Stats Interesting

Chris Cairns: Take a bow

For a man as talented as Cairns, there will always be the critics writing about him never really fulfilling his potential. Given the endless list of injuries to have ravaged his career, including knees, shoulder, rib and neck, his 62 completed Tests should rather be seen as testimony to the endless determination of the man.

Here are the facts and figures:

Cairns is one of just six players in 127 years of Tests to score 3,000 runs and take 200 wickets, putting him alongside Kiwi great Sir Richard Hadlee as well as Garfield Sobers, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan and Ian Botham.

In his only two Tests against the Windies the allrounder bagged 17 wickets at a phenomenal average of just 9.94, thanks to his career-best haul of 10/100 in the first Test at Hamilton in 1999.That series also saw him smash 103 runs at an average of 51.5.

Most of his Tests were against England and Australia (14 Tests each). While only averaging under 29 against the former, he often steeled himself against his nearest neighbours, averaging 34.52, which is above his overall one of 33.5

His finest performance came against England at The Oval in 199 where his 5/ and bludgeoning 80 from just 94 deliveries at The Oval swung the match back in favour of the Black Caps after home side were well-poised for the win. Cairns claimed a well-deserved Man of the Series award with 183 runs and 19 wickets.

Overall, Cairns managed 47 English scalps in his career, with Australia and Bangladesh joint-second with 39. Exactly half of his 218 Test wickets came at home, while eight of his 13 five-wicket hauls were taken outside New Zealand. Incredibly, only India escaped being a victim of a Cairns five-for.

Only on the winning side 16 times in 62 Tests, Cairns still thrilled crowds with some voracious hitting on his way to accumulating 3320 Test runs, which included 22 fifties and five hundreds.

His highest knock of 158 against South Africa in Auckland earlier this year secured New Zealand's maiden Test victory over the tourists on home soil and his final one in whites for his country.

Against England at Lord's, Cairns broke former West Indies captain Viv Richards's record of 84 test sixes. Batting at number eight, he extended the mark to 86 in his final series, striking 82 from 47 balls in a magnificent display of controlled savagery.

While there was no fairy-tale ending, Cairns did finish a nightmare tour with 160 runs and 12 wickets at the same place where it pretty much all began as a gangly 17-year-old itching to hurl it down the track.

While Black Caps fans will no longer see him add to his record for most sixes in Tests, there is no doubting that plenty of maximums are still waiting to come via his bat in the one-day game.

By John van Straaten