Thursday, February 27, 2014

Shaun Marsh - Ducks and Tons

It has come to some people’s attention that Shaun Marsh has an unenviable record in Test cricket.

Should Shane Watson re-enter the Australian team for the third Test at Cape Town at his expense, Marsh will have one foot in each of two curious history books. Were he never to play another Test – an eminently possible proposition – he would join such luminaries as Barry Richards*, Clive Radley and Tom Moody to have scored two tons in less fifteen or fewer innings. (*No one doubts Richards would have played many more innings and scored many more hundreds had South Africa been able to play Test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s).

Less appealingly, Marsh also be the star feature in another tome detailing batsmen with the highest percentage of failed innings.

On a good day, Shaun Marsh is splendid to watch. On bad days – of which there are far more – you barely get a look at him. This is because for any Test batsman (i.e. not specialist wicketkeeper or bowler) who has played at least 15 innings, Marsh has the highest rate of ducks per innings. He records one zero every 2.5 times he strolls to the crease (40%), a truly remarkable rate that makes him a true outlier. The only other true batsman with at least 15 innings’ experience to record even one duck in every four innings is the immortal Saleem Elahi, who made six gozzers in twenty-four.

The following is a chart that plots the frequency of a player’s ducks against the frequency of their scores above 50. To qualify, a player must have been selected as a batsman or all-rounder, played a minimum of fifteen Test innings and had a duck frequency rate (DFR) over 10% (i.e. one duck every ten innings).

Notable outliers have been named and highlighted.

A table containing these players can be found at the conclusion of this post

The table makes interesting reading, as it features twelve Test captains and two of the popularly-acknowledged best ‘keeper-batsmen in history, Matt Prior (DFR 11.2%) and Adam Gilchrist (10.2%). It is completely unastonishing that Gilchrist has the second-highest rate of scores above 50 (31.4%).

Even more surprising is the presence of Ken “Slasher” Mackay (DFR 13.5%), who despite never scoring a Test hundred was the bedrock of Australian hopes during batting collapses in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Other high-profile figures with significant DFRs include Dennis Amiss, Yuvraj Singh, Phil Hughes and Sir Frank Worrell.


Shaun Marsh’s Test career is still young and must be regarded as very fragile. His best comparison from the chart above - in playing style, Test success and off-field habits - may come from Wayne Larkins, the English cavalier who toured Australia miserably in 1990-91. Larkins didn't manage a Test century, but the pair score First Class hundreds at a very similar rate.

Fifteen innings is not a large sample size – the smallest to have recorded at least six ducks by 9 innings, and Marsh has batted in the fewest innings in this group. With the amount of abject failures he has to his name, he may not get the chance to raise that tally and few would dispute it as unfair.

Player
Country
Inns
Ducks
50s
100s
50+
% duck
% 50
% 100
% 50+
ME Atapattu
SL
141
22
17
16
33
0.156
0.121
0.113
0.234
A Flintoff
England
130
17
26
5
31
0.131
0.200
0.038
0.238
GL Flower
Zimbabwe
123
16
15
6
21
0.130
0.122
0.049
0.171
MW Gatting
England
138
16
21
10
31
0.116
0.152
0.072
0.225
M Ashraful
Bangladesh
119
16
8
6
14
0.134
0.067
0.050
0.118
K Rutherford
New Zealand
99
16
18
3
21
0.162
0.182
0.030
0.212
K Akmal
Pakistan
92
15
12
6
18
0.163
0.130
0.065
0.196
D Randall
England
79
14
12
7
19
0.177
0.152
0.089
0.241
AC Gilchrist
Australia
137
14
26
17
43
0.102
0.190
0.124
0.314
MJ Prior
England
116
13
27
7
34
0.112
0.233
0.060
0.293
FE Woolley
England
98
13
23
5
28
0.133
0.235
0.051
0.286
M Ramprakash
England
92
12
8
2
10
0.130
0.087
0.022
0.109
DM Jones
Australia
89
11
13
6
19
0.124
0.146
0.067
0.213
MJK Smith
England
78
11
10
3
13
0.141
0.128
0.038
0.167
FMM Worrell
West Indies
87
11
17
6
23
0.126
0.195
0.069
0.264
DL Amiss
England
88
10
10
8
18
0.114
0.114
0.091
0.205
I Alam
Pakistan
77
10
8
1
9
0.130
0.104
0.013
0.117
D Ganga
West Indies
86
9
8
3
11
0.105
0.093
0.035
0.128
MJ Greatbatch
New Zealand
71
9
9
1
10
0.127
0.127
0.014
0.141
CZ Harris
New Zealand
42
9
4
0
4
0.214
0.095
0.000
0.095
C Hill
Australia
89
9
18
7
25
0.101
0.202
0.079
0.281
N Sidhu
India
78
9
15
9
24
0.115
0.192
0.115
0.308
KLT Arthurton
West Indies
50
8
7
1
8
0.160
0.140
0.020
0.160
J Darling
Australia
60
8
8
3
11
0.133
0.133
0.050
0.183
HH Dippenaar
South Africa
62
8
5
2
7
0.129
0.081
0.032
0.113
AL Logie
West Indies
78
8
13
2
15
0.103
0.167
0.026
0.192
H Masakadza
Zimbabwe
50
8
4
2
6
0.160
0.080
0.040
0.120
A Ali
Pakistan
60
7
14
5
19
0.117
0.233
0.083
0.317
AC Hudson
South Africa
63
7
12
4
16
0.111
0.190
0.063
0.254
JS Solomon
West Indies
46
7
8
0
8
0.152
0.174
0.000
0.174
Yuvraj Singh
India
62
7
8
3
11
0.113
0.129
0.048
0.177
BF Hastings
New Zealand
56
6
7
4
11
0.107
0.125
0.071
0.196
PJ Hughes
Australia
49
6
5
3
8
0.122
0.102
0.061
0.163
W Jaffer
Pakistan
58
6
11
4
15
0.103
0.190
0.069
0.259
W Larkins
England
25
6
3
0
3
0.240
0.120
0.000
0.120
KD Mackay
Australia
52
6
7
0
7
0.115
0.135
0.000
0.135
SE Marsh
Australia
15
6
1
2
3
0.400
0.067
0.133
0.200
S Elahi
Pakistan
24
6
1
0
1
0.250
0.042
0.000
0.042
S Afridi
Pakistan
48
6
8
5
13
0.125
0.167
0.104
0.271
RT Simpson
England
45
6
6
4
10
0.133
0.133
0.089
0.222
DS Smith
West Indies
58
6
5
1
6
0.103
0.086
0.017
0.103
G Ulyett
England
39
6
7
1
8
0.154
0.179
0.026
0.205

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