What about the famous 400+ run chase by RSA against Aus. why is it not included in this list?

Match no 9 in the list. Pl re-read the analysis.
>>

its a pity that the benchmark is 5 wickets or the 2003 canada south africa match would have been quite high on the list

Excellent analysis. I hope the attitudes of the teams batting first in ODI's change from now on. I see many teams go in to bat having a 'target' in mind. I watch on TV, 'the experts' talk about 'par score' for the track. But I believe the team going in to bat first should aim to score as many runs as they possibly can using all their (or most of their) 'resources'. I have seen the Indian team dropping a specialist batsman and taking 5 specialist bowlers as the selectors felt that they did not need the 6th specialist batsman because he was not used in the previous match! Now they would, hopefully, realize that the team played so bad in the first game that they didn't utilize the resources properly. I would appreciate if you could give us more this kind of sensible analysis.

your study is very interesting....will the natwest final whr india chased 320+runs come under any 1 list??

This analysis is only true for extreme situations. For e.g. West Indies won by 10 wickets.
Pakistan: 220 for 2 wkt(s) in 50.0 overs. England won by 202 runs. England: 334 for 4 wkt(s) in 60.0 overs. India: 132 for 3 wkt(s) in 60.0 overs.
I don't see any point in applying the same logic for other matches.

you should write a thesis on cricket my friend..u have an amazing talent for research and analysis

never analysed these scenarios myself. bravo and thanks for the effort!
do you plan on doing a same analysis on how "bowler gave a match away" after being in a comfortable position either defending or in the first innings?
cheers

If you think international cricket is bad, you wanna look at village cricket. In our league the amount of times you see a pair of 50+ year old opening batsmen stonewall all 45 overs for a final score of 80ish for 0, with the teams big hitting all-rounders sat in the pavillion marking dot after dot in the scorebook, then they (the all rounders/bowlers) getting the blame for the defeat when the other team knock the eighty runs off in twenty overs is incredible!

This was the match conceded by India after Sarfraz bowled a series of bouncers in the 38th over. I do not want to get into an argument with anyone. It is clear that the short pitched balls were over-used.....................Anyhow why should a captain concede a match when so close to the target. Bedi should take responsibility for that.

Because Sarfraz could've broken someone's nose? Taken out a couple of teeth maybe? Ask Nari Contractor.

truely a wonderful analysis. sometimes between the 15th till 40th over teams take a nap.
if you can concetrate on this aspect of one day games (15th till 40th over), it might help everyone better understand the 20-20 phenomenon.

Hi Ananth: A good topic to analyze. I share your thoughts about Bedi's conceding the match as a foolish decision. I dont want to sound abusive but time and again Bedi has shown that he lets enotions take over and acts irrationally. Coming back to your analysis, I have some thoughts to share. While your analysis on Gavaskar's 36* in 50 overs is spot on, I would like to differ on the thoughts in the match in which Azhar scored a 62 ball 100. In the 80's any team scoring more than 5 runs an over was expected to win 9 out of 10 times. NZ scored at almost 6 runs an over. Infact, they could do so because they lost fewer wickets. You would never expect guys like Wright and Andrew Jones to explode at the top. Infact the number of wickets left enabled Greatbatch to accelerate towards the end. It was just that Azhar played a blinder. Chasing 278 in the 80s was as rare as chasing 330+ in today's cricket. Really Cant blame NZ here although based on hind sight many things can be concluded. To cont.

Continuting... just to give u another example.6 years after Azhar played that magical innings, India played NZ in Delhi and scoed 289-3 in 50 overs. It was still enough to win by 107 runs. Had India lost, then surely one would think why did they not get past 300 after losing only 3 wickets. Jadeja's slowish 90 would come under scrutiny. But that was time when Jayasurya and Kalu hadnt opened together and one opener was always expected to go slow. I would say the same about the analysis on the match in which Aus scored 330-7 to beat SA. Although teams had learnt to chase better by 2002, 326 was still such a high target that not many expected Aus to win. It was a masterclass from Gilchrist, Ponting which made it possible. Again in hindsight, one can pick a slow innings by an SA batsman, but in both the matches I spoke about, it is pobably that slow innings which laid the platform for a huge score and only a blinder by someone could win it for the opposition just like the one in Jo'burg.

