When the team (or player) was in poor batting form, we would pull out this particular stat, and challenge people to try to set new records. It mostly worked quite well, as long as people were actually interested in attempting to achieve it. I always say about indoor batting: "If you don't get out while you're batting, you will make a decent score", and that's what this stat is about.
How long a streak of balls-faced can a player accumulate in between losing wickets?
The streak counts across innings and matches - so, for example, if you manage to play half a dozen consecutive innings without losing a wicket, you could rack up 100 or so deliveries faced.
When counting your streaks, it doesn't matter how many runs you score, and it doesn't matter if your partner loses a wicket while you're on strike (run out, mankad, etc) - but as soon as you lose a wicket yourself, in any way, the streak is broken.
Because I need to take into account both the striker and non-striker (the player whose streak is being counted could break streak by being run out while they are not on strike, for example), it takes a lot of fiddling with giant lists of ball-by-ball stats to get this to work out properly. But I'm quite certain I've got it right, finally. And I had one very unexpected result which I used to check and double check, to make sure everything was in order.
(Unfortunately, having worked out the results, it may look like I said "this was one of my favourite stats" just because I do so well in the list. But really, I had no idea until I did the calculations.)
The Longest Streaks
There have been 9 occasions where a Popped Collars player has gone 50 or more deliveries between losing wickets. Brad and Xavier dominate the list, having done it 4 times each. The final spot was quite unexpected. Not that I'm talking down the batting skills of the great man, but "Sanjit" is probably not a name many people would expect to see in a list that has to do with 'not losing wickets very often'. But he has done what few others have managed, by playing out 51 deliveries between wickets lost, in the early part of last year.
Here is a list showing each players best streak achieved so far. All current regulars are included, along with any others who have a significant number to mention. The number of runs they scored during their long streak is also given.
| Batter | Longest Streak (Balls faced) | Runs Scored |
| Andy | 47 | 110 |
| Brad | 59 | 99 |
| Gareth | 43 | 100 |
| Matt | 40 | 69 |
| Rian | 41 | 110 |
| Sanjit | 51 | 103 |
| Xavier | 65 | 128 |
| ------------ | ----- | ----- |
| Pup | 41 | 85 |
| Julian | 39 | 130 |
| Daniel | 33 | 90 |
| Crushie | 33 | 75 |
| Jake | 30 | 50 |
As you may have noticed, some people seem to have collected streaks by playing safe, and thus scoring few runs (see Jake's 50 off 30 balls), while others have just been going the tonk, and not getting out at the same time (see Julian's 130 off 39 balls).
If we look at most runs scored (instead of balls faced) in between wickets, Brad hold top spot by a long way: his second longest streak (57 balls) brought about a massive 165 runs. Julian's 130 off only 39 balls is, in fact, the second best!
100 runs has been done more often than 50 balls. The 14 occurrences of it have been done by Xavier (5), Brad (3), Andy (2), Julian, Rian, Sanjit and Gareth (1 each).
Now, as always, for the reverse scenario...
Q: What's the opposite of facing many consecutive balls without getting out?
A: Getting out many times without facing a safe ball in between!
Again, this was a tricky one to get my head around, because people can often get out multiple times in a row despite not being on strike for all of those balls. But again, I eventually got it sorted.
There has only been one occurrence of a Popped Collars player getting out 5 consecutive times, and that was some bloke called "Rian (The 9!)". A very different player to our regular "Rian".
However, there have actually been a few players get out 4 times in a row, despite not actually batting with the intent of getting out. The surname Ragg dominates that list.
It has happened 7 times:
A.Ragg (3)
J.Ragg, Gareth, Rian, Tony (1 each)
And finally, here is the complete list of number of personal hat-tricks (at least 3 times in-a-row, counting 4 and 5 in-a-row as just one occurrence each).
| Batter | Batting Hat-tricks |
| A.Pearson | 3 |
| A.Ragg | 4 |
| Blando | 1 |
| Brad | 2 |
| Crushie | 1 |
| Daniel | 3 |
| Gareth | 9 |
| Jake | 1 |
| J.Ragg | 3 |
| Julian | 6 |
| Matt | 2 |
| Rian | 5 |
| Rian (The 9!) | 1 |
| Sanjit | 4 |
| Tony | 1 |
| Xavier | 1 |
Yes, even the great Crushie has a trio of outs to his name.
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