Sonny Ramadhin took more than 61% of his wickets without any assistance from his fielders © Getty Images

I must thank David Barry for giving me the idea. In his article he has mentioned "Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, who often aimed for the pads or stumps". I myself have expressed similar views earlier. Then I started thinking about doing an article on similar lines. Let us see to what extent the Ws (and others) succeeded at taking care of the batsman by themselves. It is possible that this article has been done elsewhere but mine is a different interpretation and hopefully will bring in a fresh insight.

Let me add that individual dismissal type tables are available in Cricinfo using Statsguru. I have used my data to create composite tables and also sequence by % of total rather than by absolute numbers. I extended the scope of the analysis to bowlers who got wickets by bowling batsmen, getting them out leg-before, take return catches and the rare instances of hitting the wicket. These dismissals do not involve another player.

As usual I have to have a cut-off. I have selected 150 wickets, knowing fully well that there would be protests, since a reasonable number of wickets are needed to get the comparisons going properly. This represents a career of 30-40 matches, the minimum needed for a meaningful comparison. The lowering from 200 also enables me to get a few interesting bowlers such as Shoaib Akhtar, Terry Alderman and Ramadhin.

However, rest assured. The others have not been forgotten. At the end of the article, I have two tables, one specifically for pre-WW2, with a lower cut-off of 100 wickets and another one post-WW2, those who have captured between 100 and 150 wickets. So everyone should be happy.

With this 150 wickets cut-off, there are 80 bowlers. With no further ado, let us move on to the tables. First let me emphasize that these tables do not rate the bowlers in any way since we are only looking at the type of dismissals. Coming on top does not mean that the bowler is a better bowler than one who is 35th.

First the composite table incorporating all the four forms of dismissals.

Table of wickets captured through bowler's own efforts

No Bowler           Type Cty Mat Wkts Bow LBW C&B Total %

 1.Ramadhin S        ROB Win  43 158   62  29  6   97 61.4 
 2.Lindwall R.R      RF  Aus  61 228   98  31  6  135 59.2 
 3.Waqar Younis      RFM Pak  87 373  102 110  6  218 58.4 
 4.Statham J.B       RFM Eng  70 252  102  42  2  146 57.9 
 5.Shoaib Akhtar     RF  Pak  46 178   64  35  4  103 57.9 
 6.Tate M.W          RFM Eng# 39 155   59  25  3   87 56.1 
 7.Wasim Akram       LFM Pak 104 414  102 119  5  226 54.6 
 8.Alderman T.M      RFM Aus  41 170   25  58  3   86 50.6 
 9.Imran Khan        RF  Pak  88 362   96  80  5  181 50.0 
10.Garner J          RF  Win  58 259   69  57  3  129 49.8 
...
...
...
76.Bishop I.R        RF  Win  43 161   26  17  3   46 28.6
77.Hughes M.G        RF  Aus  53 212   23  32  5   60 28.3
78.Bedi B.S          LSP Ind  67 266   49  16 10   75 28.2
79.Ntini M           RF  Saf  91 358   68  23  5   96 26.8
80.Kallis J.H        RFM Saf 123 240   32  25  3   60 25.0

Note: # indicates Career finished before 1940.

I expected Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram in the next 2 positions. However they are in 3rd and 7th positions respectively. Surprisingly the second and fourth positions are filled by two great players of the 50/60s, Lindwall and Statham. Christopher Martin-Jenkins talks about both bowlers being fast, accurate and able to swing the ball either way.

However to compensate, Shoaib Akhtar, the other great Pakistani fast bowler, completes the top 5. The Pakistani quartet dominates the top-10 since Imran Khan is also in that group.

The surprise package, please do not jump on me, is Brian Statham. He is, again, an under-rated top-class bowler. He and Lindwall are on top because of their accuracy while I feel, the four Pakistani bowlers are there because they were faster, but equally accurate. Waqar Younis' in-swinging yorkers and Wasim Akram's ability to get the ball in at will are well known. Shoaib Akhtar's searing pace must have breached many a batsman's defence. It is possible that reverse-swing also has played a part.

Ramadhin is the only spinner in the Top-10.

At the end we have two South African current pace bowlers and Bedi, the great Indian spinner. More about them in the next tables.

To view the complete table, please click here.

Now let us take a look at the table which combines the two most direct forms of bowler dismissals, viz., Bowled and LBW.

Table of wickets: Bowled & LBW

No Bowler           Type Cty Mat Wkts  Bow LBW Tot  %

 1.Ramadhin S        ROB Win  43 158    62  29  91 57.6
 2.Statham J.B       RFM Eng  70 252   102  42 144 57.1
 3.Waqar Younis      RFM Pak  87 373   102 110 212 56.8
 4.Lindwall R.R      RF  Aus  61 228    98  31 129 56.6
 5.Shoaib Akhtar     RF  Pak  46 178    64  35  99 55.6
 6.Tate M.W          RFM Eng# 39 155    59  25  84 54.2
 7.Wasim Akram       LFM Pak 104 414   102 119 221 53.4
 8.Alderman T.M      RFM Aus  41 170    25  58  83 48.8
 9.Imran Khan        RF  Pak  88 362    96  80 176 48.6
10.Garner J          RF  Win  58 259    69  57 126 48.6

Note: # indicates Career finished before 1940.

