Test records that will never be broken

As I mentioned in a thread last year, the number of tests per year has dropped off a bit since the turn of the millennium.
http://www.flamingbails.com/t14694-peak-test-yearly-stats

This has affected some teams more than others. Australia still gets in plenty of Ashes cricket over the cycle. India has wound down its test program significantly. They played 46 tests over the four year cycle from 2001 to 2004, compared to 36 tests from 2012 to 2015 (including the two yet to be played).

Not all players want to play as long as possible in tests, figuring that their longevity in the more lucrative shortest form will not be aided by flogging their bodies for weeks and weeks of test cricket. Michael Clarke at 34 has played his last test. Additionally, we don't seem to see many as hyperyoung players as we once did. Here is the five-year breakdown of the number of players debuting under the age of 19:

1996-2000: 13
2001-2005: 24
2006-2010: 7
2011-2015: 2

Most of those young-uns were from the sub-continent.

All of this makes me think that there are a bunch of Test records concerning so called extrinsic statistics that will never be broken. I don't think there we will see anyone beat SRT's 200 test matches: who again will start playing test cricket as a boy and retire in middle age? In fact I doubt we'll see anyone go past 160 tests again.

Similarly, SRT's other bulk statistics will stand forever: 15921 runs, 51 centuries. 119 scores past 50.
Among current players, Chanderpaul has amassed the highest number of runs (11867), with 30 tons and 96 scores past 50. He has said he wants to play til the end of this year at least but surely not much further than that.

Similarly, Murali's 800 seems destined to stand forever. Harbhajan Singh has 417 wickets as a spinner: at 35 he might not play on much longer.
Jimmy Anderson may get near McGrath's 563 wickets as a paceman.

On the other hand, many of the _intrinsic_ statistics will continue to be bettered. Someone will eventually top Lara's 400: someone will get more wickets in a series than SF Barnes's 49.

But Bradman's 99.94 and Lohman's 10.75 will take some beating...

Boucher's 555 might need some getting as well.

19/90

Alastair Cook is a chance to break SRT's runs record. England still play plenty of tests and at the age of 30 Cook already has over 9000 tests runs.

Murali's wickets record is the one that will likely never be broken.

muralis wicket record doesnt count

Henry wrote:Alastair Cook is a chance to break SRT's runs record. England still play plenty of tests and at the age of 30 Cook already has over 9000 tests runs.

Murali's wickets record is the one that will likely never be broken.

Cook's more likely to get to the 200 test mark but given the captaincy burden you can probably add 2-3 years to his body clock. Think he'll be in the BT Sport commentary box in 5 years time

spangler wrote:

Henry wrote:Alastair Cook is a chance to break SRT's runs record. England still play plenty of tests and at the age of 30 Cook already has over 9000 tests runs.

Murali's wickets record is the one that will likely never be broken.

Cook's more likely to get to the 200 test mark but given the captaincy burden you can probably add 2-3 years to his body clock. Think he'll be in the BT Sport commentary box in 5 years time

You could assume that if he plays 200 tests he'll be mighty close to SRT's runs.

Henry wrote:

spangler wrote:

Henry wrote:Alastair Cook is a chance to break SRT's runs record. England still play plenty of tests and at the age of 30 Cook already has over 9000 tests runs.

Murali's wickets record is the one that will likely never be broken.

Cook's more likely to get to the 200 test mark but given the captaincy burden you can probably add 2-3 years to his body clock. Think he'll be in the BT Sport commentary box in 5 years time

You could assume that if he plays 200 tests he'll be mighty close to SRT's runs.

Not so sure. Cook has played 122 Tests. He's scored 9780 runs. At the end of Sachin's 123rd Test, he had 10134 runs. So he's got 354 runs to catch up by the end of the next match. Whilst I don't think it's as simple to predict as him keeping up with Sachin, I'm aware that Cook's not particularly good batting at home, where he plays around half of his Tests, so it's not looking good for him in that regard. It'd be quite some achievement for him to reach 200 Tests, given that he has every drop of blood drained from him, as England captain.

i can see plenty of batting records getting broken if the powers that be dont start readdressing the balance between bat and ball but tendulkars aggregate is safe for the time being

england play more tests than most nations but cook would need five 1000 run years to get close to tendulkar by age 35. cant see that happening. cant see him playing until hes 40 and maintaining a steady 600 run yearly average either

Laker's record won't be beaten.

I am surprised that Lara's 400 has not been surpassed yet. 10 triples since that 400*.

Paul Keating wrote:Laker's record won't be beaten.

I am surprised that Lara's 400 has not been surpassed yet. 10 triples since that 400*.

Yep - 400* is only a matter of time given modern pitches, boundaries and bats. 

I reckon Foster's 287 on debut could go as well.

19/90 hasn't been approached in FC cricket, let alone tests. And 800 (or in fact 708) is unlikely to be beaten in our lifetimes. 

As others have mentioned, Cook is a chance to approach SRTs totals although given his average, he will need to play a lot more innings to get there. Surely he will want to lead the next Ashes tour which is still 4 years away. 

