The List

Warne hits but Ponting misses

While 2005 will always be known as the year England regained the Ashes and Bangladesh beat Australia, on an individual front, the Australians took top honours in all forms of the game

Some statistics, like Bradman's average and the number of centuries Tendulkar has made are known to pretty much every cricket buff. But The List will bring you facts and figures that aren't so obvious, adding fuel to those fiery debates about the most valuable middle-order bat, and the most useless tailender. If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.


Ricky Ponting has had an incredible run with the bat in 2005 © Getty Images
While 2005 will always be known as the year England regained the Ashes and Bangladesh beat Australia, on an individual front, the Australians took top honours in all forms of the game. Shane Warne took the most Test wickets and broke Dennis Lillee's world record in the process but fell just four short of a haul of 100. Brett Lee was the most successful ODI bowler, and though from a captain's point of view 2005 would be a year he'd like to forget, Ricky Ponting was simply immense as a batsman and topped run charts in both versions of the game.
Ponting threatened to break Viv Richards's record of 1710 runs set in 1976, but ended third with 1544. In second place is Sunil Gavaskar's 1555 runs in 1979. January 1st was the rest day of a Test that began on December 29, 1978, against West Indies at Kolkata. Gavaskar started the year on 34 in the second innings and went on to make an unbeaten 182. India declared on 361 for 1 and West Indies only barely managed to draw the game: they finished on 197 for 9 chasing 355.
Incidentally, Ponting's tally of 1503 Test runs in 2003 is the fourth highest in a calendar year, and he along with Richards are the only two players to aggregate more than 1500 runs in a year. While Richards needed just 19 innings to rack up his 1976 record, Ponting took 28 to come close to it. Richards also has the longest gap between years in which he was the highest run-maker: 12 years between 1976 and 1988.
In an overwhelming majority of the years, the top-scorer has either been from Australia or England. In fact since 1980, Australians and Englishmen have topped charts in 18 years out of 26, an indication that these countries, on average, play more Tests than others. Inzamam-ul-Haq is the most recent gatecrasher at this two-country club with 1090 runs in 2000. One-day cricket is the polar opposite, but more on that later. A noteworthy fact is the absence of a South African as the top run-scorer since Bruce Mitchell in 1935. Jacques Kallis holds the South African record with 1288 runs in 2004 (Justin Langer made 1481). Glenn Turner, in 1972, is the only player from New Zealand to have held this yearly record.

Most runs in a calendar year - Tests
Player Year Mat Inns Runs HS Ave 100
RT Ponting (Aust) 2005 15 28 1544 207 67.13 6
JL Langer (Aust) 2004 14 27 1481 215 54.85 5
RT Ponting (Aust) 2003 11 18 1503 257 100.20 6
MP Vaughan (Eng) 2002 14 26 1481 197 61.70 6
ML Hayden (Aust) 2001 14 25 1391 203 63.22 5
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pak) 2000 12 19 1090 142 60.55 4
SR Tendulkar (India) 1999 10 19 1088 217 68.00 5
AJ Stewart (Eng) 1998 16 31 1222 164 43.64 2
ST Jayasuriya (SL) 1997 11 19 1271 340 66.89 3
AJ Stewart (Eng) 1996 8 14 793 170 61.00 2
BC Lara (WI) 1995 12 20 1222 179 67.88 4

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The paucity of Asian batsmen in the Test list is compensated for by the one-day equivalent. Ponting, with (1191 runs) finished ahead of Rahul Dravid (1092 runs) in 2005, and ended nine-years of domination (1996-2004) by subcontinental batsmen. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly , India's prolific opening combo, took turns at top-scoring between 1996 and 2000. Dravid made a colossal 1761 runs - the third highest tally in a year - in 1999 but still finished second to Ganguly's 1767.
Ponting's achievement of topping both Test and ODI aggregates in 2005 has been matched only three times in history: Richards in 1976, Greg Chappell in 1977 and Brian Lara in 1995.
Here, the surprise is the absence of an English player since David Gower in 1983 (1086 runs). In fact, Gower and Chris Broad (1047 runs in 1987) are the only two English batsmen to score over 1000 runs in a year.

