probably both adequate without being on the wish list of QPR or anyone else, Cricket at which we were probably a bit more proficient, and which was shown in due course by 4 years in the school 1st XI and going on to better club level type achievements,
Beer drinking at which we probably, like all 17 year olds, lied about our capacity to consume, Some rock music although I never really fully understood what he did and did not like, I learnt more at his funeral than I did in the last 50 years in this regard! Chasing girls at which we were probably both equally hopelessly unsuccessful!
But, sitting next to Jack for two years in the Lower and Upper 6th form we were both very good at classroom cricket. At SCD we had some wonderfully eccentric teachers, especially in English (no, not Andrew Davies of BBC fame). Like all schools, we had our share of dodgy teachers and some very good ones. Ben Bilsborow was one of the latter and instilled in me, and many others I think, a continuing love of literature, poetry and drama.
He was also very demonstrative with arm movements but also on occasions going on a roll taking wickets with a raised finger. During one such game in a double period the score was running along quite well until he became all fired up about Tom Jones and, wagging his finger, went on about Squire Trelawny indicating that he would qualify TJ for the Gelding Plate if he did not treat his niece, Sophia, “properly”.
At this time, Jack who was “batting” slipped from let’s say 35 for 2 to 42 all out and was heard to say, very much NOT sotto voce, “steady on Sir, you have just cost me 8 wickets in 10 seconds”! At this juncture, as we were in the back row, about 15 heads from up front swivelled to see what sort of nonsense those in the back row were up to now.
We left school (not because of the foregoing) and went our separate ways – me to a few odd places and Jack, after polishing his “A” Levels for another year, to Sheffield University and then the Post Office where he prospered and became very senior, although, unlike the PO workers we all know from our daily lives, he seemed to only wear shorts after he had retired and in fact I do not think I saw him in any other mode of dress when we ever met up again in later life.
That later life consisted, post-retirement, of our meeting sometimes at OD reunions at Shepherds Bush CC and also twice a year along with stereo Mills boys to drink beer at riverside pubs where we probably again, having long passed our peak, graduated to the intake capacity of 17 year olds!
Jack had on retirement become a life member of Middlesex CCC and was often seen like a beached whale with no upper body covering (as mentioned by all who spoke of him on the day) (irrespective of the weather) at the Nursery End of Lords surrounded by cricket stats books and an awful lot more as I found out on the day of his funeral. Despite being able to if he had dressed “nicely” he never allowed himself to cross the threshold of the sacred Lords Pavilion, the only Pavilion he ever entered being the licensed premises on Wood Lane aka the alternative SCD 6th Form Common Room - but even his frequenting Lords and other Middlesex out-grounds came to an end for reasons best known to himself although I would guess that covid was a further contributory factor.
Jeff, Steve and I had our first pub meet sans Jack a few weeks ago – all I can say is that it was not the same and there was a real gap on the 4th quarter of the table.
Nobody knows what happens after death and we will all have our own thoughts in this regard. BUT, if we do all get together at some future time, although like all of us here no doubt, I am not yet actually volunteering, ….. Jack – having got there ahead of us, I’m afraid it will be your round! A privilege to have known him and there will be a hole in many lives I am sure.
Jeff Coleman sent me this:
After retiring I started watching the 2’s and, as you do, noticed the same regular faces around the boundary. One starts by acknowledging individuals with a friendly nod, this moves on to a good morning then a few words about the weather or state of play.
There was often one chap, generally sitting alone alongside the sightscreen who looked sort of familiar. Was he someone I had seen at Lord’s, perhaps a fellow City worker. One day at Richmond I decided to do the very un-English thing and ask where we might have met before. He said are you Jeff Coleman? It all fell in place and I had met again with Jack some 30+ years after we had gone our separate ways on leaving Danes in July ’66.
After that we met many times at out-grounds and on the ‘sun deck’ at Lord’s where I would wander over for a chat during the lunch break until he retired from spectatorship. Meeting latterly at the Bush reunions. Many at Lord’s asked about ‘naked Jack’ as his presence was much missed.
He gifted me half a dozen copies of The Dane of which he had duplicates and his knowledge and memory of events was astounding. I bet he could name every one of the SCD U12's 1960.
