Who contributed more for Indian Test wins in this millennium? : Batting in Indian Home wins

So last time I looked at away wins here and now I ll take up Indian wins.Before I look at the stats let me make some guesses.One thing for sure,like in a way wins Dravid and Sachin should be the most contributors.Sehwag should have made more contribution compared to his contribution in away wins.I also expect Sachin to be more contributing than Dravid.Lets see the stats.

Player	Span	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	0	4s	6s
SR Tendulkar	2000-2010	24	40	6	2226	214	65.47	4118	54.05	8	10	0	276	12
R Dravid	2000-2010	23	39	9	2168	200*	72.26	4583	47.30	7	9	1	261	5
V Sehwag	2002-2010	18	30	1	1810	293	62.41	2020	89.60	4	11	1	253	32
VVS Laxman	2000-2010	22	32	5	1533	281	56.77	2839	53.99	3	11	1	208	1
SC Ganguly	2000-2008	15	25	2	947	136	41.17	1885	50.23	2	3	2	119	7
MS Dhoni	2005-2010	14	19	4	928	132*	61.86	1423	65.21	2	8	0	85	18
G Gambhir	2004-2010	11	19	0	672	167	35.36	1146	58.63	2	3	1	75	1

In the overall runs Sachin and Dravid pretty close.However, Dravid beats Sachin by his average. Sehwag is also not far considering he played less innnings. If you take average runs scored per innings I think Sehwag(60.33) beats both Sachin(55.65) as well as Dravid(55.59).Even Dhoni's average is good in these matches which means he is actually contributing to Test cricket also.I am surprised.But Gambhir failed at home clearly.He was really good in away wins but didn't really contributed much here.
So Its the trio of Dravid,Sachin and Sehwag are the batsmen who contributed mostly for Indian home wins.
I would give the trophy to Sehwag here because he scored at 60 per innnings at the strike rate of 90.
Silver and bronze goes to Dravid and Sachin non-respectively.Laxman and Dhoni chipped in at times but Ganguly and Gambhir failed at home wins.

India in South Africa: If I can dream

So SA declared early to counter the rain gods. India started their innings trailed by 430 and were really fighting it out there. Thanks to Sehwag and Gambhir we are now 294 behind only.

As a raional cricket fan I should only be looking at saving the match if not loosing it rightaway.But then I am an Indian fan and I would still think the Indian win is possible. After alll India is the world No 1.Lets think about a possibility.

4th day 1st session: Ishant will play his natural play and provide good support to Rahul and will make a partnership of 40 in the first hour. At this time Sachin enters shows hist stroke play and Rahul also picks up and will make a partner ship of 100 in next 1 n half hr. Ya its an early start so 2 and half hr session it is.So would be 330/3

2nd session: Rahul and Sachin continues and Rahul completes his Century and also Sachin his 50th. Both will not give wickets to safaris and will milk 120 from that session.India would be 450/3 with 20 run lead.Remember I am dreaming.

3rd session: Sachin falls here with the special entrance by Laxman with 3 4's in a row.So my favorite partnership continues and will milk another 120 in the session with India at 570/4. We will be leading by 140 then.Rahul will be at 180 and Laxman completes his yet another half century.

5th Day 1st Session: Rahul will complete his double and trying to shift gears ll loose his wicket with Raina coming. Laxman will not make his century and Dhoni comes onto the crease. In the next 1 and half hr Raina and Dhoni blasts SA bowlers and milk 150. India declared with 5 overs still to play in that session.SA will have a target of 291 and will make fascinating two sessions left to ponder about.

Next two sessions : I don't want to dream them I want to see them live :D

Who contributed more for Indian Test wins in this millennium?

I was just wondering who are the players who contributed for India in attaining the numero 1. So thought of analyzing the same.

Lets start with batsmen.For the record I am only taking the matches in this millennium as I think India started winning test matches consistently from 2000. That was the time of Sehwag coming into the side and Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly being in their best form.That was the time when India started depending on a team performance rather than master balster's performance.

Can you guess who would have made the most contribution in the away win matches? For me it was always Dravid, Sehwag, Sachin and to little extent Laxman. I thought its more of Sehwag's runs that made in a hurry ensured the wins.

So here I took a stat from cricinfo.Below are the stats from 1st Jan 2000 to present day where India won away from home. I have taken only the batsmen who have at least scored 500 runs.

