mcgillianaire | Zaheer Khan Jelly Beans England; India 63 Runs Short of History

In just under an hour, India will do its best to secure only their 5th Test victory in England, out of 47 attempts and 15 series, since the two sides began playing in 1932. Interestingly, despite winning so few Tests over here, it includes two Indian series victories (in 1971 and 1986). A win today and we'll be well on our way to securing a third series victory. England haven't defeated India at the Oval since 1959, whereas we last defeated them there in 1971 to win that series. With history on our side and a "home-like" pitch at the Oval to boot, I think it'd be safe to put money on us now.

But it almost didn't happen. Us winning this Test comfortably I mean. The way Vaughan had grown in confidence after notching up his 17th Test century, gave me the jitters. We needed to get England out on the 4th Day, and minimize the fourth-innings target. Anything above 150 would be fair game, and anything above 200, dicey. As it happened, Vaughan gifted his wicket in the most unfortunate of circumstances. Everybody just sat stunned when the ball went off his thigh pad and into the stumps. It all happened so slowly, Vaughan even had time to look behind him, see he was about to get out, yet not have enough time to do anything about it. England lost their remaining wickets for less than 70 runs. (For

dubaiwalla: the last 7 English wickets fell in less than 22 overs, and the same session).

Since this series has begun, England's batting collapses have bordered on nothing short of the spectacular. They read: 9/80 & 5/31 at Lord's, and 7/97 & 7/68 at Trent Bridge. If they want to draw this series, they're gonna have to sort out that middle-order. For India however, Zaheer Khan was nothing short of inspirational. After the jelly-bean incident of the previous day, the Pashtun-origin Gujarati-quickie turned the screws on the English by taking five wickets, all of them specialist batsmen. Besides the fortuitous Vaughan dismissal, all the others would've made even the legendary Wasim Akram proud. Alongwith RP Singh, who bowled Matt Prior with an absolute corker, and S Sreesanth, off-colour for most of yesterday; India has dominated this match through its superior swing bowling. And to think it was the Fab Four that everybody had written home about.

Well done boys. Bring the series home. No fireworks while batting today please. Just get the job done. Kthanxbye.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

So. India wins on a whole string of byes. That seemed... anticlimactic.

:) I believe the replays show it came off the bat.

yes, well.

One of the limitations of relying on cricinfo. :-/

the last 7 English wickets fell in less than 22 overs, and the same session
England batted for slightly over a day, right? I can't seem to find anything on google about the largest number of wickets to fall in a session. I wonder if anybody keeps statistics.

Ask Steven (http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/columns/content/story/genre.html?genre=6)

>England batted for slightly over a day, right?
Sure, but the point I'm trying to make is that what I said was not altogether silly. Highly improbable, but a squillion times more likely than it is to solve world poverty by dinner. Besides, it's happened in First-class cricket (http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2006/7/29/213203.html) at least a couple times in the past few years. Also, I'm not as bothered as pointing out whether teams have been bowled out in a session, as I am about showing how often teams have been bowled out in less than 30 overs, which is the length of a session. It's not always likely that a team will have the opportunity to bowl at all 11 batsmen during a full session, hence such a study is not as useful. As for keeping statistics, I know I provided the link above, but there are quite a few guys who could easily answer your question; they've dedicated their lives to compiling cricket statistics. Bill Frindall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frindall) has been doing it for more than 40 years. He's on Test Match Special (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Match_Special) for the Beeb, and his job is to interject during the radio commentary and inform the listener of all the interesting and necessary statistics. With the kind of argy-bargy that went on during this Test, some commentators were joking about the day not being far when Bill will interject with stats like: "And that's the 15th sledge between England and India at Headingley this afternoon. The most since the 2007 Test at Trent Bridge, famous for India's 5th Test victory in England and a juvenile jellybean incident."

