Test innings in the last 2 years

interesting bit i noticed when browsing howstat. no. of innings played by the top batsmen in the last 2 years

Code:

  Player           Inns NO  50s  100s  HS  Aggr  Avg 
1  K C Sangakkara (SRL)     26  4    5    8  287  2095  95.23 
2  M E K Hussey (AUS)     23  4    7    5  182  1528  80.42 
3  Mohammad Yousuf (PAK)   26  4    3    7  202  1695  77.05 
4  D P M Jayawardene (SRL)     28  1    3    8  374  1863  69.00 
5  R T Ponting (AUS)        25  3    6    6  196  1448  65.82 
6  S Chanderpaul (WIN)     24  5  10    3  136  1201  63.21 
7  J H Kallis (SAF)        34  5    9    6  186  1822  62.83 
8  S R Tendulkar (IND)     26  3    8    4  154  1313  57.09 
9  K P Pietersen (ENG)     45  2    5    8  226  2230  51.86 
10 Younis Khan (PAK)        31  4    7    4  173  1377  51.00

pietersen has played 45 innings while most of the other batsmen are in the 20s. younis surprisingly is at 31, i thought the pakistanis hardly played any tests recently. thats quite a huge gap in number of innings (and matches) between england and the rest. a bit puzzling

Australia have had fewer tests, we enter a very busy 18 month cycle soon.

England have had a busy cycle.

Just look at the future tours calender and you will see it varies greatly year to year in how many tests each country plays.

yeah but most others seem bunched together, england seems way off. i dont know if thats just an anomaly or the norm. just used cricinfo

Team Span Mat
Australia 2000-2008 91
England 2000-2008 105
South Africa 2000-2008 91
Sri Lanka 2000-2007 79
India 2000-2008 85
Pakistan 2000-2007 74
New Zealand 2000-2008 62
West Indies 2000-2008 89
Zimbabwe 2000-2005 44
Bangladesh 2000-2008 53
ICC World XI 2005-2005 1

Team Span Mat
Australia 1990-1999 108
Pakistan 1990-1999 76
West Indies 1990-1999 81
South Africa 1992-1999 66
England 1990-1999 107
India 1990-1999 69
New Zealand 1990-1999 81
Sri Lanka 1990-1999 67
Zimbabwe 1992-1999 39

so i guess this decade is more evenly spread. shocking how few matches india played in the 90s. eng played 55% more matches. even this decade to date sees them play 24% more. wake up bcci

Amount of games we play might go someway to explain the amount of injuries we get from our bowlers...

Of course, most of the English batsmen get to bat twice in every game.

That's why they've had to drop a few of their bowlers recently.