Nervous Nineties

The Nervous Nineties is a commonly used term in cricket.

The term refers to a specific form of analysis paralysis, felt by a batsman when he has scored more than 90 runs in an innings, and is nervous because of the pressure and desire to convert this into a century (100 runs), which is considered to be a milestone of success in the game. Therefore this situation is referred to as batsmen being in the nervous nineties. Batsmen tend to bat in a more conservative manner when they are close to their century, in order to avoid getting out and thus missing out on the milestone. Batsmen dismissed on 99 are considered the unluckiest of all the nervous nineties victims.

The opposing captain may position his fielders in order to create extra pressure to get the batsman out. As a result of this many batsmen fail to convert scores of nineties to hundreds.

Statistically, one of the worst victims of the nervous nineties was Australian opener (and now commentator) Michael Slater, dismissed in the nineties nine times in his test career, and surviving to make a century only fourteen times. West Indian batsman Alvin Kallicharan's record was similarly poor, dismissed in the nineties seven times for only twelve career centuries. Indian Sachin Tendulkar has scored in 90s 18 times in ODIs and 10 times in test cricket and holds the record for highest number of dismissals in the 90s (a total of 28 times) across all forms of international cricket.

Sir Donald Bradman holds the record for most Test centuries scored in a career without ever being dismissed in the nervous nineties: a total of 29 centuries. Greg Chappell (24 centuries) and Michael Vaughan (18 centuries) have the next best records.