Pack Hunters Too/Two?

Introduction

During my school days, I had come across the term “By Popular Demand” for the first time being used in the context of re-runs of movies and plays. I was pleasantly surprised to get request from many friends and family for a quick encore focused on spin bowlers. I would have done it any way. Their gentle nudge made me do it sooner than later. So, here goes!

The Big Picture

Let me start by laying out the complete data table.

Test Cricket – Spin Bowlers with more than 200 Wickets

	Name	T	W	W/T	5 W	10 W	A	E	S	T W  (%)
1	Murali	133	800	6.02	67	22	23	2.48	55	38.55
2	Warne	145	708	4.88	37	10	25	2.65	57	27.33
3	Kumble	132	636	4.82	35	8	30	2.70	66	29.80
4	Herath	93	433	4.66	34	9	28	2.81	60	28.98
5	Ashwin	82	427	5.21	30	7	24	2.77	52	29.82
6	Harbhajan	103	417	4.05	25	5	32	2.84	69	25.40
7	Lyon	103	411	3.99	18	3	32	2.97	64	22.68
8	Vettori	113	362	3.20	20	3	34	2.59	80	21.28
9	Gibbs	79	309	3.91	18	2	29	1.99	88	23.48
10	Underwood	86	297	3.45	17	6	26	2.11	74	22.18
11	Bedi	67	266	3.97	14	1	29	2.14	80	26.16
12	Kaneria	61	261	4.28	15	2	35	3.08	68	26.36
13	Swann	60	255	4.25	17	3	30	2.99	60	25.05
14	Benaud	63	248	3.94	16	1	27	2.11	77	23.26
15	Chandrasekhar	58	242	4.17	16	2	30	2.71	66	28.61
16	Qadir	67	236	3.52	15	5	33	2.71	73	22.82
17	Jadeja	57	232	4.07	9	1	25	2.41	62	22.72
18	Grimmet	37	216	5.84	21	7	24	2.16	67	33.64
19	Shakib	59	215	3.64	18	2	31	2.99	63	27.04
20	Saqlain	49	208	4.24	13	3	30	2.65	68	27.48
21	MacGill	44	208	4.73	12	2	29	3.22	54	25.74
22	Gupte	36	149	4.14	12	1	30	2.34	76	31.57
23	Mankad	44	162	3.68	8	2	32	2.13	91	27.74
24	Prasanna	49	189	3.86	10	2	30	2.40	80	24.80
25	Venkat	57	156	2.74	3	1	36	2.27	95	19.00

There are only 21 spinners ending with MacGill with over 200 wickets each. I have added the Indian greats of Gupte, Mankad, Prasanna and Venkat to give a more complete of picture of the achievements of spinners.

Tales the Numbers Tell

As in the case of fast bowlers, there is considerable convergence in the A, E and S values among spinners across generations. Murali has the highest average while Ashwin has a better strike rate. Gibbs has the best economy rate followed by Underwood and Benaud.

Among the eight Indian spinners in the list, Ashwin has the best average of 24 runs followed by Jadeja (25), Mankad the best economy rate of 2.13 ahead of Bedi (2.14) and Ashwin again the best strike rate of 52 balls, with Jadeja clocking 62 balls. In fact, the strike rate of these two spinners are way better than that of any of the Indian fast bowlers covered in the previous blog.

Almost all the bowlers range from 3-4 wickets per test. Murali is the only one with 6.02 and Grimmet and Ashwin come in with 5.84 and 5.21 wickets per test. Among the top five bowlers, it is surprising that Warne and Kumble do not have the highest scores in any of the categories.

Coming to the share of team wickets, the Indian spin trio of Chandrasekar, Bedi and Prasanna account for 75-80% between them. They obviously hunted as a pack. With a 55% share, Anil and Harbhajan also seem to have fed off each other’s success. Beyond that, none of the above bowlers seem to have enjoyed spin support from the other end of the pitch. There may have been effective pace-spin combos like McGrath and Warne. But with 38.55 and 33.64% of their team’s wickets, Murali and Grimmet stand out as dominant solo artists. Gupte is a surprising find here, with 31.57% of the wickets. No wonder Sobers regards him as the best leg-spinner he has ever played against!

Other Suspects

Out of curiosity, I tried to see if there is evidence of other spinners bowling in tandem. From my earliest cricketing memory, I tried the England pair of Laker and Lock and the Australian pair of Benaud and Johnson. The statistics websites do not give the share of the team’s wickets for these pairs. I am sure that cross-tables of the data on pace-spin combinations can be constructed with an eye on the years of overlap in their playing careers. I leave that for a more assiduous follower of the game!

