West Indies v Pakistan, 3rd Test

Southie · May 13, 2017, 6:28pm

Re: West Indies v Pakistan, 3rd Test

WI is playing for draw, so their run rate does not matter. With present WI team, where no player has average over 40 and team consist of young and weak batsmen, draw is achievement, especially when Pakistan already made 376 runs in first inning. So, what they did, playing slow, was acceptable, as they just needed to bat on without loosing wickets.

As for Pakistan, there are 5 batsmen in team with batting test average over 40 (Azhar, Misbah, Younis, Shafiq and Sarfraz), something Pakistan rarely had in past (actually, in past, only few Pakistani batsmen had average over 40 because until recently, average of 40 was rare and average of 45 was exceptional (today, average of 50 plus is exceptional). All happened, because ODI, T20I, development of super bats and batting friendly pitches … all have contributed in making batsmen to score freely and get high batting averages.

Here are past (retired) Pakistani batsmen with batting average over 40 (who played 10 or more test innings).

Tasleem Arif (62.62)
Miandad (52.57).
M Yousuf (52.29),
Inzamam (49.6).
Saeed Anwer (45.52).
Zaheer (44.79).
Shoaib Mohammed (44.34).
Hanif Mohammed (43.98).
Saleem Malik (43.69).
Saeed Ahmed (40.41).

So, until recently, only 10 Pakistani batsmen had average over 40. Anyhow, there are 6 more in present team (5 mentioned above plus Shahzad).

So, for Pakistan to start the inning so slow, it seems, Pakistan was playing with fear and was going for a draw from first ball. Younis 18 runs in 75 balls (12.5 overs) followed by Misbah who made 1 run in first 51 balls he faced, show the mindset.

What is the standard deviation?