Analysis of Test results - by team has been done quite often. This article covers the other aspect, viz., by host country. I have taken a single theme of Test match results by country for the last four decades. The period has been selected because of the immediate relevance and to study the impact of the ODI games. The only measures are number of matches played, results and the result %.

For this particular analysis it does not matter whether the results were home wins or away wins. It is also quite possible that an innings win might be a dull mach when compared to a close draw. However I have a limited perspective here of looking only at results. In another later article I will look at excluding "dull" results and including "exciting" draws.

   |<-1970-2010->|<---1970s-->|<---1980s-->|<---1990s-->|<---2000s-->|
   |   M   R   % |  M   R   % |  M   R   % |  M   R   % |  M   R   % | 
ALL|1277 831 65.1|197 113 57.4|267 144 53.9|347 223 64.3|460 346 75.2|
                                                                       
AUS| 216 165 76.4| 43  35 81.4| 55  35 63.6| 56  42 75.0| 60  51 85.0|
BAN|  32  28 87.5|            |            |  1   1  100| 29  25 86.2|
ENG| 231 151 65.4| 47  26 55.3| 57  35 61.4| 57  37 64.9| 70  53 75.7|
IND| 153  86 56.2| 34  18 52.9| 42  17 40.5| 30  22 73.3| 47  29 61.7|
NZL| 131  76 58.0| 21  11 52.4| 28  12 42.9| 40  24 60.0| 42  29 69.0|
PAK| 122  65 53.3| 14   4 28.6| 43  19 44.2| 34  21 61.8| 31  21 67.7|
SAF|  96  75 78.1|  4   4  100|            | 36  24 66.7| 54  46 85.2|
SRI|  96  65 67.7|            | 12   7 58.3| 30  15 50.0| 54  43 79.6|
WIN| 156  92 59.0| 34  15 44.1| 30  19 63.3| 41  27 65.9| 51  31 60.8|
ZIM|  44  28 63.6|            |            | 22  10 45.5| 22  18 81.8|

Country analysis

Barring the disastrous 1980s, Australian matches have produced results over 80% of the time. This figure is going up year by year. No doubt due to the sporting nature of the pitches there.

Not worth talking about Bangladesh since most of the results there are Bangladeshi losses. No offence meant.

England had a very dull 1970s decade but recovered well and are now comfortably having results in three out of four matches.

India seems to have the worst record amongst all countries. Even in the last decade, when the rest of the world, especially outside the subcontinent, produced result-oriented pitches, India had only a 60% result value. This is quite low for the modern game of Test cricket desperately trying to maintain spectator interest.

New Zealand was very poor during the first two decades but seems to be improving steadily. However it must be mentioned that quite a few results there are the result of diabolic poor quality pitches, especially during thge early-2000s.

There was a time when Pakistan had a result % of 28. Now they have progressed to 2 out of 3. Still ranks with India as not conducive to results.

South Africa must be the most improved country in this regard and are mirroring Australia in producing pitches with opportunities for both Batsmen and Bowlers. Incidentally there were two great exciting draws there recently.

Srilankan pitches were flat as recently as last decade with a result % of only 50. Now there is a sudden improvement and they have a lot more results, mostly for the home team (and Muralitharan).

West Indies are nearly as bad as India. Only around 60% of the matches produce results. The West Indies situation, with progressively weakening teams, is understandable.

Zimbabwe is somewhat like Bangladesh. They lose home matches quite regularly. However they have at least managed to draw quite a few home tests as shown by the low results %.

Decade analysis

Over the past 40 years, the result % has been 65, no doubt aided by the recent spurt in result matches. The last decade has been excellent with over 3 out of 4 matches decisive.

The 1970s were average with only 57% being result matches. Australia were the only exception to the safety-first method employed by home countries. Pakistan was exceptionally poor.

The 1980s was the nadir with even Australia falling into this mire. No country exceeded 64% and only around half the matches produced results. Pakistan improved but India and New Zealand fell back.

