West Indies cricket team
The West Indies cricket team, traditionally known as the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing the Anglophone Caribbean region and administered by Cricket West Indies. The players on this composite team are selected from a chain of fifteen Caribbean territories, which are parts of several different countries and dependencies; as of 24 June 2018, the West Indian cricket team is ranked ninth in the world in Tests, ninth in ODIs and seventh in T20Is in the official ICC rankings. From the mid-late 1970s to the early 1990s, the West Indies team was the strongest in the world in both Test and One Day International cricket. A number of cricketers who were considered among the best in the world have hailed from the West Indies: Sir Garfield Sobers, Lance Gibbs, George Headley, Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Sir Andy Roberts, Rohan Kanhai, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Joel Garner, Sir Viv Richards and Sir Wes Hall have all been inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.
The West Indies have won the ICC Cricket World Cup twice, the ICC World Twenty20 twice, the ICC Champions Trophy once, the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup once, have finished as runners-up in the Cricket World Cup, the Under 19 Cricket World Cup, the ICC Champions Trophy. The West Indies appeared in three consecutive World Cup finals, were the first team to win back-to-back World Cups; the West Indies has hosted the 2007 Cricket World Cup and the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. The current side represents: Sovereign states Antigua and BarbudaL Barbados DominicaW GrenadaW Guyana Jamaica Saint LuciaW Saint Vincent and the GrenadinesW Trinidad and Tobago Parts of Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint KittsL NevisL British Overseas Territories AnguillaL MontserratL British Virgin IslandsL Constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Sint MaartenL Territory of the United States US Virgin IslandsLLegends L = Participant of the Leeward Islands team and member of the Leeward Islands Cricket Association W = Participant of the Windward Islands team and member of the Windward Islands Cricket Board of ControlNotes Cricket West Indies, the governing body of the team, consists of the six cricket associations of Barbados, Jamaica and Tobago, Leeward Islands and Windward Islands.
The Leeward Islands Cricket Association consists of associations of one sovereign state, the two entities of Saint Kitts and Nevis, three British Overseas Territories and two other dependencies. The Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control consists of associations of four sovereign states. Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands, other historical parts of the former West Indies Federation and now British Overseas Territories, have their own teams. National teams exist for the various islands, which, as they are all separate countries much keep their local identities and support their local favourites; these national teams take part in the Carib Beer Cup. It is common for other international teams to play the island teams for warm-up games before they take on the combined West Indies team; the population of these countries and dependencies is estimated at around 6 million, more than Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. The member associations of Cricket West Indies are: Barbados Cricket Association Guyana Cricket Board Jamaica Cricket Association Trinidad & Tobago Cricket Board Leeward Islands Cricket Association.
The WICB joined the sport's international ruling body, the Imperial Cricket Conference, in 1926, played their first official international match, granted Test status, in 1928, thus becoming the fourth Test nation. In their early days in the 1930s, the side represented the British colonies that would form the West Indies Federation plus British Guiana; the last series the West Indies played before the outbreak of the Second World War was against England in 1939. There followed a hiatus. Of the West Indies players in that first match after the war only Gerry Gomez, George Headley, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Foffie Williams had played Test cricket. In 1948, leg spinner Wilfred Ferguson became the first West Indian bowler to take ten wickets in a Test, finishing with 11/229 in a match against England.
Delivery (cricket)
A delivery or ball in cricket is a single action of bowling a cricket ball toward the batsman. During play of the game, a member of the fielding team is designated as the bowler, bowls deliveries toward the batsman. Six legal balls in a row constitutes an over, after which a different member of the fielding side takes over the role of bowler for the next over; the bowler delivers the ball from his or her end of the pitch toward the batsman standing at the opposite wicket at the other end of the pitch. Bowlers can be either right-handed; this approach to their delivery, in addition to their decision of bowling around the wicket or over the wicket, is knowledge of which the umpire and the batsman are to be made aware. Deliveries can be made by spin bowlers. Fast bowlers tend to make the ball either move off the pitch or move through the air, while spinners make the ball "turn" either toward a right-handed batsman or away from him; the ball can bounce at different distances from the batsman, this is called the length of the delivery.
