What is a good ODI average?

[Glamorgan Wanderer]

Averages can also be affected by not outs. No-one will deny (I hope!) that Michael Bevan is one of the best ODI players of all time, but even his average was boosted (to an extent) by a large number of not outs.

As a rule, I think the top 3 (and perhaps also your No.4) should have the best averages (notwithstanding the fact that they are now obliged to get on with it in the first 15 (or 20) overs with the fielding restrictions in place as they are unlikely ever to have to come in and have to blaze away right from the start in the search for quick runs with men on the boundary (as is often the case with No.5 downwards).

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by greg

If you average 50 in odi's it may look great but if you only have a scoring rate of about 55-60 runs per 100 balls then what is the point?

Sunil Gavaskar (once the greatest batsman India had even seen) famously made 36 not out in his third one day international in the 1975 World Cup v. England at Lords.

He opened the batting and carried his bat throughout the sixty overs-a-side match facing 174 balls.

Well done him. India were chasing 335 and finished on 132 - 3.

Gavaskar played 108 matches and scored 3092 runs at an average of 35.13. He made one century.
That must have been a very long game indeed.

Actually it was a fifty over match v. New Zealand, in the 1987 World Cup, which India won by nine wickets.