Before-and-Afters with Bumble, Beamon and the boys
At the 1968 Olympics, Bob Beamon famously shattered the long jump world record by 55 cms, his 8.90 metres obliterating the previous best of 8.35. It is the proverbial paradigm shift that this creates which holds a similar fascination in cricket. Inspired by Shubman Gill’s phenomenal performances in the ongoing England v India series, The Notcher’s Natter Substack friend, Manners-on-Cricket, recently had a look individual performances that have dramatically changed a player’s career average:
Gill came into the series with a modest average for someone as heralded as he was of 35.05 and Manthorp draws a comparison with someone similarly heralded who also had a relatively modest start to his career, Jacques Kallis. Kallis’ series in Zimbabwe in 2001 saw his average jump from 41.00 after 50 Tests to 46.97 after 52 and kick-started an almost continuous upward movement which saw him finish with a career average of 55.37, putting him amongst the elites, where he belonged. There is a sense that Gill (who had a first-class career average of 68.78 when he made his Test debut) could now do something similar. From 35.05 after 32 Tests, his average is now 42.17 after 36.
It should be fairly obvious that the more innings you have played, the lower the impact an individual score will have on your career average. Even without the help of a calculator, you should be able to figure out that if you have only one prior dismissal and you score 300 not out, your average will jump by 300. If you have 10 previous dismissals, and you score 300 not out your average will jump by 30 and if you have 100 previous dismissals a score of 300 not out will add a ‘mere’ three to your career average. Bearing this in mind, let’s have a look at some batting ‘Beamons’.
David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd is loved these days mostly for his commentary, but he was a good enough player to have appeared in nine Tests for England. His first two scores (v India in 1974) were 46 and 214*. The jump of 214.00 from 46.00 to 260.00 is the biggest by any player in one innings in Test cricket. In his case, and many others with similar performances early in their career, this did not kick-start a highly successful international career. As sample sizes get bigger, these numbers change. Len Hutton’s then world record 364 at The Oval in 1938 saw his average jump from 29.50 after eight innings to 66.66 and would fit into the ‘kick-start’ category. When you start to get to more meaningful numbers of innings, the rises in averages are nowhere near as lofty. Only nine men have had an innings that improved their career average by 10 or more after have played 20 previous innings. The best of these is Garry Sobers who, when he broke Hutton’s record with his 365*, saw his average rise by 14.60 from 34.24 to 48.84.Like Kallis, his average just kept going up after that. Once you get over 50 innings, no-one has had a career jump of more than six with one innings. Wally Hammond was averaging 60.62 before his 336* v New Zealand in 1933. While not paradigm shift-inducing (it is difficult to move up a category when you are already an all-time great), it was 66.62 after. Hashim Amla’s 311* increased his average by ‘just’ 3.28, but that is the most by anyone with 100 ‘priors’.
Without going into brain-fading numerical details some other examples of player with an innings which kick-started a career that had been moderate before (defined here has averaging less than 40 after 20-plus innings) are Hanif Mohammad (337), Zaheer Abbas (240), Sanath Jayasuriya (340), VVS Laxman (281), Rohan Kanhai (256), AB de Villiers (217) and … Shubman Gill (269). Will Wiaan Mulder’s before and after of 26.20 and 38.43 with his 367* v Zimbabwe kick-start his career from ordinary to exceptional? Time will tell.
When we look at some of the other series (a more substantial concept than innings) that redefined a batter like Kallis and Gill, Hashim Amla is worth a mention. After 41 Tests he had an average of 40.75. Then he went to India in February 2010 and scored 253*, 114 and 123*, a total of 490 runs while being dismissed just once and seeing his career average jump to 47.26. It remained at or above that for the rest of his career. One last example is Steve Waugh. Going into the 1989 Ashes series, he had 1 099 runs at 30.52 without a century after 26 Tests. After the series he had 1 605 at 40.12 with two centuries (506 at 126.50 will do that) and the rest, as they say, is history.
Manners-on-Cricket also mentioned Laker’s 19-90 and the effect that had on his bowling average. It may not surprise you that a post on bowlers dramatically altering their averages will be coming to a Notcher’s Natter near you shortly.