The Very Best Batsmen Under Pressure

The West Indies tour of Australia in the southern summer of 2005 was the first time in a generation that the visitors had been relegated to playing a three-match series. Twenty years ago, during the glory years of the Lloyd led Caribbean marauders, such a fate would have been unimaginable. It reflected the shifting balance of power in world cricket. Just under a year ago, Ricky Ponting had taken over the stewardship of the side from Steve Waugh, but not much else had changed, it seemed, with the inexorable Australians.

They had cakewalked the first two Tests a zillion-nothing, and here, in the heat of the third and final Test, a few minutes into the opening day, it seemed to the worldwide audience, rubbing the sleep off their eyes over a midnight cuppa, that the match was over even before it had properly begun.

Brett Lee, steaming in from the Cathedral end at the picturesque Adelaide Oval under slightly overcast skies, had despatched Wavell Hinds without so much as an apology. Three runs later, Dwayne Smith fell in similar fashion, edging a thunderbolt of an outswinger to Hayden at gully. In walked Brian Lara, dogged by poor form and bad umpiring decisions all series.

Sarwan fell, hooking the insatiable Lee to Symonds, his Achilles heel cruelly exposed, and West Indies had barely passed 50. Lara battled on, doggedly moving to 27 off 67 balls at lunch.

The dam burst after lunch. Lara launched into the spinners, ravaging them for 88 off a mere 107 deliveries. McGrath and Lee were treated with scant respect, and with stumps dawning, the genius went to his 200 by pulling the latter twice in front of square.

It was a magnificent display of defiance in the face of almost insurmountable odds, against a bowling attack of the highest class on their own turf. They would later christen Adelaide Oval as Lara’s lair. He averaged 94 there.

The next highest contribution to Lara’s 226 had been from Dwyane Bravo, with 34.

It was the last Test match that this prince among batsmen would play in Australia.

That wasn’t the only time Lara had turned the tables on the world champions from a seemingly hopeless situation. Nearly seven years ago, on a balmy day in Sabina Park, Kingston, coming in at 5 for 2, Lara had pulled, driven and cut the Australians to distraction with an ethereal 213. West Indies had been 56 for 4 in that match. They ended up on 431, and eventually won.

Innings like these make you wonder- how do the true greats of the game deliver in situations that call for blood and guts? How do they stare defeat and dishonour in the face and not blink while the rest are falling around them?

I decided to find out. Or rather Bheem did.

I asked him to reveal the batsmen who had the highest averages, coming in at worse than 20/1, 40/2, 60/3, or 80/4. Here’s his list.

Table 1. The Best Batsmen at <20/1>

Batsman	Innings	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Bradman	23	1726	86.30	6	2
Barrington	20	1390	81.76	7	3
Headley	17	1024	68.27	4	3
Hammond	16	1042	65.13	4	1
Graveney	20	1076	63.29	2	3
Ponting	42	2343	61.67	8	10
Kanhai	40	2307	59.15	9	3
Sangakkara	44	2383	58.12	5	13
IVA Richards	25	1388	57.83	4	7
N Hussain	26	1229	55.86	4	6
IM Chappell	40	2033	54.95	7	8
Dexter	23	1193	54.23	2	9
Dravid	73	3523	53.38	7	18
Younis Khan	27	1373	52.81	6	2
AH Jones	29	1394	49.79	3	7
Lara	30	1423	49.07	2	8

Reads like a who’s who of cricket, doesn’t it? Bradman…Barrington…Headley…Hammond. (Bradman’s average drops by fully 14 points- he could hardly handle pressure, could he? ;-)

Ricky Ponting emerges as the batsman from the modern era who handles the pressure of batting at number three best, but you have to feel for poor Rahul Dravid down the table- he’s done it fully 73 times- more than anybody else in that list. While it underlines the value of Dravid to this Indian team, it also highlights the fact that on the relatively rare occasions that the Australian opening stand fails, Ricky Ponting stands like an unshakeable rock between the opposition and the middle order bats below him.

Let’s move on to the glamorous number four batsmen then.

