Highest Percentage of Runs in Boundaries

[The Outsider]

The top 20 list in Tests :

+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| Player         | Runs  | Fours | Sixes | % Boundary Runs |
+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| HH Gibbs       | 6167  | 887   | 47    | 62.10           |
| ME Trescothick | 5825  | 831   | 42    | 61.39           |
| AC Gilchrist   | 5570  | 677   | 100   | 59.39           |
| ST Jayasuriya  | 6973  | 910   | 59    | 57.28           |
| BC Lara        | 11953 | 1559  | 88    | 56.59           |
| SC Ganguly     | 6581  | 839   | 52    | 55.74           |
| KC Sangakkara  | 6032  | 810   | 19    | 55.60           |
| Yousuf Youhana | 6770  | 869   | 47    | 55.51           |
| IT Botham      | 5200  | 621   | 67    | 55.50           |
| VVS Laxman     | 5658  | 777   | 4     | 55.36           |
| IVA Richards   | 8540  | 1051  | 84    | 55.13           |
| SR Tendulkar   | 11782 | 1551  | 47    | 55.05           |
| MP Vaughan     | 5356  | 696   | 22    | 54.44           |
| ML Hayden      | 8242  | 990   | 80    | 53.87           |
| AJ Stewart     | 8463  | 1121  | 10    | 53.69           |
| RB Richardson  | 5949  | 761   | 23    | 53.49           |
| N Hussain      | 5764  | 734   | 24    | 53.44           |
| Inzamam-ul-Haq | 8830  | 1105  | 48    | 53.32           |
| SP Fleming     | 6875  | 877   | 24    | 53.12           |
| CG Greenidge   | 7558  | 884   | 67    | 52.10           |
+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+

Minimum qualification of 5000 test runs. Surprising to see Trescothick beat some really big names and hitters there. Also Hussain makes a surprising appearance.

[Mr. Wicket]

Interesting stats prof... but I would argue these can be taken two ways. There are a number of cricketers here like Richards, Tendulkar, Inzamam, Botham, Gibbs and Hayden who were genuinely good enough to score in boundaries with real regularity as a result of their ability to time and place the ball superbly and the high boundary % shows that - but there are a lot of others like Hussain, Ganguly and Trescothick who will naturally have a much higher boundary %, simply because they were not good enough at maximising their runs between the wicket (both through running and through careful placement). Tresco was one of that kind who mostly scored in 1s and 4s, both due to his power in hitting boundaries and his inability to place the ball carefully enough to get twos and threes when fours weren't possible. Ganguly is another (who also struggled to even run twos and threes for a fair part of the time). As for Greenidge... ah, if only there was a way of finding his boundary percentage when he batted on one bad leg. Would have been frightening. :D

[The Outsider]

For ODIs :

+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| Player         | Runs  | Fours | Sixes | % Boundary Runs |
+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| Shahid Afridi  | 5369  | 497   | 245   | 64.41           |
| V Sehwag       | 5295  | 725   | 75    | 63.27           |
| CH Gayle       | 6244  | 755   | 98    | 57.78           |
| AC Gilchrist   | 9511  | 1147  | 147   | 57.51           |
| ST Jayasuriya  | 12253 | 1353  | 247   | 56.26           |
| HH Gibbs       | 7383  | 840   | 120   | 55.26           |
| ML Hayden      | 5942  | 614   | 86    | 50.02           |
| Yuvraj Singh   | 5686  | 585   | 83    | 49.91           |
| SR Tendulkar   | 16088 | 1758  | 166   | 49.90           |
| SC Ganguly     | 11363 | 1122  | 190   | 49.53           |
| Saeed Anwar    | 8823  | 938   | 97    | 49.12           |
| NJ Astle       | 7090  | 720   | 86    | 47.90           |
| BC Lara        | 10405 | 1035  | 133   | 47.46           |
| IVA Richards   | 6721  | 600   | 126   | 46.96           |
| CG Greenidge   | 5134  | 470   | 81    | 46.08           |
| SP Fleming     | 8037  | 823   | 63    | 45.66           |
| RT Ponting     | 10899 | 956   | 135   | 42.52           |
| KC Sangakkara  | 6299  | 618   | 27    | 41.82           |
| G Kirsten      | 6798  | 659   | 20    | 40.54           |
| Inzamam-ul-Haq | 11739 | 969   | 144   | 40.38           |
+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------+

[Ram]

A disproportionate EIGHT left-handers in that list of 20. Another revealing fact - Nearly 15 off the 20 batsman started their careers around 1994, or just before. A sure indication that the game is now beginning to be dominated by boundary-hitting batsman.

[The Outsider]

And for the sake of completion, T20s(minimum qualification 200 runs) :

+----------------+------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| Player         | Runs | Fours | Sixes | % Boundary Runs |
+----------------+------+-------+-------+-----------------+
| ST Jayasuriya  | 246  | 31    | 10    | 74.80           |
| Imran Nazir    | 201  | 18    | 13    | 74.63           |
| ML Hayden      | 308  | 37    | 13    | 73.38           |
| JDP Oram       | 242  | 20    | 15    | 70.25           |
| GC Smith       | 364  | 52    | 7     | 68.68           |
| AC Gilchrist   | 272  | 27    | 13    | 68.38           |
| BB McCullum    | 299  | 30    | 12    | 64.21           |
| JM Kemp        | 203  | 17    | 10    | 63.05           |
| Aftab Ahmed    | 212  | 25    | 5     | 61.32           |
| RT Ponting     | 315  | 32    | 10    | 59.68           |
| G Gambhir      | 299  | 34    | 6     | 57.53           |
| KP Pietersen   | 321  | 34    | 8     | 57.32           |
| A Symonds      | 337  | 33    | 10    | 56.97           |
| Misbah-ul-Haq  | 251  | 20    | 10    | 55.78           |
| SB Styris      | 241  | 18    | 10    | 54.77           |
| PD Collingwood | 330  | 22    | 15    | 53.94           |
| OA Shah        | 235  | 18    | 9     | 53.62           |
| Shoaib Malik   | 278  | 20    | 9     | 48.20           |
+----------------+------+-------+-------+-----------------+

[The Outsider]

Tresco was one of that kind who mostly scored in 1s and 4s, both due to his power in hitting boundaries and his inability to place the ball carefully enough to get twos and threes when fours weren't possible. Ganguly is another (who also struggled to even run twos and threes for a fair part of the time).

That's a fair assessment and perhaps brought out even more in the ODI stats where Afridi leads the table and ODI greats like Tendulkar and Richards are still good but not near the very top of the table.

[Mr. Wicket]

Yup. Because Tendulkar and Richards had such developed games that they could set the field back by hitting a lot of boundaries early on, then milk the field and take singles to be selfish and bat for their hundreds keep the momentum up while playing a better risk percentage. Some like Afridi and Trescothick on the other hand are incapable of that sort of game. Even Ganguly to a lesser extent.

[King]

Top work Shwetabh. Interesting stats there. I'm not surprised with the list though. The top 5 batsmen from all the lists you have produced above were natural stroke makers. It also means they can pick gap quite well and also didn't fear going over the top.

[bunny]

I think in ODIs it should be dependent on who opens (and of course some power hitters are always gonna be there). My guess is if you remove SRT's middle order innings he would move up the order. Pleasantly surprised to see Richie Richardson in there. He was one of my favorites. Also, did Kapil not complete 5000 runs? Otherwise, it's hard to believe he isn't there along with Botham.