There was a marked move up in the 1990s. The result % moved up to 64. Australia had 75% result matches but the real improvement was in India with 73% result matches, possibly through Kumble.

The last decade was an excellent one overall with 75% result matches. The only two countries pulling down the result figure are India, with 61.7% and West Indies, with 60.8%. As already stated, West Indies situation is understandable. However, the Indian scene, with a team aspiring and succeeding to go to the top and possessing an outstanding team is inexplicable. I hope the Indian pitches change quickly and we see a 75+% during the coming decade.

What I would like to see in the 2010s decade is for the overall figure to go upto 80%. I would prefer that this is achieved through India and West Indies consistently reaching 75% results.

I have stayed away from a graphic representation of these numbers since the figures any readers would be interested in are readily available and the readers can draw their own conclusions. Nothing is gained by doing a graph for the sake of showing something visual.

From this month onwards I will be doing at least two light-weight posts such as this and the preceding one. Over the past few weeks many readers have asked for special types of analysis and most of these would fall into this category.

This is an analysis of ODI opening partnerships - by team. Normally strike rates are not incorporated in such analysis. In order to be absolutely certain of the conclusions, I have only included matches for which I have certain information of balls at which the wickets fell. A total of 1636 matches (55%) qualify. For the other matches I have also done such analysis using extrapolation. However I have not included these matches to avoid comments which will miss the main point and highlight the subjective or extrapolative methods.

I have also done a Runs per partnerships measure rather than the Average, in other words ignoring the unbroken partnerships. This does not really matter since very few opening partnerships remain unbroken. The analysis is current upto match # 2948, the fifth ODI between Australia and Pakistan.

1. Opening partnerships - by Runs per Partnership (RpP)

Team          OpP   Runs   RpP

Australia     340  14725  43.31
India         389  15950  41.00
South Africa  298  11253  37.76
Sri Lanka     328  11292  34.43
England       244   8394  34.40
Pakistan      318  10596  33.32
West Indies   258   8289  32.13
New Zealand   274   8362  30.52
Zimbabwe      262   7387  28.19
Bangladesh    187   4620  24.71
Kenya          94   2136  22.72

Considering all partnerships, irrespective of size, Australia leads with an average RpP of 43.21. India follows with 41.00, some way behind. South Africa follows with 37.76, leaving quite some daylight after India.

In all these tables, the last three positions are held by Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Leaving these teams aside, the fourth from last position should be the one to interest us. In this table New Zealand occupies that position, with an average RpP of 30.52, nearly 40% behind Australia.

2. Opening partnerships - by Partnership Strike rate

Team          OpP   Runs  Balls    S/R

Australia     340  14725  16414   89.7
Sri Lanka     328  11292  12850   87.9
India         389  15950  18379   86.8
New Zealand   274   8362  10204   81.9
Pakistan      318  10596  12947   81.8
South Africa  298  11253  13832   81.4
England       244   8394  10452   80.3
West Indies   258   8289  11003   75.3
Zimbabwe      262   7387  10546   70.0
Bangladesh    187   4620   6907   66.9
Kenya          94   2136   3354   63.7

Australia's strike rate for all these partnerships is 89.7, no doubt due to the presence of Gilchrist and Hayden. Sri Lanka, led by Jayasuriya and Dilshan, come in next with 87.9. India, aided by Tendulkar and Sehwag, follows closely with 86.8. New Zealand, despite the lower RpP value, have scored these runs at a decent rate of 81.9.

The strike rate of West Indies, despite the presence of Gayle, has been only 75.3.

