Stat Focus #1 : Chris Gayle -- Posted by Liam on Sunday, July 11 2004
Statistical Focus on...

Christopher Henry Gayle

Vital Stats:
Country of Origin: Jamaica
Cricketing Country/Team: West Indies
Batting: Left-handed; Attacking
Bowling: Right-arm off-spin; Defensive

Whether you're a fan or not, it can not be denied that Chris Gayle demands a place in any One Day International World XI at this point in his career. Yes, his shotty footwork and inconsistent Test match batting has kept such honourable mention distant for the Test form of the game, but Chris Gayle is a star in limited overs cricket.

The tall and powerful left-hander has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of the PWC ODI rankings both as a batsman and as an allrounder in the past couple of years. However, it was not always so easy.

Chris Gayle entered the West Indies senior team in the one-day outfit and would play seven (7) such matches before finally getting a Test birth. In those seven games he performed extremely modestly and indeed, score only 62 runs in his first 8 innings at One Day International level, for a disappointing average of 7.75. His bowling was a bit more effective in that time at 41.5 overs, 3 wickets for 187 runs - an average of 62.33 but economy of 4.47.

It was the innings after that horror run that Gayle scored his maiden half-century - 58 not out from 45 balls - against Zimbabwe in the Caribbean and began to find his feet (pardon the expression). Since his first 8 games and until his 100th match (played against England on Tuesday 6th July 2004), Gayle scored 3648 runs at a very creditable 43.43 per innings, whilst taking 84 wickets for 28.20 apiece.

Overall Gayle's stats read rather impressively. His 3710 runs (40.32) and 87 wickets (29.37) put him as the top-ranked allrounder in limited overs cricket today. With 9 centuries he's one of the best opening batsmen as well. Consider that his first hundred came in his 32nd game (152 versus Kenya) after he had scored 4 fifties. Since he has scored 8 hundreds in 68 games (67 innings) with 17 fifties - a 32% conversion rate. Over the last two years the record is even more impressive - 2229 runs at 49.53 (8 hundreds and 9 fifties) and 45 wickets at 30.84.

Bowling, Gayle's best analyisis to date came in the best of circumstances, a win against Australia. His figures read 10-0-46-5 and his victms included the likes of Lehmann (107), Symonds (48) and Michael Clarke (1). To date that performance remains his lone 5-wicket venture, but he also has 4-wicket tallies against Zimbabwe (4/24), New Zealand (4/54) and Pakistan (4/19).

With all these good-looking numbers, the question remains - is he a matchwinner? It really is a matter of opinion, but statistics dictate that Gayle has won the prestigious 'Man of the Match' award on 11 occasions (1 per 9 games) and has been crowned 'Man of the Series' 3 times. Further investigation shows a team record of 46 wins, 47 losses and 7 no-results when Chris Gayle is present. The best team win percentages (100%) come against Kenya (5-0 WI) and Bangladesh (4-0-2 WI). Against Kenya Gayle has 384 runs in 5 innings (76.8 average) and 6 wickets for 128 runs (21.33 average). However, his Bangladesh stats are far less convincing at 139 runs in 6 innings (23.16) and 3 wickets for 133 runs (44.33).

Matchwinner or not, Christopher Henry Gayle is an essential part of the West Indian one-day side and continues to build his game to the point where he will hopefully finally get the recognition he truly deserves. This building process will likely entail some technical work and Test macth application, but for now, with the games considered vastly different skills, Gayle stands among the best in world in One Day Internationals.

Stats: Is a century enough? -- Posted by Adam on Friday, July 9 2004
England's recent Lord's defeat at the hands of the West Indies in the NatWest Series confirmed a remarkable phenomenon. No, not Michael Vaughan's woeful captaincy record when batting first, which has been documented enough already, but rather the growing trend of century-makers ending up on the losing side. Andrew Flintoff had the misfortune of experiencing this in consecutive games (against New Zealand and the West Indies), but he may take consolation in the fact that he is not alone.

