England Vs Australia - First Test at Birmingham; June 16-20; 2023 Statistical Amazers

1. James Anderson managed only 1 wicket in this Test off his match total of 38 overs. 
   
   
2. This is only the 18^th instance in his 180 Tests career in which he has claimed just one wicket. He has also gone wicketless in 11 other Tests.
   
   
3. He has claimed 27 wickets in his last 6 Test matches prior to this Test.
   
   
4. This is also only the second instance in which he has claimed just 1 wicket among the 14 Tests he has played in the month of June. He has had good success in the June claiming 64 Test wickets.
   
   
5. He has also only claimed 52 wickets in Birmingham in 14 tests though he once had a spell of 41 wickets in 7 Tests in Birmingham from 2008 – 2018. Outside this spell, he has had modest returns in Birmingham in Test cricket.

STAMIO – IPL Math 1: KKR Vs DC

1. By winning the first match of IPL 2010, Kolkata Knight Riders have now won 3 of their 5 matches against the Deccan Chargers and all their three wins have come in the Indian soil.
2. Kolkata’s win is just their second in eight matches in which they have scored 150 or more runs in an innings in IPL T20.
3. Incidentally Kolkata scored almost the same runs as they scored against Deccan in their last meeting. KKR scored 160 in the last meeting and lost to Deccan.
4. Sourav Ganguly has been dismissed for 9 times by Chaminda Vaas in his One-Day International (ODI) career. The trend has now extended to the T20 version as well. This will also be the third occasion in which Sourav has been dismissed for a “duck” by Vaas in T20 and ODIs.
5. Chaminda Vaas with his early two wicket burst has now claimed six wickets in his last three IPL T20 matches. He has claimed just 5 wickets in 5 matches in the first edition of IPL in 2008, noticeably.
6. Cheteshwar Pujara, who has been associated with KKR since 2008 not only got a chance to make his debut, but also managed to score the first boundary of IPL 2010, which incidentally was the first runs in this edition of the tournament which came in the ninth delivery of the innings with two wickets down.
7. Manoj Tiwary’s golden duck in the match is already his second in his 12 match IPL career so far.
8. Owais Shah made his full fledged regular IPL season debut in this match. He earlier played for Delhi Dare Devils in the T20 Champions league in late 2009.
9. Adam Gilchrist (54) scored his seventh IPL T20 fifty in 31 matches. He has now scored 985 runs in IPL T20 and in the process he has hit his fiftieth six in IPLT20 (covering all seasons from 2008). He has now scored 108 fours and 51 sixes in IPL T20.
10. Approximately a quarter percentages of the runs (23%) in this match have been scored in sixes, with Mathews, Shah, Laxman, Hodge and Gilchrist sharing the honors.

OZ... Just Shut Up!

It is a strange motivating factor for me to get back to my blogging. But Shane Warne is an absolute Rabble Rouser in cricket.

I read in a newspaper today on his comments that Muralitharan has taken most of his wickets against minnows like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

God seems to be very activie these days with his instant punishments:

Look at image above.


So the Moral of the story is .. Hey You Aussie, Just Shut Up and get back to the bowling crease..



Commenting on today's rarest act in cricket.. Bangladesh scoring 355 on a single day's play in a Test match against Australia.... that's why it rained in the neighbouring Guwahati much to the delight and relief of Flintoff and his men.

However the moral of the story is Bangladesh and Brian Lara should be thanking their stars for Matthew Hayden not getting a chance to make HAY while the sunshines and devastating Brian's 400 run Test record.

Leave sumthing for the West Indians, Guys. Will you?

Dhoni dwarfs the Lankans on the day of "Men behind the stumps": Interesting statistics from the Jaipur One-dayer

Mankind is blessed to be a witness to few unstoppable avalanches. Cricket is not an exception too. Sachin's blitzkrieg in Sharjah 1998, Ambrose and Walsh dismissing England for a mere 46, and of course many a memorable Viv Richards innings. The Lankans misery was compounded by the fact that they happened to be the at the receiving end of one such avalanche, during the wrong moment in the tour. The Avalanche had a name, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The following are some of the extraordinary statistical pieces that were collected by the avalanche in the path it traversed in the sandy Jaipur soil.


1. Dhoni Dhamaka -1 : Almost two-thirds of his runs came in form of boundaries, that included 60 runs apiece from fours and sixes (15 4's and 10 6's) totaling 120 runs of his 183.

2. Dhoni Dhamaka -2 : It is the second highest score by an Indian in one-dayers, the first being Sachin Tendulkar's 186 against New Zealand in 1999.

