The only one

During last week's game, Xavier and Gareth batted through the first pair without loss of a wicket. Brad and Rian went in next; the captain held his wicket in tact while Rian lost his 3 times. Given that Rian is statistically the team's top batsman, we thought it would be amusing if he was the only one to lose a wicket in our entire innings. Matt and Brad in the third pair made sure it didn't play out that way, but it gave me a vague idea for this week's stats.

Unlike other weeks, I've started writing this before I've actually looked up any stats - so they may well be exceptionally dull. We shall see.

First question: has there ever been an innings where only one batsman lost a wicket?

And the answer is...
[insert sound effects indicating me looking up stats]

Yes!

The only time it was done in a Popped Collars game, was late last year when our old mate Andy Ragg returned for a cameo appearance. In that match against Team Freak, we lost just 1 wicket - in the final over the innings - and it was Andy getting bowled.

The only other time it has happened was in a GG game, where the opposition lost only one wicket all innings. Unfortunately for them, we lost 5 wickets in the run chase, and still beat them by 41 runs.

Obviously it's more interesting to look beyond games where only 1 wicket fell, so here's a list of the highest percentages of wickets lost by one batter in an innings.

Batter	Team	Opponent	Times Out	Total Wickets in Innings	Percentage
Andy	Popped Collars	Team Freak	1	1	100
Damo	Jugulars	GG	1	1	100
Gareth	Popped Collars	The Groms	4	5	80.0
Rian	Popped Collars	Pumpin Booty	7	11	63.6
Rian	Popped Collars	Boom Boom	5	8	62.5
Dale	Jugulars	GG	5	8	62.5
Brad	GG	Indian Kangaroos	5	8	62.5
Connel	6 Inya	GG	3	5	60.0
Sam	Raji Royal	Popped Collars	7	12	58.3
Jim Ragg	Popped Collars	Can't Bat Can't Bowl	11	19	57.9
Gareth	Popped Collars	Galas	4	7	57.1
Xavier	GG	NNBs	4	7	57.1
Hugh	The Fluff	Popped Collars	4	7	57.1

An impressive four-out-of-five by Gareth, also late last year comes in at number 3.

Rian's fourth placed 7-out-of-11 is the highest in eight-a-side games. The only other 8-a-side match on the list is Jimm Ragg's ridiculous 11-out-of-19...

All up, there have 33 occasions on which one batsman has lost at least half of his team's wickets.

Bowlers
Obviously, there are going to be at least two occasions where a bowler has taken all the wickets in an innings - the bowlers who took the only wickets in the two matches at the top of the previous table. Quite uninterestingly, they are in fact the only two.

Taking a high percentage of the wickets is much rarer than losing most of them. Only 18 times has one player taken 50% of more of a team's wickets. And they are almost always in innings where very few wickets fell.

Here's another nice list:

Bowler	Team	Opponent	Wickets	Total Wickets in Innings	Percentage
Michael	Team Freak	Popped Collars	1	1	100
Tim Smallhorn	GG	Jugulars	1	1	100
Rian	Popped Collars	C U Next Tuesday	3	4	75.0
Marco	ASN	GG	3	4	75.0
Shiro	The Groms	Popped Collars	4	6	66.7
Gareth	Popped Collars	4 Skins	5	8	62.5
Gibbo	The Groms	Popped Collars	3	5	60.0
Darren	NDC	Popped Collars	3	5	60.0
Matt F	Team Freak	GG	3	5	60.0
Lewis	Porridge Pies	GG	4	7	57.1

Alright, that's it. I've got nothing else for today.

And I'm running out of ideas for more blog posts... inspire me, people!