Thursday, January 12, 2006

Dead rubber alert?

Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar are considered the pre-eminent batsmen of this generation. For a long time I had the feeling that Lara made a lot of his famous centuries in dead rubbers, wherein the fate of the series did not hinge on his suceeding or failing. I put that hypothesis to test, using StatsGuru on CricInfo.

For the purposes of this analysis I considered that any Test match in a Test series that would not alter the final outcome of the series was a "dead rubber" Test match. For example, in a 3 Test series if one team had won the first two Tests, then the third Test was a "dead rubber".

Sachin Tendulkar has (to date) scored 35 test centuries, of which I counted 3 dead rubber tons:
114 vs Australia 1991/92 at Perth
177 vs Australia 1997/98 at Bangalore
176 vs West Indies 2002/03 at Kolkatta

Brian Lara has (to date) scored 31 Test centuries, of which I counted 7 dead rubber tons:
375 vs England 1993/94 at St. John's
132 vs Australia 1996/97 at Perth
100 vs Australia 1998/99 at St. John's
221 vs Sri Lanka 2001/02 at Colombo (first innings)
130 vs Sri Lanka 2001/02 at Colombo (second innings)
400 vs England 2003/04 at St. John's
226 vs Australia 2005/06 at Adelaide

I may be biased, but I think my hypothesis is supported to an extent. Lara has finished quite a few seires with a bang and is remembered for that.

On a whim, I also checked to see how their centuries stacked up with their team's results. This is what I found:

Wins - Lara 8, Tendulkar 12
Draws - Lara 10, Tendulkar 15
Losses - Lara 13, Tendulkar 8

Here, the picture is not clear as valid arguments can be made by supporters of both players.

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