Now let us see two individual tables, one on Bowled and the other on LBW.

Table of wickets - "Bowled"

No Bowler           Type Cty Mat Wkts  Bow  %

 1.Lindwall R.R      RF  Aus  61 228    98 43.0
 2.Statham J.B       RFM Eng  70 252   102 40.5
 3.Ramadhin S        ROB Win  43 158    62 39.2
 4.Tate M.W          RFM Eng# 39 155    59 38.1
 5.Shoaib Akhtar     RF  Pak  46 178    64 36.0
 6.Barnes S.F        RFM Eng# 27 189    68 36.0
 7.Hall W.W          RF  Win  48 192    65 33.9
 8.Trueman F.S       RF  Eng  67 307   103 33.6
 9.Holding M.A       RF  Win  60 249    81 32.5
10.Bedser A.V        RFM Eng  51 236    70 29.7
...
...
...
74.Pollock S.M       RFM Saf 108 421    59 14.0
75.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus 124 563    76 13.5
76.Kallis J.H        RFM Saf 123 240    32 13.3
77.Vettori D.L       LSP Nzl  84 266    32 12.0
78.Harbhajan Singh   ROB Ind  71 299    35 11.7
79.Hughes M.G        RF  Aus  53 212    23 10.8
80.Vaas WPUJC        LFM Slk 107 348    37 10.6

Note: # indicates Career finished before 1940.

In this classifification, Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Imran Khan drop out of the Top 10.

At the other end we have two great recent fast bowlers. Note the very low Bowled % of Pollock and McGrath. Also remember where Vaas is, right at the bottom. But wait for the next table.

Table of wickets - "LBW"

No Bowler           Type Cty Mat Wkts  LBW  %

 1.Alderman T.M      RFM Aus  41 170    58 34.1
 2.Waqar Younis      RFM Pak  87 373   110 29.5
 3.Wasim Akram       LFM Pak 104 414   119 28.7
 4.Vaas WPUJC        LFM Slk 107 348    98 28.2
 5.Hoggard M.J       RFM Eng  67 248    65 26.2
 6.Kapil Dev N       RFM Ind 131 434   110 25.3
 7.Kumble A          RLB Ind 131 616   155 25.2
 8.Gillespie J.N     RFM Aus  71 259    59 22.8
 9.Streak H.H        RFM Zim  65 216    48 22.2
10.Imran Khan        RF  Pak  88 362    80 22.1
...
...
...
76.Gibbs L.R         ROB Win  79 309    21  6.8
77.Davidson A.K      LFM Aus  44 186    12  6.5
78.Ntini M           RF  Saf  91 358    23  6.4
79.Barnes S.F        RFM Eng# 27 189    12  6.3
80.Bedi B.S          LSP Ind  67 266    16  6.0

Note: # indicates Career finished before 1940.

This table confirms the premise we started with. Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram found the batsmen's pads much more often than anyone else, barring one. To be precise, nearly 30% of their successful efforts. One with his toe-splitting inswinging yorkers and the other one with his deadly coming in delivery et al. To think that these two bowled in tandem for most of their careers! Have a quiet moment of sympathy for the non-Pakistani batsmen of the 90s. Towards the end Akhtar also got in.

Vaas is a revelation: he was last in the Bowled table, but here he is fourth. He is also similar to Wasim Akram, bringing the ball in viciously, albiet at a slightly lower pace. The forgotten Hoggard comes in next. The next one is a welcome addition of Kapil Dev, taking a quarter of his dismissals through Lbw. Then Kumble, with his accurate wicket-to-wicket line.

At the other end, we have Bedi propping the table. A very low proportion of 6%. Most of his victims were catches, close and outfield. It should not be surprising to see Ntini at the bottom. With his wide-of-the-crease deliveries, his chances of picking up Lbw decisions was quite low.

I have deliberately stayed away from further breaking these numbers into Home-Away, because I feel there will be uncharitable remarks on Home LBWs. These are all great bowlers and do not deserve any negative comments. Anyway, Imran led the crusade for neutral umpires and for quite some time now the umpiring mistakes are genuine errors or due to incompetence and cannot be attributed to any other ulterior motive.

To view the table of Post-WW2 bowlers (100-150 wkts), please click here.

To view the table of Pre-WW2 bowlers, please click here.

This opens up a few interesting areas of observation.

