Test Progress Monitor (Nov 2012)

[WarWolf]

No improvement at all since 2001.

[Tiger Manc]

In the last decade we played 61 Test matches, playing 120 innings. Amongst them we crossed 270 22 times. That's 18.3%.

Since the turn of the decade, we've scored over 270 18 times out of 28, including 9 in a row spanning 5 Test matches. That represents a significant boost to 64.3%.

When you regularly score over 540 runs in a match the less chance of suffering an innings defeat, which is exactly what's happened. Amongst our 52 Test defeats in the previous decade, we lost by an innings 30 times (57.7%). This decade amongst our 13 defeats, only 2 have been by an innings (15.4%). It's not much to shout about but we have to look at the small improvements before looking at the bigger improvements.

[Tiger Manc]

It's sad to see our pacers regress. In the last decade our pacers took account for 50% of our Test wickets. In fact only 1 wicket seperated pacers (287) from spinners (286). Pacers averaged 55.2 whilst spinners averaged 46.89 in total. This decade our pacers have only taken 49 wickets at an unacceptable 77.5. This is in contrast to spinners who've taken 110 wickets at 45.16. Pacers have accounted for 30.8% of our wickets compared to 50% the previous decade. The only way we can improve this is by setting up a pace academy and investing in our pacers.

[BrianLara7]

nobody gives a crap about meaningless stats (shakib/ nasir 100, abul's fluke century, gazi 5 wicket etc) when you are losing every test match you play.

[Navo]

au contraire, as the article shared by Nadim and Dilscoop in the Raju thread demonstrated, plenty of people took notice: http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/sadist...ul_hasan_i.php

In fact, this Test will soon be forgotten. Bangladesh losing is (unfortunately) part of the order of things. Abul, the 20 year old debutant, scoring a century in his first innings at No. 10 thus living every cricket-lover's fantasy is something people will not forget for a while. (A bit like Ajit Agarkar's century at Lords)

[al Furqaan]

So since the beginning of this thread, ie since the WI series last November our cumulative averages are as follows:

Batting = 36.76
Bowling = 65.66
Ratio = 0.560

So we haven't really improved from the WI series to the SL series in terms of overall competitiveness.

[al Furqaan]

In contrast, Zimbabwe's stats in their 6 Tests since re-admission are:

Batting = 23.36
Bowling = 38.41
Ratio = 0.608

If you take out their win against us, then only does their ratio drop to 0.476, which is still not that much poorer than ours.

This indicates that we've been playing "well" on really flat batting tracks whereas Zimbabwe have played on far more sporting wickets at home, in NZ (seam friendly), and WI (spin friendly). Based on these numbers, the series should be closer than most of us expect, which is disappointing and scary at the same time!

[reyme]

That's why it is such a critical test for us. We must go all out and win these 2 tests at any cost. I really don't want to see some of the silly mistakes were made on and off the field by our coaches and selectors, like playing 3 pacers in the last Test.

[SS]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
In contrast, Zimbabwe's stats in their 6 Tests since re-admission are:

Batting = 23.36
Bowling = 38.41
Ratio = 0.608

If you take out their win against us, then only does their ratio drop to 0.476, which is still not that much poorer than ours.

This indicates that we've been playing "well" on really flat batting tracks whereas Zimbabwe have played on far more sporting wickets at home, in NZ (seam friendly), and WI (spin friendly). Based on these numbers, the series should be closer than most of us expect, which is disappointing and scary at the same time!

Great analysis ... And we will have tougher time than SL.... My expectations will be based on seeing their performances on the ground and how they will adopt on sporting or Seam wkt. It seems that it will come down our batsmen strength on these wkts and how are spinners adjust to it

[al Furqaan]

Through our last 5 matches now...

Bat avg = 31.77
Bowl avg = 57.46
Ratio = 0.553

Just the ZIM match alone our ratio is 0.388 (ie almost as poor as how we used to perform in our early days of Test cricket).