Did The Entire Nation of Pakistan Run over Mark Chapman’s Dog? An Investigation

When I watch Mark Chapman bat, The Beatles’ classic A Day In the Life tends to get stuck in my head. If you can’t trace the connection, Google Mark Chapman. You’ll see results about the man who shot John Lennon before you see anything about the New Zealand cricketer. The ACC (the Alternative Commentary Collective, a New Zealand institution, for the uninitiated) have even taken to calling him Mark David Chapman on commentary, emphasis on David, a piece of pitch-black humour straight from their legendary playbook.

Given the frequency with which I search for Chapman, you’d think the algorithm would have caught up by now, but no one ever claimed Big Tech was perfect. So, over the years, I’ve trained myself to search for Mark Chapman Cricket instead, as though Cricket was his last name. When you watch him bat against Pakistan, it may as well be, nominative determinism at its finest. In fact, whenever Mark Chapman plays against Pakistan, you’d forgive their fans for humming a similar tune. “I read the news today, oh boy…Mark Chapman is scoring runs against us again.”

Part of that is just a case of familiarity breeding contempt—New Zealand and Pakistan have played each other a lot recently; 41 times in white ball cricket since the beginning of 2020. But an even larger part is that almost every time Mark Chapman bats against Pakistan, he plays as though he has a personal vendetta, like he’s fuelled by some ancient motivation, not just from this lifetime, but from several lifetimes before, too. Cut shots whacked with atomic force. Pulls hit hard enough to imitate wrecking balls.

If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, let me present some stats. In T20i cricket, Mark Chapman has 87 appearances, averaging 27.6 and striking at 133.9. If you narrow that down to T20s he’s played for New Zealand (remember, he started his international career playing for Hong Kong), that becomes 67 matches for an average of 29.3 and a strike rate of 141.5. Very respectable numbers, however you slice them, but never quite enough to cement a consistent place in the side when the big boys are in town (he featured only once in the most recent T20 World Cup, and not at all in the Champions Trophy).

Now, what about against Pakistan? That’s where things get silly. There’s no other word for it. He’s played 25 T20is against Pakistan (nearly 40% of his appearances for New Zealand, to illustrate my previous point), scoring at an average of 41.3 and a strike rate of 161.7. A.B. de Villiers’ career mark was 37.2 at a strike rate of 150.

It’s not just that he scores runs against Pakistan, it’s that he scores them almost disrespectfully, destroying the bowling with an air of contempt. 27 of his 66 T20 international sixes have come against Pakistan, as well as a staggering 45% of his T20 international fours (68 of 149). In T20is, he only averages above 40 against one other nation, England, and doesn’t strike above 145 against any others.

When playing in Pakistan, Chapman becomes the love child of Viv Richards and Donald Bradman on HGH, averaging 104 and striking at 163 from 10 appearances. I’m surprised that no PSL team has picked him up by now, though they may simply be sick of the sight of him. Three of his eight international 50s have come in Pakistan, along with his sole T20i hundred, 104* (57). By comparison, he averages just 20 in New Zealand, albeit at a healthy strike rate of 137.6.

As we saw today with his man of the match 132, the story is much the same in ODIs, where in seven appearances he averages 41.3 and strikes at 119.4 against Pakistan—both well above his NZ career marks of 34.1 and 108.6 respectively. Today’s innings was the best of the lot (so far, at least, as it would be dangerous to bet against him besting it), walking to the crease with his team in trouble at 50/3, before patiently working through the gears, biding his time alongside Daryl Mitchell, knowing that they could take advantage of Pakistan’s weak fifth bowler later on. As in T20is, more than a third of Chapman’s career ODI sixes have come against Pakistan (11/30), to go with nearly 40% of his ODI fours (31/78). Frankly, ridiculous.

These numbers almost don’t make sense. How does one explain this? Why is Chapman so severe against Pakistan, while against other nations in ODI cricket he averages:

• England: 3 (3 innings)

• India: 3 (3 innings)

• Bangladesh: 11 (2 innings)

• Netherlands: 5 (1 innings)

His T20i figures are similarly inexplicable, featuring career averages of:

• Bangladesh: 6.8 (6 innings)

• India: 15.71 (7 innings)

• Sri Lanka: 16.85 (7 innings)

Given the latter figures, you can’t even explain it away by saying he’s a specialist against Asian teams. No, he’s a specialist Pakistan paralyser. Sure, a large chunk of these low averages can be explained simply by small sample sizes, but it doesn’t account for why Chapman becomes superhuman against Pakistan. He is obviously an exceptionally gifted batter—with a first-class average of 45, he’d have been New Zealand’s premier Test batter in almost any other era—so, the surprise isn’t that he’s scoring international runs. Why specifically against one opposition, though? I could launch into an analysis of how Naseem Shah’s bouncer actually slides nicely into his swinging arc, or pour over the stats to discover he’s exceptional at keeping out Shaheen Shah Afridi’s yorkers, but this feels deeper, almost cosmic.

The answers must lie elsewhere, which is where we enter the arena of wild, irresponsible speculation: did the entire nation of Pakistan run over Mark Chapman’s dog? I don’t even know if Chapman has a dog (perhaps because Pakistan ran over it), but it seems as reasonable an explanation for such outlying numbers as any other. Did Imran Khan steal his girlfriend? Is he secretly a BCCI double agent?

Of course, this is all ridiculous conjecture, but barely more ridiculous than Chapman’s performances against the men in green. If Pakistan are cornered tigers, as Imran Khan so famously stated during the 1992 World Cup, then Mark Chapman Cricket sits outside the food chain, an apex predator for apex predators.

“A crowd of people stood and stared. They’d seen his face before…Now they know how many shots it takes to fill the ground at Lahore.”