• The top-10 has a lone spinner, Ramadhin, who incidentally leads the table. Ramadhin, with his unusual action and delivery, cleverly mixing off breaks and leg breaks, achieved over 60% of his dismissals in a direct manner. Possibly Mendis comes close to him, although these are early days.
• The Top-10 has Ramadhin and nine other pacemen. Although spinners come in subsequently (6 out of the top 20). Do we conclude that hitting the stumps and pads (successfully) is a pace bowlers' domain?
• Is there a role played by drop or increase in batsmen's defensive technical abilities.
• Have the Lbw laws played a part. Some of this may be revealed when I complete my period-based analysis.
• An interesting sidelight is that two of the most successful recent bowlers, McGrath and Pollock are way down in the list.
• Zaheer Khan is steadily moving up the Lbw table. Early days, but Ishant Sharma could be there in the top quarter of this table, with his speed and reverse swinging skills.

  Comments (34)

  September 14, 2008

  Posted by Ananth Narayanan at in Trivia - bowling

  Good in isolation, great as a pair

  	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

  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.

  a. Both the bowlers should have captured a minimum of 100 wickets each. This means that the two bowlers would have played together for around 25 Tests which is a fair length for anybody's career. This will also ensure that the number of qualifying pairs will be kept to a managable size.

  b. Both the bowlers should have bowled in the concerned Test. This ensures that in cases where an allrounder has played purely as a batsman, the Test will not be considered. A classic case is Imran Khan. He has played seven of his 86 tests purely as a batsman. In these Tests he has played alongside Sarfraz Nawaz and/or Abul Qadir. Without this condition, these Tests would dilute the Imran/Sarfraz and Imran/Qadir pairs.

  Of course if Imran has played in a Test and bowled very few overs (such as the Bangalore Test of 1987, when the spinners Tauseef and Iqbal Qasim bowled 90% of the overs because of the pitch conditions) the Test will still be considered for inclusion.

  Fleetingly I considered using an innings as a unit for determining the qualifying criteria and dismissed that in favour of a Test, which is the most acceptable and understandable unit of game.

  With these dual conditions, the number of bowler pairs who qualify is 69. Let us look at this data in various ways.

  1. By number of wickets captured:

  The most basic measure of the bowling pair's performance.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Wickets captured
  
  No Cty TstsWkts Player 1          Wkts     Player 2          Wkts
  
   1.Aus 104 1001 Warne S.K          513  &  McGrath G.D        488
   2.Slk  92  875 Muralitharan M     572  &  Vaas WPUJC         303
   3.Win  95  762 Walsh C.A          373  &  Ambrose C.E.L      389
   4.Pak  61  559 Wasim Akram        282  &  Waqar Younis       277
   5.Saf  93  547 Pollock S.M        377  &  Kallis J.H         170
   6.Ind  53  498 Kumble A           281  &  Harbhajan Singh    217
   7.Saf  63  490 Pollock S.M        235  &  Ntini M            255
   8.Saf  83  488 Kallis J.H         170  &  Ntini M            318
   9.Aus  58  484 McGrath G.D        274  &  Gillespie J.N      210
  10.Eng  60  476 Willis R.G.D       222  &  Botham I.T         254
  

  Warne/McGrath stand on top with 1001 wickets in 104 Tests, followed by Muralitharan/Vaas with 875 wickets in 92 Tests. One from a very successful team and the other from a team which has had mixed results. Muralitharan and Vaas captured the bulk of wickets secured by Sri Lanka while Warne and McGrath shared the spoils with, on an average, two bowlers. While Warne and McGrath are almost equal in their tally, Muralitharan has captured nearly double the wickets that of Vaas.

  However, these are not true "bowling in tandem" pairs since these are two different types of bowlers. The next few pairs are similar type bowlers and headed by two truly great opening bowling combinations, Walsh /Ambrose and Wasim/Waqar. There is no doubt these two pairs would have acted in tandem in most of these Tests. Then there are a few fast bowling pairs from different countries.

  However the interesting pair is Kumble/Harbhajan. This is the only pure spin bowling pair in the top 10. It is certain that they would have bowled together for long spells.

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  2. Bowling Average.

  Here the individual bowling averages are analysed. In other words, how the individual bowler's bowling average improved or declined while bowling with the other specified bowler. Did the bowler gain or not.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Bowling Average comparisons
  
  No Cty Wkts Bowler 1     Wkts Avge CarAvg  Diff Bowler 2       Wkts Avge CarAvg  Diff
  
