The third and final test match in the series between England and New Zealand is about to get underway today at Headingley. England has already wrapped up the series following their victories at Lords and Trent Bridge.
The win at Trent Bridge is the one that has had everyone talking with England chasing down 298 in the fourth innings to win by five wickets.
First up there can be no denying that with England in trouble Jonny Bairstow’s innings to turn the game was one that will live long in the memory. He was eventually dismissed on 136 off just 92 balls. He was dismissed with the score at 272 and the match all but won, and having come to the wicket after Joe Root was dismissed and England was 56 for 3 wickets. He was on 43 when tea was taken and then went on the attack after the final break.
It was a remarkable innings.
Despite huge questions over New Zealand’s tactics and opting to stick with them, and also at times their field placing this inning raised some other issues.
First of all the creation of a new stand at Trent Bridge meant that some of the old playing surface has been lost, and as a result the boundary on the leg side when a bowler bowls from the pavilion end is much shorter than it had been in the past.
There were 249 boundaries scored in the match, the most ever in a test match, how much was that to do with where the boundaries were located?
In years gone by the perimeter fence used to be the boundary on not only first class grounds but also Test match grounds. Now there is a boundary rope that runs around the ground and often it is two to three metres inside the boundary fence, therefore reducing the distance to the boundary considerably, and reducing the playing area even more.
In recent times the average size of the playing field has been limited to a meagre 65–70m from the centre of the pitch in most international venues compared to 80–85m in the grounds of old. This is a fairly substantial difference. It has also led to top edges and miss-hits going for sixes, when previously the best you could have hoped for was four.
As fans we were told that the reason for the smaller boundaries was a health and safety issue. It stopped players chasing a ball to the boundary crashing into the fence when unable to slow down. A legitimate claim, as several players have injured wrists and fingers on the fence and some even knees and ankles sliding into it. However have the cricketing public been conned over this?
Has the reducing of the boundaries come about more to try and create more perceived excitement a la T20 Cricket. The equation being the more boundaries scored the more entertaining and exciting the game must be.
Has this come about due to a lack of promotional and marketing nous to attract fans to the sport in any other way. Shorter boundaries equals more runs, which some claim means more excitement, which in turn results in more fans. Of course as any cricket fan will tell you this is definitely not the case. If you produce a wicket which sees bat completely dominate the ball and the bowlers then you are likely to witness a dull and dreary game. Often low scoring matches are in fact far more exciting and have fans on the edge of their seats more than high scoring ones.
For both sides to score over 500 runs in the first innings at Trent Bridge showed that this was a match in which bat was more dominant than the ball. However, it was only the sixth time in the history of Test Cricket that a team that scored over 500 in the first innings of a test match ended up losing. The instances of this happening are well spread out and show that it is definitely not a common occurrence.
The times that this had happened prior to the Trent Bridge Test match were as follows:
- Australia vs England, 1894/5 in Sydney – Australia 586 & 166 lost to England 325 & (following on) 437
- Australia vs England, 1928/9 in Melbourne – England 519 & 257 lost to Australia 491 & 5/286
- Australia vs South Africa, 1953 in Melbourne – Australia 520 & 209 lost to South Africa 435 & 4/295
- West Indies vs England, 1968, Port of Spain – West Indies 7/526 dec. 2/92 dec. lost to England 404 & 3/215
- Australia vs India, 2003/4 in Adelaide – Australia 556 & 196 lost to India 523 & 3/230
- England vs Australia, 2005 in Adelaide – England 6/551 dec. & 129 lost to Australia 513 & 4/168
What is interesting to note is that it has happened three times since the year 2000, in a 22 year period. However only four times in 106 years before the year 2000. From the first instant of this happening in 1894 there were 1412 Test matches played internationally up until the year 2000. Since the start of the new century up until and including the Trent Bridge test match there have been 948 Test matches played.
So these figures would tend to indicate that the probability of this happening in the modern game is far more likely.
The fact that 553 is the sixth highest 1st innings score to lose a test match is not that relevant or that 299 is the highest ever 4th innings test score at Trent Bridge. Yet the fact that 1675 runs was the highest aggregate ever scored in a test match should be looked at. Why was this? Apart from some poor bowling decisions how big a part did the shortened boundary play?
These are all great statistics for those who love such things, but the crux of the matter is that records in order to be records should see players competing under the same circumstances. The weather and pitch conditions cannot be controlled, but the boundary sizes can and should be for comparisons to be valid.
Bairstow smashed his hundred at Trent Bridge in just 77 balls. The record for the fastest Test century for England is held by Gilbert Jessop against Australia in 1902 at The Oval, who achieved the feat in 76 balls.
Jessop’s 100 sees him the 16th fastest in Test cricket. Of the 15 players ahead of him nine scored their speedy centuries after the year 2000. England coach Brendon McCullum is the fastest in 54 balls, and he also comes in at 14th with one in 74 balls. The truly great Sir Viv Richards is second with one in 56 balls back in 1985/86. The only players above Gilbert Jessop prior to the year 2000 are Australian Jack Gregory in 1921/22 in 67 balls, West Indian Roy Fredricks in 1975/76 in 71 balls. and Pakistan’s Majid Khan in 76/77 along with India’s Kapil Dev and Mohammed Azharuddin who all matched McCullum’s 74 balls in 86/87 and 96/97.
Why is this happening more frequently these days, Is it the size of the boundaries?
Following his captain’s knock alongside Jonny Bairstow the England skipper Ben Stokes now finds himself only 8 sixes away from most in test history. You look at this list and once again it is dominated by players from the turn of the 21st century. Brendon McCullum is top with 106 sixes in Test cricket followed by Adam Gilchrist (100), – debut in ’99 – and Chris Gayle (98). Jacques Kallis sits fourth and he started his Test career prior to the year 2000 but finished in 2013. Brian Lara also started in the 1990’s and retired in 2007, he sits 7th with New Zealand’s Chris Cairns 8th and Sir Vivian Richards 9th with 84 sixes.
The game has changed, of that there can be no doubt. Gone is the old coaching adage of ‘keep the ball on the deck and you won’t get out caught!’ It is interesting to look at the great Sir Don Bradman’s career and he only hit six sixes in 80 Test match innings. Five against England and one against India. This is put into perspective when you realise he hit 618 fours.
Meaning 2508 of his 6996 runs in test cricket came from boundaries. How many would he have scored if the boundaries were where we see them today?
While the media work themselves into a frenzy with statistics one has to give them some perspective. Bairstow’s innings was truly one of the great fourth innnings knocks, but would it have been possible if the boundaries were the same?
If you want an example of the media hyping up such statistics look no further than the coverage of England’s recent one day victory over the Netherlands. This was a team of highly paid professionals taking on essentially part-timers. England is an established force in One Day International cricket, they are the current World Champions. The Netherlands do not have Test status so are a level below the top countries in the World. Surely they were expected to clean-sweep the Dutch? So there is not too much to celebrate there. As for what is being claimed as a World Record when they hammered 498 runs for 4 wickets in the opening game and Jos Buttler hit162 not out off only 70 balls, one questions how this can be classed as a World record in the true sense of records? How can this even be classified as a full international match? How can it possibly be ranked alongside England’s previous highest ODI score of 481-6 against, with all due respect to the Dutch a legitimate opponent in Australia at Trent Bridge in June 2018?
Great article. I seem to remember that in about 1975 I looked up the number of 6’s in what were then the 5 highest test scores of all time and I think there were about 3 in total. The combination of smaller boundaries and bats with a “middle” everywhere is a problem.