I helped Jeff out here: Mike Thackery, Jim Sharp, Brian Godber, Mark Shaw, Jack Morgan, Brian Shaw, Bob Gregory, Paul Press, Peter Ellins, Alan Kinnear, Jeff Coleman.
The Ashes Stats
Andy Zaltzman reviews the July events and reflects on the unlikely outcomes
Woakes to win the Compton-Miller medal for player of the series
The Brummie Bradman/Barnes/Botham had not played a Test since the pre-Bazballic era and had taken only 27 wickets - average 46 - in his previous 12 Ashes Tests. In his last season of Test cricket, in Australia and the West Indies in 2021-22, he had taken 11 wickets in six Tests at an average of over 50.
Woakes to take more wickets (19) in the series than Ollie Robinson (10), James Anderson (5) and Scott Boland (2) combined
Robinson had taken 66 wickets at 21 in a superb start to his Test career, Anderson had 45 at 17 in his previous 10 Tests, a sumptuous cherry on top of the 640-wicket cake he had already baked, and Boland, with 33 wickets at the positively 19th-Century average of 14, seemed the perfect bowler for English conditions.
Woakes to finish the series with a bowling average less than half that of Pat Cummins
The Warwickshire Wizard took 19 wickets at 18.1 apiece. Australia's captain finished with 18 at 37.7.
Woakes to take second place in the all-time list of best series average by an England seam bowler with at least 18 wickets in a home Ashes in an English summer in which ball-tracking data shows that seamers collectively extracted less lateral movement than in any other season since at least 2005, when such technological witchcraft first became available.
The only England seamer with 18-plus wickets in a home Ashes series at a better average than Woakes is post-war medium-paced magician Alec Bedser (39 at 17.4 in 1953).
Woakes became the first England bowler to take more than 12 wickets in an Ashes series at an average below 20 since 1985, when Richard Ellison, the Kent swingster, hooped his way to a total of 17 for 185 in his two matches at the end of the series.
Openers to be consistent
Zak Crawley and David Warner to be the two players with most innings of 20-plus.
Both reached 20 seven times. Many had claimed, with strong statistical evidence, that Crawley would "never be consistent, but would play the occasional match-changing innings".
This summer he was strikingly consistent, as well as playing the occasional match-changing innings. Prior to this summer Crawley had failed to reach 20 in 62% of his innings in England's top three, then the highest such figure of the 157 men who had batted 50 or more times as an opener or number three.
Warner had made it past single figures in two of his 10 innings in England in 2019, and in one of those he was out for 11. Before this summer, since the start of 2021 more than half of his Test innings had resulted in him failing to reach 20.
Leaky Australia and rampant England
Australia to obliterate the all-time record for fewest maidens in a Test series of five or more matches
Even with England's unprecedented fast-scoring approach over the previous year, few would have predicted that Australia would managed only 34 maidens in the entire series without the assistance of a world-ending asteroid strike.
As well as the ageless craft-filled tweakery of Nathan Lyon, Australia, in Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, possessed two of the modern game's more parsimonious pace probers, each of whom had bowled, on average, one maiden every four overs during their careers.
The previous record for fewest maidens bowled in a series of five or more Tests was 66 (India, against Australia, in 1947-48, when the overs were eight balls long and maidens commensurately rarer), and the previous record by a team in a six-balls-per-over five-Test series was 74 (South Africa, in England, in a rain-affected 1924).
Only 5.3% of the complete overs bowled by Australia were maidens. Never had a bowling team in a series of four or more Tests had a maiden percentage below 9%. The previous lowest figure in a six-balls-per-over Ashes series was 13.6% (Australia in 2005).
Australia to use 11 bowlers in the series, for nine of them to concede at least four runs per over, and for the only two exceptions to be ropey occasional leg-spinners Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne
Smith and Labuschagne bowled one over each in the series, conceding one and three runs respectively. Australia's next most economical bowler was the much-missed Lyon, who conceded exactly four runs per over and had a decisive impact in the Edgbaston Test before his injury.
Pat Cummins to have an economy rate of more than 4.5 an over in five consecutive innings
Before Leeds, Cummins had conceded 4.5 runs per over in one of his 96 Test innings. He went for more than 4.9 an over in each of his last five innings this summer.