   1.Aus 1001 Warne S.K     513 24.88 25.42  0.54 McGrath G.D     488 21.38 21.64  0.26
   2.Slk  875 Muralitharan  572 21.80 21.96  0.16 Vaas WPUJC      303 27.87 29.31  1.44
   3.Win  762 Walsh C.A     373 24.29 24.44  0.15 Ambrose C.E.L   389 21.12 20.99 -0.13
   4.Pak  559 Wasim Akram   282 21.33 23.62  2.29 Waqar Younis    277 22.93 23.56  0.63
   5.Saf  547 Pollock S.M   377 22.62 23.12  0.50 Kallis J.H      170 33.49 31.23 -2.26
   6.Ind  498 Kumble A      281 27.79 29.33  1.54 Harbhajan Singh 217 32.22 30.87 -1.35
   7.Saf  490 Pollock S.M   235 24.71 23.12 -1.59 Ntini M         255 27.67 28.22  0.55
   8.Saf  488 Kallis J.H    170 32.65 31.23 -1.42 Ntini M         318 28.68 28.22 -0.46
   9.Aus  484 McGrath G.D   274 20.52 21.64  1.12 Gillespie J.N   210 26.28 26.14 -0.13
  10.Eng  476 Willis R.G.D  222 24.63 25.20  0.57 Botham I.T      254 25.67 28.40  2.73
  

  Most of the bowlers in the top-10 pairs improved while bowling with the other bowler. The surprising result is with the spin bowling pair of Kumble/Harbhajan. Kumble gains significantly with 1.54 while Harbhajan drops with an equally significant 1.35. Why, I do not have an answer. Possibly because Kumble bowls quite tightly and the batsmen attack Harbhajan more. Note how Botham's average improves dramatically when bowling with Bob Willis.

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  3. Wickets per Test:

  Here I have not considered the bowlers individually. Rather the two are considered as an integral unit and their performance together is compared with their career performance.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Wickets per Test as a pair
  
  No Cty TstsWkts Bowler 1            Bowler 2        Pair Career  Diff
                                                       W/T   W/T
  
   1.Pak  61  559 Wasim Akram       & Waqar Younis    9.16 (8.27)  0.90
   2.Eng  49  367 Flintoff A        & Hoggard M.J     7.49 (6.64)  0.85
   3.Ind  33  251 Kapil Dev N       & Doshi D.R       7.61 (6.77)  0.84
   4.Pak  38  313 Wasim Akram       & Mushtaq Ahmed   8.24 (7.54)  0.70
   5.Ind  42  368 Chandrasekhar B.S & Bedi B.S        8.76 (8.14)  0.62
   6.Eng  60  476 Willis R.G.D      & Botham I.T      7.93 (7.37)  0.57
   7.Win  60  418 Sobers G.St.A     & Gibbs L.R       6.97 (6.44)  0.53
   8.Pak  35  275 Sarfraz Nawaz     & Imran Khan      7.86 (7.33)  0.53
   9.Eng  40  243 Giles A.F         & Flintoff A      6.07 (5.59)  0.48
  10.Aus  27  263 McGrath G.D       & MacGill S.C.G   9.74 (9.27)  0.47
  ...
  ...
  67.Aus  30  212 Gillespie J.N     & Lee B           7.07 (7.90) -0.83
  68.Pak  34  239 Imran Khan        & Wasim Akram     7.03 (8.09) -1.06
  69.Pak  36  265 Waqar Younis      & Saqlain Mushtaq 7.36 (8.53) -1.17
  

  Wasim Akram/Waqar Younis have performed as the best bowling pair operating in tandem in this measure. In their career they have captured a respectable 8.27 wickets per Test. However when they bowl together this figure increases to a very good figure of 9.16. Flintoff and Hoggard bowled very well together rather than separately as did Kapil Dev and Dilip Doshi. The spin twins of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishan Bedi come next.

  At the other end, there are a few interesting combinations. The two Pakistani pairs Waqar/Saqlain and Imran/Wasim bowled much better separately than together. It is amazing that Wasim and Waqar are great together but fall off with two other bowlers respectively. Surprisingly Gillespie and Lee also lost out when bowling together.

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  4. Wins achieved:

  This is an important measure. Did the pair do better than the team performance over the years.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Wins achieved
  
  No Cty TstsWkts Bowler 1          Bowler 2        Wins  %   Win % Diff
  
   1.Aus  25  227 MacGill S.C.G     Lee B            21 84.0 (46.8) 37.2
   2.Aus  45  371 McGrath G.D       Lee B            36 80.0 (46.8) 33.2
   3.Aus  45  421 Warne S.K         Lee B            35 77.8 (46.8) 30.9
   4.Aus  27  263 McGrath G.D       MacGill S.C.G    20 74.1 (46.8) 27.2
   5.Ind  37  287 Harbhajan Singh   Zaheer Khan      18 48.6 (22.6) 26.1
   6.Win  29  263 Marshall M.D      Ambrose C.E.L    17 58.6 (33.7) 24.9
   7.Win  33  291 Holding M.A       Marshall M.D     19 57.6 (33.7) 23.9
   8.Ind  29  249 Kumble A          Pathan I.K       13 44.8 (22.6) 22.3
   9.Win  36  322 Garner J          Marshall M.D     20 55.6 (33.7) 21.8
  10.Aus 104 1001 Warne S.K         McGrath G.D      71 68.3 (46.8) 21.4
  ...
  ...
  67.Ind  79  394 Kapil Dev N       Shastri R.J      10 12.7 (22.6) -9.9
  68.Aus  30  211 Lindwall R.R      Benaud R         11 36.7 (46.8)-10.2
  69.Aus  41  346 Benaud R          Davidson A.K     15 36.6 (46.8)-10.3
  