It can range from a bouncer to a yorker. There are many different types of delivery; these deliveries vary by: technique, the hand the bowler bowls with, use of the fingers, use of the seam, how the ball is positioned in the hand, where the ball is pitched on the wicket, the speed of the ball, the tactical intent of the bowler. Leg spin deliveries and mirror equivalents for left arm unorthodox spin: Leg break Googly Topspinner Flipper Slider Flicker ball Off spin deliveries and mirror equivalents for left arm orthodox spin: Off break Doosra Arm ball Topspinner Carrom ball Teesra Fast bowling deliveries: Bouncer Inswinger Reverse swing Leg cutter Off cutter Outswinger Yorker Beamer Knuckleball Slower ball The variations in different types of delivery, as well as variations caused by directing the ball with differing line and length, are key weapons in a bowler's arsenal. Throughout an over, the bowler will choose a sequence of deliveries designed to attack the batsman's concentration and technique, in an effort to get him out.
The bowler varies the amount of loop and pace imparted to various deliveries to try to cause the batsman to misjudge and make a mistake. As the crease has a width, the bowler can change the angle from which he delivers to the batsman in an attempt to induce a misjudgement; the bowler decides what type of delivery to bowl next, without consultation or informing any other member of his team. Sometimes, the team captain will offer advice or issue a direct order regarding what deliveries to bowl, based on his observations of the batsman and the strategic state of the game. Another player who offers advice to the bowler is the wicket-keeper, since he has a unique view of the batsman and may be able to spot weaknesses of technique. Another piece of information important for the bowlers to consider prior to their deliveries is the state of pitch; the pitch is a natural ground and its state is subjected to variation over the course of the cricket, some of which are multi-day events such as test matches.
Spinners find an old pitch, one, used, more suitable to their deliveries rather than a fresh pitch, one that hasn't come under use as much such as a pitch at the start of the match. While a bowler, with the use of variations in his/her delivery aims to target the concentration of batsmen as well as their skill and technique of batting, anticipation of the delivery is crucial for the batsman, as emphasised by Jodi Richardson. Richardson reveals the world class batsman's dilemma while facing fast bowlers, stating that the time between the batsmen's anticipation of the trajectory of the ball and positioning themselves for the appropriate shot can be twice as long as the interval between the ball leaving the bowler's hand and reaching the batsman's crease. Side by side, Richardson alludes to the research undertaken by Dr. Sean Müller in Australia, funded by Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence; the results of the research demonstrated the importance of anticipation of the delivery for batsmen in cricket.
They revealed that experienced batsmen possessed a unique ability which enabled them to adjust their feet as well as their positioning on the crease accordingly based upon their reading of the body language and movements enacted by the bowler prior to the release of the ball. This foresight that batsmen use while on the crease is referred to as'advance information' by Richardson. Moreover, Müller's research outlined that the presence of this'advance information' was not as evident among the lesser skilled batsmen in comparison to the experienced ones. Underarm or lob bowling was the original cricket delivery style,but had died out before the 20th century, although it was used until 1910 by George Simpson-Hayward, remained a legal delivery type. On 1 February 1981, when Australia was playing New Zealand in a One Day International cricket match, New Zealand needed six runs to tie the match from the final ball. Greg Chappell, the Australian captain, ordered the bowler to bowl underarm, rolling the ball along the ground to prevent the Number 10 New Zealand batsman any chance of hitting a six from the last ball to tie the match.
