I read a great statistic today - that in the 9 test matches that VVS Laxman has played since Greg Chappell became the coach of the Indian side, he batted in 9 innings and has 2 centuries, 2 50s, a solitary duck of a suspect lbw decision in Pakistan, and is still not considered worthy of a place in the side. That Laxman in this timespan has the second highest average in the team (only after the resplendent Dravid) only adds to the intrigue. And the average is not a doddering number either but a splendid 65 or thereabouts!
Yuvraj Singh does command a place - because he alone scored runs in Karachi, and then had a wonderful ODI series in Pakistan. Also is supposedly a better fielder - but at cover point, not in the slips where dolly after dolly of a catch was dropped while India's best slip fielder sat out the game. In the same way as we are picking horses for courses, should we not be picking fieldsmen by position in the field. So if we are picking a 1-day team, absolutely pick Yuvraj - but then performance in the one-dayers should not be used as a predictor of performances in the longer form.
Laxman should be the 2nd slip by default in the test team.
The irony is this. I think that when Laxman is sure of a place in the side, he bats better. And when he bats well, of course his position is not challenged. When India goes overseas, nobody questions the value of the second-best "wall" in the side, thus he is assured of a spot and seemingly does so much better than in home series on the dead wickets of the subcontinent.
I know he will be a fixture on the tour to South Africa - and will come back with at least one more century and one 50 if not more in the tests there.
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Can you link to that article that talks about Laxman? The writer is doing VVS a disservice by glossing over the numbers, trying to make his look better than they are, opening himself to ridicule. In comparison to the others VVS is still quite favourable and your reasoning is quite good about the validity of his place in the side, ironically for his superior slip fielding.
From CricInfo, I got the following batting stats since Chappell became the coach:
140 1st Test v Zim at Bulawayo
8 2nd Test v Zim at Harare
5-DNB 1st Test v SL at Chennai
69-11 2nd Test v SL at Delhi
104-5 3rd Test v SL at Ahmedabad
0* 1st Test v Pak at Lahore
90-8* 2nd Test v Pak at Faisalabad
19-21 3rd Test v Pak at Karachi 0-0* 1st Test v Eng at Nagpur
The writer used stats to suit his story. I am not sure where he got his numbers. Laxman has scored 480 runs @ 43.63, with 2 centuries, and 2 fifties in 11 completed innings. And, yes, he is tied with Dravid in the 100+ scores for the period. (In 50+ scores he loses second place to someone you would not guess immediately).
For comparison:
Yuvraj has scored 375 runs @ 41.66 with 1 century and 2 fifties in 9 completed innings.
Tendulkar 431 runs @43.1 with 1 century in 10 completed innings (he missed the Zimbabwe tour).
Sehwag has scored 541 @45.08 with 1 century (a statistic-skewing 254) and 2 fifties in 12 completed innings.
Dravid has scored 1003 runs @ 77.15 in 13 completed innings with 5 fifties and 2 centuries (2 90+ scores in there!)
Pathan has scored 509 runs(!!) @ 39.15 in 13 completed innings with 5 fifties!
BUT statistically the second best batsman has been one with 698 runs @69.8 in 10 completed innings with 1 century and 1 fifty!! This mystery guy? MS Dhoni (who did not even have the chance to play Zimbabwe to bolster his numbers).
By the way, for the purposes of this exercise I disregarded the current Test at Bombay. But then only Dhoni and Dravid would improve, so maybe it is a good thing I did not include it!! :-)
Maybe I should make a blog entry out of this, too, on my blog.
Comments?
Let me check on this. I picked up the stat in a new Mumbai based newspaper called DNA (perhaps our mutual friend Aruna can dig out this column from the March 20th edition if she can lay her hands on it) yesterday on a short trip to Mumbai.
The exact stat the writer quoted was 9 matches, 9 innings for Laxman with 2 not outs and a 62.xx average.
And yes, the writer did refer to Irfan Pathan's 50s - in fact the column was about how the tail wagging well has offset some of the failures of the top-order. Dhoni came in with a 50+ average but less than Laxman.
BTW, I am deriving a certain vicarious pleasure from India tumbling to 100 All Out in the Wankhede test!
I found the article in the March 21st edition of DNA. (The whole paper can be read online in an easy viewing format).
The link is:
http://digital.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&eddate=3/21/2006
Mohandas Menon's numbers are WRONG. He says he includes the Mumbai test (but only after the first innings at that point).
If you go back and see the article, one look at Jaffer's stats (for instance) tells you that Mohandas Menon made a mistake. For Wasim Jaffer he has his stats listed as:
3 matches, 3 innings, 0 not out, 142 runs, 1 century, 1 fifty, no 0's. How does one century and one fifty add up to 142 runs?? He made a blunder somewhere in his sorting/statistical filter and DNA took it and ran it without checking the numbers.
Jaffer's numbers (including the completed Bombay Test are:
250 runs @41.67 in 6 innings, with 1 century and 1 fifty.
By the way, I made ONE mistake. Dravid's correct numbers are as follows:
Dravid: 825 in 12 completed innings (3 not outs) @68.75
(I made a mistake the last time I added the numbers).
Do we call up DNA on this?
if you had to recast Mohandas Menon's table with correct data, how would the numbers bear out?
I have redone the table, carefully going over all the numbers. I made a few corrections to the totals I had earlier (also this time I included the Bombay Test so all the averages are down a little bit from earlier, except the ones that did not play). I used Statsguru on CriInfo for the numbers along with a calculator, so all errors are mine and mine alone.
Virender Sehwag: 10 16 547 39.07 254 1 2
Wasim Jaffer: 3 6 250 41.67 100 1 1
Gautam Gambhir: 5 8 198 28.28 97 0 1
Rahul Dravid: 10 16 834 64.15 128* 2 6
Sachin Tendulkar: 9 13 335 27.9 109 1 0
VVS Laxman: 9 14 480 43.63 140 2 2
Yuvraj Singh: 9 12 424 38.55 122 1 2
MS Dhoni: 9 13 434 36.16 148 1 2
Irfan Pathan: 11 15 541 36.06 93 0 5
Sourav Ganguly: 6 7 272 38.85 101 1 0
Cleaning up the numbers to sort by Innings-Runs-Average-centuries-fifties, and also in decreasing order of aggregate runs the numbers look like this:
Rahul Dravid: 16 834 64.15 2-6
Virender Sehwag: 16 547 39.07 1-2
Irfan Pathan: 15 541 36.06 0-5
VVS Laxman: 14 480 43.63 2-2
MS Dhoni: 13 434 36.16 1-2
Yuvraj Singh: 12 424 38.55 1-2
Sachin Tendulkar: 13 335 27.9 1-0
Sourav Ganguly: 7 272 38.85 1-0
Wasim Jaffer: 6 250 41.67 1-1
Gautam Gambhir: 8 198 28.28 0-1
satisfying enough - so Laxman is still the second best in terms of average, has 2 centuries, and so on....Mr Chappell has some serious introspection to do.
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