Malinga’s figures the worst in ODIs for a bowler bowling eight or less overs!

Lasith Malinga’s name strikes fear in the minds of the batsmen. But what happened at Hobart was almost fictional - young Virat Kohli stared the 'Yama of Cricket" in the eye! Kohli did not just cheat the "God of Death" – he destroyed him!

Lasith Malinga’s name strikes fear in the minds of the batsmen. Unquestionably, he is the most dreaded bowler in limited-overs cricket, especially at the death. But what happened at Hobart was almost fictional – young Virat Kohli stared the ‘Yama of Cricket” in the eye! Kohli did not just cheat the “God of Death” – he destroyed him! Malinga was hounded and humiliated like never before as he reeled under a sensational Indian onslaught that saw him end up with unbelievable figures of 7.4-0-96-1 against his name in the scorebook.

 

Sri Lanka need to win their last game against Australia to enter the Commonwealth Bank (CB) series finals, but they won’t be going into the game in a good frame of mind after the thrashing they got from India on Tuesday and the way their No 1 bowler got carted around.

 

Malinga’s figures were the most expensive in 3251 One-Day Internationals (ODI) for a bowler who bowled less than eight overs. Four men have conceded over hundred runs in an ODI, but all four of them bowled more than eight overs.

 

Bowler	Analysis	Match
Lasith Malinga	7.4-0-96-1	India vs Sri Lanka at Hobart 2011-12
Naved-ul-Hassan	8.0-0-92-0	South Africa vs Pakistan at Centurion 2006-07
Stuart Clarke	7-0-87-0	Australia vs West Indies at Kuala Lumpur 2006-07
Tapash Baishya	7-0-87-0	England vs Bangladesh at Nottingham 2005

 

(Qualification: eight or less overs)

 

What makes Malinga’s figures so unbelievable is that his yorkers are the most difficult to score off. In fact, if one goes through the figures of bowlers with 100 ODI wickets, he has got the second highest percentage of victims who have been bowled – marginally behind the great Waqar Younis, another exponent of the yorker.

 

Bowler	M	Wkts	Bowled	%age of victims bowled
Waqar Younis	262	416	151	36.30%
Lasith Malinga	111	177	63	35.59%
Wasim Akram	365	502	176	35.06%
Danny Morrison	96	126	44	34.92%

 

(Qualification: 100 ODI wickets)

 

That Malinga is a terror can be gauged by the fact that his strike rate is the fifth highest in ODI history among bowlers who take a minimum of 100 wickets.
 

Here are the stats:

 

Bowler	M	Wkts	Strike Rate
Shane Bond	81	147	29.22
Brett Lee	209	362	29.36
Saqlain Mushtaq	169	288	30.45
Waqar Younis	262	416	30.52
Lasith Malinga	111	177	30.7

 

Had he bowled his full quota of ten overs, he may have not only joining Michael Lewis (Australia), Martin Snedden (New Zealand), Tim Southee (New Zealand) and Brian Vitori (Zimbabwe) in conceding 100 runs in an ODI game, but also surpassed the record of Lewis, who gave away 113 runs.

 

(Nishad Pai Vaidya, a 21-year-old law student, is a club and college-level cricketer. His teachers always complain, “He knows the stats and facts of cricket more than the subjects we teach him.”)

 

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