Now I have done a special analysis of partnerships, only those of 50 runs and above. These partnerships lay the foundation for good scores. Both the size and rate of scoring matter. I have used 50 instead of 100 since these are limited over matches and scoring 50 normally means that the opening spells, of around 10 overs, have been tackled, as also the first PowerPlay. Also it allows us to have decent number of partnerships for consideration (717, about 25%)

3. Opening partnerships ( >= 50 ) - by Runs per Partnership

Team          OpP    %     Runs   RpP

India         111  28.5%  10898  98.18
New Zealand    56  20.4%   5246  93.68
South Africa   80  26.8%   7457  93.21
Sri Lanka      79  24.1%   7129  90.24
Australia     118  34.7%  10534  89.27
Pakistan       69  21.7%   6139  88.97
West Indies    58  22.4%   5156  88.90
England        57  23.4%   4983  87.42
Bangladesh     25  13.4%   2070  82.80
Zimbabwe       50  19.1%   4074  81.48
Kenya          14  14.9%   1063  75.93

When they cross 50, India has been the most prolific with an RpP value of 98.18. This is a great conversion rate, approaching 100. They are nearly 5% ahead of New Zealand who are adept at conversion of these partnerships. Australia stays only around the middle with a less than 90 run average.

The next 4/5 teams are bunched together, with England propping up the teams.

In terms of % of total, Australia is the best with 34.7% while Pakistan, with their opening batsman woes, is quite low at 21.7%. New Zealand is the lowest at 20.4%.

4. Opening partnerships ( >= 50 ) - by Partnership Strike rate

Team          OpP   Runs  Balls    S/R

Sri Lanka      79   7129   7118  100.2
India         111  10898  11187   97.4
Australia     118  10534  10921   96.5
South Africa   80   7457   8038   92.8
New Zealand    56   5246   5666   92.6
England        57   4983   5444   91.5
Pakistan       69   6139   6757   90.9
West Indies    58   5156   5951   86.6
Zimbabwe       50   4074   5144   79.2
Bangladesh     25   2070   2668   77.6
Kenya          14   1063   1458   72.9

Now for the strike rates of these meaningful 50+ partnerships. Seri Lanka, again due to Jayasuriya, have an outstanding strike rate of over 100. This is truly mind-boggling. India and Australia follow with near-100 strike rates.

West Indies have a low strike rate of 86.6.

This indicates that the opening batsmen, once they cross 50, improve the strike rates and generally end with strike rates nearing 100.0.

What about the specific opening batsmen combinations. That is for a later article.

A reader had asked ablout the non-Test countries. Their summary table is shown below. Netherland leads in RpP value while Canada scores faster.

Team       OpP Runs  RpP  Balls  S/R 50+ Runs  RpP Balls  S/R

Netherlands 33 1036 31.39  1304 79.4  8   654 81.75  685  95.5
Scotland    37 1005 27.16  1476 68.1  6   582 97.00  706  82.4
Ireland     38  977 25.71  1465 66.7  5   404 80.80  562  71.9
Canada      40 1015 25.38  1124 90.3  7   485 69.29  443 109.5
Bermuda     30  460 15.33   811 56.7  3   215 71.67  335  64.2

Muttiah Muralitharan: the leader in Tests and ODIs © AFP

Finally the analysis many of you have asked and been waiting for patiently. This has been on the drawing board for the past six months and I have had quite a few exchanges with many readers to fine-tune the analysis. A lot of care has been taken care to equalise performances by the players across years and across formats. This follows the best batsman analysis.

First, the "Twelve Commandments" followed in doing the analysis.

