Australia Cricket Team Stats
Ruling Body: Cricket
Australia |
Captain: Steven Smith |
Coach: Darren Lehmann
|
Granted Test status: 15
March 1877 |
Current international ranking:
Official
ICC rankings
|
Tests |
ODIs |
T20s |
- P 801, W
377 L 215, D
207, T 2
|
- P
899, W 554, L
304, T
9, NR 32
|
- P
93, W 47, L
45, T
0, NR
1 |
Recent
highest test totals:
- 659/4d v India (2012)
- 624/8d v Pakistan (2016)
- 604/7d v India (2012) |
Recent
highest ODI totals:
- 417/6 v Afghanistan (2015)
- 378/5 v New Zealand (2016)
- 376/9 v Sri Lanka (2015) |
Recent
highest T20 totals:
- 263/3 v Sri Lanka (2016)
- 248/6 v England (2013)
- 213/4 v England (2014)
|
Capped
players: 445 |
Capped
players: 220 |
Capped
players: 87 |
Highest
individual score:
380 (ML Hayden) |
Highest
individual score:
185* (SK Watson) |
Highest
individual score: 156 (AJ Finch) |
Most
career runs: 13,378
(RT Ponting) |
Most
career runs: 13,704
(RT Ponting) |
Most
career runs: 1,686*
(DA Warner) |
Best
bowling (innings):
9/121 (AA Mailey) |
Best
bowling: 7/15
(GD McGrath) |
Best
bowling: 5/27
(JP Faulkner) |
Best
bowling (match):
16/137 (RAL Massie) |
Most
career wickets: 381
(GD McGrath) |
Most
career wickets: 48
(SR Watson) |
Most
career wickets: 708
(SK Warne) |
|
|
Highest
team inns: 758/8 v
West Indies - 1955 |
Highest
team inns: 434/4 v
South Africa - 2006 |
Highest
team inns: 263/3 v Sri Lanka - 2016 |
Highest
run chase achieved: 404/3
v England - 1948 |
Highest
run chase achieved: 334/8
v England - 2011 |
Highest
run chase achieved: 205/5
v South Africa - 2016 |
Average
RpO: 3.03 |
Average
RpO: 4.99 |
Average
RpO: 8.38 |
|
Top run-scorers
|
13378 - RT Ponting
11174
-
AR Border
10927
- SR Waugh
8643 -
MJ Clarke
8625 -
ML Hayden
|
13704 - RT Ponting
9595 -
AC Gilchrist
8500 -
ME Waugh
7981 -
MJ Clarke
7569 -
SR Waugh
|
1686 - DA Warner
1462 -
SR Watson
1082 -
AJ Finch
984 -
CL White
822 - GJ Maxwell
|
|
Top wicket-takers |
708 - SK Warne
563 -
GD McGrath
355 -
DK Lillee
313 -
MG Johnson
310 -
B Lee
|
380 - GD McGrath
380 -
B Lee
291 -
SK Warne
239 -
MG Johnson
203 -
CJ McDermott |
48 -
SR Watson
38 -
MG Johnson
36 -
JP Faulkner
30 - MA Starc
28 -
SW Tait
|
|
Partnership
Records |
1st
- 382 - RB
Simpson/WM Lawry
2nd - 451 -
WH Ponsford/DG Bradman
3rd - 315 -
RT Ponting/DS Lehmann
4th - 449 -
AC Voges/SE Marsh
5th - 405 -
SG Barnes/DG Bradman
6th - 346 -
JH Fingleton/DG Bradman
7th - 217 -
KD Walters/GJ Gilmour
8th - 243 -
RM Hartigan/C Hill
9th - 154 -
SE Gregory/JM Blackham
10th - 163
- PJ Hughes/AC Agar
|
1st
- 284 - DA
Warner/TM Head
2nd - 260
- DA Warner/SPD Smith
3rd - 242
- SPD Smith/GJ Bailey
4th - 237 -
RT Ponting/A Symonds
5th - 220 -
A Symonds/MJ Clarke
6th - 165 -
MEK Hussey/BJ Haddin
7th - 123 -
MEK Hussey/B Lee
8th - 119 -
PR Reiffel/SK Warne
9th - 115 -
JP Faulkner/CJ McKay
10th - 63 -
SR Watson/AJ Bichel |
1st
- 133
- SR Watson/DA
Warner
2nd - 114
- AJ Finch/SE Marsh
3rd - 118
- AJ Finch/GJ Maxwell
4th - 161 -
DA Warner/GJ Maxwell
5th - 83 -
RT Ponting/SM Katich
6th - 101*
-
CL White/MEK Hussey
7th - 74 -
MEK Hussey/SPD Smith
8th - 53* -
MEK Hussey/MG Johnson
9th - 23* -
NM Coulter-Nile/CJ McKay
10th - 12 -
DP Nannes/SW Tait |
As at May 26, 2017
History:
The history of the Australian cricket team is rich and
diverse. Together with the English cricket team, it participated in the
first Test match in 1877. A highlight of Australia's early history was
the 1882 Test match against England at The Oval. In this match Fred
Spofforth took 7/44 in the game's fourth innings to save the match by
preventing England from making their 85-run target. After this match
The Sporting Times, a major newspaper in London at the time, printed a
mock obituary in which the death of English cricket was proclaimed and
the announcement made that "the body was cremated and the ashes taken
to Australia." This was the start of the famous Ashes series in which
every two years Australia and England play a number of Test matches to
decide the holder of the Ashes. To this day, the contest is one of the
fiercest rivalries in sport.
