Best Average Partnership

TL;DR There is only one pair that has batted together at least 10 times while chasing and has an amazingly large average.

In the third match against Australia in Jan 2020, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma put together their 11th century partnership while chasing. That is an amazing statistic. Not only have you played together 11 times, but you have played enough number of times to in fact manage 11 partnerships of 100+. What is remarkable is that they have done that in just 47 innings together. This entire article is about ODI chases. Only one pair has managed more century partnerships, and that is 17 by Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in 91 innings. They had the slight advantage of opening together, and thus the possibility of having more time for a longer partnership (but then a smaller chance of staying not out).

Here is the table of top five pairs:

One thing is noticable - the average partnerships are not very high. VK+RS manage almost 70 everytime they come out and one of them gets out. ST+SG are just over 50, and, in fact, Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag who managed 8 partnerships of 100+ average under 40 overall.

This got me thinking. What are the highest average partnerships between pairs? These are generally the freak ones against weak oppositions, or where the numbers are small, or there are many not outs. See the table below.

In the first case the average of 274 is also the total runs T Mishra and S Tikolo scored together. Same is true for the next four - only one out in their outings together. There are a few without averages too - they came out a few times and neither batsman got out. Here are two.

The partnerships between Rayadu and Karthik span 6 years, and 4 oppositions, all in away games and for three different wickets. They did not get a single 100 partnership though.

If you look at the highest number of partnerships between players, the smaller averages are even more obvious.

Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana lasted long enough to play 64 times with each other, but only twice their partnership remained unbroken, and their average was a paltry 26.37.

So, what is the highest average between partnerships when it is not due to tiny number statistics?

Assuming 10 is not a small number for these purposes (you need to bat together 10 times), and hence doing a cut there, the answer was somewhat unexpected, but pleasent. The number of innings is in fact 11, and the average is over 100! The pair involved in this incredible statistic is that of Sunil Gavaskar and Mohammed Azaruddin. In their 11 outings together they remained unbitten thrice (though one of them was an opener), put on three partnerships of over hundred, and another four of over 50 thus earning themselves this incredible statistic.

Others who played exactly 11 times together have rather ordinary averages by comparison. The following list is not complete.

Gavaskar shared exactly 11 innings with Kapil Dev as well, but for scarce returns:

Perhaps that was because it was over a longer period (6 years) than with Azar (3 years). All their century partnerships were outside India. Here is a breakdown:

Summary? Gavaskar/Azaruddin is the only pair that has batted at least 10 times together and has an average partnership of over 100 in ODIs.

Thanks to CricInfo for making available the wonderful stats pages.