1. Equal weight for Tests and ODIs. T20-Intls not included since many top players have not played any T20-I matches and anyhow very few matches have been played. Let the number of T20-I matches cross 1000 before we consider it worthy of inclusion in this type of analysis.
2. Recognise longevity measures, such as wickets captured, but make sure that the total weight does not exceed 20%.
3. Especially for ODIs, recognise and incorporate the important fact that during the early 20 years very few ODI matches were played.
4. Unlike Batting where there is no necessity to distinguish between Right and Left handers, there is a clear need to distinguish in the Bowling analysis between Pace bowlers and Spinners because of the significant difference in the three main bowling measures, viz., primarily the Bowling average and secondarily, the Strike rate and Bowling accuracy. Since this is much more pronounced in Test matches than ODI matches, the handling is different.
5. Recognise how the bowler has performed in comparison to his peers, in the Strike rate and Bowling accuracy measures, for both Tests and ODIs. Mura;litharan and Garner are outstanding in these comparisons.
6. Recognise the fact that wickets of top order batsmen should carry additional weight as compared to wickets of late order batsmen. Pathan and Anderson are the best in this regard.
7. Use only career level figures. Match performances, while very relevant, would make it difficult to be equitable to Tests and ODIs. The peer comparisons cover this to some extent.
8. Give weight for share of team wickets. This is quite relevant in Test cricket, but is probably more relevant in ODIs. A bowler is allowed to bowl only 20% of his team overs (barring rain-hit and abandoned matches). Overall a bowler might have shared around 18% of his team's bowling. As such a bowler who captures, say 22/23% of the team wickets has performed admirably and so on. Let me say that even the spinners have done quite well in this measure. Brett Lee leads in this measure.
9. My idea initially was not to distinguish between home and away performances in Tests. However the following table of the the top-5 bowlers changed my mind. Let me assure readers that enough away wickets have been captured by all these bowlers.

              Overall   Home    Away    Ratio

Muralitharan   22.71   20.09   27.02    0.74
Warne          25.42   25.55   25.27    1.01
Kumble         29.65   24.90   37.36    0.67
McGrath        21.64   21.97   21.23    1.03
Walsh          24.44   23.15   25.66    0.90

It is clear that bowlers like Warne, even though he is a spinner, and McGrath performed better away than home. Muralitharan was less effective away, but still had a good away average. However Kumble was very average away. This fact has to be recognised and this has prompted to give some additional weight for away average. This is a change of heart and follows the batting ideas.
10. Since this analysis is limited to bowlers who played between 1970 and 2010, work out the algorithms based on these years. In other words, keep out of the equation Lohmann's outrageous figures. An average of 20.00 is the pinnacle, not halfway down the pole. This has helped to rationalise the analysis quite well.
11. Since this is a pure bowler based analysis, exclude the non-bowling factors such as Captaincy, Results, World Cup wins etc. McGrath, Garner and Warne might have won more matches and World Cups than Muralitharan, Ambrose and Hadlee but that should not be used to decide who is ahead in this bowling analysis.
12. I also decided that I would sum the points at rounded-integer level and would tie bowlers who have similar points. I would not use decimal points to separate any groups.

As usual there has to be a minimum criteria. I have decided on 200 combined international wickets AND minimum of 50 wickets in each format. This has allowed me to include Bond, Roberts, Jayasuriya and keep out Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Gibbs. Keeping a single qualification, a la Batting, 100 wickets in each format unfortunately gave me only 49 bowlers, which is quite a low sample.

The table below is quite illuminating and the ratios have been used in making the adjustments between Pace and Spin. For instance the base average for Test Pacers is 27.5 and for Test Spinners is 31.3. To that extent the Spinner would benefit. The base RpO for Test Pacers is 2.85 and for Spinners is 2.58. To that extent the Pace bowler would benefit. And so on... I have taken these numbers only for bowlers who have captured 100 wickets to ensure that the bar is set higher.

Tests played from 1970 - 2010 (only for bowlers who have taken 100 wkts)
                                       Ratios to All
       All   Pace   Spin              Pace       Spin
Avge: 28.6   27.5   31.3 - 13.8%      0.96       1.09
S/R:  62.4   57.8   72.8 - 25.9%      0.93       1.17
RpO:  2.75   2.85   2.58 - 10.4%      1.04       0.94

All ODIs (only for bowlers who have taken 100 wkts)

       All   Pace   Spin              Pace       Spin
Avge: 28.9   27.8   31.9 - 14.8%      0.96       1.10
S/R:  39.6   38.3   43.3 - 13.0%      0.97       1.09
RpO:  4.37   4.35   4.42 -  1.6%      0.99       1.01

The following are the points allotted for different measures.