Table 2. The Best Batsmen at <>

Batsman	Innings	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Weekes	20	1205	63.42	5	5
Border	28	1579	63.16	6	6
Kallis	29	1351	54.04	5	5
Jayawardane	30	1387	53.35	4	4
Lara	67	3548	52.96	12	12
GS Chappell	30	1311	50.42	4	7
Tendulkar	62	2900	48.33	9	13
Inzamam	31	1453	46.87	6	6
MD Crowe	46	1958	46.62	8	6
N Hussain	25	1091	45.46	5	4

Again, an all time great shows the way- you don’t become one without being resolute. Look at the runner up though. When I published my decade-leaders, there was some dissent about how Border had got in ahead of the likes of Viv. That average of 63.2, coming in at the fall of two wickets for next to nothing, tells you why. A heart forged from steel, if ever there was one.

Kallis’ position at 3 is not unexpected. South Africa have him to thank for pulling them out of numerous tight spots. Jayawardane crops up rather unexpectedly at number four, but the rest of the table is ordinated entirely as expected.

A special mention for Nasser Hussain, the doughty ex-captain of England, who popped up on the last list as well. That’s over 50 innings he has played when his team was in crisis, and his average of around 50, fully 13 runs above his career mean, speaks volumes of the man’s determination and courage.

Much to the chagrin of Inzamam’s fans, he is roundly pipped by the rather unfairly maligned Tendulkar, who has had to deal with such situations twice as often as the Pakistani legend. Who handles pressure better? The stats tell their own story, and they rarely lie. By the same token, Brian Lara outshines his legend-in-arms, having played even more innings in strife, with a superior average to boot.

Let’s look at the number fives.

Table 3. The Best Batsmen at <60/3>

Batsman	Innings	Runs	Average	100s	50s
S Waugh	37	1775	52.21	7	6
CL Hooper	25	1145	52.05	2	5
A Flower	36	1596	51.48	4	7
GP Thorpe	24	1028	51.40	5	4

Out of hundreds of batsmen that have steadied the rudder of their ship at three-down, only four emerge with distinction. Steve Waugh, Flower and Thorpe were all known for their nuggetyness, respected the world over for their love of battle, but the presence of Carl Hooper in that list is a real eye opener, this a man who was the epitome of wilting when the heat was on, despite his enormous, almost unbounded talent. How revealing can statistics be! What heady myths they shatter in such stark, unembellished figures!

Look how Waugh and Flower are united in the pantheon of greats- two men from teams at the opposite ends of the table. Would you commit the cardinal sin of over-analysing their merits, and disenfranchising one at the expense of the other on some contrived grounds because of the relative strength or weakness of the sides they featured in?

I hope not. Do take the table at its face value.

Let’s examine the four-downs.

Table 4. The Best Batsmen at <80/4>

Batsman	Innings	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Ponting	10	808	80.80	4	2
Chanderpaul	10	506	56.22	1	4
Greig	22	1074	51.14	4	4
JV Coney	16	571	47.58	1	3
Ranatunga	20	847	47.06	1	7
Botham	21	876	41.71	2	4
Border	18	556	37.07	1	4
McMillan	15	543	36.20	1	3

A pattern emerges. A list populated by street fighters- Chanderpaul, Greig, Coney, Ranatunga, Botham, Border, McMillan, raging against the dying of the light. Ponting, though, outshines them all at the head of the table, in the days when he batted down the order, with an average that towers over the rest, an astonishing four tons and two half centuries scored in ten innings.

Those are the figures. They show that the weakness or strength of your team is no bar to men appearing on such lists. It is fallacious to contend that if you play for a strong team such as Australia, you experience less pressure than say, if you turned out for India. Isn’t it instructive that three Australian captains- Bradman, Waugh and Ponting, appear at the head of those tables, and another, Border, is second only to the great Everton Weekes in the remaining one? These are men who shaped an entire side in their own image, inspired a generation, delivered their wards from self doubt through their own fearlessness when it came to the crunch. Let nobody doubt that those men made Australia the team they are today, and not the converse.

Neither did Nasser Hussain appear in two of those tables due to a statistical aberration. Remember the side he lifted from mediocrity with his sheer cussedness?

I apologize for not being able to choose between these men. I truly cannot separate the all-timers, the Bradman from the Weekes or Waugh. There is no doubt in my mind however that Ricky Ponting can stake his claim to the sobriquet of the greatest batsman of the modern era when it comes to performing under pressure. To head one list is tough, but to appear ahead of his contemporaries on two of them, one by a proverbial country mile, is a phenomenal achievement, one that doesn’t deserve to be belittled by fence sitting.

Thank you all for reading, and Bheem, as ever, for your sorcery with numbers.