Most runs in a calendar year - ODIs
Player Year Mat Inns Runs HS Ave 100
RT Ponting (Aust/ICC) 2005 29 28 1191 141* 45.80 3
R Dravid (India) 2004 31 28 1025 104 39.42 1
Mohammad Yousuf (Pak) 2003 33 31 1168 106 43.25 1
Mohammad Yousuf (Pak) 2002 32 30 1362 141* 54.47 5
DPMD Jayawardene (SL) 2001 34 31 1260 116 46.66 3
SC Ganguly (India) 2000 32 32 1579 144 56.39 7
SC Ganguly (India) 1999 41 41 1767 183 46.50 4
SR Tendulkar (India) 1998 34 33 1894 143 65.31 9
SC Ganguly (India) 1997 38 35 1338 113 41.81 1
SR Tendulkar (India) 1996 32 32 1611 137 53.70 6

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Warne ended 2005 with 96 wickets, broke Lillee's 1981-record of 85 Test wickets, and became the first bowler to top the wickets tally for five different years. To put this feat in perspective, only Fred Trueman and Lillee have done it more than twice since 1961, and since Warne made his debut in 1991-92, only Muttiah Muralitharan has topped more than once. Warne had a glorious 2005: he became the first bowler to reach 600 Test wickets and the first to take 100 wickets in a country (England) other than home.
Venkatesh Prasad made his debut against England in June 1996 and finished with 37 wickets - the highest wicket-taker for that year. For most of his career he was overshadowed by Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble, but he reveled in conditions conducive to swing and seam bowling. In 1996, Prasad took 15 wickets in his debut series in England and ended the year with a ten-wicket haul at Durban. Largely because of the World Cup, only 28 Tests were played in 1996 which is why the tallies for bowlers are so low. Mushtaq Ahmed, Javagal Srinath and Glenn McGrath followed with 35, 33 and 30 wickets respectively.

Most wickets in a calendar year - Tests
Player Year Mat Runs Wkts BBI Ave 5
SK Warne (Aust) 2005 15 2114 96 6/46 22.02 6
A Kumble (India) 2004 12 1838 74 8/141 24.83 6
M Ntini (SAf) 2003 12 1566 59 5/66 26.54 4
SK Warne (Aust) 2002 10 1310 67 7/94 19.55 3
M Muralitharan (SL) 2001 12 1699 80 8/87 21.23 7
M Muralitharan (SL) 2000 10 1463 75 7/84 19.50 7
GD McGrath (Aust) 1999 14 1425 67 5/28 21.26 4
AA Donald (SAf) 1998 14 1571 80 6/88 19.63 7
SK Warne (Aust) 1997 15 1661 68 6/48 24.42 2
BKV Prasad (India) 1996 8 839 37 6/104 22.67 4

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Most wickets in a calendar year - ODIs
Player Year Mat Runs Wkts BBI Ave 5
B Lee (Aust) 2005 26 1017 51 5/41 19.94 1
IK Pathan (India) 2004 28 1240 47 4/24 26.38 0
B Lee (Aust) 2003 24 926 46 5/30 20.13 2
M Muralitharan (SL) 2003 24 731 46 5/23 15.89 1
SM Pollock (SAf) 2002 38 1274 54 4/18 23.59 0
M Muralitharan (SL) 2001 33 1019 56 5/30 18.19 1
Abdul Razzaq (Pak) 2000 38 1370 61 5/48 22.45 1
SM Pollock (SAf) 2000 38 1319 61 5/20 21.62 1
SK Warne (Aust) 1999 37 1443 62 4/29 23.27 0
AB Agarkar (India) 1998 30 1378 58 4/35 23.75 0
Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak) 1997 36 1293 69 5/38 18.73 2

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  • Don Bradman has top-scored in seven years, the highest by a batsman, Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond in five and Sunil Gavaskar and Ken Barrington in four.
  • Geoff Arnold, in 1973, was the first bowler to top the wickets list in both Tests and ODIs. Waqar Younis did it in 1990, Warne in 1994 and Muralitharan in 2001.
  • George Giffen is the only player to have topped both Test runs and wickets in the same year. He did it in two Tests in 1894.
  • Warwick Armstrong (1905 and 1908) and Ian Botham (1978 and 1982) are the only other players have topped both runs and wickets lists but in different years. Greg Chappell (1977 and 1981) is the only person to have done it in one-day cricket.
Note that in these statistics, Test matches that overlap years have been credited to the year that it started in.
If there's a particular List that you would like to see, e-mail us with your comments and suggestions.

George Binoy is editorial assistant of Cricinfo