Tests:  Wickets captured- 100 
        Adjusted wkts   -  50 (adjusted for matches played during career)
        Bowling average - 100
        Away bow average-  50
        Peer comparison -  50 (bowling strike rate comparison)
        Peer comparison -  50 (bowling accuracy comparison)
        % of Team wkts -   50
        % of Top wkts -    50

ODIs:   Wickets captured- 100 
        Adjusted wkts   -  50 (adjusted for matches played during career)
        Bowling average - 100   
        Peer comparison -  50 (bowling strike rate comparison)
        Peer comparison -  50 (bowling accuracy comparison)
        % of Team wkts -   50
        % of Top wkts -    50
        Wicket quality -   50 

The "Adjusted wkts" measure requires an explanation, especially for ODIs. This is best explained with an example. Take the case of Dennis Lillee. He had a career span of 12 years. That is fine and represents a long career. However the problem is that he played only 63 ODIs during this period. Compare this with Brett Lee who, in a shorter 10-year career, has played 186 matches, over 3 times more. An adjustment is needed and this is explained below.

The average number of ODIs per year played by Australia during 39 years is 18.7. The average number of ODIs played by Australia during Lillee's career is 7.75. The wickets captured by Lillee are multiplied by a factor 2.41(18.7/7.75) and points allotted for this measure. For Brett Lee, his career span number for Australia is 27.9 and the multiplying factor is 0.67 (18.7/27.9). Thus this redresses the wide imbalance which exists in the number of matches, especially ODIs, played over the years.

Note that the country figures rather than individual player figures are used since the player might not play due to injuries or non-selection or in Lillee's case, Packer matches. Note also that the base country is used as the base for doing this calculation for the player. Since the number of matches played by various countries varies by a factor of 2.5 to 1, comparisons with a single across-countries base would go haywire.

This is also done for Tests although the variations are far less for Tests.

For both Tests and ODIs, the overall Bowling average, adjusted for the decade values, carries 10 points. Only for Tests, the Away Bowling average, again adjusted for decade values, carries a weight of 5 points.

Independent peer comparisons are done on both Bowling strike rate and Bowling accuracy. The comparisons are only with similar bowlers.

For ODIs, the wicket quality is used by summing the "batting average" of the batsmen dismissed and dividing by the number of wickets. Also to determine the % of top wickets only batsmen whose average exceeds 30.0 (top batsman by all measures) is considered. Harmison is amongst the best in this measure.

Now let me unveil the tables. These tables are current upto Test # 1950 (second Bng-Ind test) and ODI # 2948 (fifth Aus-Pak ODI).

The best bowlers across formats - across years

  Rating                     Spin Test   ODI   Test    ODI
  Points                     Flag Wkts  Wkts    Pts    Pts
   1000                                         500    500

 1  752 Muralitharan M     Slk *   792   505  380.6  371.7
 2  697 McGrath G.D        Aus     563   380  348.6  348.8
 3  656 Wasim Akram        Pak     414   502  301.2  354.4
 4  655 Warne S.K          Aus *   708   293  346.5  308.8
 5  637 Donald A.A         Saf     330   272  309.7  327.4
 6  635 Pollock S.M        Saf     421   393  302.2  332.5
 7  631 Waqar Younis       Pak     373   416  295.3  335.2
 8  624 Garner J           Win     259   146  308.2  316.0
 9  623 Hadlee R.J         Nzl     431   158  328.1  294.9
10  621 Ambrose C.E.L      Win     405   225  328.6  292.3
11  600 Lillee D.K         Aus     355   103  305.8  293.8
12  587 Marshall M.D       Win     376   157  327.0  259.8
13  580 Holding M.A        Win     249   142  287.5  292.4
14  573 Imran Khan         Pak     362   182  307.4  265.5
15  570 Kumble A           Ind *   619   337  286.9  283.3
16  568 Bond S.E           Nzl      87   126  265.0  303.3
17  565 Lee B              Aus     310   324  232.5  332.9
18  564 Walsh C.A          Win     519   227  311.7  252.5
19  561 Saqlain Mushtaq    Pak *   208   288  236.1  324.8
20  556 Roberts A.M.E      Win     202    87  262.6  293.4
21  553 Ntini M            Saf     390   265  243.4  310.0
22  549 Vaas WPUJC         Slk     355   400  241.2  308.0
23  545 Shoaib Akhtar      Pak     178   223  249.9  295.0
24  538 Kapil Dev N        Ind     434   253  258.7  279.5
25  529 Gough D            Eng     229   235  246.6  282.2