In the first half-century or so, these contests were on the
whole friendly but competitive with both sides enjoying the visit to
another country, and getting to play against quality
cricketers.[citation needed] The famous Bodyline series temporarily
changed things. The series was marred by the tactics used by the
English captain Douglas Jardine to control the batting of Don Bradman
who completely destroyed the English bowling attack in the 1930 series.
Jardine used his fast bowlers to bowl a high proportion of bouncers at
head height over leg stump with 6 or 7 fielders in the inner leg side
in a close catching position. Given the fact that there were no helmets
around at the time the tactics were widely condemned by nearly all of
Australia including many former Test cricketers and important
politicians.
Australia continued its success up until the 1980s, built
mainly around the likes of Richie Benaud, Bob Simpson, the
Chappell brothers, Dennis Lillee, and Rod Marsh. The 1980s was a period
of relative mediocrity after the turmoil caused by World Series Cricket
and the subsequent retirement of several key players, and it was not
until the captaincy of Allan Border that the team was restructured. The
1990s and early 21st century were arguably Australia's most successful
period, unbeaten in all Ashes series played bar the famous 2005 series
and achieving a hat-trick of World Cups. This success has been
attributed to the restructuring of the team and system by Border,
successive shrewd captains, and the effectiveness of several key
players, most notably Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Steve Waugh, Adam
Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting. In recent years however, following the
retirement of most of this group of players, Australia has lost series
to both India and England and has dropped to third place in the ICC
Test Championship rankings.
It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in
the first Test match in 1877 (defeating England by 45 runs).
It has a winning record against every other Test nation. The
Australian national cricket team has also led the ICC Test Championship
table for the majority of the time since the creation of the ICC Test
table system in January 2001. The South Africans did lead this table
for a brief period from January to May 2003, before
Australia resumed the first position on the table. Australia has since
dropped down to third in the Test rankings behind India and South
Africa.
In 2002, they were
named World Team of the Year at the Laureus World Sports Awards in
recognition of their world record sequence of test match victories.
Australia have made 6 world cup final appearances and have
won the Cricket World Cup 4 times in total; 1987, 1999, 2003 &
2007. Australia have also won the ICC Champions Trophy twice in 2006
and in 2009 making them the first and the only team to become
back-to-back
champions in the Champions Trophy tournaments. Australia also have
been the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup champions (Under 19 Cricket World
Cup) in 1988, 2002 and 2010. Australia were runners-up in the ICC World
Twenty20 in 2010 (which was won by England).
As of 28 April 2007 they are undefeated in 29 consecutive
World Cup matches. They have led the ICC One-Day International
Championship table from its inception through to 18 February 2007, and
then again from 7 April 2007 until 30 January 2009.
The Ashes:
Australia would win their first away series 1–0 in
1882 with The Sporting Times famously printing an obituary on English
cricket:
“ In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, which died
at the Oval on 29th AUGUST, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of
sorrowing friends and acquaintances R.I.P. N.B. - The body will be
cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”
As a result of this loss the tour of 1882–83 was dubbed by
England captain Ivo Bligh as "the quest to regain the ashes". England
with a mixture of amateurs and professionals won the series 2–1. Bligh
was presented with an urn that contained some ashes, which have
variously been said to be of a bail, ball or even a woman's veil and so
The Ashes was born. A fourth match was then played which Australia won
by 4 wickets but the match was not considered part of the Ashes series.
England would dominate many of these early contests with England
winning the Ashes series 10 times between 1884–98. During this period
England also played their first Test match against South Africa in 1889
at Port Elizabeth.
The 1899 Ashes series was the first tour where the MCC and
the counties appointed a selection committee. There were three active
players: Lord Hawke, W.G. Grace and HW Bainbridge who was the captain
of Warwickshire. Prior to this, England teams for home Tests had been
chosen by the club on whose ground the match was to be played.
