Reaching 50 is good.
Objectively, it’s the most basic measurement of a test batter doing well. It’s the first mark that’s typically celebrated and the lowest score we traditionally track. But, off the top of my head, I’d be hard-pressed to gauge statistically what a good rate of reaching 50 might be.
As an England fan, it occasionally feels like Joe Root gets to 50 more often than he doesn’t and there have been spells when Steve Smith seemingly can’t fail to do so. Case in point, the 2019 Ashes, when his scorecard read: 144, 142, 92, 211, 82, 80, 23. Six back-to-back scores of 50+ sandwiching a concussion. Truly remarkable.
That said, all batters go through purple patches (even if Smith’s is arguably the greatest we’ve ever seen) as run scoring is one of the more sporadic skills across all sports. Hence my lack of intuition regarding how often batters reach 50.
So, what I want to know is, over the course of a career, how frequently do quality test batters score 50+?
Is it once every other innings? 1-in-3? 1-in-4? Or more?
Due to the sporadic nature of batting form, I could feasibly have believed that any of these rates were either the average or the gold standard. Fortunately, we don’t have to guess. Data is our friend.
Methodology
Taking the career statistics of every men’s test batter with at least 5,000 runs as of the end of 2024, I’ve calculated what I’m calling their 50+ rate (FPR). A simple calculation that looks like this:
(Number of 50s + Number of 100s)
Number of innings
Which gives us a percentage of how frequently each player reaches 50. For example, Alec Stewart scored 45 fifties and 15 hundreds from 235 innings. Which gives us (45+15) / 235, or 60 / 235, for an FPR of 25.5%, meaning England’s 4th highest run scorer reached 50 a touch more frequently than once every 4 innings.
Using this method for all batters with a minimum of 5,000 runs, we can find what might be considered a ‘good’ FPR and see a rough guide to who might be considered the most reliable men's test batters of all time.
That 5,000 run cut-off excludes batters who have excelled for relatively short spells, i.e. Adam Voges, as well as recent debutants like Kamindu Mendis and Harry Brook, providing us with a large enough sample size so as not to be heavily swayed by extreme purple patches like those we mentioned earlier.
As a quick note to demonstrate that point, as of the end of 2024, Mendis has an FPR of 52.9% – better than one 50+ every other innings – and Brook is only slightly behind at an even 45% – a 50+ every 2.2 innings. That rate of success would see both enter the conversation as the greatest of all time if it were to be maintained over the course of their respective careers. They may well go on to achieve that, but I think you’ll agree that it’s a little early to be making those claims for either player yet, hence the 5,000 run cut-off and their exclusion here.
What does FPR show us?
So, of the 107 total players that do make the 5,000 run cut-off, on average how many innings does it take each of them to score 50+?
First off, in order to have had a substantial enough career to have amassed 5,000 runs, a batter seemingly needs to be reaching 50 at least once every 5 innings (for an FPR of at least 20%).
There are two exceptions: Mark Boucher, a traditional wicketkeeper picked for his glovework over his batting, and Kapil Dev, a bowling all-rounder capable of occasional brilliance with the bat.
After that we see 3 distinct groups form:
A handful that score one 50+ every 4 to 5 innings.
The vast majority, that score one 50+ every 3 to 4 innings.
And a cluster of 27 batters, the best of the best, that reach 50 more frequently than once every 3 innings.
Perhaps surprisingly, there isn’t a great deal of range between the higher and lower end of the scale. A handful reach 50 around once every 3 innings and hardly anyone needs more than 5. But then again, this is a limited group of players that were good enough to reach 5,000 runs – a group that have on average played around 100 test matches each. No one is here by mistake.
In fact, given the sample we're using, we can quite confidently say that in order for a batter to have a significant test career they absolutely must be reaching 50 once every 5 innings, and most likely more frequently than that as a specialist.
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In which case, what of individual performances. Who do we find in each FPR category? And who might lay claim to be the most consistently impactful run scorer of all time?
The chart above gives us a good indication of reliability and longevity, with FPR plotted along the x-axis and a players total number of innings along the y-axis. Effectively, the further right a player falls, the more reliable they are, and the higher they place, the longer they sustained that reliability. You can see more infomation by hovering over a player.
There is a subtle positive correlation (represented by the trend line) showing that, as you might expect, the more reliable you are, the more opportunities you’re likely to get.
Below is a breakdown of the three major sections we looked at in the first chart and the types of players you’re likely to find in each:
Impact Players
A 50+ score once every 4 to 5 innings – with an FPR of 20-25%
These aren’t players that you want to be relying on for the bulk of your runs but once in a while they might just win you a match by themselves. In fact, a number of players here have been responsible for some of the most electrifying moments in test history.
They tend to be players that excel at another cricket skill, be that keeping or bowling, and therefore have another way of impacting a match and this secondary skill is likely the reason they’ve been able to reach 5,000 runs despite their comparatively poor FPR.
Among others, they include: Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Ian Botham, Sanith Jayasuriya, Carl Hooper, Mushfiqur Rahim, and Brendan McCullum.
