Good on Chris Martin for his performances during the India series. It’s interesting how often he gets dropped, usually when the team as a whole has under-performed. Some interesting stats at this point in his career:
48 matches, 160 wickets at 33.48, economy 3.41 and strike rate 59.6 balls
But now look at the figures for one DK (Danny) Morrison:
48 matches, 160 wickets at 34.68, economy 3.30 and strike rate 62.9 balls
There’s really nothing in it… unless – well how about the batting?
Morrison 379 runs at 8.42; high score 42 (held then world record 24 ducks)
Martin 80 runs at 2.28; high score 12 n.o. (23 ducks)
You’d think that Danny has it by virtue of his batting, except for the fact he was sometimes referred to as Danny Duck. Again, hardly anything to separate them. Fascinating stuff. Perhaps the key bit of advice for Chris Martin is not to participate in any last wicket batting heroics – Danny scored 14 * in a last wicket stand of 106 with Nathan Astle to save a test, but it was the last thing he ever did for his country’s cricket team… thank goodness the rain saved us from seeing this happen in Wellington this week.
Great to hear that Martin plans to keep playing – so I thought I’d check the bowling stats for his next target on the list – none other than CL Cairns. After 48 matches, Chris Cairns had 167 wickets @ 29.23, and he managed another 51 wickets in the next 14 matches, to end with 218 @ 29.4; econ 3.28; s.r. 53.6 balls.
It would be some effort to get close to those numbers, but all the same, Martin deserves his spot. As for the best number 11 – well I only compared the 2, but I’d go for an honourable draw.
