The dizzying stats behind one of the greatest ever Test series

After a summer in which pitches and balls had mostly given batting teams an unfair and at times unhealthy advantage over bowlers, this contest of mountainous run-scoring was levelled with a spell of bowling magnificence.

The previously expensive Prasidh Krishna and the Vesuvius of competitive spirit that is Mohammed Siraj concocted a stunning final chapter to a captivating story that evolved into an epic drama over seven weeks. Gus Atkinson’s flattened off stump was one of Test cricket’s greatest moments.

That the final decisive acts belonged to India’s bowlers ensured that the ending enhanced the overall story of the series.

Batting stats had flowed unstoppably from the start. More runs were scored than in any previous five-Test series. Records were equalled for most centuries (21) and most fifty-plus scores by both teams combined in a Test series (50). India equalled the record for most centuries by one team in a series (12). Honours boards took a pounding. But batting collapses proved critically influential in each of the four Tests that produced a win-loss result.

The cocktail of batting triumph and failure is illustrated by the strange combination of 21 hundreds and 26 ducks (no previous series with 25 or more ducks had contained more than 12 hundreds.)

Individual players compiled a series of wildly changing fortunes. Shubman Gill made four centuries, but had five failures in his last six innings, and, in all, six dismissals under 25. There have been 126 instances of a player making three or more centuries in a Test series, including Gill and Joe Root this summer. Gill was only the fifth of those to combine three or more hundreds with five or more sub-25 dismissals, and the first to have four and six respectively.

Jamie Smith made 407 runs in his first five innings, the most productive five-innings sequence by any England keeper within a single series.  Perhaps burdened by keeping wicket for 210 overs per Test across the series – in his previous Tests, he had averaged 138 overs of keeping per match – he then suffered four consecutive single-figure dismissals (having had just three in his first 21 Test innings). It was the first time an England wicketkeeper has been out in single figures in four consecutive innings in a series since Steve Rhodes in the 1994-95 Ashes in Australia.

Ravindra Jadeja was a high-impact champion with the bat, a minimal-effect end-holder with the ball. Everyone, it seemed, dropped catches. Several of the centuries ended with loose shots that proved to be critical moments in eventual defeats – Gill in the first innings at Headingley, Rishabh Pant in the second; KL Rahul at Lord’s; Harry Brook and, to an extent, Root at The Oval; without those, Yashasvi Jaiswal would have added himself to the list. Such is the nature of cricket.

Success and failure often intertwine. Zak Crawley, Shoaib Bashir and Brydon Carse finished the series with unimpressive numbers, but both made vital contributions to victories. Jasprit Bumrah had two five-wicket hauls, numerous splattered stumps, moments of transcendent bowling magic, but no victories. Chris Woakes carved himself into cricketing immortality with an innings of 0 not out off zero balls.

All of this contributed to the mesmeric, undulating, enrapturing sporting theatre. There were passages of beauty and brilliance, barely fathomable mistakes, intermittent turgidity, splashes of luck, gradual shifts and sudden pivots in momentum, individual and collective rivalries and subplots evolving, twisting, intensifying, culminating in that most spectacular conclusion.

It was the kind of series that must make mid-second-millennium Warwickshire and England celebrity playwright and sonnet-obsessive William Shakespeare snap his quill in his grave, and weep dead tears at the futility of striving to invent stories about indecisive Danish nepo-babies, weapon-hallucinating Scotland-based egomaniacs, or hot young Italian dudes and honeys falling in love, when Test cricket can script spontaneous, unfurling weeks-long narrative perfection like this.

Despite England’s defeat, statistical omens for the Ashes are promising.  The Oval was only the third time England have lost a Test having needed fewer than 50 runs to win with six wickets in hand. They did so at Old Trafford in 1902, and at The Oval in 1882. After both of these defeats, in their next Test series, they went to Australia and won the Ashes. The one previous occasion on which a team lost a Test match having begun the final day needing fewer than 50 to win with four wickets left was when England – six down, 43 required – lost to Pakistan on the fifth day at The Oval in 1954.  They then went to Australia, and won the Ashes.

Unfortunately, statistical omens are, statistically, ominously ineffective.

Zaltz’s unsung series stats

45 – Players bowled out – the stumps were hit more times than in any Test series since 1984.

29 – Honours board performances – 21 centuries, 8 five-wicket hauls – a record for a Test series.

17 – Different players with a century and/or a five-for – the joint most in a Test series.

76 – Runs in wides – the second most in a Test series.

14 – Teams scores above 350 – the most in a Test series, beating the previous record of 10, which had stood since 1948.

19 – Century partnerships – the joint most in a Test series.

966 – Runs by wicketkeepers – the most in a Test series.

8 – Wickets taken bowled or lbw by Mohammad Siraj at The Oval – the most by a pace bowler in a Test in England since Michael Holding (12) at the same ground in 1976.

3 – Tests won by the team scoring fewer runs off the bat (England scored 3 fewer off the bat at Leeds, 11 fewer at Lord’s; India scored 24 fewer at The Oval) – the second series containing three Tests won by the team with fewer runs off the bat, and the first series in which two Tests were won by a team which batted first and scored fewer runs off the bat.

Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images