Continuting... just to give u another example.6 years after Azhar played that magical innings, India played NZ in Delhi and scoed 289-3 in 50 overs. It was still enough to win by 107 runs. Had India lost, then surely one would think why did they not get past 300 after losing only 3 wickets. Jadeja's slowish 90 would come under scrutiny. But that was time when Jayasurya and Kalu hadnt opened together and one opener was always expected to go slow. I would say the same about the analysis on the match in which Aus scored 330-7 to beat SA. Although teams had learnt to chase better by 2002, 326 was still such a high target that not many expected Aus to win. It was a masterclass from Gilchrist, Ponting which made it possible. Again in hindsight, one can pick a slow innings by an SA batsman, but in both the matches I spoke about, it is pobably that slow innings which laid the platform for a huge score and only a blinder by someone could win it for the opposition just like the one in Jo'burg.

wow. can't imagine how you went through all these matches. Excellent analysis, although slightly unfair on the Aus-Rsa game.Until most recently, many teams shared the view that once you score 300+ the game was almost won. This theory went out after SA chased down 400+. I suggest readers to check out ODI # 2023 SriLanka vs WestIndies also
WI -312/4[50 overs] Gayle 94(125) Lara 116(106)
SL -313/6[49.3 overs] Chandana 89(71)
SriLanka may not have lost 7+ wickets, but they do not usually bat deep.
Apparently Sri Lanka seem to feature a lot in these matches chasing big totals where the opponent should have made more runs.However they have no "unfulfilled" innings. Is it attitude? Interesting....

Shows a new perspective and an angle so far not discussed.

wow. nice facts. how long did it take u to rite this?

Hi Ananth, thanks for this post. I blogged on an another match you might want to consider adding to this list. http://eye-on-cricket.blogspot.com/2008/06/its-just-around-corner.html

How about looking at the *ideal* number of wickets lost? At the extremes (assuming a team bat first and use all 50 overs) you have a team that loses 0 wickets, that fails to utilise its resourses (IE wickets in hand)
OTOH being x for 9 isnt a good idea either, you dont want to be wasting balls on your number 11 batsmen coz he probably wont score much!
So if you take this England team:
Cook, Wright, KP, Colly, Bell, Flintoff, Mascheranas, Ambrose, Broad, Sidebottom, Anderson

the ideal wickets lost after 50 overs would be 7 to make full use of your resources, since you want all your decent batsmen (inc Broad coz he can slog) to bat, but not really Sidey and Anderson.

The Indian team mentioned above, with '5 specialist out and out bowlers',however would have an 'ideal wickets' of 4

An imaginary team of Ponting, Dhoni and 9 Panesars would ideally lose no wickets!

Lets not mention T20 where the dot ball conceded is more of a loss to the batting team than the wicket itself!

Excellent article and a really great last comment by Jeff Few.
It really does depend on your batting lineup as to how you decide to best use your resources.

Eg, say you are 200-5 after 40 overs. It's no good trying to slog the last 10 overs if your numbers 8-11 are rabbits (think of an England tail of Mahmood, Harmison, Anderson, Panesar - i've no idea if these 4 ever played an ODI together, but knowing England, it wouldn't surprise me if they had)

In this case, you could go from 200-5 to 230 all out very quickly - the better percentage option would be for the last 2 batsmen to play sensibly and end up at 250-5.

Incidently (and linking this article back to Ananth's previous ones), the Eng team that Jeff Few listed would (based on average & SR) be predicted to score 259-7 (with the 7th wkt falling sometime in the last 3 overs) - suggesting that this team would use it's resources almost perfectly (i've subbed Prior for Ambrose as he hasn't played an ODI yet and has no stats)

Hi sorry - no idea where else to put a request.