After the game, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Rob Muldoon, described it as "the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket." At the time, underarm deliveries were legal, but as a direct result of the incident, underarm bowling was banned in limi
India national cricket team
The India national cricket team known as Team India and Men in Blue, is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test, One Day International and Twenty20 International status. Although cricket was introduced to India by European merchant sailors in the 18th century, the first cricket club was established in Calcutta in 1792, India's national cricket team did not play its first Test match until 25 June 1932 at Lord's, becoming the sixth team to be granted Test cricket status. In its first fifty years of international cricket, India was one of the weaker teams, winning only 35 of the first 196 Test matches it played. From 1932 India had to wait until 1952 20 years for its first Test victory; the team, gained strength in the 1970s with the emergence of players such as batsmen Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath, all-rounder Kapil Dev and the Indian spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishen Singh Bedi.
Traditionally much stronger at home than abroad, the Indian team has improved its overseas form in limited-overs cricket, since the start of the 21st century, winning Test matches in Australia and South Africa. It has won the Cricket World Cup twice – in 1983 under the captaincy of Kapil Dev and in 2011 under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. After winning the 2011 World Cup, India became only the third team after West Indies and Australia to have won the World Cup more than once, the first cricket team to win the World Cup at home, it won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, under the captaincy of MS Dhoni. It was the joint champions of 2002 ICC Champions Trophy, along with Sri Lanka; as of 19 October 2018, India is ranked first in Tests, second in ODIs and second in T20Is by the ICC. Virat Kohli is the current captain of the team across all formats, while the head coach is Ravi Shastri; the Indian cricket team has rivalries with other Test-playing nations, most notably with Pakistan, the political arch-rival of India.
However, in recent times, rivalries with nations like Australia, South Africa and England have gained prominence. The British brought cricket to India in the early 1700s, with the first cricket match played in 1721. In 1848, the Parsi community in Bombay formed the Oriental Cricket Club, the first cricket club to be established by Indians. After slow beginnings, the Europeans invited the Parsis to play a match in 1877. By 1912, the Parsis, Sikhs and Muslims of Bombay played a quadrangular tournament with the Europeans every year. In the early 1900s, some Indians went on to play for the England cricket team; some of these, such as Ranjitsinhji and KS Duleepsinhji were appreciated by the British and their names went on to be used for the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy – two major first-class tournaments in India. In 1911, an Indian team went on their first official tour of the British Isles, but only played English county teams and not the England cricket team. India was invited to The Imperial Cricket Council in 1926, made their debut as a Test playing nation in England in 1932, led by CK Nayudu, considered as the best Indian batsman at the time.
The one-off Test match between the two sides was played at Lord's in London. The team went on to lose by 158 runs. India hosted its first Test series in the year 1933. England was the visiting team that played 2 Tests in Calcutta; the visitors won the series 2-0. The Indian team continued to improve throughout the 1930s and'40s but did not achieve an international victory during this period. In the early 1940s, India didn't play any Test cricket due to the Second World War; the team's first series as an independent country was in late 1947 against Sir Donald Bradman's Invincibles. It was the first Test series India played, not against England. Australia won the five-match series 4–0, with Bradman tormenting the Indian bowling in his final Australian summer. India subsequently played their first Test series at home not against England against the West Indies in 1948. West Indies won the 5-Test series 1–0. India recorded their first Test victory, in their 24th match, against England at Madras in 1952.
In the same year, they won their first Test series, against Pakistan. They continued their improvement throughout the early 1950s with a series win against New Zealand in 1956. However, they did not win again in the remainder of the decade and lost badly to strong Australian and English sides. On 24 August 1959, India lost by an innings in the Test to complete the only 5–0 whitewash inflicted by England; the next decade saw. They won their first Test series against England at home in 1961–62 and won a home series against New Zealand, they managed to draw another series against England. In this same period, India won its first series outside the subcontinent, against New Zealand in 1967–68; the key to India's bowling in the 1970s were the Indian spin quartet – Bishen Bedi, E. A. S. Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan; this period saw the emergence of two of India's best batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath. Indian pitches have had the tendency to support spin and the spin quartet exploited this to create collapses in opposing batting line-ups.
