The tables below are basically split chronologically into groups of five batsmen, showing the Player name, peak ICC rating, Average of important innings, total number of important hundreds and fifties, Average of regular innings, total number of regular hundreds and fifties, the differential between important and regular averages and the difference between the number of important runs sc??ored as a percentage of all runs and the number of important innings as a percentage of all innings. An asterisk shows a new high in the particular category of?? important hundreds.

Readers may have their own subjective opinions of what constitutes ‘important runs’ in Test cricket, however please note that ‘important’ is used here in the context of this objective study, i.e. runs made when the batting team’s win probability was less than 60% when he came into bat. A regular innings is one which was played when the batting team’s win probability was 60% or higher.

Also a note on the ICC Player Ratings; as I understand it, a player’s full rating is not achieved until he has played in 40 Tests, and I can’t confirm whether or not this is adjusted for early Test cricket when far fewer Tests were played. This issue is not addressed in the website’s FAQs explaining how the ratings are derived.

Grace enjoyed the highest important average for a while and was the first to notch two centuries in important innings, later being joined in that regard by Steel, Shrewsbury and Stoddart. Grace ?fittingly held the best performances for Important ?Average, most 100s/50s and Average Differential.

One of the famous Gregory dynasty, Syd Gregory was the first with three important hundreds and set a new high with nine important innings over fifty. Stanley Jackson was first with four tons and equalled Gregory’s number of important fifties, while also achieving the highest important average and average differential so far, overtaking the Grand Old Man in those categories. Jack Brown’s ICC rating may be impacted by the 40-Test threshold discussed above (Brown appeared in eight matches). Joe Darling also equalled the highest number of fifties so far.

Archie MacLaren becomes the first with five important tons while also achieving the most important scores over fifty. I wrote a couple of pieces on Fry some time ago, basing my comments regarding his Test career on his traditional statistics, which showed a relatively low average as compared to his First-Class performances. However, it is clear that I was wrong about him and that he was indeed successful in Tests when it most mattered – Fry had a pretty high average differential. Tom Hayward equalled Maclaren’s total of important fifties while setting a new high of %iDiff, i.e. the largest difference between percentage of innings which were classified as important and the percentage of runs so classified.

More surprises – Clem Hill with a significant negative average differential, combined with a low conversion rate in important innings, though he did enjoy the highest number of important fifties to date. Ranji was the first to maintain an average of over 40 for both categories. Monty Noble also produced a high number of important fifties.

The great Victor Trumper becomes the first to achieve more than five important centuries, finishing with seven, and with a very good conversion rate also – he was also very close to averaging over 40 in both categories. In addition, he surpassed his compatriot Clem Hill’s highest number of important fifties with 16. Despite that famous fourth innings knock in a dead-rubber match in 1902, Gilbert Jessop had a pretty low average overall, but as might be expected by a hitter of such repute his differential is high, actually the highest so far.

The Big Ship had a much better conversion rate in regular innings, while ‘Tip’ Foster, who enjoyed one of the great debuts of all-time, could still not maintain an iAverage higher than his rAverage in a career which lasted only 15 Test innings, however his massive debut innings of 287 means that his %iDiff is still positive. ‘Dave’ Nourse fashioned a high number of important fifties.

Aubrey Faulkner was one of the finest all-rounders to ever play the game and his batting is very consistent regardless of the situation. Charlie Macartney had a very g?ood conversion rate in important innings. Joe Hardstaff Sr has one of the highest %iDiff numbers, though he appeared in only five Tests.

Hobbs passes Trumper’s record of seven important tons and increases it to eleven. He was also the first to maintain both averages over 50 (actually both are over 55). In addition, he surpasses Trumper’s maximum of 16 important fifties, with 28. Warren Bardsley enjoyed a very good conversion rate in important innings, while Frank Woolley had 20 important scores over fifty.

As far as the ICC player ratings are concerned Herbie Taylor is the class of this group, and his differential numbers are high, though Phil Mead tops even him, albeit with a much shorter career – Mead achieves the first ever important average over 60, and indeed he wasn’t far short of 70, though only around a third of his innings were played from a position of less than 60% win probability.

To be fair, this group does not represent the cream of Test playing batsmen, and Jack Gregory is better known as a fearsome fast bowler along with Ted McDonald, but Gregory was a more than useful batsman. ‘Jack’ Russell did manage to achieve an average of over 50 for both categories and ‘Patsy’ Hendren was very consistent. Percy Holmes was never going to displace Jack Hobbs as England’s first choice opener with Herbert Sutcliffe – though his numbers reflect that he didn’t shine for the national team, he was only given seven Tests to prove himself. Holmes doesn’t actually meet my thresholds for inclusion in this piece, but I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for him, especially with his world record opening partnership of 555 for Yorkshire with Sutcliffe (in one of those weird coincidences, he also appeared in 555 First-Class matches).

