Stats: Alastair Cook's bad case of Nervous Nineties - Most scores in 90s in Test cricket

Alastair Cook of England is bowled out by Mitchell Marsh of Australia during day three of the 2nd Investec Ashes Test

The English skipper Alastair Cook missed a fine century in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s in the first innings. His opening partner was dismissed on the second ball and team was struggling at 30/4 in the 11th over. He joined hands with Ben Stokes who came to bat at number six to steady the innings. While Stokes was scoring runs at a good pace, Cook was holding the crease.

Cook faced more than 200 balls and looked good to get to his 28th Test century. But those hopes were put to an end after he inside-edged a Mitchell Marsh ball. This is the 7th time he got out in the 90s, apart from scoring 27 100s. Interestingly, all his scores in 90s are between 94 and 96 (3 94s, 2 95s and 2 96s). Seems like the time between 94 and 96 is the most nervous situation for Alastair Cook.

No England player has got out in 90s on this many occasions in Tests. In fact, the next highest is five dismissals in 90s, for three batsmen – Ken Barrington, Geoff Boycott and Kevin Pietersen. Alastair Cook has most Test runs, most Test 100s and most test 90s for England, and he ages just above 30.

Most scores in 90s for England in Tests

Player	90s	Out	Not Out
Alastair Cook	7	7	0
Geoff Boycott	6	5	1
Mike Atherton	5	3	2
Ken Barrington	5	5	0
Kevin Pietersen	5	5	0
Paul Collingwood	4	4	0
Colin Cowdrey	4	3	1
Tom Graveney	4	4	0
Alan Knott	4	3	1
Peter May	4	4	0
Mike Smith	4	4	0

Alastair Cook has seven scores in 90s.

Mike Atherton is the only batsman from England to be not out twice in the 90s – 94* vs New Zealand at Christchurch in 1997 and 98* vs South Africa at Nottingham in 1998.

Cook has 34 scores 90+ in Tests, which is again a record for England. Geoff Boycott and Kevin Pietersen have 28 such scores.

Alastair Cook’s 7th dismissal in the 90s gets him to equal Alvin Kallicharran and Matthew Hayden as most dismissals in 90s by left handed batsmen in Tests. The table below lists the left-handers with most nervous 90s.

Left handed batsmen dismissed most times in 90s

Batsman	Nervous 90s
Alvin Kallicharran	7
Matthew Hayden	7
Alastair Cook	7
Brian Lara	6
Clem Hill	5
Stephen Fleming	5
Mike Hussey	5

There are eight other left handers with four dismissals in the 90s.

Clem Hill’s all five 90s were against England.

Clem Hill has a unique sequence of 99, 98 and 97 in three consecutive test innings.

Batsmen with most nervous 90s dismissals for each team in Tests

Team	Batsman	Nervous 90s
Australia	Michael Slater	9
Bangladesh	Shakib Al Hasan	3
England	Alastair Cook	7
India	Sachin Tendulkar	10
New Zealand	Stephen Fleming	5
Pakistan	Inzamam-ul-Haq	6
South Africa	AB de Villiers	8
Sri Lanka	Mahela Jayawardene	6
West Indies	Alvin Kallicharran	7
Zimbabwe	Craig Wishart	3

For Sri Lanka, Angelo Mathews has six dismissals in 90s in just 49 Tests and may go past Mahela Jayawardene.

More Trivia

# Greg Chappell has scored most test runs (7110) without ever getting out in the 90s. He was once unbeaten on 98. The lowest score below 100 at which he got out was 84.

# Donald Bradman has scored most test runs (6996) without a single score in the 90s (neither out nor not out). His lowest score below 100 was 89.

# Allan Border has scored most test runs (11174) with just one dismissal in 90s (98).

# Younis Khan, David Gower, Wally Hammond and Chris Gayle are the players who got out only once in 90s and scored more than 7000 test runs.  

# Alastair Cook has got out between 94 and 96 seven times. No other batsman has got out in the range of those scores more than four times. Michael Slater is the one with four dismissals in that range.

# There are only two players have the distinction of getting out at least once in 90s, 190s and 290s in Tests. They are Virender Sehwag and Alastair Cook. Vivian Richards got out in 90s and 290s and was once not out in 190s.

# Sachin Tendulkar has the record for most dismissals in 90s in ODIs as well - 17 times. Next best 7 by Nathan Astle, Aravinda de Silva and Grant Flower.