An old post, and an older scorecard

A few intriguing questions and stats were proposed for the latest blog post. The one I choose to look at today is batting hat-tricks and consecutive wickets lost... if only because it gives me an excuse to share with you an olde indoor cricket memory of mine. Enjoy.


This query came up thanks to Gareth's personal accomplishment of losing 3 wickets in 3 balls against The Groms, when the wicket count for the whole innings was just 5 (G actually got 4 of the 5).

A few months ago, I investigated the longest streaks by batsmen without losing a wicket - and included in that was a list of most consecutive times out. And the numbers of personal hat-tricks "achieved" by batsmen. Here is that post.

A quick look through the dozen or so most recent scorecards shows that Gareth's hat-trick last game was the only change to the lists in that post. So the stats from there are pretty much still correct.

One thing to note about those lists is that are counting times that a batter has been out without facing a non-wicket between. They may not have all actually given the fielding team a hat-trick. As an example, someone could have been out on the 1st, 4th, 5th and 7th balls of an over, and have that counted as being out "4 times in-a-row" if their batting partner faced the other balls in the over.

If you are looking for actual consecutive balls that a batsman has been out (like Gareth's hat-trick last week),  I'm going to take you beyond the Popped Collars records. Here is part of a classic scorecard from April 4, 2003 (for anyone who's known me long enough, this was the 5th game of The Redbacks, and an over bowled by Steve Arthy)

If you need some help deciphering the umpires awful handwriting, the over goes:
2 - C - RO - (B?) - RO - RO - RO - RO
The same batter out 7 times in a row.

The type of wicket on the fourth ball is hard to make out, but comparing it the umpires writing for the rest of the game, I think it is bowled.

The last ball was double-runs, but the umpire seems to have forgotten that while trying to add up the huge negative numbers. The figures for the over should be 7/-38.

The story behind this over is not what you might think. The team we were playing against were not terrible. The batsmen were not terrible - the pair had 36 on the board with an over to go. But they needed 34 off this last over to win the game. The first couple of wickets fell in the normal course of the game. The next few fell as the batsmen got desperate to make up the losses and stay in the game (or the skin) with bit hits and desperate running. I'll then assume that the last few were probably a case of "who cares any more".

And, by the way, Steve's first over in that game was 2/-4, giving him the unheard-of figures of 9/-42 off two overs. They were the good old days.