Romance of a 4th innings Knock in Test Cricket

Ian Chappell says “I haven’t seen better batting in the 4th innings than Virat Kohli’s enterprising century at Adelaide Oval , where he narrowly missed guiding India to an incredible victory in 2014”. Ian, an aggressive Captain played 75 Tests and the term “Ugly Australians” which stuck was first applied to his team.

Ian’s statement means simply that batting in the 4^th innings is special.

Why? After all, batting 1st in a Test match should be tough too. The bowlers are fresh and can make best use of early morning freshness of the wicket, when it “has more juice”`. Let us see what W.G.Grace and Sunny Gavaskar have said on this topic.

To quote Grace, “When you win the toss- bat. If you are in doubt, think about it, then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague- then bat”.

As per Gavaskar, “Bat first, give one hour to the bowlers, next five hours are yours.”

The positive point of batting first is that initially after the storm has been weathered, one can enjoy batting as the wicket will help the batsman. Statistically too if we see the batting averages of almost all great batsmen, their batting averages in the 1^st innings is distinctly higher than their batting averages in the 4^th innings of a test match.

What about batting in the 2^nd and 3^rd innings of a Test.  Conventionally speaking, the wicket on the morning of the 1^st day of a test match offers some assistance to the quick bowlers and then eases out. On the 2^nd and 3^rd day, the wicket is at its best. On the 4^th day it starts assisting the spinners. Finally on the 5^th day batting becomes difficult on a wearing track. Classically speaking therefore, batting is easier in the 2^nd and 3^rd innings of a test match than in the 1^st.

What is different about the 4^th innings of a test match? Many factors come into play such as a wearing pitch, sharper turn, unpredictable bounce, target to chase, past history, demons in mind and so on. Due to one/all or combination of these factors, we see lesser scores in the 4^th innings than in other innings.

No wonder, in Test cricket’s history only 27 batsmen have scored more than 1000 runs in the 4^th innings. Only 6 have an Average of above 50. They are Younis Khan (60.2), Geoff Boycott (58.7), Sunny Gavaskar (58.5), Graeme Smith (53.7), Gordon Greenidge (53.2) and Ricky Ponting (50.4),

Interestingly two great batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara do not have great 4^th innings records at all. Sachin has statistically the maximum test runs at 1625 but the average is only 36.93. Lara has 1404 test runs @ 35.1. Three other greats namely Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and VVS Laxman have 1552 @ 40.84, 1293 @ 40.31 and 1095 @40.56 respectively.

Lets also take a look at Test tons scored in 4^th innings. Only Younis Khan has 5 while Graeme Smith, Sunny Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting and Ramnaresh Sarwan have 4 each. Sachin has three and Lara has two.

Who are my top five 4^th Innings batsmen?

Do Boycott with an average of 58.76 and three 100’S and  Gavaskar with an average of 58.25 with four 100’s select themselves ? For me, Gavaskar does but Graeme Smith edges out Boycott simply because of his match-winning feats in the last innings of a Test match. Smith has 27 test tons, 19 in winning causes and 8 in draws. Incredibly South Africa has never lost a Test where Smith has a ton. This master finisher and warrior has 4 tons in 4th innings and all 4 were wins.

Ricky Ponting is next at with an average of 50.3 and 4 100’s. He is followed by Younis Khan who has an average of 60 plus and has five 100’s in 4^th innings.  Younis is the only test cricketer to score three back to back 4th innings test hundreds.

VVS Laxman despite a 4^th innings average of only 40 is my Number 5. He has figured in two thrilling chases. From 124/8 versus Australia, Laxman with 73 not out too took India to winning target of 216 with Ishant Sharma for company. In the second, VVS with 103 not out helped India chase 257 versus Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. Laxman also had a matchwinning 96 in the 3^rd innings of a test at Durban and the epic 281 at Eden, which maybe changed teams views of enforcing follow-on forever. Hence for me, he easily edges out others.

Two thoughts come to mind? Is it that batting has become easier in the recent past with pitches remaining true. If one sees the history of test cricket, out of the 49 scores of 350 plus in the 4^th innings, 21 are in the last 10 years. 9 Out of 49 resulted in wins out of which 4 are in last 10 years. We are also often seeing 4th day finishes which means the 5^th day does not come into equation. So has the value of a 4^th innings knock slightly decreased?

I leave these thoughts for you to reflect on.

It would be fair to conclude that ultimately a team to win has to pay well , whether batting 1^st or last. For instance India in their disastrous tours of England and Australia lost several times even when they batted 1^st . Therefore the only formula to win is to play better than the opposition.

Even so, everything remaining the same, the romance of a 4^th innings knock either in a stirring chase for victory or a battling knock for a fighting draw will always have a special place in the history of test cricket.

If I wanted someone to bat for me in the 4th innings of a test match, my top 5 would be Sunny Gavaskar, Younis Khan, Ricky Ponting, Graeme Smith and VVS Laxman.

Do you agree?