India far ahead of the rest

Travis Basevi and George Binoy

March 14, 2007

Have you ever felt out of your depth on a cricket field because the opposition was overwhelmingly superior in terms of runs under their belts, wickets in the kitty and sheer number of matches played? Several of the teams currently in the Caribbean will feel like that too. This week's List compares the cumulative runs, wickets and averages of each of the World Cup squads.

India's World Cup squad may have some deficiencies but lack of experience is certainly not one of them. There are five countries in the World Cup for which, if you add up all the ODIs played by their squad members, the cumulative figure is still less than the number of games under Sachin Tendulkar's belt. Tendulkar, Dravid and Sourav Ganguly add up to 35297 runs and the trio would rank just above Australia in our table.

England will be high on confidence after their tri-series win at the end of a long Australian summer but their World Cup squad is full of fledglings. All their batsmen put together have 13737 runs between them, well short of Tendulkar's one-day tally. Their players have played fewer matches and their bowlers have taken fewer wickets than the Bangladesh squad.

While Pakistan's batsmen have the third highest aggregate of runs after India and Sri Lanka, their bowlers are far less experienced in comparison. Injuries to Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif and Abdul Razzaq have severely depleted their arsenal. Mohammad Sami, who's been in and out of the team, is their most experienced frontline bowler with 111 wickets from 79 matches.

Who has the heaviest top order? Which team has the most spirited tail? We've looked at stats of batsmen who've played a majority of their innings in the top seven since 2006. Australia - with a little help from Michael Hussey's improbable average - outstrip heavyweights India comfortably. India and Australia both possess four top-order batsmen who've averaged over 40 over their career - the most for any team. Ireland also have four batsman averaging over 40 in ODIs, but having played only eight ODIs, they fall short of our qualifications.

Pakistan and New Zealand have serious top-order concerns. New Zealand have allayed some of those fears through strong batting performances in the Chappell-Hadlee series against Australia but Pakistan were battered and bruised during their recent tour of South Africa. They've tried nine opening combinations in their last 20 games, Inzamam-ul-Haq has batted very low in the order to stem the rot but so far their plans have come unstuck.

Pakistan, however, statistically have the best lower order in the tournament. That's largely due to Rao Iftikhar Anjum's quirky average of 44.50 after remaining unbeaten 13 times out of 15 at number 10 or 11. South Africa have two of the most effective lower-order batsmen of the tournament in Shaun Pollock and Andrew Hall. Pollock averages nearly 30 since 2006, batting predominantly in positions seven, eight and nine. Hall has scored a fifty at No 9 and averages over 23.

Travis Basevi is the man who built Statsguru. George Binoy is editorial assistant of Cricinfo

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