The turn of the century saw mixed results for England as they
lost four of the eight Ashes series between 1900 and 1914. During this
period England would lose their first series against South Africa in
the 1905/06 season 4–1 as their batting faltered. The 1912 season saw
England take part in a unique experiment. A nine Test triangular
tournament involving England, South Africa and Australia was set-up.
The series was hampered by a very wet summer and player disputes
however and the tournament was considered a failure with the Daily
Telegraph stating:
“ Nine Tests provide a surfeit of cricket, and contests
between Australia and South Africa are not a great attraction to the
British public. ”
With Australia sending a weakened team and the South African
bowlers being ineffective England dominated the tournament winning four
of their six matches. The Australia v South Africa match, at Lord's,
was notable for a visit by King George V, the first time a reigning
monarch had watched Test cricket. England would go on one more tour
against South Africa before the outbreak of World War I.
2005 Ashes
The 2005 Ashes tour to England became a watershed event in
Australian cricket when, for the first time since 1986–87 a Test series
was lost to the old enemy England, and The Ashes were thus surrendered.
The summer started with four defeats in one week in one day matches (to
England in a Twenty20 match, Somerset in a warm up match, and then
Bangladesh and England in successive One Day Internationals). Australia
and England tied the final match of the first one day international
series, before Australia won the second series 2–1.
The first Test match at Lord's was a convincing victory for
Australia, with Glenn McGrath impressing in particular. Captain Ricky
Ponting afterwards famously said: We’ve a very good chance of winning
5–0. However at the second Test at Edgbaston star bowler Glenn McGrath
was ruled out by an ankle injury after stepping on a ball in the
practice nets; Ponting put England in to bat on a fair batting wicket
(England scored 407 runs on the first day) and England eventually won a
pulsating match by two runs and so leveled the series. England
dominated the rain-affected third Test at Old Trafford, but a fine
rearguard innings by Ponting just saved Australia on the final day and
the match was drawn. In the fourth Test at Trent Bridge Australia was
again outplayed and forced to follow-on for the first time in 191 Test
matches and eighteen years. England struggled in their second innings
but eventually got the 129 runs they needed to win, losing seven
wickets in the process. Australia needed to win the fifth and final
Test at The Oval to level the series and retain the Ashes but were
hampered by bad weather, a strong England bowling performance on the
fourth day and England's excellent batting (led by Kevin Pietersen and
tailender Ashley Giles) on the final day before the match ended in a
draw, handing England a 2–1 series win.
Ageing stars such as Hayden, Gilchrist, Martyn, Gillespie and
Kasprowicz underperformed in the tour with Gillespie being subsequently
dropped for new and younger talent. On the other hand Shane Warne, who
took 40 wickets and scored 249 runs, gave an all-round good
performance. Members of the old guard (Ponting, Langer, Lee and
McGrath) also played well.
2006-07 Ashes
After winning the ICC Champions Trophy convincingly, Australia
went home for their summer to play England in a five-test series.
The first test took place in Brisbane at the Gabba. The second
test took place in Adelaide from 1 December. The third match of the
series was held at the WACA Ground in the West Australian city of
Perth. Following the third test victory, Australia reclaimed the Ashes,
already having achieved a winning margin of 3–0 in the best of five
series. England lamented the shortest period of Ashes retention in the
history of the tournament, dating back to 1882.
In the days following the historic win in Perth, spin bowler
Shane Warne announced that he would retire from international cricket
at the conclusion of the fifth and final Sydney test in January 2007.
This also prompted Justin Langer, Australian opening batsmen at the
time, to announce his retirement from Test cricket after the 5th test
as well. Fast bowler Glenn McGrath later announced he too would retire
from international cricket after the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
The fourth match of the series was played at the MCG.
Australia took victory in just three days, only needing one innings of
batting to outscore England. The fifth match in Sydney ended with
Australia capturing a 10 wicket victory. The Australians completed a
5–0 whitewash of the Ashes series, the first time either side had
achieved such a feat since the 1920–21 series.
438
In the 2006 cricket tour to South Africa, Australia lost the
one-day series 3–2 after a record-breaking final ODI. Setting South
Africa a world record target of 434 off 50 overs (the previous record
being 398/5 scored by Sri Lanka vs Kenya 10 years previously), South
Africa managed to beat Australia by 1 wicket with a new record score of
438. Earlier, Ricky Ponting top-scored with 164 off 105 balls. South
Africa's Herschelle Gibbs, likewise batting at number 3, went on to
score 175 off 111 balls thereby playing an instrumental role in the run
chase. Many other records were broken in the same match. A total of 872
runs were scored (The previous record was 693 when India beat Pakistan
by five runs in Karachi in March 2004). Mick Lewis had the ignominy of
becoming the most expensive bowler in ODI history with figures of 0/113
in his 10 overs.