Percy Chapman enjoyed a very high average differential, as well as a high iDiff. Herbert Sutcliffe becomes just the second to average above 60 in important innings after Phil Mead, but in far more Tests. Sutcliffe also exceeds his opening partner Jack Hobbs in import?ant? tons as well as the highest number of fifties to date with 33.

Walter Hammond emulated his countryman Sutcliffe’s achievement of 15 important tons, and with an excellent conversion rate – he also averaged over 50 for both categories. Bill Ponsford, certainly in First-Class cricket, was a Bradman-like run machine, with two quadruple hundreds to his name, and his numbers here are also impressive, as are those of the other Bradman contemporary in this group, Bill Woodfull.

And now we come to Bradman who, as he is in every other study, is in a class apart. New records in important average with a scarcely believable 111.60 (compared to the previous highest set by Phil Mead with 68.63), most important tons? with 23 (compared to Sutcliffe and Hammond with 15), an astonishing conversion rate in important innings, and the highest average differential for those with the minimum qualifications. Fertang favourites Maurice Leyland, who also has an excellent conversion rate in important innings, and Douglas Jardine, who averaged over 45 in both categories, both fare w?ell. Learie Constantine was more of a bowling all-rounder, but I liked him so he goes in.

Duleep managed higher than 50 in ??both categories. Les Ames had a very good conversion rate, as did the great George Headley who sparkles under the spotlight of this measure, with an average second only to Bradman (thugh admittedly a very distant second), a 70% conversion rate and a very high differential. Stewie Dempster is an anomaly, as in his day New Zealand was decidedly a minnow in Tests, so that only one of his innings began when his team was ahead with at least 60% win probability, and that was a not out fifty.

Stan McCabe is only the fifth with an important average over 60, and has a very high average differential, higher even than Bradman, with all of his six centuries coming in important innings. Eddie Paynter maintained an average of over 50 in both categories, while Cyril Walters has a huge negative differential, though like Holmes he didn’t play in many Tests – Walters began only five innings when his team was ahead, but he scored a ton and two fifties with two not outs.

Vijay Merchant has a highly negati??ve differential, but again he played in few Tests. Conversely, Dudley Nourse has a highly positive differential, all of his hundreds and fifties being made in what we are defining here as important innings.

Len Hutton joins Sutcliffe and Hammond with 15 important tons, all three a distant second to Bradman, however Hutton takes first place with the most scores of fifty or more in important innings (40) and also averages over 60. Another all-time great, certainly by the ICC rating measure, Compton also looks good by this me?thod and heads his Middlesex compatriot?? Bill Edrich by a significant margin.

Lindsay Hassett maintained an excellent conversion rate in important innings. Sid Barnes managed to keep both averages over 58, while all-rounder Keith Miller, who as an ex-fighter pilot had a reputation for not really caring if there wasn’t anything on the line in a cricket match, has a much higher conversion rate with important fifties (57%) than for regular fifties (23%). Vijay Hazare, like Dempster, was not out in his non-important innings so that average differential is not really valid.

Both ‘Vinoo’ Mankad and Arthur Morris enjoyed excellent conversion rates in important innings, while interestingly Jack Robertson, the underrated ‘poor relation’ to Middlesex teammates Compton and Edrich, has a much higher average differential than either of them, and though most of his innings were not played while England was ahead, he did a lot with those innings as his iDiff number shows. Considering that most of the time his side was playing from behind, Bert Sutcliffe made his important innings count, too.

What a fine group here to finish on, with three players rated at 900+. Clyde Walcott maintained an average of over 55 for both categories with an excellent conversion rate, while Everton Weekes averaged over 50, though he could not match his teammate’s conversion rate. Neil Harvey ranks somewhere between those two all-time greats, and while Frank Worrell enjoyed more success when standing on the shoulders of giants, he did maintain a better conversion rate when West Indies was not ahead than otherwise.

In summary, of these 100 players:-

6 players had an important average over 60 (highest Bradman with 111.60)
27 players had an important average over 50
4 players had at least 15 important tons (highest Bradman with 23)
13 players had at least 20 important fifties (highest Hutton with 40)
12 players had an average differential over 20 (hig??hest McCabe with +36.56)

So that’s the first 100 batsmen covered; in the following feature we’ll look at the next group of 100, from Peter May to Sunil Gavaskar.