3. Dhoni Dhamaka -3 : Dhoni was literally on the field for 95.2 overs of the match.

4. Dhoni Dhamaka -4 : Dhoni's two ODI 100s have both been scores above 140 and he has played in only 22 matches so far, averages 49.73 and has already hit as much as 30 sixes.

5. Dhoni Dhamaka -5 : Dhoni as now scored more than 100s than any other Indian batsmen this year in ODI cricket.

The match had other interesting statistical highlights as well, which included:

1. Tillekaratne Dilshan, known more for his batting capabilities, has now taken 15 wickets in his last 10 matches, which included 9 wickets in 5 consecutive matches.

2. India has now won three consecutive one-day matches in a row for the second time this year. But has just won 10 of the 19 matches played this year.

3. Of the four matches, in which Sangakkara scored hundreds, SriLanka has lost three of them, including this match at Jaipur.

4. Mahela Jayawardene was involved in many match-winning partnerships against India. One that comes to mind is the 226 run stand with Atapattu at Sharjah in 2000, 126 runs with Upul Chandana in SriLanka in 2005. But his partnership worth 151 runs with Sangakkara in this match was not lucky as others were.

5. Ferveez Maharoof has interesting stats in this series so far ending up in the extreme zone with both bat and ball. He has scored 53 runs in three matches, the third most by a Sri Lankan so far being Sangakkara (208) and Jayawardene (95). He has claimed just 2 wickets at 75.5 with an economy rate of 7.55, once again the third most expensive after Zoysa (9.25) and Chandana (8.26).

7. In a match that witnessed over 600 runs with an obvious 6+ run-rate, the off-spinners from each side, Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh have a combined analysis of just 76 runs in 20 overs, with an economy rate of under 4.

8.The match takes Chaminda Vaas' tally in dismissing Sachin Tendulkar to 8 times in One-dayers. This also is the maximum number of times a bowler has dismissed Sachin in one-dayers

9. The match also takes Muralitharan's tally in dismissing Rahul Dravid to 5 times in One-dayers.

10. The match witnessed a unique feature of wicket-keeper batsmen from both sides contributing to 56% of the total runs scored. Interestingly both Sangakkara and Dhoni were responsible for one dismissal in each other side's innings.

11. The amount of the bat dominating the ball is best described by the fact that just 8 wickets fell on the entire day's play and 600+ runs scored, which amounts to more than 75 runs per wicket.

Lankans laid lowly in Mohali: Interesing statistics from the second one-dayer

The visiting Sri Lankan side are clearly clueless from the Pathan and Tendulkar attack. The carnage from Nagpur continued North-west ward in Mohali. The only difference was that the teams swapped the order of batting and chasing.

Here are some of the interesting facts and statistics I found from the game:

1. Russel Arnold, for the second time was Harbhajan's victm in as many matches so far in this series. Interestingly, Arnold was dismissed by Harbhajan only once in his 21 appearances against India prior to this series. Seems like Russel is becoming Bhajji's new bunny.

2.Rahul Dravid has now won two consecutive matches as skipper of India only for the second time in his brief stint as captain. The previous occassion when India has won two consecutive matches with Dravid as skipper was way back in 2000-2001 season. The vistory was also only Rahul's ninth in 19 matches as skipper for India.

3. Meanwhile, Marvan Atapattu has to cope up with back-to-back losses, which happens to be his first in the last 10 matches. But this is only a slight dent in his impressive captaincy record, which stands at 14 losses in 43 matches.

4. Sachin Tendulkar's resurgence in international cricket has dominated sporting headlines. Coincidentally, Sachin's previous back-to-back knocks of over 50 runs (less than 100 runs) in an innings was also against Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup in 2003. His knocks included 82 and 78 not out.

Cricket Season is back: India V SriLanka - Nagpur ODI Findings

India has begun a fresh season by defeating Sri Lanka (The number 2 in ICC ODI rankings). Cricketis a funny game for few, but for me it always gives me something interesting to present to cricket-buffs, especially on the facts and statistics front:

Let me begin with the traditional "Did U know"

1. India begun the earlier season of One-day cricket with a victory as well, against Pakistan in April 2005. On both occasions, there were strange coincidences:

1.a) India batted first and Rahul Dravid was the second top scorer (104 Vs Pakistan at Kochi, the best being Sehwag's 108 ; and 85 Not out Vs Sri Lanka at Nagpur, the best being Sachin Tendulkar's 93)

1.b) The top score for both the chasing sides were danerously close. Mohammed Hafeez top scored for Pakistan at Kochi with 42, while Kumar Sangakkara top scored for Sri Lanka with 43.