Love these number crunches... Though I remain skeptical as to their use as a tactical tool since cricket matches are idiosyncratic and the game constantly evolving (numbers will always reveal trends despite this).

However... would somebody consider doing an analysis of the performance of Australia's star batsmen after the departure of McGrath and Warne. E.g. Ponting's test average during and after Warne and McGrath... It seems to me Hayden has maintained his form - but Ponting has dropped off - how has it been for Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey etc...?

I would be very interested to know in other words...

The advantage that good bowlers give to batsmen... If you could show it to be significant then surely Brian Lara IS the greatest batsman of the modern era without doubt - because he never had the help of any good bowlers.

One match comes to mind. Pak vs WI at Sharjah, Oct 1988. It was the champions tropy league match where Pak scored 294 off 50 overs. WI crawled to 210/5 in their 50 overs. This I felt was worth mentioning since it was in a period where WI were still the kings of ODI as well as test cricket.

Greenidge got a painstaking unbeaten 100.

Last wicket partnership : 64 runs

Very intersting analaysis. But i want to just add a point or two.It is all about which type of batsman were left in ur line when when you have used full quota of bating overs.For example in firs case in pak's slow inning of 220/2 slower ramiz used 158 balls many of which were in slog overs.Similarlaly miandad used slog over withot sloging. Now see batsmen with much higher strike rate salim malik,akram,moin khan, ijaj left without facing. If above batsmans had faced 100 balls in last 20 over they would easly reach 265/5 in stead of 220/2.So inning is unfulfilled if team used full quota of over and scores much less than expacted without using batsman with higher strike rate.

2 points to make about the England v SL game from 1999:
1. The Eng inns was interupted by the infamous 'chucking' call against Murali
2. Eng scored over 50 in the last 3 overs so that would be some accelerator that needed pressing!
[[In that case some of the earlier overs were found wanting.]]

I think d review upon d England v/s SriLanka match was wrong(Refer ODI # 1391. England vs Sri Lanka.).They had pressed the pedal at the right time because the last three overs had yielded 53 runs to take them beyond the 300 runs mark which was a very good total at that time.It was only due to the brilliance of Jayasurya and Jayawardene that SriLanka won.
[[In that case some of the earlier overs were found wanting.]]

While the notorious match #2349 is an argument to the contrary, I agree with Jeff Few that it's not normally optimum to go flat out and lose more wickets. (e.g. AUS in 2003 CWC final scored so many BECAUSE they lost so few wickets). Duckworth Lewis tends to make it worse still to lose wickets in the modern game.

(Incidentally I've always felt that while Ponting didn't throw #2349, he didn't try to win it either. Lewis was getting hammered and he felt bowling him through his 10 and losing the match would play him out of the side before the CWC.)
[[I have always felt very odd that Lewis bowled 10 overs while Lee bowled 8 overs and Clark 6. To boot, Symonds 9 and Clarke 7. All these bowlers had an RPO much below Lewis. I am not the type to throw an accusation lightly. However it was bewildering, to say the least.]]

I guess, your wanted to consider only the matches where team batting first lost just 4 or less wickets.

Another way would be to have a look at cases where the team batting first had lost very few wickets for the majority of their innings. E.g. third wicket after the 45th or 40th over.

In my view this would bring up more interesting cases, as currently you are missing out on ones where the first team tried to put its foot on accelerator only in last couple of overs while with their initial strong position they should have attempted to stretch themselves much earlier.

Interestingly, this would immediately throw up the Natwest Trophy Final of 2002. Trescothick (109 in 100) and Hussain (115 in 128) hit 100s and England lost their third wicket in the 47th over. There is a case that both of them could have pushed the scoring more even as they were approaching their centuries.
India in reply won dramatically, losing eight wickets and with just three balls to spare. Clearing stretched to the limits.

Good Analysis. I think SA vs India match in srilanka (ICC Champions trophy) should also figure. In that match i remember SA need to score some thing like 40 runs of 60 balls with 8 wkts in hands.

