October 11, 2008
Lara v spin, and other head-to-head stats
Posted by Charles Davis -
1 day, 2 hours ago in Batsmen v bowlers
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Stuart MacGill has conceded 441 runs to Lara, dismissing him just four times, and 223 runs to Dravid without dismissing him once
© Getty Images
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| The increasing scope of available Test match data in recent years creates new opportunities for cricket statistics. One area where we have more information than in previous years is specific player versus player data. Just how well does a batsman do against a specific bowler? This sort of question has long been of interest to commentators, but in the past this could only be answered in general terms by statisticians.
I have extracted a few player vs player extremes from Cricinfo’s data (either in specific player v player form or as ball-by-ball text commentary), supplemented by other sources (hat tip to Andrew Samson) so that the record can be extended back to the 1998-99 Ashes series. The data covers over 450 Tests, and is about 99.5% complete, with a majority of the gaps being in some Zimbabwe Tests. This forms a new class of cricket records.
Continue reading "Lara v spin, and other head-to-head stats"
Comments (10)
October 3, 2008
The best Test all-rounders: a follow-up
Posted by Ananth Narayanan -
1 week, 1 day ago in Allrounders
The main article received a high number of quality responses. A number of useful suggestions were provided and the exchanges were conducted without the acrimony that had been the feature of earlier exchanges. I thank the readers for this trend and hope that this will be continued in future.
The final table has been slightly modified based on tweaks in the Performance parameter as suggested by Hamish and Kartik. Details at the end.
I had mentioned that I would do an in-depth article on selected all-rounders incorporating more measures, as suggested by readers. Some of the relevant points mentioned by readers are summarised below.
- Take care of an all-rounder being the first/second bowler (e-g., Imran/Hadlee) vs fourth/fifth bowler (e-g., Sobers/Kallis).
- Take care of quality of wickets captured.
- Take care of quality of bowling faced by the all-rounder in batting.
- Equalise Batting and Bowling to a greater extent.
- Take into account Bowling strike rates.
- Reduce the weight for longevity measures.
- Take into account Fielding data.
- Take into account Captaincy data.
Continue reading "The best Test all-rounders: a follow-up"
Comments (47)
September 27, 2008
The world's best all-rounder
Posted by Ananth Narayanan -
2 weeks, 1 day ago in Allrounders
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Garry Sobers: a champion with both bat and ball
© Getty Images
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Possibly the best responses in the first 12 hours itself.
Based on these responses I have decided that my follow-up post will be to do a far more rigorous and in-depth analysis of only the very best 10 or so all-rounders, excluding the also-rans like Vettori/Vaas/Hooper/Shastri et al. Then I can be very strict and demanding in my parameters since I will be looking at the best. There is no need to worry about very low batting or bowling averages of these pretenders, upsetting the balance of algorithms.
Many thanks.
Who is a Test all-rounder? There prevails a peculiar idea of all-rounders. A bowler who can bat a bit (Abid Ali) or a batsmen who can turn his arm a bit (Sehwag) or a bowler who chances his way to a hundred (Agarkar), at various times have been dubbed as all-rounders.
That is a very low-level expectation of an all-rounder. Let us raise the bar substantially. An all-rounder should be capable of winning matches consistently with his batting or bowling. Since this is a subjective statement, let us lay down some rules to be used as the basis for our analysis.
He should have scored a minimum of 2000 Test runs at an average of 20.00 or above. The limit of 20.00 is necessary to exclude long-career bowlers such as Warne and Kumble getting into the All-rounders list. Much as I admire their batting skills I am not ready to accept them as all-rounders. Continue reading "The world's best all-rounder"
Comments (162)
September 20, 2008
Bangladesh in retreat
Posted by Ric Finlay -
3 weeks, 1 day ago in Trivia - batting
I was keen to observe whether or not Bangladesh has made material progress since it won full ODI status ten years ago. To do this, I took the 17 bilateral one-day series of three matches against Test-playing opposition (and excluding Zimbabwe) that it has participated in over that time, and extracted the batting average of Bangladesh and its opponents in those series: Continue reading "Bangladesh in retreat"
Comments (21)
September 14, 2008
Good in isolation, great as a pair
Posted by Ananth Narayanan -
3 weeks, 6 days ago in Trivia - bowling
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Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne are the only pair to take more than 1000 Tests wickets in matches they've both played in
© Getty Images
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| To retain my sanity, I have to be away from ODIs and batting for some time. I do not want to hear the words "Richards" and "Tendulkar" for a few days. Hence my next article covers the forgotten species, Test bowlers.