My Take

In test cricket, spinners seem to hunt in pairs to a lesser extent than pacers. Like the battery West Indian fast bowlers in the 1970s and 80s, the Indian spin trio appears to have been a serendipitous exception than the rule. With cricket having changed so much in the last thirty years to include ODI and T20 formats, the coming years may well see more brilliant solo performances by bowlers than joint efforts. Batsmen will be an exception to this trend as successful opening pairs from Sehwag-Sachin to Rohit-Rahul testify! Who knows, the young pack of talented fast bowlers that India is lucky to have now may write their own success stories!

With this ‘quickie’ – or should I say ‘shortie , let me sign off for 2021. I wish you and your families a healthy, joyful and prosperous 2022!

S. Krishna Kumar

27^th December 2021

Bengaluru

Blog # 28

Pack Hunters

Introduction

What with so much cricket all through the year, I have not been following the on-going Ashes series between Australia and England. Last Saturday, my friend Krishna sent me this WhatsApp message: “Imagine a test team with their opening bowling pair (Anderson/Broad) having over 1000 test wickets under their belts. Nearest may be Wasim – Waqar. As a bowling pair, another one to reckon could be McGrath and Warne.” My immediate reaction was what about the fearsome West Indies quartet. Krishna clarified that while they may add up to around 1200 test wickets, only the pair of Ambrose and Walsh may have 900 wickets between themselves. My curiosity was aroused. I decided that my next blog would be on the theme of bowling combinations, particularly fast bowlers.

Brisbane Test, 2021

More than the fact they had over 1000 test scalps between them, what created a Twitter storm was the fact that Anderson and Broad were not in the England team in the recent Test against Australia but were carrying drinks during the break. NDTV Sports reported “Anderson and Broad together have 1156 Test wickets between them, making them the most successful bowling pair in world cricket by some distance but both of them were not included in England’s XI for the Ashes opener.”

Comparison Metrics

In the last two to three decades, sports statistics have become more in-depth and sophisticated. New ratios and rates have been defined that help sharpen one’s appreciation of the performance of the teams and individual players. The obsession with ‘stats’ that was earlier confined to the USA (basketball and baseball) and Europe (soccer) has now become universal with globalization of cricket. So much so, comparisons across different eras can now be made more objectively. This is what I attempt through the Table below where I use the following metrics: Bowling Average (A)- Runs given/Wickets taken; Economy Rate (E)-Runs given/Overs bowled; Strike Rate (S)-Balls bowled/Wickets taken. I also use the percentage of team wickets (TW) taken.

Test Cricket – Fast Bowlers with more than 300 Wickets

No.	Bowler	Period	Mat.	Inn.	Wkts.	A	E	S
1	James Anderson	2003-	167	311	635	27	2.81	57
2	Glen McGrath	93-07	124	243	563	22	2.49	52
3	Stuart Broad	2007-	150	276	526	28	2.93	57
4	Courtney Walsh	84-01	132	242	519	24	2.53	58
5	Dale Steyn	04-19	93	171	439	23	3.24	42
6	Kapil Dev	78-94	131	227	434	30	2.78	64
7	Richard Hadlee	73-90	86	150	431	22	2.63	51
8	Shaun Pollock	95-08	108	202	421	23	2.39	58
9	Wasim Akram	85-02	104	181	414	24	2.59	55
10	Curtly Ambrose	88-00	98	179	405	21	2.30	55
11	Makhaya Ntini	98-09	101	190	390	29	3.23	53
12	Ian Botham	77-92	102	168	383	28	2.99	57
13	Malcolm Marshall	78-91	81	151	376	21	2.68	47
14	Waqar Younis	89-03	87	154	373	24	3.25	43
15	Imran Khan	71-92	88	142	362	23	2.53	54
16	Dennis Lillee	71-84	70	132	355	24	2.75	52
17	Chaminda Vaz	94-09	111	194	355	30	2.68	66
18	Allan Donald	92-02	72	129	330	22	2.83	47
19	Bob Willis	71-84	90	165	325	25	2.83	53
20	Tim Southee	2008-	81	152	322	28	2.96	57
21	Mitchell Johnson	07-15	73	140	313	28	3.33	51
22	Zaheer Khan	00-14	92	165	311	33	3.27	60
23	Ishant Sharma	2007-	105	188	311	32	3.15	62
24	Brett Lee	99-08	76	150	310	31	3.46	53
25	Morne Morkel	06-18	86	160	309	28	3.10	53
26	Fred Truman	52-65	67	127	307	22	2.61	49

