The ultimate guide to seduction

Faf du Plessis' recent success help you gain lifelong bliss
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There is no point pretending today’s blog is something that it is not. It will not tell you who will win the Kolkata Test, and why. Nor will it even attempt to preview that much-anticipated match. This blog will not throw shafts of revelatory light onto the intricate Shakespearean drama of five-day cricket. It will not make enliven your morning with wistful paeans to the timeless beauty of the cover drive, or the wondrous majesty of the well-organised drinks break. No. This blog is a deluge of stats.

If you do not think that you can handle the numerical onslaught that I am about to unleash, please turn your computer off, and move slowly away from your desk with your hands on your head. This blog is not for you. But if you have the intestinal fortitude to be power-hosed with a concentrated statistical shower, then read on. These stats will not only bring irrelevance to your soul, but they will also enable you to successfully seduce an intended romantic partner. If – and only if – you follow the seductory strategy outlined below, The Confectionery Stall guarantees you at least a first date.


Phase 1: The foundation
Approach your intended date. Make eye contact – not physically, unless you are a French rugby player marking out your territory ‒ then announce your name, age, reference number (if you do not have one, make one up; most people in the world today want their romances to be administratively sound), favourite cricketer, and annual salary. Then, before they can reply, unleash the following stats about the recent Mumbai Test match, using these exact words, and whilst retaining a close-range visual on your target throughout:

Stat 1: Hello. Pay attention. In Mumbai, Kevin Pietersen moved to joint-top of the list of Most 150-plus Innings By An England Batsman. His Wankhede Wowitzer was his 10th, placing him alongside Wally Hammond and Len Hutton.


Stat 2: Those three England stars are 13th equal on the all-time world list of 150-plus scorers, which is led by Tendulkar (20), Lara (19) and Bradman, who score 18 in 80 innings. That is a rate of one 150-plus score every 4.4 innings. Do you agree that that is the hallmark of a handy batsman? Good, otherwise we have no future together.

Stat 3: In successive Tests, Alastair Cook and Pietersen became the 5th and 6th Englishmen (and the 27th and 28th overall) to make four century-and-a-halfs in away Tests, and the first since underappreciated 1970s stalwart Dennis Amiss.

Stat 4: What is more, sir/madam (delete as you consider applicable), just days later, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers became the 29th and 30th names on the world list.

Stat 5: Hey, you look like the kind of girl/guy/person/crone (delete as advised by friends) who has a hankering for some more stats on England’s perfect partnership, the Cook-Pietersen left-hand-right-hand-accumulato-aggressive-utilitarianioflamboyant pairing. Their match-marmelising stand of 206 in the second Test was just the fifth double-century partnership by English batsmen in Tests in India.

Stat 6: Of the 84 pairs of batsmen who have batted together in 20 or more partnerships for England, Cook and Pietersen have the third highest average partnership, 65.9 in 52 stands (in half of which they have added at least 50 (that’s another one), behind Barrington and Dexter (66.6 in 36) and Hobbs and Sutcliffe (87.8 in 39).

Stat 7: Let’s pop another lump of sugar in that frothy stattuccino. Of the 49 pairs from any nation who’ve batted 50 times together in Tests, Cook and Pietersen have the second best average stand, only just behind Hayden and Ponting, who averaged 67.1 in 76 partnerships.

Stat 8: But enough about England. Did you know that India’s mistimed soufflé of a second innings in Mumbai was only the fourth time that ten Indian batsmen have failed to pass 11 runs in a Test innings.


Stat 9: Let’s take a magic bus to one of the more irrelevant suburbs of Statsville. It was also only the third time in all Tests that ten players in a team have all failed to reach 12 without any of them bagging a duck.

Stat 10: We’ll take a quick break after this one. Those ten Indians between them scored 68 runs ‒ the most by ten batsmen who have all failed to reach 12 in an innings. So, in the little-discussed realm of teams who failed dismally to support a lone player by all not scoring more than 11, India actually batted superbly.

So. Glass of wine? Red or white?