Players better/much better in international cricket than domestic

[Jack1]

Dawid Malan currently tops the ICC T20I batting rankings with 892 points. Comfortably ahead of Aaron Finch who is second with 830 points. Malan is averaging 50.15 in t20I with a strike rate of 144.31. In all t20 cricket Malan has played he averages 33.32 with a strike rate of 128.4. Of course the sample size is quite small with Malan having played 24 T20Is. I wondered if any other players have or had this kind of disparity currently or in the past? Where they are better in internationals than domestic by a big margin (in any format t20i, ODI or tests ). Obviously the reverse has happened quite often. Players like Hick and Ramprakash spring to mind first. But a player massively outperforming his domestic stats must be very rare. If you take the t20Is out from Malan's overall t20 record the disparity would be bigger but I couldn't be bothered doing that. I did a quick google search and could find nothing on this

 

[Lillian Thomson]

David Gower averaged under 40 in domestic first class cricket. Not a massive difference, but lower than he should achieved and below his 44 average in Tests

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Michael Vaughan averaged 41.4 in Tests and 36.9 in all FC (so 34.9 in non-Tests); not a huge difference you could argue but a 36 average batsman would not have played 82 Tests

 

[Bijed]

Michael Vaughan averaged 41.4 in Tests and 36.9 in all FC (so 34.9 in non-Tests); not a huge difference you could argue but a 36 average batsman would not have played 82 Tests

Paul Collingwood has a similar thing going on (40.56 in tests, 35.9 in FC/34.27 in non-tests)

I guess the extent of the disparity in Malan's case is a fluke (in a statistical sense, I don't mean he's been lucky to make the runs he has), but in general I suppose if someone takes a while to develop in domestic cricket, their stats are going to be 'held back' by that (and equally you might play on in domestics once you're way past your best and lower your stats further as a result)

 

[BoyBrumby]

Think Kenny Barrington must be close to having the biggest difference over a longish period.

45.63 in FC games isn't shabby at all, but pales next to 58.67 from 82 tests.

Obviously the difference would be even more marked if the tests were removed from his FC figure.

 

[honestbharani]

Wasn't Tresco the best example of that trope? Until he retired and then improved his FC numbers I guess.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Wasn't Tresco the best example of that trope? Until he retired and then improved his FC numbers I guess.

Yeah exactly, since his head went and he decided the Test bubble wasn't for him he averages about 6,000 for Somerset

 

[trundler]

Think Kenny Barrington must be close to having the biggest difference over a longish period.

45.63 in FC games isn't shabby at all, but pales next to 58.67 from 82 tests.

Obviously the difference would be even more marked if the tests were removed from his FC figure.

39 in the County Championship, 45 in FC, 58 in tests and 64 in Ashes tests including 70 in Australia. One could see a pattern forming there.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Zac Crawley I feel will definitely be one

 

[Jack1]

Think Kenny Barrington must be close to having the biggest difference over a longish period.

45.63 in FC games isn't shabby at all, but pales next to 58.67 from 82 tests.

Obviously the difference would be even more marked if the tests were removed from his FC figure.

Forgot about that. Saw his stats a while back and was surprised at the difference. Also seem to remember his average at number 3 being above 70 but he wasn’t batting in that position very often for some reason.

 

[AndrewB]

Hobbs (50.65 FC, 56.94 Tests) and Sutcliffe (51.95 FC, 60.73 Tests).
Several of their 1928-29 team-mates also had higher averages in Tests, though by a lesser extent or in a short career:
Hammond (56.10 FC, 58.45 Tests)
Mead (47.67 FC, 49.37 Tests)
Leyland (40.50 FC, 46.06 Tests)
Jardine (46.83 FC, 48.00 Tests)
Tyldesley (45.46 FC, 55.00 Tests)
(Hendren (50/47) and Chapman (32/29) were the exceptions among the batsmen).

Conversely, some of the Aussies from that series had big gaps in the other direction (mainly due to having extremely high FC averages):
Woodfull (64.99 FC, 46.00 Tests)
Ponsford (65.18 FC, 48.22 Tests)
Kippax (57.22 FC, 36.12 Tests)

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Tony Greig averaged over 40 in Tests but only about 30 in other first class cricket.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Andrew Jones and Mark Richardson both averaged over 44 in tests, but less in 1st class (although Richardson started his 1st class career as a bowler).

Steve Smith's 1st class average (containing tests) is "only" 57.

 

[Daemon]

Most of the current Windies batsmen probably fit this criteria

 

[Fuller Pilch]

It is obviously very early in their test careers, but Kyle Jamieson and Axar Patel so far.

 

[AndrewB]

One case (that I think I've mentioned on CW before) which doesn't really count as his Test career was 2 matches, but always amuses me...

In the first two Tests of all, Allen Hill scored 35*, 0, 49 and 17* for a Test average of 50.5. As he also took 7 wickets I always assumed from this that he was an all-rounder, or at least a good tail-end bat.
In fact, that 49 was his highest FC score in 193 matches (and his average was 8.94).

 

[AndrewB]

A more authentic case: Stanley Jackson: FC 33.83, Tests 48.79,
His bowling averages were also very different, but in the more usual direction: FC 20.37, Tests 33.29.

 

[JOJOXI]

Not the biggest difference between FC and Tests but noteworthy given Bravo has no form behind him and averages 47 in away Tests. In the instances of Stokes and Azam those gaps will probably only increase.

Darren Bravo (non-Tests = 35.13, overall Tests = 36.47)

Jason Holder (non-Tests = 18.02, overall Tests = 33.13


Mohammad Hafeez (non-Tests = 33.66, overall Tests = 37.64) - given criticism I've heard of Hafeez throughout his career I'd presume his FC numbers were very good and he was 'underperforming' in Tests.

Rassie Van der Dussen (non-ODIs = 44.50, ODIs = 80.90) - expect that will level out somewhat with time

Babar Azam (non-Tests = 41.06 , overall Tests = 44.22)

Ben Stokes (non-Tests = 33.57, overall Tests = 37.04)

 

[TheJediBrah]

A more authentic case: Stanley Jackson: FC 33.83, Tests 48.79,
His bowling averages were also very different, but in the more usual direction: FC 20.37, Tests 33.29.

Looks like Test cricket was just generally played on better batting pitches

 

[Burgey]

I think Warne had a worse bowling average in the Shield than he did in Tests but cbf looking it up to see if this is right.