I doubt Barnes' 49 will get beaten any time soon - only the Ashes is 5 Tests these days and yes I know Barnes got his in 4 Tests but that was against a club side masquerading as a Test side in highly favourable conditions.  

That said, 974 could be beaten in an Ashes series if things go really right.  A couple of players have scored 1000 runs in a Test season before I think (albeit over two series).

I agree that the 974 will eventually go. Consider that Smith made 769 in _four_ tests versus India last season.

At 36 years old, Voges has an average of 61 after 14 innings. There's a fairly easy run coming up. Some chance he will retire on a good average.

But will he beat SRT's aggregate record?

Hutton's 867 deliveries faced in an innings will not be broken.

I thought NZ'd lowest test innings record of 26 would never be lowered.

But with Australia 21/9 and RSA 12/5 in recent times it is certainly possible.

Paul Keating wrote:Hutton's 867 deliveries faced in an innings will not be broken.

Likewise Hanif Mohammad's longest innings in time record (16 hrs 39 mins, or 999 minutes, for his highest score of 337)

Been watching much cricket lately lads? Cook was in with a sniff for Hanif's recently although I agree Hutton's is probably out of reach.

Fred Nerk wrote:

Paul Keating wrote:Hutton's 867 deliveries faced in an innings will not be broken.

Likewise Hanif Mohammad's longest innings in time record (16 hrs 39 mins, or 999 minutes, for his highest score of 337)

How many did Hanif face?

Immediately thought he would be in with a shout.

taipan wrote:

Fred Nerk wrote:

Paul Keating wrote:Hutton's 867 deliveries faced in an innings will not be broken.

Likewise Hanif Mohammad's longest innings in time record (16 hrs 39 mins, or 999 minutes, for his highest score of 337)

How many did Hanif face?

Immediately thought he would be in with a shout.

He probably did beat it. 

Know way of knowing for sure but there were 319 overs in that innings and as he was the opening batsman he was there for all of them.

It isn't unreasonable to assume that he would be trying to protect some of the middle order batsman, so being conservative, if we say that he faced only half of the balls bowled of those 319 overs, that number is 957, absolutely smashing Hutton's record.

Unfortunately we will never know.

Interesting article on the Hutton match. As usual O'Reilly gets stuck into Bradman.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/901415.html

"On the way from The Oval at the end of the game, I stopped at traffic lights. A woman in an adjoining car pulled down her window and said: 'Well done, Len, but why ever didn't you score one more-one for every day of the year?'

"As I said to Denis later: `Denis, tell me, can you ever satisfy a woman?'"

http://www.espncricinfo.com/cricketer/content/story/134087.html

vilkrang wrote:

taipan wrote:

Fred Nerk wrote:

Paul Keating wrote:Hutton's 867 deliveries faced in an innings will not be broken.

Likewise Hanif Mohammad's longest innings in time record (16 hrs 39 mins, or 999 minutes, for his highest score of 337)

How many did Hanif face?

Immediately thought he would be in with a shout.

He probably did beat it. 

Know way of knowing for sure but there were 319 overs in that innings and as he was the opening batsman he was there for all of them.

It isn't unreasonable to assume that he would be trying to protect some of the middle order batsman, so being conservative, if we say that he faced only half of the balls bowled of those 319 overs, that number is 957, absolutely smashing Hutton's record.

Unfortunately we will never know.

Hanif did beat it. It is possible to reconstruct scorebooks to get an accurate picture of balls faced in older matches. Charles David (who posted here as "zscore") did this for every Australian test.

http://www.sportstats.com.au/bannerman91.html


Most Balls Faced in an Innings
Balls Faced
950(est.)
Hanif Mohammad (337)
Bridgetown, Barbados 1958

858
L Hutton (364)
The Oval 1938

759
GM Turner (259)
Georgetown, Guyana 1972
741
RB Simpson (311)
Manchester (Old Trafford) 1964
665
SG Barnes (234)
Sydney (SCG) 1946/47
642
G Kirsten (275)
Durban (Kingsmead) 1999/00
640
A Sandham (325)
Kingston, Jamaica 1930
630
KF Barrington (256)
Manchester (Old Trafford) 1964
625
PBH May (285)
Birmingham (Edgbaston) 1957
621
MC Cowdrey (154)
Birmingham (Edgbaston) 1957
620
AC Bannerman (91)
Sydney (SCG) 1891/92
620
EAB Rowan (236)
Leeds (Headingley) 1951
605
WR Hammond (177)
Adelaide Oval 1928/29
603
WR Hammond (251)
Sydney (SCG) 1928/29
603
AD Nourse (208)
Nottingham (Trent Bridge) 1951

Note: Hanif batted for 309 overs, but balls faced is not recorded. At Port-of-Spain in 1953, M.L. Apte (163*) batted for 200 overs and probably faced more than 600 balls.

Some contenders here ("I coulda been a winner ..")

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/552124.html

Schoonheim's (for example) COULD be beaten, of course. If they called the game off in under 3 hours after the toss.



If there is a toss, in future.