The Cricket Statistician No 195

8 less than four years later was the first Test cricketer to die), and Carr, who burst onto the cricketing world aged 37 in 1909, become the first man ever to play Test cricket for England in his first first-class season when he played that summer’s final Ashes Test, at The Oval. Indeed, Stevens only took 24 first-class wickets (av. 48.16) before the age of 30. Since then, he has taken 548 wickets (av. 23.40). As at 30 April 2011, Stevens’ 35th birthday, he had taken only 108 wickets (av. 33.91). In the subsequent period of just over a decade, he has captured 464 wickets, at the excellent average of 22.24. Only 19 bowlers have taken more wickets in first-class cricket since 30 April 2011, of whom only five have done so at a lower average: TABLE A: LEADING BOWLING AVERAGES IN FIRST-CLASS CRICKET SINCE 30 APRIL 2011, MINIMIUM 464 WICKETS Player Mat Wkts Ave Econ RMGK Sirisoma 77 482 19.05 3.12 Mohammad Abbas 113 490 20.06 2.65 PM Pushpakumara 106 643 20.31 3.22 C Rushworth 129 528 21.63 2.90 TJ Murtagh 141 572 21.70 2.75 DI Stevens 143 464 22.24 2.72 JM Anderson 143 556 22.65 2.54 D Olivier 118 467 23.53 3.23 MG Hogan 149 570 23.66 2.69 G Onions 119 481 23.73 3.19 R Ashwin 100 514 24.91 2.80 SCJ Broad 160 575 25.69 2.87 PM Siddle 147 500 26.40 2.78 KA Maharaj 112 468 26.40 2.90 MDK Perera 110 483 26.44 3.09 SR Harmer 146 628 27.05 2.84 Abdur Razzak 88 477 27.45 2.98 N Wagner 140 573 27.94 3.15 JS Patel 193 672 29.39 2.82 NM Lyon 170 611 33.59 2.99 It can be seen that only three of the 19 have a lower economy rate than Stevens. And only three others – the Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Gayan Sirisoma, the Australian-born fast bowler Michael Hogan and Durham’s Chris Rushworth – have not played Test cricket. And during that period, Stevens also scored 7,214 runs in first-class cricket, averaging 36.25. None of the other bowlers who have taken more than 464 wickets since 30 April 2011 have scored as many as 5,000 runs or averaged over 30 with the bat, Jeetan Patel scoring the most runs (4,988, av. 21.97) and Ravichandran Ashwin (3,427 runs, av. 27.86) having the highest average. Sirisoma has a first-class batting average of 8.96 (and a highest score of 38), whilst both Hogan and Rushworth have career highest scores of just 57. In statistical terms Stevens lays a strong claim to having been the best all-rounder in first-class cricket in the past decade.