2004 has proved a bumper year for batsmen around the globe, with 27 centuries already scored in ODI's this year. Remarkably, though, 15 of those centuries were scored in losses - some 56%. Chris Gayle has the highest losing score in 2004, 152* against South Africa.

ODI Centuries in a losing cause: 2004

Batsman	Runs	Match
CH Gayle	152*	WI v RSA
SR Tendulkar	141	Ind v Pak
Yuvraj Singh	139	Ind v Aus
ME Trescothick	130	Eng v WI
Inzamam-ul-Haq	123	Pak v Ind
A Flintoff	123	Eng v WI
Inzamam-ul-Haq	122	Pak v Ind
ML Hayden	109	Aus v Ind
SV Carlisle	109	Zim v Ind
VVS Laxman	106*	Ind v Aus
A Flintoff	106	Eng v NZ
RR Sarwan	104*	WI v Eng
KC Sangakkara	101	SL v Aus
SM Ervine	100	Zim v Ind
AJ Strauss	100	Eng v Wi

A few interesting points to note from that list:

Andrew Flintoff and Inzamam-ul-Haq both feature twice;

In three instances, two batsmen scored centuries in the same innings, and their side still managed to lose: Flintoff and Strauss v WI; Carlisle and Ervine v India; Yuvraj and Laxman v Australia;

India was the most likely team to win despite a century by an opposition player, managing this five times in 2004.

Stats: Not so lonely at the top -- Posted by Adam on Saturday, July 3 2004
With Test cricket being played more frequently now than ever before, an obvious side-effect is player fatigue. However, there remains a select group of tireless performers who continue their relentless assault on the record books.

Glenn McGrath's 5/37 in his first Test match in nearly twelve months propelled him past Richard Hadlee and Kapil Dev to fourth place on Test cricket's leading wicket-takers list. McGrath's tally of 435 wickets places him behind only former rival Courtney Walsh amongst pace bowlers. The next current pace bowler is some way behind: South Africa's Shaun Pollock is at fifteenth on the overall list. Pollock's 339 wickets from 83 matches have, however, come at just 21.46 apiece - better than any current players with more than 200 Test wickets.

Meanwhile, top spot on the list appears set to change hands again, with Australian legspinner Shane Warne just seven wickets behind Sri Lankan wizard Muttiah Muralitharan's 527. Warne's 3/20 in the first-innings in Darwin put him one clear of Walsh's former record of 519 wickets. The spinning duo are not completely peerless though - veteran Indian spinner Anil Kumble is set to become the ninth bowler (and second Indian) to reach 400 Test wickets, come Australia's tour of India in October.

Leading Test Wicket-Takers -Current Players

Bowler	Career Wickets	Average	Overall Position
M Muralitharan	527	22.76	1st
SK Warne	520	25.32	2nd
GD McGrath	435	21.55	4th
A Kumble	397	28.21	9th
SM Pollock	339	21.46	15th

Allan Border's mantle of leading Test runscorer has only recently come under serious threat, after the former Australian captain surpassed former holder Sunil Gavaskar more than a decade ago. 166-Test veteran Steve Waugh came close, retiring with 10,927 runs to his name, 247 runs shy of his former captain's record 11,174.

The 10,000-club will almost certainly have two new inductees in the near future: West Indian captain Brian Lara, and Indian maestro Sachin Tendulkar. The former, having recently reclaimed the Test record for highest individual score with an unbeaten 400 against England at Antigua, is just 170 runs away from his 10,000th. The first Test against England at the home of cricket, Lord's, later this month presents an ideal opportunity for Lara.

Tendulkar, at 31 years of age, has plenty of time to assume the mantle of leading runscorer in both forms of the game. He and Lara are some distance ahead of their contemporaries, with Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq next on 6,899 runs.

Leading Test Runscorers - Current Players

Batsman	Career Runs	Average	Overall Position
BC Lara	9,830	53.71	4th
SRTendulkar
9,470	57.39	5th
Inzamam-ul-Haq	6,899	49.63	26th
R Dravid	6,855	58.09	28th
GP Thorpe	6,063	43.93	35th

All statistics accurate as of July 3, 2004.