These players were responsible for the back-to-back series wins in 1971 in the West Indies and in England, under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of, a 20-metre pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each player. Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, by the fielding side catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground; when ten players have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches, they communicate with two off-field scorers. There are various formats ranging from Twenty20, played over a few hours with each team batting for a single innings of 20 overs, to Test matches, played over five days with unlimited overs and the teams each batting for two innings of unlimited length.
Traditionally cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket they wear club or team colours. In addition to the basic kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball, a hard, solid spheroid made of compressed leather with a raised sewn seam enclosing a cork core, layered with wound string. Cricket's origins are uncertain and the earliest definite reference is in south-east England in the middle of the 16th century, it spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, leading to the first international matches in the second half of the 19th century. The game's governing body is the International Cricket Council, which has over 100 members, twelve of which are full members who play Test matches; the game's rules are held in a code called the Laws of Cricket, owned and maintained by Marylebone Cricket Club in London. The sport is followed in the Indian subcontinent, the United Kingdom, southern Africa and the West Indies, its globalisation occurring during the expansion of the British Empire and remaining popular into the 21st century.
Women's cricket, organised and played separately, has achieved international standard. The most successful side playing international cricket is Australia, having won seven One Day International trophies, including five World Cups, more than any other country, having been the top-rated Test side more than any other country. Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement. In cricket's case, a key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket, that the batsman must defend; the cricket historian Harry Altham identified three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is driven to and fro between two targets. It is believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties of England, sometime during the medieval period. Although there are claims for prior dates, the earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in Guildford on Monday, 17 January 1597.
The case concerned ownership of a certain plot of land and the court heard the testimony of a 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that: "Being a scholler in the ffree schoole of Guldeford hee and diverse of his fellows did runne and play there at creckett and other plaies". Given Derrick's age, it was about half a century earlier when he was at school and so it is certain that cricket was being played c. 1550 by boys in Surrey. The view that it was a children's game is reinforced by Randle Cotgrave's 1611 English-French dictionary in which he defined the noun "crosse" as "the crooked staff wherewith boys play at cricket" and the verb form "crosser" as "to play at cricket". One possible source for the sport's name is the Old English word "cryce" meaning a staff. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French, the word "criquet" seems to have meant a kind of stick. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch "krick", meaning a stick.
Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word "krickstoel", meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de sen. Gillmeister has suggested that not only the name but the sport itself may be of Flemish origin. Although the main object of the game has always been to score the most runs, the early form of cricket differed from the modern game in certain key technical aspects; the ball was bowled underarm by the bowler and all along the ground towards a batsman armed with a bat that, in shape, resembled a hockey stick.
England
England is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to Scotland to the north-northwest; the Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south; the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world; the English language, the Anglican Church, English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, the country's parliamentary system of government has been adopted by other nations.
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the west; the capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom concentrated around London, the South East, conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century; the Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles"; the Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea; the earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was part of the English kingdom of Northumbria; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used; the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe, less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England. An alternative name for England is Albion; the name Albion referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus the 4th-century BC De Mundo: "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth.