In the September 1948 issue, the first item of interest to cricket fans is a “Cinestrip” which shows “magic eye” photos of Lindsey Hassett, illustrating to aspiring batsmen how to execute the leg glance. But the main cricket interest is in that issue’s piece by famed cricket scribe Neville Cardus on “Cricket’s Peter Pan”, the eternally youthful Denis Compton, which opens ‘I have always fancied that a cricketer – if he is in possession of an instinctive technique – somehow expresses his personality and the period in which he was born.’ Contrasting the more mature technique of Bradman with the boyish exuberance of Compton, he notes the latter “runs between the wickets with an invisible school satchel flapping behind his back, elbows up, in a hurry and a little late…No wonder he is the most popular cricketer of all in the estimation of boys and girls everywhere.’ Compare that with the young folk of Australia, whom Cardus has never heard ‘crowing like cocks at the appearance through the pavilion gate of Bradman. The applause has always been…rather elderly.’ Keith Miller, meanwhile, represents young Australia’s ‘conception of glamour in action on the cricket field.’ The difference, Cardus goes on, comes from the fact that ‘hundreds of years of living, in all the ways of experience, are required to evolve and perfect a Compton.’ This somewhat romantic view might explain why Australia’s alleged apparent seriousness has always resulted in more success than England has enjoyed.

Cardus does however discuss Englishman Douglas Jardine in terms equivalent to his more forthright description of Australian cricketers, even going so far as to use the phrase ‘un-English’. He then goes on to discuss the relative ‘Englishness’ of the other Test nations, New Zealand and South Africa being more so than those who wear the baggy green, with the point being that Compton is quintessentially English specifically in regard to his cricketing character. Such unconcealed nationalism, evidenced by the use of terms like ‘not racially English lands’ when referring to such far-flung parts of the old empire as India, is a little eye-opening and reminds the present day reader that these pieces are now 70 years old – different times indeed.

In the following issue of October 1948, Cardus penned a farewell to Bradman entitled ‘The Wizard of the Willow’. After his first innings in Britain, 236 against Worcestershire in 1930, the great Wilfred Rhodes noted he was ‘the best back-footed player’ he had ever seen; later that summer a newspaper headline trumpeted BRADMAN FAILS, after he had been dismissed at Glamorgan for a “paltry” 58. According to Cardus, Bradman’s great contribution had not been in the advancement of technique but with ‘an incredible concentration of a new economy.’ Although being past his peak, Bradman in 1948 scored more than 500 Test runs at 72.57 despite two ducks, the highlight being an innings of 173* at Headingley, taking his Test average at that ground to an incredible 232.50. Even so, Cardus considers WG Grace to be in ‘another dimension’ while pointing out the poor state of the wickets which the Grand Old Man played on. Strangely, the statistics quoted for Bradman’s Test career are incorrect – 80 innings, 10 not out, 6988 runs at 99.82; I’m not aware that eight runs were subsequently credited to him.

Cardus’ praise of Bradman is admittedly a little grudging with a sort of ‘yes, but…’ qualification to it all, such as ‘cold-blooded yet thrilling’ or ‘a ruthless little man, but with it all, a pretty humour’ and finally a questioning ‘Greatest of all?’, which Cardus answers with Grace’s famous pronouncement of ‘Give me Arthur [Shrewsbury].’ As Bradman retired 100 years after the birth of WG Grace, Cardus noted that ‘the great wheel has come full circle.’

Finally in 1948, the December edition sees Cardus waxing lyrical in ‘Cricket by the hearth’. This was a more fanciful piece imagining a session in the psychiatrist’s chair with Cardus responding to word-association. ‘Batsmanship’ brings to his mind CB Fry, of whom he writes ‘His influence on batsmanship has been stronger than anybody’s, including Hobbs and Bradman, since WG and Arthur Shewsbury.’ This piece allows Cardus to give full rein to his story-telling side, featuring Emmett Robinson subbing from the members seats at Leeds, and AC Maclaren captaining Stanley Jackson, “Plum” Warner and Gilbert Jessop at Lord’s.

Also in this issue, Rand Daily Mail journalist Paul Irwin discussed the probables for South Africa’s team to face the MCC in the latter’s upcoming tour, considering that Dudley Nourse may be an overly cautious captain, and that Eric Rowan would return to the side despite being now 39. As it turned out, Rowan averaged over 50 while a sporting declaration by Nourse in the final Test, rather than taking the safe option of forcing a draw but losing the series, brought much excitement with the chance of a possible victory to square the series.

Finally, the Scrapbook of Sport regales readers with the story of how the Duke of Queensberry won a hea?vy wager that he could not, in those days of horse transport, send a letter 50 miles in a short time. He won the bet by enclosing the letter inside a cricket ball and engaging a team to stand in a circle and pass it rapidly round until the distance had been covered. Presumably not a Murali among them.