Steady Contributors
A 50+ score once every 3 to 4 innings – with an FPR of 25-33%
Here we find the densest collection of players to have scored at least 5,000 test runs. There is a great mixture of styles, batting positions and eras here, but generally these are batters that could be relied upon for years without ever being thought of as one of the best in the world or players that peaked incredibly highly but failed to maintain that peak form for more than a few years.
Across this spread of 66 players, we find little groups that you might be surprised to find have similar records. For instance, at the lower end of reliability, we find Sourav Ganguly, Nasser Hussain, Andrew Strauss, Ajinkya Rahane, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Ross Taylor, and Michael Clarke.
In the middling section of the steady contributors, we see similar FPR scores for:
West Indian openers Greenidge, Haynes, and Chris Gayle.
Another group of openers/top order players in Khawaja, Trescowthick, ‘Big Frank’ Karunaratne, Justin Langer, and Azhar Ali.
And, finally, the unlikely trio of Michael Atherton, Angelo Mathews, and Virat Kohli whose reliability and sustainability is remarkably similar.
In the upper echelons of this group we find some truly legendary figures. From lesser to greater longevity, we see that the following players scored 50+ only slightly less frequently than once every 3 innings: Adam Gilchirst, Verinda Sehwag, Kevin Pietersen, Matthew Hayden, Mark Taylor, Graeme Smith, Graham Gooch, Younis Khan, Hashim Amla, VVS Laxman, the Waugh brothers, and Alastair Cook.
The Engine Room
A 50+ score more frequently than once every 3 innings – with an FPR of greater than 33%
This is the gold standard. Here we find a collection of batters that, almost to a man, have a claim to be the greatest their country has ever produced. These are the type of players that you’re lucky to find once in a generation – and when they do appear, they become the cornerstone of their side for their entire careers.
Again, there is a mixture of styles and eras here, but these are predominantly 3s, 4s, and 5s. As you might expect, considering those positions are traditionally reserved for a team’s best run scorers.
Also like before, we find pockets of players with similar records. For example, those with less longevity tend to be from the 70’s and before. That is with the exception of three arguably (criminally) underrated 21st-century batters:
Mr Cricket himself, Mike Hussey.
The man whose push-ups brought Lords to its feet in 2016, Misbah-ul-Haq.
And his former teammate, a player whose 2006 returns are the greatest any test batter has ever produced in a single year, Mohammad Yousuf.
With slightly greater longevity, we see remarkably similar records for Javed Miandad, Inzaman-ul-Haq, and, the universally adored, AB DeVilliers.
Another collection with similar longevity but slightly greater consistency is Sir Vivian Richards, Kane Williamson, Steve Smith, and Sunil Gavaskar.
Brian Lara, as he often did during his playing career, stands alone. He played more innings than Sir Viv but with slightly less consistency.
A quartet of players – whose legacies have arguably been eclipsed by either an enigmatic teammate or a dominant successive generation – are bunched together, towards the lower end of the engine room consistency but with great longevity. They are Mahela Jayawardene, Allan Border, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and Rahul Dravid.
Finally, Ricky Ponting, Joe Root, and Jacques Kallis are a trio of 21st-century legends that are within touching distance of being crowned the most reliable 50 scorer in men's test history.
But instead, that conversation appears to boil down to 4 players.
First up, we have Sachin Tendulkar, who played around 40 innings more than anyone else – including debuting at 15 and retiring at 40 – and yet, despite learning his trade in the test arena and playing to a greater age than the vast majority of players ever reach, he still managed to maintain an FPR equivalent to Joe Root and Ricky Ponting (around 36%). So, if you’re moved by longevity, Sachin, as always, is your man.
Kumar Sangakkara, however, may have eclipsed him in this particular debate. Over the course of his 15 year career, he scored 50+ in 90 of his 233 innings for an FPR of just under 40%. Easily the highest mark of his generation and perhaps enough to be considered the most reliable batter of all time.
That being said, we can’t ignore the two English players whose careers straddled the World Wars. Jack Hobbs and Ken Barrington reached 50 at an astonishing rate, significantly more frequently than any batters that have played since. However, they played comparatively few innings compared to most of their modern counterparts, and the era that each played in must be taken into account. Cricket has changed a lot since Hobbs’ playing days. That said, you can only be judged against your competition, and dominance is dominance regardless of era.
Which brings us to my final point. You may have noticed one name that’s inconspicuously missing, and there’s a good reason for that. As is often the case with cricket statistics, the Don breaks the rules.
Below, you can see his effect on the FPR chart. He is so far ahead of everyone else that his presence compresses the chart, making it more difficult to read.
Despite playing 22 innings less than any other player in this group, he managed to score more test runs than almost half of them, and a large part of the reason for that was his sheer ridiculous consistency.
With an FPR of 52.5%, Bradman reached 50 every 1.9 innings. He’s the only player to score 50+ more frequently than once every other innings. Simply put, as with almost all batting records, no one has ever come close and, most likely, no one ever will.
And so, it's the Don that is the most reliably impactful test match run scorer of all time – but we knew that already, didn’t we.
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