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What are the minimum test bat and bowling standards today?

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
Assuming we are talking mid-tier average to good teams (non-minnows), what is the minimum standard of record for regular bowlers and batsmen (not those starting their careers) today to justify a place in any international side?
 
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kevinw

International Debutant
Ideally in tests, your top six would all average 40, your keeper in the 30s and the four bowlers would all average under 30 with the ball. In reality though, you'd change those batting averages to 35 (with a few guys above 45) and you'll probably have three bowlers well under 30 and you might slightly carry a spinner or your third seamer.
 

slcricfan1

School Boy/Girl Captain
Ideally in tests, your top six would all average 40, your keeper in the 30s and the four bowlers would all average under 30 with the ball. In reality though, you'd change those batting averages to 35 (with a few guys above 45) and you'll probably have three bowlers well under 30 and you might slightly carry a spinner or your third seamer.
This isnt anywhere close to the minimum
 

CartyDurham

International Captain
Bowlers taking wickets around 50 balls bowled

batsmen need to have a strike rate of around 75 and average 48 plus

only opinion
 

sayon basak

International Captain
For Bangladesh? Averaging 20-25 with the bat works for me. And any bowler than doesn't average 45+ will do.
Ok I didn't get it's about any (you could've just said "all" imo) intl team.

So, I guess 35+ average with the bat with good (70+ maybe) strike rate, and a bowler who averages below 29 while taking 3.25-3.5 wickets per match.
 

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
Ok I didn't get it's about any (you could've just said "all" imo) intl team.

So, I guess 35+ average with the bat with good (70+ maybe) strike rate, and a bowler who averages below 29 while taking 3.25-3.5 wickets per match.
Yeah sounds about right to me. I think we are in. 35 batting average era now.
 

CartyDurham

International Captain
Outside your top notch players , I feel a strike rate of 70 balls per wicket and batting average around 40 would see someone play 50 tests
 

sayon basak

International Captain
Yeah sounds about right to me. I think we are in. 35 batting average era now.
This is the aggregate average of batters from 2020 to 2025.
IMG_20250112_195229.jpg
But there are a lot of tail-enders runs included here, which should not count imo.
So, there have been 255 batters that have batted at 8-11 batting position. I chose Ollie Stone as the ideal tail ender, and calculated the approximate average of top order batters (batters batting at 1-7).
IMG_20250112_195130.jpg

(197655-83*255)/(197655/30.36-7*255)= 37.349.

So, the Top order batter's average is somewhere around 37. So yeah, we are in the 35+ batting average era.

Pretty impressive how Williamson has managed to average 64.38 in this era.
 
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