One for the Nerds

[mcgillianaire]

Is it a rare achievement/luxury that India and England have used the same XI in all three Tests?

Comments

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

Heh, good find. It's never happened before. The previous record for the least number of players used in a series of at least three Tests was 23, which had been achieved twice: Aus (11) v Eng (12) in 1882/3, and NZ (12) v Aus (11) in 1981/2.

There have also been seven series in which both sides used 12 players, all of them in the 20th century:
NZ v WI 68/9, Eng v Pak 74, Eng v Pak 78, NZ v WI 79/80, Aus v Ind 80/1, Pak v Aus 88/9, SL v Aus 99.

All of the series mentioned above were three Tests long.

An honourable mention goes to Eng v Aus in 1989 (my favourite series), which I think has the greatest difference between the two sides - Australia used 12 players, and England used 29.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's as rare as it gets! How did you track the results so quickly? And what are the results for series of 2 Tests or longer?

I remember reading about England using 29 players in that series. It's the first Ashes I read up on when I began following cricket, thanks to this 1992 cricket Almanac I bought at the time. It had pictures of Mark Taylor and Terry Alderman. It's incredible how something I read relatively speaking so long ago sticks out in my mind so clearly, versus something I've been trying to memorize for the past few days, and I can only recollect the first sentence of with any degree of precision. The same principle has also applied to my ability to regurgitate cricket statistics in the pre-2002 and post-2002 era. I find that I'm most confident and quick with anything that happened in the mid-90s, especially if it's to do with India and SRT.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

How did you track the results so quickly?
Nothing special - just trawling through the relevant Cricinfo stats page.

And what are the results for series of 2 Tests or longer?
This would require too much work. :) Both sides used eleven players in the recent NZ v SL series (2006/7), but I can't be bothered checking any further back. There are probably several other examples.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Thanks a lot for the stats on series of three Tests. I suppose it would be equally easy to find out what percentage of all series have been 3-match affairs and so forth?

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would be equally easy to find out what percentage of all series have been 3-match affairs and so forth?
Since I can't find it off-hand, it's probably take me half an hour or so.