In it are two large islands called Britannia. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins, it either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover or from the phrase the "island of the Albiones" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend; the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximate
Pakistan national cricket team
The Pakistan Men's National Cricket Team, popularly referred to as the Shaheens, Green Shirts and Men in Green, is administered by the Pakistan Cricket Board. The team is a Full Member of the International Cricket Council, participates in Test, ODI and Twenty20 International cricket matches. Pakistan has played 423 Test matches, winning 136, losing 128 and drawing 159. Pakistan was given Test status on 28 July 1952, following a recommendation by India, made its Test debut against India at Feroz Shah Kotla Ground, Delhi, in October 1952, with India winning by an innings and 70 runs. In the 1930s and 40s, several Pakistani Test players had played Test cricket for the Indian cricket team before the creation of Pakistan in 1947; the team has played tying 8 with 19 ending in no-result. Pakistan was the 1992 World Cup champion, was the runner-up in the 1999 tournament. Pakistan, in conjunction with other countries in South Asia, has hosted the 1987 and 1996 World Cups, with the 1996 final being hosted at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
The team has played 142 Twenty20 Internationals, the most of any team, winning 90 losing 49 and tying 3. Pakistan won the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 and were runners-up in the inaugural tournament in 2007. Pakistan won the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy for the first time, defeating India. Pakistan has the distinct achievement of having won each of the major ICC international cricket tournaments: ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC World Twenty20, ICC Champions Trophy; as of 25 March 2019, the Pakistani cricket team is ranked seventh in Tests, sixth in ODIs and first in T20Is by the ICC. In the past, Pakistan has suffered a lot from terrorism which prevented foreign teams from visiting Pakistan due to the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team; as a result, their home matches have been held in the United Arab Emirates since then. However, due to a decrease in terrorism in Pakistan over the past few years, as well as a sharp increase in security, many teams have toured Pakistan since 2015 and the situation appears to be getting better.
These teams include Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies, an ICC World XI. Cricket in Pakistan has a history predating the creation of the country in 1947; the first international cricket match in Karachi was held on 22 November 1935 between Sindh and Australian cricket teams. The match was seen by 5,000 Karachiites. Following the independence of Pakistan in 1947, cricket in the country developed and Pakistan was given Test match status at a meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference at Lord's in England on 28 July 1952 following recommendation by India, being the successor state of the British Raj, did not have to go through such a process; the first captain of the Pakistan national cricket team was Abdul Hafeez Kardar. Pakistan's first Test match was played in Delhi in October 1952 as part of a five Test series which India won 2–1. Pakistan made their first tour of England in 1954 and drew the series 1–1 after a memorable victory at The Oval in which fast bowler Fazal Mahmood took 12 wickets. Pakistan's first home Test match was against India in January 1955 at Bangabandhu National Stadium, East Pakistan, after which four more Test matches were played in Bahawalpur, Lahore and Karachi.
The team is considered a unpredictable team. Traditionally Pakistani cricket has been composed of talented players but is alleged to display limited discipline on occasion, making their performance inconsistent at times. In particular, the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry is emotionally charged and can provide for intriguing contests, as talented teams and players from both sides of the border seek to elevate their game to new levels. Pakistan team contests with India in the Cricket World Cup have resulted in packed stadiums and charged atmospheres; the team is well supported at home and abroad in the United Kingdom where British Pakistanis have formed a fan-club called the "Stani Army". Members of the club are known to provide raucous support; the Stani Army takes part in charity initiatives for underprivileged Pakistanis, including annual friendly cricket matches against British Indian members of the similar "Bharat Army". The 1986 Austral-Asia Cup, played in Sharjah in UAE, is remembered for a famous last-ball victory for Pakistan against arch-rivals India, with Javed Miandad emerging as a national hero.
India batted first and set a target of 245 runs, leaving Pakistan with a required run rate of 4.92 runs per over. Miandad came in to bat at number 3 and Pakistan lost wickets at regular intervals. Recalling the match, he stated that his main focus was to lose with dignity. With 31 runs needed in the last three overs, Miandad hit a string of boundaries while batting with his team's lower order, until four runs were required from the last delivery of the match. Miandad received a leg side full toss from Chetan Sharma, which he hit for six over the midwicket boundary. At the 1992 World Cup Semi-final, having won the toss, New Zealand chose to bat first and ended with a total of 262 runs. Pakistan lost wickets at regular intervals. With the departure of Imran Khan and Saleem Malik shortly thereafter, Pakistan still required 115 runs at a rate of 7.67 runs per over with veteran Javed Miandad being the only known batsman remaining at the crease. A young Inzamam-ul-Haq, who had just turned 22 and was not a well-known player at the time, burst onto the international stage with a match-winning 60 off 37 balls.