Even though the batsmen always bat in pairs, it is while bowling that players are very effective operating in tandem. This article looks at Test bowler combinations who have bowled together most effectively, achieved more together than individually, won more and performed well away from home.
New table on % of Team wkts added.
Modified table covering % of Wins incorporated.
As normally done I have to set up some selection criteria. However this time there only two criteria, as explained below. Continue reading "Good in isolation, great as a pair"
Comments (17)
September 10, 2008
Another look at the best ODI batsmen
Posted by Ric Finlay -
on 09/10/2008 in Trivia - batting
It is with great interest that I read Ananth Narayanan’s analysis of one-day players. Independently, our database provides a ranking of batsmen, which first of all adjusts each innings played according to batting conditions and the quality of the opposition bowling, then takes these adjusted scores and combines them with the scoring rate and also longevity in the game to provide a career batting quality measure. The results are given here below: Continue reading "Another look at the best ODI batsmen"
Comments (76)
September 6, 2008
The best two ODI batsmen - Richards and Tendulkar
Posted by Ananth Narayanan -
on 09/06/2008 in Trivia - batting
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Viv Richards takes the top spot among ODI batsmen again
© Getty Images
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| The large number of comments received and the very valid points mentioned in these have made me come out with a follow-up to my article on the best ODI batsman. In the article itself I had mentioned the following points as worthy of consideration for possible tweaks. I see no additions to these now.
1. Avoidance of double weighting for "Wins".
2. Possible cap on runs scored weightage.
3. Adjust for the paucity of matches played during the early 10 years.
4. Giving weight to key tournament wins such as World Cup and Champion's Trophy.
5. The subjective nature of MOMs, already mentioned by me in the main post did not go well with readers.
6. Quite a few readers have, while accepting Tendulkar's position at no.1, have questioned the wide gap between Tendulkar and Richards. It worries some readers that this gap will keep on widening. Continue reading "The best two ODI batsmen - Richards and Tendulkar"
Comments (110)
September 1, 2008
Tendulkar and Richards swap places as best ODI batsmen
Posted by Ananth Narayanan -
on 09/01/2008 in Trivia - batting
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Sachin Tendulkar pips Viv Richards to the top of the list
© AFP
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| I started this. So I have to finish it...
It is amusing. A few days back whole lot of people were lambasting me for not having Tendulkar on top. Now another set of people are screaming that Tendulkar is on top. Hey guys, this is only an analysis. I am one insignificant analyst who works with a computer and a Cricket database. The greats remain greats, whatever I (or for that matter you all) say.
Just one more thing. Unlike what some have suggested, I have not gone out of the way to put Tendulkar on top. He is one of the greatest but NOT my favourite batsman.
As done before I have incorporated a summary response to readers' comments at the end.
In my previous article I had taken two important ODI batting measures and attempted to analyse batsmen skills using those. It elicited the usual comments on the additional parameters for consideration. Hence instead of doing a straightforward follow-up to that analysis, I have gone the whole hog and after considering all relevant parameters, come out with what I feel should be a very fair ODI batsmen ranking based on what they have achieved over their careers.
The following 8 facors are considered.
1. Total runs scored (TRS)
2. Batting Average (AVGE)
3. Runs per Innings (RPI)
4. Strike Rate (STRT)
5. Quality of bowlers faced (BOWQTY)
6. % of Team runs (TRPER)
7. Wins achieved
- Absolute number of wins (WINS)
- Win % of matches played (WINSPER)
8. MOM awards received/frequency (MOM).
Continue reading "Tendulkar and Richards swap places as best ODI batsmen"
Comments (196)
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