A few things stand out. There is considerable convergence in A at 20-30 runs/wicket. Only 5 of the 26 have conceded 30 or more runs/ wicket. Three of them, including Kapil Dev are Indian. Surprisingly, Brett Lee is in this group. E is in the narrow range of 2-3 runs per over. Only 8 out of 26 bowlers have given away more than 3 runs per wicket. Waqar Younis is the surprising find here. Most of the 26 bowlers have taken 9 to 10 overs to get a wicket. Those with the highest strike rates are Dale Steyn and Waqar Younis who took a wicket every seventh over. If we go below 300 wickets, Joel Garner (259), Michael Holding (249) and Andy Roberts (202) make it to the list with A, E and S values of 21, 24 & 26, 2.48, 2.79 & 2.79 and 51, 52 & 55 respectively. They fit within the observed range of the others.

How to Compare Impact?

The metrics used to measure the impact of a bowler’s performance are the number of 5 wicket haul per innings, 10 wickets in a match, best figures in an innings/match etc. Even a simple ratio of the number of wickets per match can be a good starting point. Some websites give data on the % of team wickets. I have put together the available date in the Table below.

No.	Bowler	5 W/I	10 W/M	Best/I, M	Team Wkts. (%)
1	James Anderson	31	3	7/42; 11/71	22.83
2	Glen McGrath	29	3	8/24; 10/27	24.97
3	Stuart Broad	18	3	8/15; 11/121	21.09
4	Courtney Walsh	22	3	7/37; 13/55	24.14
5	Dale Steyn	26	5	7/51; 11/60	27.56
6	Kapil Dev	23	2	9/83; 11/146	24.16
7	Richard Hadlee	36	9	9/52; 15/123	34.18
8	Shaun Pollock	16	1	7/87; 10/147	23.40
9	Wasim Akram	25	5	7/119; 11/110	25.06
10	Curtly Ambrose	22	3	8/45; 11/84	25.11
11	Makhaya Ntini	18	4	7/37; 13/132	22.73
12	Ian Botham	27	4	8/34; 13/106	25.20
13	Malcolm Marshall	22	4	7/22; 11/89	26.84
14	Waqar Younis	22	5	7/76; 13/135	26.60
15	Imran Khan	23	6	8/58; 14/116	26.79
16	Dennis Lillee	23	7	7/83; 11/123	29.31
17	Chaminda Vaz	12	2	7/71; 14/191	20.22
18	Allan Donald	20	3	8/71; 12/139	27.66
19	Bob Willis	16	0	8/43; 9/92	22.97
20	Tim Southee	13	1	7/64; 10/108	23.96
21	Mitchell Johnson	12	3	8/61; 12/127	24.70
22	Zaheer Khan	11	1	7/87; 10/149	20.91
23	Ishant Sharma	11	1	7/74; 10/108	17.98
24	Brett Lee	10	0	5/30; 9/171	22.02
25	Morne Morkel	8	0	6/23; 9/110	21.16
26	Fred Truman	17	3	8/31; 12/119	27.24
27	Joel Garner	7	0	6/56; 9/108	25.15
28	Michael Holding	13	2	8/92; 14/149	24.32
29	Andy Roberts	11	2	7/54; 12/121	25.03

Going by 5 and 10 wicket hauls, Richard Hadlee was the most impactful fast bowler in Test cricket in the last fifty years. Even James Anderson may not be able to break his record of nine 10-wicket hauls. He is followed closely by Glen McGrath and Dennis Lillee. Shane Warne and Anil Kumble have better numbers. With an unbelievable 67 five-wicket and 22 ten-wicket haul, Muthaiah Muralitharan is a different orbit altogether.    

The other striking fact is that fast most bowlers in the list have taken between a fifth and fourth of the wickets captured by their team as a whole. Richard Hadlee with over a third of the New Zealand wickets is the notable exception. In that sense, he was perhaps the most impactful fast bowler ever.

Another inference that can be drawn is that since most of them shared only a little over a quarter of the wickets, they must have hunted in pairs or as a pack as in the case of the West Indies trio or quartet in the 1970s and 1980s. If we look at the top wicket takers among spinners, Muthaiah Muralitharan has an astounding 38.55% of the wickets taken by his team. He clearly dominated the bowling. Shane Warne, on the other hand, had only a 27.33 % share because Glen McGrath took care of 24.97 % of the wickets. Anil Kumble is up there with a high of 29.8%.

