A statistician in me

The recent ongoing test match where Dravid played an excellent knock in the first innings got me into thinking 'who has played the maximum number of balls in the test cricket?' Well i was pretty clear on who it might turn out to be, but there were few surprises as well. This is the overall list, 


I always thank Cricinfo for the data they own and how they have helped us by letting users query on that data. Here is the top ten

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	Balls Faced	SR	100
R Dravid	155	268	31	12570	270	53.03	29673	42.36	34
SR Tendulkar	179	293	32	14754	248*	56.52	27305	53.99*	51
AR Border	156	265	44	11174	205	50.56	27002	41.09*	27
JH Kallis	145	246	38	11947	201*	57.43	26418	45.22	40
SR Waugh	168	260	46	10927	200	51.06	22461	48.64	32
S Chanderpaul	133	227	36	9367	203*	49.04	22226	42.14	23
RT Ponting	152	259	28	12363	257	53.51	20827	59.36	39
MA Atherton	115	212	7	7728	185*	37.69	20709	37.31	16
G Boycott	108	193	23	8114	246*	47.72	20412	35.42*	22
BC Lara	131	232	6	11953	400*	52.88	19753	60.51	34
DPMD Jayawardene	119	196	13	9630	374	52.62	18370	52.42	28

On the first glance at the list, I realized Border & Boycott even though from the previous era, still managed to make it at number 3 & 9. Border may not be entirely from the previous era but still to see him at number 3, tells the sheer responsibility he carried to build a strong Aussie team. For Boycott, the catch here is, the number innings he has played against the number of innings the current crop of players have played. One more surprise entry was Lara, but he did make one of the biggest scores in test cricket and that is attributed by the fact that he has the best strike rate amongst the top ten. Amazing stat!


Lets take a step back and poke into the 70s-90s era and see who tops the list. The following list takes into consideration only till the year 1990 

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	Balls Faced	SR	100
G Boycott (Eng)	108	193	23	8114	246*	47.72	20412	35.42*	22
AR Border (Aus)	111	192	33	8488	205	53.38	20270	41.48*	23
SM Gavaskar (India)	125	214	16	10122	236*	51.12	15327	44.42*	34
DI Gower (Eng)	106	183	13	7383	215	43.42	14714	50.17	15
GS Chappell (Aus)	87	151	19	7110	247*	53.86	13079	51.53*	24
Javed Miandad (Pak)	101	153	18	7701	280*	57.04	12564	46.50*	22
JH Edrich (Eng)	77	127	9	5138	310*	43.54	11542	37.14*	12
CG Greenidge (WI)	96	163	15	6826	223	46.12	11018	49.14*	17
DL Haynes (WI)	85	146	17	5340	184	41.39	10970	43.50*	12
DB Vengsarkar (India)	105	168	22	6498	166	44.5	10506	42.75*	17

To be fair, I don't see any contrast in strike rates but the number that is surprising is the runs scored. The number of tests played is a significant factor but on the first look, to me, it looks like runs scoring then was really tough. All the top batsmen here are technically excellent and are predominantly openers or No 3 against the current crop of players in the first list who are predominantly either No.3 and No.4 batsmen. It is not that Openers have lost sheen in the current era, I think the openers have moved beyond getting the shine out of the new ball to scoring runs with the hard ball.


There are various interesting facts that can be inferred from the numbers, but to me it is a question between 'Has the standard of bowling gone down'? or 'Has the batting improved a lot and the conditions prevailing now are more in favour of the batsmen than the bowlers'? 


Information Courtesy: Cricinfo
P.S: Whatever it is, in local parlance these guys had 'Suga Gaaji' :-)