Kallis messes there, india wins.

Excellent analysis! These kind of scenarios happen 'coz teams are not sure when to press the accelerator and eventually end up not utilizing their resources to optimum. Too much acceleration on the other side may cause wastage of resources. On optimization of resources I would like to draw analogy from one other sport,Tennis. (Though this not exactly right place, but few ppl may find it interesting) What should be the optimum percentage of first serve? If your first serve is 100%, then probably you could have afforded some more zip, pace, experiments in your serve, which you did not try (underutilization of resources). On the other hand if first serve % is too poor (less than 40% or so), then you are doing too many second serves. Given the fact that opponents find it far more easy to win points on the second serves, you are giving too many opportunities to opponents. In either case, resources are not being put to optimum use. Please lemme know if anybody is aware of any such study.
[[One more classic analogy. S.J.Simon, a great Bridge writer wrote "If you make all the contracts you bid, you are certainly underbidding". Very true. It is only when you take risks, bid and go down can you be certain that you bid at the correct levels.]]

Great analysis, but probably the match selection criterion is difficult to set. Saying that Australia should have scored even more than 434 to beat South Africa is perhaps not justified. The argument like Lee scoring only 1 run of last 2 balls is also not justified since South Africa scored 4 more runs with 1 ball still to go. Here, the match selection criterion for this type of analysis is just impossible to set...Similarly Pakistan scoring only 220/2, why not 280/5? Why do you assume that only 30 more runs could have been scored? And then every few runs add to pressure while chasing....SO, it's not easy to say that WI would have still chased it down successfully.
[[The point made is that there were still unutilized resources. That is all. Whether 30 more runs could have been scored or 50 more runs is all conjecture. Also would not Lee likely to have scored 8 runs in 2 balls than 1.]]

In answer to Raghvendra's comment and query - I once read a very good book by Rob Eastaway called "Beating The Odds - The Hidden Mathematics of Sport". This contained a chapter on Tennis serves. I can't remember exactly the analysis but I think it may be of relevence to you. It also contains lots of other analysis including something on the coin toss in cricket...

2002 Natwest Trophy Final between England and India, when India had beaten England by 2 wickets, should be included in the list.
The England did not press the paddle on the accelerator during their slog overs. England managed only 81 runs in their last 10 overs

Most of the matches those are taken into consideration are based on matches from 80's and 90's and in the present decade the game has been totally changed and approach
is quite different and the best example is the latest match in the Asia cup 2008 with Pakistan and India, where Pak scored 308 runs sparring just 6 wickets and inturn
india finshed the proceedings by just loosing 4 wickets. If we say pakistan is short of 20 or thirty then in the process of accomplishing they would have lost few wickets early and
would have fallen short of what they have achieved. It is like change in climate due to Global warming there is an change in cricket too .. Cricket Warming.

A great and expansive article. However it could have been better if some examples were provided with a lot of detail, maybe even at the cost of some other examples. But honestly...sometimes in 300+ innings, it is extremely difficult to blame someone, because for a poor run rate in one section, there must have been an excellent run-rate in many others, and this does not happen in every game. But I agree with the points, there is nothing more irritating the watching your team bat first, and you are left to wonder what could have been at the end.

Coming from such a good writer & cricket brain I am really amazed that you are trying to show the readers only one side of the coin. Ref ODI # 2096.With WI top-order clearly aware that the middle order has been failing of late consistently , they clearly showed cricket intelligence to not loose any wickets till late so that the guys down the order can come & play freely(as powell did). as its difficult for a new batsman to come & hit the groove staright away they did absolutely the right thing by not loosing their wicket.

I cant believe that instead of looking major factors such as WI having a poor bowling attack,fielding unit & flat tracks we are blaming the poor batsmen for scoring a 150!! Please try to show the comlete picture in an analysis.

Hope it helps you to devote your time to valuable analysis in the future.

Raj
Melbourne