A batting average of 50 in Test cricket has, in my lifetime at least, always been a magical career milestone. Certainly if you watched cricket in the 1970s and 80s it was a milestone that clearly separated the greats from the rest.
In the 1970s you had Sunil Gavaskar, Greg Chappell, Javed Miandad and Viv Richards as the 50-plus titans.
In the 1980s you had the end of their careers plus Allan Border and the start of the careers of Steve Waugh and Sachin Tendulkar.
Since then, despite becoming a more commonly reached career milestone, it has lost little of its significance, and we rightly fete the players who manage it over an entire career.
But what of those batters who fell just short – those who resided with the gods for a time but, by the smallest of margins, couldn’t maintain the standards? Will they look back on their career and wonder ‘what if?’
If I look at the players who have finished their careers – thus excluding the likes of Joe Root and Virat Kohli, who are both yo-yoing around the 50 average at the moment – and using 2000 career runs as a cut-off, we are left with five outstanding batsmen in the 49er club.
At least three of them would make their country’s all-time XI, and all of them averaged 50 at some stage in their last three Test matches.
The following table lists the famous five as well as the player who had the closest average to 50, Denis Compton. It shows runs, dismissals, averages, scores in their final Test, how far short the player was in runs or in not outs from a 50 average, average at the start of their final Test, a snapshot of their career to date, figures close to the end of their career where their average was relatively comfortably above 50, and the number of times they were tenth out in an innings to try to highlight any ‘Gilly effect’ – when Adam Gilchrist was so often the last man out either trying to get runs with the tail or setting up a declaration.
| Player | Runs | Outs | Average | Final Test scores | Runs short of 50 ave | Not outs short of 50 ave | Ave at start of final Test | Highest ‘late career ave’ (runs @ ave) | Times last man out |
| Mahela Jayawardene (SL) | 11,814 | 237 | 49.85 | 4; 54 | 36 | 1 | 50.03 | 9,525 @ 54.12 | 3 |
| Inzamam-ul-Haq (PAK) | 8,830 | 178 | 49.61 | 14; 3 | 70 | 2 | 50.07 | 8,391 @ 51.80 | 3 |
| Frank Worrell (WI) | 3,860 | 78 | 49.49 | 9; DNB | 40 | 1 | 50.01 | 3,792 @ 53.41 | 1 |
| Virender Sehwag (IND) | 8,586 | 174 | 49.34 | 6; DNB | 114 | 3 | 49.60 | 7,550 @ 54.71 | 0 |
| Michael Clarke (AUS) | 8,643 | 176 | 49.11 | 15; DNB | 157 | 4 | 49.30 | 7,918 @ 52.79 | 4 |
| Denis Compton (ENG) | 5,807 | 116 | 50.06 | 0; 5 | -7 | -1 | 50.89 | 5,565 @ 52.50 | 1 |
A bit more on each player and how close they came to a 50 average:
Mahela Jayawardene
Jayawardene’s spot as one of the all-time greats is assured regardless of his final average. He has the fourth highest score in Test history (374), scored as part of the world record partnership of 624. He’s in the top ten of both career runs and centuries while being a lovely and most elegant batsman to watch. But you wonder if he regrets the match against Bangladesh in 2001, when he and Marvan Atapattu became the first and only players to be retired out in a Test match. To make things worse for Jayawardene, after he was retired out, Sri Lanka went on to score only another 25 runs before declaring. Needless to say, if he had remained not out, he would have ended up with a 50 average.
Inzamam-ul-Haq
Inzamam was a world-class batsman with a high score of 329 and 25 tons. He also twice steered Pakistan home to famous one-wicket victories. However, his final Test was one to forget. Yes, he needed 87 runs across two innings to keep his 50 average, but he also needed only 20 runs to take the run record for Pakistan from Javed Miandad. In his last innings he was out for three, stumped on the second ball charging Paul Harris and fell two runs short of Javed.
One other thing to note for Inzi: he scored only zero and one in the World XI Test. If he didn’t play that match, or if it didn’t have Test status, he would’ve ended up with a 50 average.
Sir Frank Worrell
Despite having the lowest average of the three Ws, Worrell was in many eyes considered the best batter of the three. He was certainly the most versatile, once carrying his bat for 191 not out as opener and averaging well over 50 in batting positions three, four and five. For good measure he also took 69 Test wickets with a best of 7-70.
However, his last series – which straddled his 39th birthday – was a step too far, particularly against the pace of Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham. He scored 68 runs in his last four Tests, which saw his average fall by nearly four runs, from 53.41 to his final 49.49, a mere 40 runs short of a 50 average.
Virender Sehwag
Viru was one of the most thrilling batsmen the game has seen. His career strike rate just pips Adam Gilchrist’s as the fastest of all top-order batsmen. Along with Donald Bradman, he’s one of two players with two triple centuries and a 290 in Tests.
Sadly, his deteriorating eyesight at the end of his career caught up with him and he managed only 28 runs in his last four innings. His six in his last Test in the Homeworkgate series was sandwiched between Murali Vijay’s 167 and Pujara’s 204 and was proof enough that his time had come. Sadly, it came two Tests late for 50 average.
Michael Clarke
For all his divisiveness as a player, it’s easy to forget just how good Clarke was as a batsman, from his brilliant debut century against India on the ‘last frontier’ tour to the glimpse he gave us in 2012 of what it was like to watch Bradman as he piled up an unbeaten triple century, three other double centuries and a lazy 106 to finish the year.
As with others, his body failed him late in his career – in his case, his back – and he struggled to string big scores together. Phil Hughes’s death is also likely to have played a part. Clarke started his last series, the 2015 Ashes, with an average of 50.66 but could manage only 132 runs at 16.50 in the series. Interestingly, Clarke was the tenth man out in an innings four times, two of those while in the 90s chasing the century.
I’ll go to my grave thinking that Clarke should never have declared on himself when he was 329 not out. Not only did it cost him a shot at Brian Lara’s record, but it might also have cost him a 50 average.
So, while these fine batters just missed out on the 50 average, mostly due to poor performances in their last couple of Tests, is there a batter who got himself over the 50 mark in their last Test? The answer is: sort of.
Viv Richards had a long, slow decline in the last decade of his career, with his average falling from 60 in 1981 to 50.18 before his last innings in 1991. Coming out to bat at No. 6 in his last innings, he needed 20 to maintain a 50 average. Needless to say, the great man delivered with a 60 and the cricket world was as it should have been.
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