  This part of analysis really stumped me. The reason is that the Team win % is an average of over or under 100 years of Test cricket. Australia has played 696 Test matches during this period and won 326 Tests leading to a Win % of 46.8. This is a misleading figure since this includes umpteen Australian teams (Pre-WW1 years, late 1930s, early 50s, 70s and 80s) which were quite weak. These more than offset the other successful teams of 1920s, 1940s, 1960s and recent ones. But I have no pat solution. Australia and England have played for 130 years while Pakistan for 50-odd years, Sri Lanka for 20 years and Bangladesh for 10 years. Where is the common dividing point. Maybe the solution is to look at a quartile as a comparison unit. Readers are welcome to offer their suggestions. Let us now look at the results.

  MacGill and Lee form the most successful pair in this regard, achieving 37% over the team numbers. Lee pairs with three bowlers and takes the first three places. The Indian's recent resurgence is shown by the high placing of Harbhajan/Zaheer and Kumble/Pathan. These two pairs have achieved 26% and 22% over and above India's overall results.

  At the other end there are Kapil/Shastri who were bowling in tandem during the very unsuccessful 1980s period for India. Similarly Lindwall, Benaud and Davidson were part of moderate Australian sides of the 1950s.

  Just to give the complete picture I have given the Team performance summary here.

  Cty <-----Total----->   <------Home----->   <-----Away------> 
      Tests Wins    %     Tests Wins    %     Tests Wins    %
  
  Aus   696  326  46.84     361  202  55.96     335  124  37.01
  Bng    53    1   1.89      25    1   4.00      28    0   0.00
  Eng   877  306  34.89     447  175  39.15     430  131  30.47
  Ind   421   95  22.57     213   64  30.05     208   31  14.90
  Nzl   342   65  19.01     166   41  24.70     176   24  13.64
  Pak   335  103  30.75     141   54  38.30     194   49  25.26
  Saf   336  115  34.23     181   74  40.88     155   41  26.45
  Slk   180   54  30.00      90   38  42.22      90   16  17.78
  Win   448  151  33.71     201   74  36.82     247   77  31.17
  Zim    83    8   9.64      44    6  13.64      39    2   5.13
  Icc     1    0   0.00       0    0   0.00       1    0   0.00
  

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  5. Away wickets captured:

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Home / Away wickets
  
  No Cty Wkts Bowler 1         Wkts Awy Hme Bowler 1       Wkts Awy Hme
  
   1.Aus 1001 Warne S.K         513 249 264 McGrath G.D     488 248 240
   2.Slk  875 Muralitharan M    572 203 369 Vaas WPUJC      303 138 165
   3.Win  762 Walsh C.A         373 182 191 Ambrose C.E.L   389 201 188
   4.Pak  559 Wasim Akram       282 170 112 Waqar Younis    277 166 111
   5.Saf  547 Pollock S.M       377 162 215 Kallis J.H      170  70 100
   6.Ind  498 Kumble A          281  80 201 Harbhajan Singh 217  65 152
   7.Saf  490 Pollock S.M       235  96 139 Ntini M         255  75 180
   8.Saf  488 Kallis J.H        170  77  93 Ntini M         318 100 218
   9.Aus  484 McGrath G.D       274 173 101 Gillespie J.N   210 117  93
  10.Eng  476 Willis R.G.D      222  84 138 Botham I.T      254 104 150
  

  Warne/McGrath have captured nearly as many wickets at home as away leading to great results for Australia everywhere. Muralitharan has captured far more at home than away. Surprisingly Wasim and Waqar have captured majority of their wickets away from home, possibly relishing the more favourable conditions outside the subcontinent.

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  6. Away wins achieved:

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Away wins achieved
  
  No Cty Tsts Bowler 1          Bowler 2       <-------Away------->
                                              TstsWins   %  TWin %  Diff
  
