7-ELEVEN

One of the more inglorious - ignominious? dead set embarrassing? - set of statistics. A beautiful set of numbers, if you are not Australian. Australia has played the second most ODIs but does not feature in the top eleven chases in ODI history. (New Zealand features four times, and in fact six out of the top fourteen.) On the other hand, after last night, Australia has conceded an astonishing seven of the top eleven chases. With the judicious application of Cricket Maths it could have been seven of the top ten, but last night's result knocked one Australia shambles from tenth to eleventh.

Highest innings totals batting second
Team	Score	Result	Opposition	Ground	Match Date	Scorecard
South Africa	438/9	won	Australia	Johannesburg	12-Mar-06	ODI # 2349
Sri Lanka	411/8	lost	India	Rajkot	15-Dec-09	ODI # 2932
India	362/1	won	Australia	Jaipur	16-Oct-13	ODI # 3420
India	351/4	won	Australia	Nagpur	30-Oct-13	ODI # 3424
New Zealand	350/9	won	Australia	Hamilton	20-Feb-07	ODI # 2527
India	347	lost	Australia	Hyderabad	5-Nov-09	ODI # 2923
Pakistan	344/8	lost	India	Karachi	13-Mar-04	ODI # 2112
New Zealand	340/5	won	Australia	Auckland	18-Feb-07	ODI # 2526
New Zealand	340/7	tied	England	Napier	20-Feb-08	ODI # 2682
England	338/8	tied	India	Bangalore	27-Feb-11	ODI # 3110
New Zealand	335/5	lost	Australia	Perth	28-Jan-07	ODI # 2488

 

Comments

[Tony Tea]

Theory! Australia reflexively bats first when it wins the toss, so if the pitch is a road Australia tonks away regardless of any precise target, while the team batting second batting has the advantage of knowing how much to score and the exact required run rate to get there.

For the record, I formed this opinion when Australia lost to South Africa at Jo-burg. It looked to me that Australia could have scored more, but cruised through the last few overs already assuming they had enough.

[Tony Tea]

Gideon: "there are arguments that this run hyperinflation is uniformly bad."

[gillysgone]

Also comes down to bowler selection. Non-wicket taking bowlers mean you dont create the pressure to stop the flow of runs. Having said that, all these games apart from Joburg are recent, when our bowling stocks were not at their peak? Still the batsman have done a reasonable job on all these occasions. World cup winners have the best bowlers I reckon, though thats a review for another day

[Tony Tea]

Mind you, in that Jo-burg game Australia went 12, 7, 28, 11, 14 off the last 5 overs, so they weren't exactly digging in.

[Shep]

Australia also has the top 5 highest scores (and 6 out of the top 7) in the first innings resulting in a loss.

But!
Australia has never lost a match scoring over 289 runs and less than 331 - that's 53 games without a loss.

Clearly on a flat deck we need to put the breaks on and get the game into our kill zone

[Tony Tea]

The moral of the story is "don't count your chickens until both sides have batted."

[Big Ramifications]

"New Zealand features four times, and in fact six out of the top fourteen."

I will nevarr forget NZ's high-200 run chase vs. England in the early 1980s. It completely blew my mind, the sheer impossibility of a bunch of plodders chasing such an impossible total.

Australia has only lost one ODI off the last ball.

Those balls.

[Tony Tea]

That was at Adelaide oval around Australia Day. I remember it well, as I was over here in Melbourne on holidays from the North West and when I flew back to WA the three sides were getting pissed on the plane to Perth.