View overall figures
Primary team India
Home or away away (home of opposition)
Start of match date between 1 jan 2000 and 18 Dec 2010
Tournament type 2 team series
Match result won match
Qualifications runs scored greater than or equal to 500
Ordered by runs scored (descending)

Overall figures

Player	Span	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	0	4s	6s
R Dravid	2000-2010	22	34	5	2114	270	72.89	4113	51.39	6	9	1	289	4
SR Tendulkar	2000-2010	18	27	5	1866	248*	84.81	3237	57.64	8	4	1	224	7
VVS Laxman	2001-2010	18	27	3	1296	148	54.00	2421	53.53	3	8	0	171	1
V Sehwag	2002-2010	16	25	3	1186	309	53.90	1426	83.16	3	3	3	167	13
SC Ganguly	2000-2008	16	23	4	997	128	52.47	1917	52.00	2	8	2	116	5
G Gambhir	2004-2010	8	13	3	757	139	75.70	1090	69.44	2	5	0	105	1

I was correct on Rahul Dravid as the above stats prove that he is the one who contributed the most for away wins. The one which surprised me most is the Sachin's average here. He has the best average for away wins but when I try to recollect the historic wins I see Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman but I am not able to recollect the matches which are won by Sachin. This shows that Sachin contributed consistently as well as Dravid but others have only clicked in few matches and failed in few matches. So here I can easily say that bulk of the Indian wins away are contributed by Dravid and Sachin.

These stats also tell us that Sehwag is not really contributed that much which contradicts my thinking. I always thought that Sehwag is the one who is doing exceptionally well in tests.He has very less average compared to Sachin,Dravid and laxman.But the real difference here is the strike rate I guess. With a strike rate of 84 if you can average 54 then it becomes very difficult for opposition and it gives a very good platform for the middle order batsmen.

And also once Gambhir is added into this fab 5 it has been raining runs for India. Gambhir averages 76 with a very good strike rate of 70 in away wins only next to Sachin.

One more thing this stat proves that Ganguly was not that bad as was thought by me earlier.All the while I thought Ganguly was in the team only for his captaincy but clearly with an average 53 I think you can pick him in any batting line up as a pure batsmen.

So conclusion, Dravid and Sachin are the most contributors with Sehwag and Gambhir setting up the platform and Ganguly and Laxman chipped in. Its a clear Team effort I say.

In my next analysis I ll take up Home wins. Any guesses who would be the most contributors?

India in South Africa

Before India,the rock stars of cricket world, came to South Africa India is world No.1 in tests as per ICC ranking but everybody has doubts of Indian domination in away matches. Frankly speaking, though India is numero 1 by big margin in ranking, it is still the underdog in the current series.Even if India draws one of the 2 test matches in this series it can still hang on to 1st place.

Though Batting line up is superb for India, the weak link is definitely bowling.With Zaheer being injured, its a no match for likes of Kallis and Amlas.Last time when India toured SA Sreesanth was pick of the bowlers. The way he moved the ball in the first test was amazing. I think SA was folded out for 76 at that time.Never mind, we lost the next two matches to hand over the series to safaris.

So coming to the first test match, India has already folded out for 136 and safaris have already got a lead of 230.As Arun Lal would say, there is no coming back from this hole.It seems most likely that India would be behind by at least 400 by the time they start their second innings with 2 days to play.Still as an India fan, I hope they can save the match like gambhir did in NZ or another Dravid-Laxman partnership.

Though India batting flopped it is still ok they can turn around the form in no time,where as, Indian seamers not being able to take a single wicket on a seaming wicket is unacceptable. I hope sreesanth bowls like he bowled last time in SA and Ishant comes back in form like he did with NZ.Lets see what happens on 3rd day.

The day it all started

Date: 18th April, 2008,Saturday 6:30 pm. That was the official time for the start of first ever IPL opening ceremony. As soon as the cricinfo commentator wrote “Hello and welcome to the first .......” , I was shouting “Abe samir(alias mardi,alias chotu),IPL start hone wala hain chalo chalo common room” while running towards the stairs of our wing. I got my favourite seat in the common room as there were hardly 4 guys in that room. Then it all started.

Chinnaswamy stadium was already full before even the toss happened. The match was scheduled at 8 pm and already the chinnaswamy was full by 7pm.Wow.Then there was some bollywood music by shankar’s team and dances by some bollywood stars then came as Shastri invited Rahul Dravid captain of Bangalore Royal challengers and Sourav Ganguly captain of Kolkata Night Riders onto the stage. Crowd response was amazing. Shastri’s voice was hardly heard. Then came all other captains on to the stage and there were some speeches and etc. In all these speeches the one which was notable was “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.” From Lalit Modi which was actually quoted by Nehru in 1947. No comments here.

Now everybody was gone off the stage and some gymnastics were going which I was not at all interested in. Then I saw around to notice that the common room where our TV is present is already full. Atleast 20 ppl were standing. The IPL fever has just started in KGP,I thought. Time was 7 30 pm, our dinner time and as usual I didn’t have my dinner. I got an egg puff and a frappe from Nescafe which was just outside our common room. By the time I came back somebody occupied my seat and I had to stand till the end of first innings.