   1.Ind  29  Kumble A          Pathan I.K      15   8 53.3 (14.9)  38.4
   2.Aus  45  Warne S.K         Lee B           24  18 75.0 (37.0)  38.0
   3.Aus  25  MacGill S.C.G     Lee B            8   6 75.0 (37.0)  38.0
   4.Aus  45  McGrath G.D       Lee B           19  14 73.7 (37.0)  36.7
   5.Aus  30  Gillespie J.N     Lee B           18  13 72.2 (37.0)  35.2
   6.Aus  53  Warne S.K         Gillespie J.N   37  24 64.9 (37.0)  27.9
   7.Aus  38  Miller K.R        Johnston W.A    17  11 64.7 (37.0)  27.7
   8.Ind  37  Harbhajan Singh   Zaheer Khan     22   9 40.9 (14.9)  26.0
   9.Aus  37  Lindwall R.R      Johnston W.A    16  10 62.5 (37.0)  25.5
  10.Pak  40  Waqar Younis      Mushtaq Ahmed   28  14 50.0 (25.3)  24.7
  ...
  ...
  67.Ind  52  Kumble A          Srinath J       23   1  4.3 (14.9) -10.6
  68.Win  26  Garner J          Croft C.E.H     15   3 20.0 (31.2) -11.2
  69.Eng  35  Statham J.B       Trueman F.S     12   2 16.7 (30.5) -13.8
  

  Kumble and Pathan have been part of a great Indian away run in West Indies, Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. A 50+% result is way ahead of India's overall dismal away performance. Lee stars in the next four, with four different bowlers. Harbhajan/Zaheer have also done quite well away, though not as spectacularly as Kumble/Pathan. Incidentally this is Pathan's entire Test career and he just about managed to reach the 100-wicket mark.

  At the other end Kumble/Srinath were part of the Indian teams of the 1990s when the Indians could win nothing while travelling. Statham and Trueman were part of the average 1960s England. The surprise is Garner and Croft who together won only 3 out of 15 matches away. This was due to the not very successful tours of West Indies to England, Pakistan and New Zealand.

  To view the complete table, please click here.

  7. % of Team wickets captured:

  This is based on Pavan's request for analyzing the % of team wickets captured. I have limited to just analyzing the % of team wickets captured without bringing the other subjective factors.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - % of Team Wickets captured
  
  No Cty TstsWkts Player 1         Wkts Player 2       Wkts  TeamWkts & %
  
   1.Slk  92  875 Muralitharan M    572 Vaas WPUJC      303   1738  50.3
   2.Aus 104 1001 Warne S.K         513 McGrath G.D     488   2016  49.7
   3.Aus  27  263 McGrath G.D       121 MacGill S.C.G   142    531  49.5
   4.Ind  53  498 Kumble A          281 Harbhajan Singh 217   1020  48.8
   5.Aus  45  421 Warne S.K         246 Lee B           175    862  48.8
   6.Pak  61  559 Wasim Akram       282 Waqar Younis    277   1167  47.9
   7.Aus  25  227 MacGill S.C.G     119 Lee B           108    477  47.6
   8.Aus  35  307 McDermott C.J     141 Warne S.K       166    660  46.5
   9.Win  36  322 Garner J          152 Marshall M.D    170    700  46.0
  10.Ind  29  249 Kumble A          149 Pathan I.K      100    545  45.7
  ...
  ...
  65.Saf  93  547 Pollock S.M       377 Kallis J.H       170   1792  30.5
  66.Saf  83  488 Kallis J.H        170 Ntini M          318   1609  30.3
  67.Eng  49  280 Underwood D.L     161 Greig A.W        119    941  29.8
  68.Aus  43  241 Miller K.R        135 Johnson I.W      106    834  28.9
  69.Ind  79  394 Kapil Dev N       243 Shastri R.J      151   1464  26.9
  

  The top two Spin/Pace pairs have captured either side of 50% of the team wickets. It is quite surprising to see this with Australia's strong bowling line up. MacGill features in couple of top pairs. Kumble and Harbhajan have again captured nearly 49% as also Akram and Younis.

  At the other end surprisingly the two South African pairs have captured only around 30%. It must be remembered that Pollock might appear in two pairs. Kapil Dev and Shastri prop up the list.

  8. Win analysis - Revised:

  This is based on Avi/Alex/Peter's suggestions to modify the Wins achieved analysis. They have in turn put in their suggestions based on my request.

  Analysis of Test bowlers operating in tandem - Wins achieved (Alternate)
  