Once Inzamam got out, Paki
Bowling average
In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing, it is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers used alongside the economy rate and the strike rate to judge the overall performance of a bowler. When a bowler has taken only a small number of wickets, their bowling average can be artificially high or low, unstable, with further wickets taken or runs conceded resulting in large changes to their bowling average. Due to this, qualification restrictions are applied when determining which players have the best bowling averages. After applying these criteria, George Lohmann holds the record for the lowest average in Test cricket, having claimed 112 wickets at an average of 10.75 runs per wicket. A cricketer's bowling average is calculated by dividing the numbers of runs they have conceded by the number of wickets they have taken; the number of runs conceded by a bowler is determined as the total number of runs that the opposing side have scored while the bowler was bowling, excluding any byes, leg byes, or penalty runs.
The bowler receives credit for any wickets taken during their bowling that are either bowled, hit wicket, leg before wicket or stumped. B o w l i n g a v e r a g e = R u n s c o n c e d e d W i c k e t s t a k e n A number of flaws have been identified for the statistic, most notable among these the fact that a bowler who has taken no wickets can not have a bowling average, as dividing by zero does not give a result; the effect of this is that the bowling average can not distinguish between a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one run, a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one hundred runs. The bowling average does not tend to give a true reflection of the bowler's ability when the number of wickets they have taken is small in comparison to the number of runs they have conceded. In his paper proposing an alternative method of judging batsmen and bowlers, Paul van Staden gives an example of this: Suppose a bowler has bowled a total of 80 balls, conceded 60 runs and has taken only 2 wickets so that..
30. If the bowler takes a wicket with the next ball bowled 20. Due to this, when establishing records for bowling averages, qualification criteria are set. For Test cricket, the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack sets this as 75 wickets, while ESPNcricinfo requires 2,000 deliveries. Similar restrictions are set for one-day cricket. A number of factors other than purely the ability level of the bowler have an effect on a player's bowling average. Most significant among these are the different eras; the bowling average tables in Test and first-class cricket are headed by players who competed in the nineteenth century, a period when pitches were uncovered and some were so badly looked after that they had rocks on them. The bowlers competing in the Howa Bowl, a competition played in South African during the apartheid-era, restricted to non-white players, during which time, according to Vincent Barnes: "Most of the wickets we played on were underprepared. For me, as a bowler, it was great." Other factors which provided an advantage to bowlers in that era was the lack of significant safety equipment.
Other variations are caused by frequent matches against stronger or weaker opposition, changes in the laws of cricket and the length of matches. Due to the varying qualifying restrictions placed on the records by different statisticians, the record for the lowest career bowling average can be different from publication to publication. In Test cricket, George Lohmann is listed as having the superior average by each of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive. Though all three use different restrictions, Lohmann's average of 10.75 is considered the best. If no qualification criteria were applied at all, three players—Wilf Barber, A. N. Hornby and Bruce Murray—would tie for the best average, all having claimed just one wicket in Test matches, without conceding any runs, thus averaging zero. ESPNcricinfo list Betty Wilson as having the best Women's Test cricket average with 11.80, while CricketArchive accept Mary Spear's average of 5.78. In One Day Internationals, the varying criteria set by ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive result in different players being listed as holding the record.
ESPNcricinfo has the stricter restriction, requiring 1,000 deliveries: by this measure, Joel Garner is the record-holder, having claimed his wickets at an average of 18.84. By CricketArchive's more relaxed requirement of 400 deliveries, John Snow leads the way, with an average of 16.57. In women's One Day International cricket, Caroline Barrs tops the CricketArchive list with an average of 9.52, but by ESPNcricinfo's stricter guidelines, the record is instead held by Gill Smith's 12.53. The record is again split for the two websites for Twenty20 International cricket. George O'Brien's average of 8.20 holds the record using those criteri
Sri Lanka
Karachi, Pakistan
India
England
New Zealand
West Indies
Australia
Sharjah, UAE