OUT FOR 99 IN A TEST! How frustrating for a batsman to get so close, but fall just one little tickle for a single, one solitary run short, of such a major milestone and after so much time and effort! To date the nine NZ batsmen out in such cruel circumstances are:
99 – J. Beck v South Africa 1954
99 – R. Hadlee v England 1984
99 – J. Wright v Australia 1987
99 – D. Patel v England 1992
99 – J. Wright v England 1992
99 – M. Richardson v Zimbabwe 2000
99 – S Fleming v South Africa 2000
99 – B. McCullum v Sri Lanka 2005
99 – D. Vettori v Pakistan 2009
Touch willow there haven’t been any in the last ten seasons. Coincidentally nine is also the number batsmen in the whole history of Test cricket to date, getting to 99 but not 100 in a Test TWICE – with one of them being New Zealand’s John Wright. The rest on this rather exclusive list are: Mike Atherton (E), Greg Blewett (A), Geoff Boycott (E), Saurav Ganguly (I), Simon Katich (A), Richie Richardson (WI), Salim Malik (P) and Mike Smith (E).
The wonderfully reliable and resolute Wrighty crafted a fine Test career, including 12 Test centuries, but did have considerable misfortune in the 90s. Apart from his two 99s he was also dismissed for 98 in a Test at Lord’s, so was just 4 runs away from adding three more Test tons to his tally – making him NZ’s unluckiest batsmen ever in the high 90s. And the 2nd time he was dismissed on 99 was in the 2nd innings of the same Test against England in which Dipak Patel got 99 in the first innings. Incidentally English batsmen Robin Smith (96) and Alan Lamb (93) were also out just short of centuries in this Test, a bad one for batsmen in the “nervous 90s”!
Although Brendon McCullum was almost similarly unlucky to Wrighty, as apart from his 99 he was dismissed for 96 in the Lords Test of 2004, then almost unbelievably was out for 97 in the next Lords Test for NZ in 2008! So twice he came within just a boundary shot of getting his name on the coveted Honours Board at Lord’s, but just missed out...
While the unwanted record for a New Zealand batsman with the most innings from 90-99 in Test cricket, is held by that splendid player Steve Fleming with seven of them – almost as many as the nine times he did get to a century. These 90s included the 99 v South Africa (when he was given out caught off his shoulder!) and 97s v England and West Indies – but perhaps when he was out for 92 on Test debut and also 90 in his ODI debut (both v India), this was maybe a sign of things to come?
But even worse than being out for 99 in a Test is being RUN OUT FOR 99 IN A TEST – is there any more annoying, frustrating or unnecessary time or way to get out? In the history of Test cricket this has happened only 14 times to date, with two of the hapless victims being New Zealanders – John Beck and Dipak Patel, from the above list.
Beck, a left hand batsman, was just 19 when he was chosen in the NZ team for its first tour South Africa of 1953-54, and made his Test debut in an ordeal by fire in the 2nd Test on a fiery green top pitch – the match when an injured Bert Sutcliffe and a bereaved Bob Blair heroically hit 33 in 10 minutes for the last wicket. But in the next Test, on a much more placid pitch at picturesque Newlands, he prospered after the early batsmen had given the team a great platform. Coming in with the score at a healthy 271/4, he helped put on the then highest 2nd partnership for NZ in Tests of 176, with John Reid (135). After Reid was out Beck carried on and with a 6, he brought up the 500 mark for NZ in a Test for the first time. But then he was cruelly run out by a great piece of fielding and through no fault of his own – when his partner Eric Dempster (keen to give him the bowling), called him for too tight a single and a fielder threw the stumps down.
Beck didn’t play Test cricket again until the 1956 West Indies tour of NZ and after earlier scores in the series of 66 and 55, he played a vital innings of 38 (putting on 104 with Reid) in the 4th Test, when NZ had its first ever win in Test cricket. Despite this and being a fine cover fielder, he was controversially overlooked for NZ’s sorry tour of England in 1958 and never picked for NZ again.
While Dipak Patel was a very valuable allrounder for NZ in the 1990s, playing 37 Tests and 75 ODIs, his moment arrived in the 1st Test v England at Lancaster Park in 1992. In reply to England’s hefty first innings score of 580/9, NZ was in a perilous position at 139/6 when he was joined by a youthful Chris Cairns. Tufnell was the main problem with his left arm spinners, having 4/40 at this stage, but Patel used his feet beautifully to him and attacked with a succession of glorious shots, hitting two sixes and several fours (Tufnell finished with 4/100). But after they’d put on 117, Patel was on 97 when he hit a drive wide of Pringle at mid-on and set off. They’d run two as Pringle was reaching the ball and Patel hesitated before taking off for the 3rd run, knowing that Pringle didn’t have a throwing arm and used to bowl the ball back from the outfield. But on this occasion Pringle’s effort was right over the stumps at the bowler’s end and despite a desperate full length dive, Patel was just out. It was about the saddest end possible, exacerbated by the hesitation, which denied him a wonderfully well-deserved century – a milestone he never again approached in Test cricket.
So Beck and Patel head the list of New Zealand batsmen who got into the 90’s, but never made a century in their Test career before it finished. The list of these players are: 99 – John Beck and Dipak Patel; 97 – Ross Morgan; 96 – Roger Blunt and Brun Smith; 95 – Daniel Flynn; 94 – Roger Twose; 93 – Noel Harford; 92 – Robert Anderson and Jamie How; and 90 – Bruce Murray. These eleven players, include some very good batsmen, yet sadly none of them ever reached the century milestone. Of interest Harford and Anderson achieved their 93 and 92 respectively on Test debut, coincidentally both in Pakistan.
So New Zealand of course has certainly had its share of unfortunate batsmen when it comes to the nervous 90s – but the player with probably the best claim of all to be considered the unluckiest batsman of all time in this regard is the Australian Clem Hill. He was a stocky left hander from South Australia who was Australia’s highest run scorer before WW1. In the 1901/02 Ashes series in Australia the unlucky Hill was dismissed for 99, 98 then 97 in consecutive test innings – still the only player in Test history to suffer this fate. And in the previous Ashes series in Australia he had also scored a 96!
So there it is; while a NZ batsman can’t match Hill’s misfortunes from nearly 120 years ago, the several untimely dismissals just short of a 100 by Wright and co, show clearly how little is the difference between celebrating a century or frustratingly being out so desperately close to it.