The Cricket Statistician No 195

29 To many followers of the game lbw is the least satisfactory of all dismissals, the only one to be based on prediction of what the ball may do. The one-time convention of giving the benefit of any doubt to the batsman has surely withered away. Yet in doing so it has seen fewer players allowed to continue batting long after their pads alone have saved them from an early and perhaps justified return to the pavilion. If we are getting more decisions ‘right’, then I regard it as a healthy trend. JOHN EDRICH: Some statistical observations by Terence Crosby A ll followers of cricket have their favourite cricketers – for me it was Garry Sobers as an all-rounder, Derek Underwood as a bowler and Alan Knott as a wicket-keeper/batsman, but it had to be John Edrich as a specialist batsman. His death towards the end of 2020 has led me to reconsider his career records and to make some observations of which I have been unaware up till now. In sharing these I must acknowledge Jerry Lodge’s booklet on John Edrich, which was no. 86 in the Famous Cricketers Series. 1. Consistent heavy scoring It is well known that in 1965 John Edrich produced one of the longest and heaviest sequences of large scores in the history of first class cricket – nine consecutive fifties, six of them centuries, culminating in only the ninth triple century to be scored in a Test Match, triple centuries then still being rare at that level. After recording a duck, his scores were as follows: 139, 121*, 205*, 55, 96, 188, 92, 105, 310* In NO Runs HS Av. 100 50 9 3 1311 310* 218.50 6 3 However, this was not his only great sequence of consecutive scores. The decision to remove official status from England’s matches against the Rest of the World in 1970 left John Edrich with two remarkable sequences at Test Match level. From 1969 to 1970/71 he scored fifties in ten consecutive Test Matches as follows: 1969 v West Indies 79, 15 1969 v New Zealand 16, 115, 155, 68, 22 1970-71 v Australia 79, 47, 115*, 55, 12, 9, 74*, 130, 40, 30, 57 Mt In NO Runs HS Av. 100 50 10 18 2 1118 155 69.87 4 6 In the same period he scored fifties in nine consecutive Test Matches against Australia: 1968 88, 64. 62, 65, 164, 17 1970-71 79, 47, 115*, 55, 12, 9, 74*, 130, 40, 30, 57