Also, even if all 10 wickets within a single session is not so common, at least 7 wickets is, and as far as I'm concerned, that's good enough. Like I said, what I said was half-joking, and the serious part was in terms of getting as many wickets in a session as possible. I just take offense to the way in which you made it seem like I said something outrageous or stupid by comparing it to something that has absolutely no likelihood of happening in a time frame involving at a minimum, years, not even months or weeks. India picked up 7 wickets in a session today, we've done it before, other teams have done it before, and its happened to England before. 7 out of 10 is not the same as being able to take only 1 wicket in a session, that being the statistical average over 130 years of Test cricket and then saying I would like all 10 to be taken in a session.

The point I was originally trying to make was that hoping for all 10 wickets to fall in the following session was unrealistic, and that affixing the word "ideally" to your statement only served to make it seem more so. By my reckoning, the chances of such a thing happening given the circumstances (decent opposition playing at home, pitch not deteriorating terribly, no major injury/sickness problems among the team's batsmen) were negligible (under 0.1%, say). I was not making the claim that the statistical likelihood was equal to that of poverty being eliminated overnight; such a claim clearly would be ridiculous. After that, I was primarily curious about whether anyone had kept records on wickets in sessions because it seemed like an interesting thing to keep tabs on.

Not all ideals are unrealistic and I don't think the chances were negligible in terms of getting close to all 10 wickets in a session. All 10 wickets, yes.

>I was not making the claim that the statistical likelihood was equal to that of poverty being eliminated overnight; such a claim clearly would be ridiculous.
Well, it certainly didn't come across that way.

>After that, I was primarily curious about whether anyone had kept records on wickets in sessions because it seemed like an interesting thing to keep tabs on.
Knock on the right door and you'll get it. Google is not a good place to dig up cricketing statistics when you've already got databases like StatsGuru (http://stats.cricinfo.com/guru) going around.

I don't think the chances were negligible in terms of getting close to all 10 wickets in a session.
I don't seem to recollect making any claims one way or another about a lesser number of wickets.

All 10 wickets, yes.
I got a different impression from this, but perhaps I misinterpreted it.

Well, it certainly didn't come across that way.
I shall strive to make my future statements on this blog more explicit in terms of what they claim.

You have a habit of taking words at face value, which is fine. I don't.

It's no wonder I can't keep up with dubaiwalla. What a silly thread. :)

Eng v Aus 1956: Australia lost all ten wickets in about 50 minutes.

You obviously don't provoke me enough. :)

Of course, the Laker Test. I forgot to look up matches with such batting collapses.

> Eng v Aus 1956

> Laker ended the Australian first innings with 7 wickets for 8 runs in 22 balls

!!!

WTF happened there??!

I'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure Australia were dudded by the groundsman. It was set up so that the pitch would be fine for batting on the first day before crumbling and letting the finger spinners work havoc afterwards. (What would have happened if Australia had batted first, I'm not sure.)

And Laker had form against Australia - he'd taken ten wickets in a tour game as well.

Here is the first amazing spell of bowling I can remember. I didn't actually watch it, because I was at school, but I heard about it. The series was tied going into the last Test (we had been robbed by Darrell Hair in the previous Test), and a win for Australia would have given the Windies their first series loss since forever. The curator served up a green-top, perfect for the Windies quicks, and Ambrose took 7/1 in a spell of 25 balls, to end Australia's first innings.

A Video of Laker's Test (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/sol/newsid_5370000/newsid_5378600?redirect=5378610.stm&news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1) from here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/classic_ashes/default.stm).

> A Video

That was great... thank you!

You're more than welcome. Also, the Beeb has got some excellent guides to understanding the laws of the game better, especially the intricacies of LBWs etc. You might be interested: Laws & Equipment (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/rules_and_equipment/default.stm)

>records on wickets in sessions
I don't know if this is a record, but 13 wickets fell in the post-tea session (http://uk.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/AUS_IN_IND/SCORECARDS/AUS_IND_T4_03-07NOV2004.html) on the 3rd day of the 4th Test @ Mumbai between India & Australia in 2004. (I also don't know if this included the extra half-hour that is available to either side if there is a possibility of victory)

Zaheer Khan Jelly Beans England; India 63 Runs Short of History

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