  No Cty Bowler 1          Bowler 2            Pair T/W/%   Ctry T/W/%   Diff
  
   1.Win Gibbs L.R         & Hall W.W          37 19 51.4   97  32 33.0  18.4
   2.Eng Trueman F.S       & Lock G.A.R        27 15 55.6  148  59 39.9  15.7
   3.Win Marshall M.D      & Ambrose C.E.L     29 17 58.6  180  78 43.3  15.3
   4.Aus McGrath G.D       & Lee B             45 36 80.0  166 108 65.1  14.9
   5.Aus Warne S.K         & Lee B             45 35 77.8  186 117 62.9  14.9
   6.Eng Caddick A.R       & Gough D           30 13 43.3  118  34 28.8  14.5
   7.Aus MacGill S.C.G     & Lee B             25 21 84.0  119  83 69.7  14.3
   8.Eng Willis R.G.D      & Botham I.T        60 25 41.7  223  61 27.4  14.3
   9.Ind Harbhajan Singh   & Zaheer Khan       37 18 48.6  104  36 34.6  14.0
  10.Win Marshall M.D      & Walsh C.A         42 23 54.8  190  79 41.6  13.2
  ...
  ...
  60.Pak Waqar Younis      & Saqlain Mushtaq   36 14 38.9  119  50 42.0  -3.1
  61.Eng Statham J.B       & Trueman F.S       35 13 37.1  136  56 41.2  -4.0
  62.Eng Snow J.A          & Underwood D.L     29  8 27.6  164  53 32.3  -4.7
  63.Ind Kapil Dev N       & Shastri R.J       79 10 12.7  132  24 18.2  -5.5
  64.Pak Imran Khan        & Wasim Akram       34  9 26.5  221  71 32.1  -5.7
  65.Eng Underwood D.L     & Willis R.G.D      37 10 27.0  173  57 32.9  -5.9
  66.Saf Ntini M           & Nel A             34 15 44.1  116  59 50.9  -6.7
  67.Ind Kumble A          & Srinath J         52 13 25.0  156  52 33.3  -8.3
  68.Win Garner J          & Croft C.E.H       26  9 34.6   79  37 46.8 -12.2
  69.Aus Lindwall R.R      & Benaud R          30 11 36.7   98  50 51.0 -14.4
  

  This time the country win % is achieved in a different manner. Instead of taking a 100+ years span, I have taken the span as between the first test of the bowler in the pair who made his debut first and the last test played by either of the bowlers in the combination. I have taken this finite span rather than an year earlier and later as suggested by Alex since I wanted to avoid any subjective decisions. Effectively we now compare with the span of the careers of the two bowlers and the comparisons are far more meaningful.

  There are significant changes at the top. The Australians effectively move down and are replaced by less fancied pairs. Also the differential is far less pronounced now. At the other end two pairs, Kumble/Srikkanth and Lindwall/Benaud remain and the West Indian pair of Garner/Croft get in. The reason has been explained elsewhere.

  Let me conclude by saying that this analysis is not to determine the best bowling pair. I have just presented various aspects of bowlers bowling together and pointed out to some great and some not-so-great performances. Different bowlers have achieved greatness in different measures operating together and the article brings these to light.

  Finally five pairs stand out. The Spin/Pace pairs of Warne/McGrath and Murali/Vaas. Then the two great fast bowling combinations of Walsh/Ambrose and Wasim/Waqar. Finally the spin duo of Kumble/Harbhajan. Out of these only two pairs are still operating and might go on to improve their results.

  Comments (17)

  July 27, 2008

  Posted by David Barry at in Trivia - bowling

  How much do wickets matter in Twenty20 cricket?

  	Sohail Tanvir took plenty of wickets in the IPL, but many of them came late in the innings © AFP

  In Test cricket, using the bowling average to judge how good a bowler is makes a lot of sense. The economy rate (or strike rate) is not important — an attack comprised of bowlers who average 30 will, on average, dismiss opposition teams for 300, regardless of what their economy rates are.

  In 50-over cricket, it's more complicated. Taking wickets is still useful, especially early on — you force the batsmen to bat more slowly until later in the innings.

  But in Twenty20 cricket, the bowling average isn't important at all. The bowling average is based on wickets, and wickets don't mean much in T20. This fact doesn't seem to be widely recognised, but the whole concept of the 20-over game relies on it. If wickets were important, then batsmen wouldn't blaze away at 8 or 9 an over. So, in T20, the most important simple stat for measuring bowlers is the economy rate.

  But of course wickets do help the bowling side a little bit (well, maybe not if Jacques Kallis is on strike), and so in this blog entry I'll try to work out just how much they're worth, and use these to adjust economy rates and give a useful measure of T20 bowling.

  *****
  Before starting, I'd like to thank commenter Russ, who gave useful criticism and suggestions on an earlier version of this analysis.

  There are two ways in which wickets reduce the number of runs scored by the batting side. First, batting teams with less wickets in hand have to bat more slowly — this is a long-term effect over the rest of the innings. Second, the new batsman has to get his eye in, causing a short-term drop in run rate.

  To begin, let's look at that first effect. Each scorecard contains the over and ball at which each wicket fell. We also know the score at the fall of the wicket, and the final score made by that team. Collect this data for all the scorecards, and you can plot graphs of runs remaining against balls remaining at each wicket. You can see these graphs, along with other technical details, here. All of the data used is from the IPL.

  When you do this, you find that early wickets are worth about two and a half runs each. That's not very much. Wickets only become really important when a team loses lots of them and has the tail exposed early (for example, a seventh wicket with 12 overs left is worth about 14 runs).

  A simple method to adjust economy rates would be to work out how many runs each wicket is worth, and give the bowler credit for that. But that's not always fair. Suppose the opening bowlers each take three wickets in their opening spell. They get credited 6 or 7 runs each. Then the change bowlers come on and, bowling at the tail, pick up wickets that are worth over 10 runs each! The opening bowlers surely deserve some of that.