Then toss happened Knight Riders batted first. By the way I was cheering for Royal challengers because 1.I am a big fan of Rahul Dravid 2. I strongly believe that whoever does well in test cricket can easily adapt to any situation. Everybody was saying royal challengers are fielding a test team. There was only me who was cheering for them because KGP is in Bengal.

In Kingfisher airlines colour jersey the royal challengers entered the field and then came Knight Rider’s batsmen in golden and black jersey. I was expecting early wickets as Praveen kumar started bowling because batsmen are just gonna try to hit every ball out of the ground. After the first over by Praveen kumar which yielded only 1 run, I clapped for him and everyone was staring at me. Wow, bongs were really serious about their team. But when McCullum hit 18 runs of the second over by zaheer khan , all my expectations were gone. Man, McCullum was hitting the ball like a tennis ball. I forgot whom I was cheering; I was just cheering “Go McCullum Go”. Finally Knight Riders won by more than 100 runs I guess. I was disappointed that there was no real contest there but I thoroughly enjoyed the batting by McCullum who scored century.

And the day it all started finally ended when I started my bittorrent client to download the highlights of the match and gone to sleep thinking that “If Knight Riders can get such a big score then what will happen when deccan chargers (the team which I thought would take the trophy) batsmen take the field which boasts of Afridi, Gibbs, Symonds, Gilchrist etc in their ranks”.

Passion - A start

My dad is a big fan of cricket. He used to take leaves to watch important matches. I don’t know whether this passion is inherited from my father or may be my own but I too bunked many classes to watch even test matches. I was getting up at 5 AM in the morning to watch India playing in Australia. I used to watch till 4 am in the morning when India was playing in WestIndies. People used to say “man, this guy is a freak”. I used to think maybe I was a freak but I was not the only one. I was always accompanied by at least five other friends in my IIT hostel. Those were my IIT days where I hardly had 3 hrs classes per day so that was ok. What about now? I am working in a Software Company and have to reach the office by 10:30 but still I was getting up at 3 30 am in the morning to watch India creating history in Newzealand. Man, I am a freak. Yes you heard right I am a crazy fan of cricket but then you find samples like me in India innumerably. India has really all the diversities here whichever you can think of cultures, religions, caste , white, black , coloured you name it. While writing this I recall a caption which I studied in my social studies class “anekatha mein yekatha” meaning “Unity in Diversity”. Yes this caption really suits here because even though India has so many diversities all have this passion about cricket. Yes, It is true Cricket is a religion here.

I want to tell you guys about an incident in my childhood. I was in my 6th standard I think and there was an ODI match going on between India and Pakistan Hero cup final. At that point of time I had no idea what a cover drive is and what is swing and what is off spin. I only knew 4 ,6 and wicket that’s all. It was sunday . For my dad it was a working day but as I said He is a freak like me sorry actually, I was a freak like him so he took leave and stayed home to watch. He was watching in the hall and I was studying in the bed room because I had my half yearly exams in 15 days (I was a studios guy then).I wanted to see that match badly. I requested my dad to let me watch the match. He said he will let me watch only Indian batting and that too only first 15 and last 10 overs of the match. You know I was quiet happy with that because all I wanted to see was just 4’s and 6’s.I always thank my dad to let me watch that match. I would never forget Kanitkar hitting a lofted 4 when India needed 3 runs of 2 balls while chasing 315.

My conclusion from this little incident of my own is that anyone who has only little knowledge about cricket really wants to see is 4’s 6’s and wickets thats all. They want the action but not the two experts in the commentary box arguing about a leg before wicket Or Rahul Dravid playing a perfect square cut Or Mc Grath testing the openers with a perfect line outside the off stump. They don’t want to waste a full day to cricket either, they just want to spend time for entertainment where their day to day work is not impacted. In India where there is an unbound love for cricket where cricket itself is a religion there comes IPL brainchild of Lalit Modi. A perfect match to what a non-hardcore cricket fan really wants. A twenty20 match at 8 pm which brings all the action highlights of cricket in 3 and ½ hrs time. You have your own city team to cheer. You have the cheer girls and bollywood music to entertain when nothing is going on onfield.
IPL was a big success it had to be, the way it was planned is amazing. Everybody knew it was going to be a big success and it was going to create history and indeed it created history.IPL is here to stay. I am happy that I am here when it all got started. I am going to tell my grand children that I was there following the first IPL when it happened proudly.

What about the IPL2? Is it going to bring the same success which brought IPL last year? Is it going to be the same in South Africa? Well, all the questions will be answered in the next few weeks. What my guts say is IPL2 going to be bigger success than IPL last year. Yes there will be some impact of not happening in India but all the games evolve with the experience So, I believe IPL will also evolve in IPL2 and will be a much bigger success than last year.