2. This is the findling I liked a lot.. Kumar Sangakkara, playing in his 139th ODI, was playing in the Indian soil against India for the first time in his career.

3. Russel Arnold has now played twice against India at Nagpur and has never surpassed the 1 run aggregate in the venue.

4. It rained sixes at Nagpur, numbering 15 and interestingly, 9 of those sixes were hit by fast bowlers. Irfan Pathan (4) and Lokuhettige (3) the successful ones in finding the roofs, while Maharoof was shown the roof on most occassions, as he went for 82 runs in his 10 overs.

More to come after the floodlights go off in Mohali.

Weekend Rendezvous with the Maestro

My weekend was made with Renault winning the Constructors championship (Am a Renault fan!!!, since 1994, when the great Ayrton Senna drove a Williams Renault). A LIVE musical night with Maestro Ilayaraja was an ideal end to a great weekend.

The Program was quite entertaining to a packed house. An extraordinary feature that came to light yesterday was Maestro's yet another hidden treasure, his sense of humor. A brief summary of the events I witnessed include:

1. Traditional Maestro prayer song.. Janani ... Janani and this time his sons joined him in chorus as well.

2. SPB, Hariharan, Chitra, Shreya Ghosal, Sadhna, Mano, Uma Ramanan, Vijay Yesudas, Karthik, Jeychandran, Swarnalatha singing to maestro's past and present tunes. The highlight being Shreya's tamil pronunciation, which the crowd took an exception.. She sang Kaatril Enthan Geetham from Johny, with great flair.. but instead of "theduthey" she sang "thodutho" in the verse kaaanatha onrai theduthey. Maestro saved her from disgrace by stating Pattukottai Kalyanasundaram's verse, which goes as "Thirudan paarthu thirinthaa vittal.. thirittai Ozhikka Mudiyathu" and likewise he asked us to be patient for non-tamil speaking singers to learn from their mistakes.

3. The Man of the Match was indeed Maestro's "Naan thedum sevvanthi Poo idhu" which was asked for a "R E P E A T T U" in Chandramukhi style. The show host Parthipan, mentioned that the Alaap sung by Maestro Ilayaraja in the beginning of the song will take one to extreme happiness, the moment after which one will like to experience death as he has reached the pinnacle of happiness in life.

4. Padmashree "Ulaga Naayagan" Kamalhassan marked his attendance with his characteristic tone "V A NA K K A M". This time he was wife not to confuse listeners with his tamil literary verses.. but he mentioned that his presence there is like a squirrel contributing mud to building a bridge in Ramayana. Kamal is always there with his similies.

Here comes the moment.. Maestro did allow Kamal to escape without pestering him to sing.. but as he was leaving the stage.. Maestro sang a song on Kamal beginning with an embarrassing "....K U D I K A A R A ....K U D I K A A R A....K U D I K A A R A". Kamal was taken aback including all of us.. Maestro's creativity came to fore as he completed a short song and of course completing the first word as "P A R A M A ....K U D I K A A R A",Kamal's native town.

5. May be a pet revenge time for Maestro against his own (Yuvan) for he latter's inclination towards more western touch in his compositions.. he asked him to sing "Chinna Kannan azhakkiran" Yuvan managed pretty well, after which Maestro asked him,"Why didn't you sing like your normal way and he mimicked yuvan's way of singing.. which had us all in splits. Yuvan responded as the pith wasn't ok for him to sing like he liked.. hence the pitch was changed instantly and he sang like himself.

Did you know all these:

1. The song Sundari kannal oru seithi while being recorded in Mumbai.. the orchestra there, which happens to be the one of the famous R.D.Burman's gave a standing ovation during the middle of the song as they were totally mesmerized.

2. Maestro has written several Venpas (excuse me for my tamil).. and has helped Kavignar Vaali it seems to write a few.

3. Maestro apart from being a genius in musical compositions, lyric writing, book-authoring, knowledged in musical extremes like Carnatic, western and folk, is also a good artist it seems and we all found that he has a great sense of humor too.

I would have liked the following to have happened:

1. Kamal singing "pottu vaittha kaadhal thittam" with Drums Sivamani there to take care of percussion

2. SPB singing "Adiye, nilluna nikkathey dee" with Sivamani tere again to show what drumming means in the song begining..

3. For guitar fans like me, songs like Ilaya Nila and Yen iniya Pon nilavey would have made our night sleepless with fond memories.

Overall a truly amazing experience altogether..