Another Perspective

Statistics are also available on the percentage of batsmen dismissed in the top (1-3) and middle (4-7) orders and the tail end (8-11). Rather than tax your patience with another table, let me just give you the top three in each category.

Top Order: Zaheer (45), Chaminda Vaas (42.3), Roach (42)

Middle Order: Underwood (47.8), Kaneria (46), Flintoff (45.1)

Tail End: Warne (37.1), Harbhajan (36.2), Gibbs (35.9)

That gives us the insight that the impact of a bowler can also be judged with reference to his effectiveness at different stages of the test match. I was surprised and pleased to find Zaheer come out on top as far as the opening spell of the tests are concerned. The middle and tail end belongs to the spinners with the exception of Flintoff.

The Overall Take

Pack hunters are predatory animals that go after their prey with other members of their species. Available data over the last fifty years seems to suggest that fast bowlers mostly hunt together or along with another of their species (a spin bowler) like McGrath and Warne, for example. Do spin bowlers also hunt in pairs? Having enjoyed watching the Indian spin quartet at work in its heydays, or even Anil and Harbhajan more recently, I would be inclined to guess that they do too. But let me dig into some more statistics and see what the numbers say.

Merry Christmas and the Season’s Greetings to everyone! 

S. Krishna Kumar

25^th December 2021

Bengaluru

Blog # 27                      

Accompianist

Introduction

Last week, I received a WhatsApp forward from our friends Lalitha and Easwaran. It was the YouTube video of a piano concert by Anil Srinivasan that had been brought out by the TTK group. The enjoyable concert also featured Sikkil Gurucharan and Sumesh Narayanan. The audiovisuals were glitzy and repetitive at places but the overall effect was still pleasing. I recalled having watched Anil and Gurucharan in a YouTube concert earlier. Some years ago, I had also attended a live concert of Anil and Jayanthi Kumaresh (Veena) at the Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha in Bangalore. This blog is on the use of the piano in Carnatic music.

Accompanist/Accompany

The Carnatic music concert that most of us are used to is that of a vocalist accompanied by a violinist and one or more percussionists. By and large, this format holds good for instrumental music concerts too. According to one of the dictionaries, ‘accompanist’ is “a person who provides a musical accompaniment to another musician or to a singer”. The dictionary also defines ‘accompany’ as to “go with someone as a companion or escort”. Is Anil a companion or an escort according to this narrow definition? That is the question I attempt to answer in this blog.   

Artistic Collaboration

At a conceptual level, artistic collaboration among the lead artist and the accompanists is somewhat alien to traditional Carnatic music and its fans. The expectation is that the accompanist will act as a good foil to the main artist. In actual practice, the fans do get to see collaboration in practice on the concert stage. Examples such as GNB and Chowdiah or Lalgudi, Madurai Mani Iyer (MMI) and TNK, Balamurali and MSG readily come to mind. Lalgudi, TNK and MSG would show their flashes of brilliance while following the lead vocalist. But it was clear that GNB, MMI and BMK were the stars of the show. This applied also to great percussionists like Pazhani Subramanya Pillai or Palghat Mani Iyer. They would get their share of the ‘sabhash’ from the main artist and applause from the audience too, but that was about all.   

Jugalbandhis

The jugalbandhi is a freewheeling duet featuring two solo artists. It has been around since the 1950s when Ravi Shankar on the sitar and Ali Akbar Khan on the sarod began to perform together. Bismillah Khan and VG Jog were another popular combination. In Carnatic music, it has been known since the 1970s with combinations such as such as Lalgudi with Amjad Ali Khan, BMK and Bhimsen Joshi, TNK with Ramani or more recently Mysore Manjunath with a number of others. But these were the exceptions that merely reinforced the rule that the violinist and the percussionist ‘follow’ the vocalist during delineation of the raga, singing of the kriti and during the swaraprasthara.       

