What was always struck me as strange is Sehwag’s great Test average (52.50) compared to his terrible ODI average (33.98). A few have pointed out that the different ODI fielding settings may have something to do with this. Plus Sehwag’s brain-fade when he tries one too many times to assert his authority over some bowler.

But even Sehwag’s Test average seems strange. He has the most Test double-centuries by an Indian. He could have had the most Test triple-centuries if he had made a few more runs yesterday. And when he gets a century, he invariably makes 150+. So why is he still in the low fifties when he could be in the sixties or upper fifties?

To understand that, I compared Sehwag with another great batsman of the same era, who has a similar average and played roughly the same number of Tests. Sehwag has 6248 runs at 52.50 in 123 innings. Kumar Sangakkara has 7545 runs at 55.47 in 147 innings. Not exactly the same, but will do for our purposes. Here is the breakdown of their innings:

One of the first things you will catch is that Sehwag has a much higher percentage of scores below 25 (46% versus 41%) and below 50 (71% versus 64%). Sehwag has 30 scores under 10, while Sangakkara over more innings has 28. But once you start looking at scores above 50, Sehwag looks much more attractive. He has been able to convert more fifties into hundreds and those hundreds into huge scores that have made a big difference to India’s results.

So for the opposition, Sehwag is easier to get early. But once he goes past that fifty, start saying your prayers because he is going to make you pay dearly.

Consider Ashraful who lead the chase with a century. This was the first time in 19 innings that he has passed 35 runs. Ashraful’s career has been entirely composed of long stretches of poor form and then a sparkling innings just when everything says he should be dropped. If he ever converted his potential into a run of good scores, Bangladesh would be making a match of more games.

Recently, we have seen many great 4th innings chases, some of them succeeding (such as India’s chase of England’s target and South Africa’s chase of Australia) and some failing, but still providing much excitement. A less recent example was Sri Lanka chasing Australia’s target of 514 and failing by just 97 runs, with Sangakkara hitting 192 and given out incorrectly by Rudi Koertzen. So what is going on here?

One reason is that teams are playing at a much faster pace, thus leaving a lot of time for the final innings. This mitigates the need for teams to take undue risks while chasing, while putting more pressue on the bowling team to both contain the runs and take wickets. In addition, the pitches are staying solid through the entire Test, thus making them less bowler-friendly.

This phenomenon is likely to weigh heavily on captains when their team is playing the third innings of the match. In the past, the game plan was to score faster to post a huge target. Now, this may have to change to: post high scores, but also waste time out in the middle before declaring. 

So watch out for next year. You may actually see some ridiculous targets being set next year, like score 500 to win in a single day.