Lockhart was himself a very interesting character, having been a footballer, writer and secret agent, in the latter capacity being teamed with Sidney Reilly, of Reilly, Ace of Spies fame, that miniseries being based on the original book Ace of Spies written by Lockhart’s son, Robin Bruce Lockhart.

In the Scrapbook of Sport cartoon section of June 1948’s World Sports, there are two cricket items – first, the Six page bat, featuring the story of the?? cricket bat which Victor Trumper used to score a century against England in 1902, and which carries 400 autographs; the bat had to be split into sections to accommodate them all. Secondly, we learn that William Clarke, who opened the Trent Bridge cricket ground, was not selected for the annual Players vs Gentlemen fixture until he had been in the game for 30 years.

There appears a commercial for The Ashes, a preview of the forthcoming visit of Bradman’s soon-to-be Invincibles, which was penned by Neville Cardus and available for the princely sum of one shilling (no doubt much more valuable now – perhaps the aforementioned Mr. Chandler can comment).

In Cardus’ piece this month, he writes about the 50-year anniversary of Trent Bridge being awarded its first Test, describing the delights of walking on the grass and watching the cricket at the same time, such as when McCabe played his wonderful innings of 232, glorious with the sunset of lost causes. Also how it was still possible for small boys to watch their heroes in the nets, whereas at Old Trafford they were obliged to crane their necks through iron rails which separated the hoi-polloi from the practice ground – I remember getting my head stuck, apparently beyond withdrawal for ever, because I had prised it too far forward to look at Ranjitsinhji in the distance. Hard to picture Cardus as a young boy. He speaks of how author JM Barrie would attend Tests at Trent Bridge, but that wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him to Manchester.

In that first Test at Trent Bridge, WG Grace had made his final appearance, scoring 28 and 1, taking 0 for 37 and fielding with difficulty and much excess of flesh. In the next Test played at Nottingham, in 1905, Archie Maclaren played one of the most majestic of all innings, scoring 140 and as captain had given BJT Bosanquet, at that time novel, uncharted and anathema, just lon??g enough to find his length and subsequently go through the Australian innings with 8/107.

Bradman scored his first Test match century in England there in 1930 while later in Australia’s second innings Stan McCabe was shaping up to win it for England – enter one Sydney Copley, England substitute, emerging from anonymity and into history…Copley’s catch will be spoken of at Trent Bridge as long as lovers of the game gather together with unfaded memories.

As to Nottinghamshire’s most famous fast bowling son, Cardus had asked another famous Notts man George Gunn, who he thought was the fastest, Harold Larwood or Australia’s Ray Lindwall. Gunn, who had possessed the temerity to come down the pitch to Ted Macdonald and in 1907-08 had dressed impudence in garments of brilliance, took one or two pulls at his pipe, removed it from his mouth, and in his soft, lazy voice said: “You’re not asking me that question seriously, are you, now?”

Cardus loved the fast bowlers, and not just those of the highest quality – Until every county can boast again a Buckenham, a Field, a Skelding, a Howell, a Bestwick, a Warren, a Wass…until then, the game will remain weak in red corpuscles. Wass, a Trent Bridge favourite, was, unusually for a fast bowler, at his best on a spinner’s pitch.

He wraps up with this plea: Let our cricketers play up and play the game. They’ll never be so young again.

In the July 1948 edition, Cardus celebrates the birth of WG Grace exactly 100 years before. In a first-class career covering 46 years, the Grand Old Man amassed 54,896 runs in 1388 innings with an average of 39.55, as well as 2,864 wickets at 17.97 – and, as ACM Croome used to say “some of them must have been out.” Cardus goes on to note that it is profane to quote figures to celebrate the genius of the greatest player of them all – Just as all music-lovers cannot recall the time when they hadn’t heard of Bach, so with lovers of cricket and WG Grace…his name and his career are dates in general knowledge, like 1066 and Magna Charta…grandmothers died in hundreds amongst the lower orders, having presumably held out until th??e great man had been returned to the pavilion.

WG was Atlas holding up in his hand, but as though it were a cricket ball, the world in which all other and later cricketers enjoy their brief day. As noted in the Jubilee Book of Cricket, with his innovations in batting he turned the single-stringed instrument into the many-chorded lyre. He bestrode the game like a colossus – when a Gloucestershire man was given out against Surrey, he rose on the pavilion and boomed to the umpire Shan’t have it; can’t have it; and I won’t have it!

Grace was already 47 when he scored 1,000 runs in May, 1895, which was celebrated with a magnum of champagne at Lord’s mid-wicket – as Cardus concludes, He is no legend – he is the game’s presiding spirit..