Democratising the Concert Stage

Anil has collaborated with many performing artists such as U Srinivas, N Ravikiran, Aruna Sairam, Jayanthi Kumaresh, Rakesh Chaurasia, Gaurav Mazumdar and Mysore Nagaraj apart from dancers, playback singers and others. Of these, his association with Gurucharan seems to be the oldest, having been going on for the last twenty years on Anil’s own admission. What is remarkable about this effort is that Anil seems to have no pre-set role as the ‘lead’ artist. Often, he introduces the raga with a few delectable notes and leaves to his co-artist to take over. He never tries to dominate. He comes in during the interludes to prolong the flavour and fragrance of the raga and let the co-artist continue with the kritis, swaras, etc. He is a companion, escort and leader rolled into one. The TTN 100 video is billed as a piano concert by Anil featuring Gurucharan and Sumesh. But you walk away feeling that it is as much a Vocal-Piano as it is a Piano-Vocal concert.

Co-Creating Music

The term ‘co-creation’ came into management journals and books in the late 1990s. It is a simple word that can be understood even in a non-business context. In business, the co-creator is the customer or user. In music, co-creation is the collaboration between the lead artists and even the percussionists. It is not my case that Anil is the first artist to ‘co-create’ Carnatic music on the concert stage. I have enjoyed MMI co-creating music with TNK on the go or T K Rangachari do the same with MSG within the traditional concert format. Depending on his mood, Mali would let the violinist to take over before he had finished the raga alapana. These days,  I enjoy watching TMK co-creating music on-stage with Shriramkumar or Akkarai Subbalakshmi.   But those are often the ‘sawaal-jawaab’ kind of creativity in a concert where for most part the artist and co-artist stick to their assigned ‘solo’ roles. Anil merely takes this process to its next logical step by dropping the set pattern altogether and allowing a more freewheeling format to emerge on the spot.

The Dilemma

I had forwarded the video of Anil’s TTK concert to a few music lovers among my friends. One who is a connoisseur of Western music but has an ear for other forms responded: “Listened to first piece. He is a great pianist. I thought it mingled well with the rest. Does the piano follow the raga the way violin would?”. Another who probably did not even bother to watch the video replied promptly: “Thanks for sharing. I prefer the traditional accompaniments (like the) violin, ghatam, kanjira which add to the vocalist’s gusto, exhilaration and verve to the performance. Piano is suited to Western music.”

As Anil also says, the audience has already accepted the use of piano in Carnatic music. With Srinivas’s meteoric rise since the 1980s, the Mandolin became popular in Carnatic music. Decades earlier, AKC Natarajan had raised the status of Clarinet to the level of a Mangala Vadhyam like the Nadaswaram. Decades later, Kadri Gopalnath brought the Saxophone into Carnatic music. Rather than waste our time declaring if a particular instrument ‘belongs’ or not, we should welcome young talent as they experiment with new instruments and formats and come up with blended offerings that resonate with their generation but also appeal to oldies like me. Such progress in the evolution of Carnatic music is inevitable. I am aware that this may not please the purists among my friends. Some of them may even refuse to call all this ‘progress’. If Anil and his growing network of collaborating artists continue to find increasing audience and patronage, I for one will be quite happy.

My Take

I start with a given – that Anil is a gifted pianist and a great collaborator. With the TTN 100 concert, I am seeing him co-create music that goes beyond conventional labels and formats. These concerts are visually appealing and auditorily pleasing. I think they will attract a lot of youngsters, even children, into Carnatic music via the piano and through collaborative practices and platforms.  I am therefore inclined to think of Anil Srinivasan as Carnatic music’s first ever “Accompianist”!

Thank you, Anil for giving us all so many insights into new possibilities in Carnatic music and the pleasure of watching you perform. You are already the recipient of the Yuva Puraskar Award of the Sangeet Natak Academy and Kalaimamani Award of Tamil Nadu government. I want to conclude by wishing you many, many years of co-creating pleasurable music that may get you the prestigious Sangita Kalanidhi title one day! I know that the formidable AKC got his Sangeet Natak Academy Award when he was 63 and the Sangita Kalanidhi only in his 77^th year. With you, I hope it happens a lot sooner!      

Tips for Watching

I have included two videos for your viewing. The first is the one produced by the TTK group. The other is the video of an online concert in 2020 in lieu of live concerts that my good friend Himamshu and his Trust have been organising at VV Mohalla in Mysore for the last six decades. To watch, please click on the titles given below.

1. TTN 100 Concerts: Anil Srinivasan feat. Sikkil C. Gurucharan and Sumesh Narayanan                         
2. Sikkil Gurucharan and Anil Srinivasan-59th Year Ganesha Festival, Mysore

These are concert recordings. You do not have to take it all in one go. You can savour them one piece at a time. Enjoy!

S. Krishna Kumar

15^th December, 2021

Bengaluru

Blog # 26