Stats: Batsmen with the best 50 to 100 conversion rate in Test cricket

Shikhar Dhawan has been a permanent figure in the Indian limited-overs sides for the last 4 years, but the same can’t be said about his Test career. He has been in and out of the Test side often. However, if you look at his stats in ODI and Test cricket, you wouldn’t find too much of a difference in the batting average. His average in both formats is close to 44 which is staggering because he hasn’t quite flourished in red ball cricket as much as he has enjoyed his time in the coloured clothing.

During that overseas tour cycle in the 2014-15 season when India toured South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia, Dhawan registered a string of low scores in Test matches and on a couple of occasions, he was even dropped from the playing XI in the middle of the series since he wasn’t able to pull his weight. So how is it that despite so many failures, he still boasts of such a good batting average in the longest format of the game?

The reason why the Indian team management shows so much of trust in Shikhar Dhawan is the way he models his game. Though he is technically tentative early in the innings especially against the moving ball, once he gets going the feet start to move and the timing is as crisp as you’d ever see. That allows him to convert the starts into bigger scores.

A look at the statistics and we see that Dhawan is actually the third best of all-time in Test cricket in terms of converting fifties into hundreds. Dhawan has played 27 Test matches so far in his career including the one that he is currently featuring in against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens. He has a total of 10 fifty plus scores to his name in Test cricket and 6 of those are hundreds which translate into a conversion rate of 60%.

Considering the numbers for players who have scored at least 10 fifty plus scores in Test matches, there are only two players in the history of the game who have a better conversion rate than Dhawan which tells a story in itself. The two gentlemen who stand ahead of him are Sir Donald Bradman (69.05) and George Hadley (66.67).

The Indian captain Virat Kohli who is also an amazing converter features 5th in that list with a conversion rate of 54.84 as he has converted 17 out of his 31 fifty plus scores into hundreds.

These stats to some extent justify the long rope that Dhawan has been given in Test cricket. He may not be someone like Cheteshwar Pujara who occupies the crease for a day, day and a half. But irrespective of what the ask is, the left-hander plays his natural game which is to see the ball and hit the ball. He has the ability to change the course of the game in the favour of his team in a matter of overs and completely derail the opposition attack and their plans from the onset.

Here are the players who have the best conversion rate in Test cricket:

(Stats as on November 19, 2017)

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