Muralitharan heads both Test and ODI tables and is ahead by a comfortable margin. Only the churlish and the narrow-minded would deny this great bowler his place at the top. It is easy to say that he played in a weaker team so he had more opportunities to pick up more wickets. What about the batting and fielding. A strong team would have provided these cushions to their bowlers.

McGrath is second in Tests and third in ODIs and again fully deserves his high position. Has there ever been a better fast bowler? He is ahead of his long time compatriot Warne and Wasim Akram quite comfortably.

Wasim Akram is the other way around. Had a great ODI career (he is second) but had a slightly below-par Test career, of course compared to the Test giants. Overall a phenomenal fast bowler, worthy of his third position.

Warne is third in Tests. His achievements are legendary and do not need further words. He is a hair-breadth behind Wasim Akram. Would we ever see a twosome like McGrath and Warne bowling together?

The outstanding South African fast bowler, Donald is in fifth position. Consistency across the formats is his forte.

The top-10 is completed by Pollock, Waqar Younis, Garner, Hadlee and Ambrose. I am quite happy that there three great pairs in this group. It should be noted that the somewhat low number of wickets of Hadlee and Garner has not prevented them from coming to the top. Lillee misses the cut mainly because of the average ODI placements, not his fault, though. Marshall could also not find his place in the top-10 because of the ODI points.

The top-10 has 2 Australians, 2 Pakistanis, 2 South Africans, 2 West Indians, one Srilankan and one New Zealander. A fair distribution, one would say, with 6 countries represented. For the record, Kumble, Gough, Streak and Mashrafe Mortaza are the other country's best bowlers.

There also two spinners in the top-10 and four in the top-20. This is in line with the overall proportion since only 19 spinners qualified, representing 25% of the total. For the record, Chris Gayle props up the rankings.

Overall this is a fast bowler-dominated period. Only 25% of the bowlers are spinners. Also if one takes great spinners during this period, it would be difficult to look beyond Murali, Warne, Kumble, Abdul Qadir, Saqlain and Harbhajan (probably not there yet). However if I have to select the best pece bowlers, a limit of 15 would leave me unhappy.

To download the complete all-time list, please right-click here and save the file.

Because of the length of the article I am not dwelling on the individual tables in depth. Suffice to say that Muralitharan, McGrath, Warne, Ambrose, Hadlee, Marshall, Walsh, Donald, Garner and Imran Khan could not be bettered as a Test top-10 of the past forty years. This list is dominated by West Indies, the most effective bowling team over the past 40 years.

To download the complete Test list, please right-click here and save the file.

And the ODI-10 of Muralitharan, Wasim Akram, McGrath, Waqar Younis, Pollock, Lee, Donald, Saqlain Mushtaq, Garner and Ntini represented the cream amongst ODI bowlers. I am happy that Saqlain, with an incredible ODI average of 21.7 and strike rate of 30.5 finds a place in the top-10. This group is dominated by Pakistan, rightly so.

To download the complete ODI list, please right-click here and save the file.

A request to readers. You have every right to comment negatively. Every right to fault this analysis. Every right to be upset. Every right to disagree. What you do not have is the right to be abusive, personal or otherwise, to me or to the other readers or to the great players themselves or to other countries.

After a reasonable break I will do a "Who is the best player - across years and formats" article.