Ignoring the fact that cricket, and particularly Bazballic cricket, does not obey statistical rules, the chances of a one-in-96 shot happening five times in a row is about one in 8 billion. This stat has basically cured world poverty on its own.
The final run-rate disparity between the teams was 1.39, the fourth highest in any Test series of three or more Tests and comfortably the highest in an Ashes series.
England's run-rate of 4.74 was the second fastest by a team in a Test series of three or more Tests, behind the 5.50 England themselves clattered in last December's series in Pakistan. Australia's 3.35 was their third slowest in the 13 Ashes series played this millennium
The flip side of this StokesioMcCullumesque statistic is that, despite being pummelled to all parts for much of the series, Australia's bowlers collectively returned their second-best strike-rate in a series in England since the start of the 20th Century - a wicket every 45.8 balls, fractionally behind their figure of 45.7 in 2001, when they secured a 4-1 victory.
Mitchell Starc's strike-rate of 33.4 was the second best since 1904 by a bowler who bowled at least 100 overs in an Ashes series, just ahead of Simon Jones' 34.0 in the 2005 spellbinder and behind only Mitchell Johnson's 30.5 in his 2013-14 pace masterpiece.
Starc's economy rate (4.86) is the highest in any Test series by a bowler with 15 or more wickets, ahead of two other victims/beneficiaries of the high-risk-high-reward batting of Stokes' England - Pakistan spinner Abrar Ahmed, who took 17 wickets but went at 4.73 per over last December, and Hazlewood in this series (15 wickets, 4.56 per over).
The stats that best sum up the tight and brilliant nature of the series
Neither team to be dismissed for less than 220
This was a series in which the bat, albeit without dominating other than in England's volcanic innings in Manchester, held sway over the ball.
The lowest total in a completed innings was Australia's 224 in the second innings at Headingley, making this the first Ashes series without a total of less 220 and putting the bowling achievements of Woakes, Mark Wood, Starc and Stuart Broad in particular into impressive context.
The highest-averaging batter on each side to be (a) Crawley (see above), and (b) Mitchell Marsh, with (a) Woakes and (b) Todd Murphy as the lowest-averaging bowlers
We live in a completely ridiculous universe.
Marsh scored 250 runs at 50, almost exactly twice his previous career average after not playing a Test for nearly four years.
Murphy, a rookie off-spinner with minimal red-ball experience who was almost certain not to play any part in the series, took seven wickets at 25.8.
Six England players to post a series aggregate of 300 runs or more
This had never happened in any previous Ashes series.
The Oval Test to feature neither a century nor a five-wicket haul
It was only the 10th Ashes Test to fail to trouble to honours board, and only the second in England since 1930 (excluding a handful of significantly rain-shortened drawn matches).
It was only the fourth Test in England in the past 25 years not to result in at least one player scoring a hundred or taking five wickets in an innings.
Four matches to be decided by margins of fewer than 50 runs or by three or fewer wickets
Ashes history had, on average, featured approximately one such match out of every 14 played. We have just seen four in a five-Test series.
The series to finish with no batter having been run out
This was only the second Test series of five or more matches which did not feature a run-out. The other was the 1998-99 Ashes in Australia.
A Test to be played in which a three was not scored
The Headingley Test was a dreadful game for fans of threes. In more than 2,000 Tests for which CricViz has ball-by-ball data, it was the first instance (excluding a handful of games in which fewer than 45 overs were bowled because of rain or abandonment) of a match containing no threes, as a combination of the rapid outfield and deep-set fielders conspired to restrict the batters to singles, twos and boundaries.
Stuart Broad to swap the bails around on the stumps twice in the series, and each bail-swappage to be followed by a wicket next ball
There were many more statistical fascinations and achievements worthy of note: Broad taking 20 wickets in an Ashes series for the fifth time, two more than any other England bowler; Bairstow becoming the first England wicketkeeper to make three scores of 75-plus in a single Test series; Usman Khawaja batting for more balls (1,263) than any player in a series in England since Rahul Dravid for India in 2002, and more than any Australian in England since David Boon in 1993. I could go on - and I will go on, but only to my wife and children over the rest of the summer holidays.
Googlies Website
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