  So, what I did was to ignore which number the wicket was, and consider only the number of balls remaining. Doing some graphing and regression gives a pleasantly round result: a wicket is worth (in runs) the number of overs remaining, divided by 6. Keep that in the back of your mind, as we'll come back to it later.

  Now let's look at the temporary run-rate drop after a wicket. From the ball-by-ball records, we can find the average run rate in each over, and compare it to the average run rate in each over given that a wicket fell recently.

  A couple of features emerge from the results. For most of the innings, a wicket results in a dip of about 2.2 runs, and the dip lasts a couple of overs. After 15 overs, this changes — the dip being smaller and smaller, until there's none at all in the last over.

  We now have pretty much all the ingredients necessary to tweak economy rates in T20. There are a couple of subtleties that I go into in the details page.

  Now let's look at bowlers in the IPL. In the table below are the top bowlers according to the adjusted economy rate. The columns are balls bowled, runs conceded, wickets taken, average, usual economy rate, the runs credited from the wickets, and lastly the adjusted economy rate. The adjusted economy rate is the runs conceded, minus the runs credited from the wickets, divided by the number of overs bowled.

  There is a bit of variation in the runs credited — Tanvir has more wickets than runs credited, whereas Pollock's runs credited is almost twice the number of wickets that he took. This tells us that Pollock's wickets came mostly early in innings, whereas Tanvir picked up many of his wickets near the end of the innings.

  
  

  
  
  name           b    r    w   avg   econ  cred  adj econ
  
  Sohail Tanvir  247  266  22  12.1  6.46  18.4  6.01
  
  SM Pollock     276  301  11  27.4  6.54  20.1  6.11
  
  IK Pathan      318  350  15  23.3  6.60  21.6  6.20
  
  GD McGrath     324  357  12  29.8  6.61  17.9  6.28
  
  AB Dinda       234  260  9   28.9  6.67  15.0  6.28
  
  DW Steyn       228  252  10  25.2  6.63  10.7  6.35
  
  MF Maharoof    216  249  15  16.6  6.92  14.9  6.50
  
  M Ntini        210  242  7   34.6  6.91  11.0  6.60
  
  SR Watson      325  383  17  22.5  7.07  21.1  6.68
  
  M Muralidaran  348  404  11  36.7  6.97  11.7  6.76

  
  Tanvir was the stand-out bowler of the tournament, but his spectacular wicket-taking made him look further ahead of the rest than he really was. Ashok Dinda was a bit of a quiet achiever through the tournament. For those interested, Shane Warne had an adjusted economy rate of 7.32.

  Details of the methods and calculations can be found here.

  Comments (25)

  March 27, 2008

  Posted by Ananth Narayanan at in Trivia - bowling

  Bowlers with the most high-quality wickets - a follow-up

  	Curtly Ambrose had the measure of most batsmen he bowled to © Getty Images

  I was in for a surprise with my previous post. I never expected it to receive so many comments (nearly 200) many of which were quite complimentary. My favourite post so far has been the one on the Revised Batting Average. Possibly the reason for the mixed reactions on that post might have been the fact that the traditional definition of batting average exists in the mind of many people who are not going to accept a change quickly. On the other hand this idea of "Batsman wicket quality" is totally new and many people have appreciated the originality of the theme.

  Many good suggestions were received. It was difficult to decide what to take up and what to discard. However I have taken up three tweaks for implementation, in increasing order of difficulty.

  Since I do not want to post a follow-up to a follow-up, I will respond individually to comments which I feel deserve a further response.

  Quite a few complex computational alternatives have been suggested. I have gone through all these, and most have some merit. However, I have decided to retain the easy-to-understand methodology adopted by me since it would be possible for everyone to follow the computations easily - that axiom has always been the cornerstone of my analysis. I must acknowledge the originality of some of the suggestions, though.

  
  1. Raising the bar to 200 wickets (now only 54 qualifying bowlers in lists)
  
  
  Quite a few readers have suggested raising the qualifying bar to 200 wickets. This request is like a half-volley outside the off stump, bowled to a set batsman, which would be instantly driven for four. Only a few minutes work was needed here. The revised table is presented below. It should be noted that only the qualifying bar is raised and no other change has been done. Of course, this is only a temporary exercise for this blog and my database table cut-off stays at 100 wickets.

  Table 1: Ordered by BQI
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty Mat Wkt  Sum of   BQI
  
                                        BatAvge
  
  
    1.Caddick A.R       RFM Eng  62 234  7706.0  32.93
  
    2.Hoggard M.J       RFM Eng  67 248  8157.0  32.89
  
    3.McKenzie G.D      RF  Aus  60 246  8018.0  32.59
  
    4.Gough D           RF  Eng  58 229  7238.0  31.61
  
    5.Bedser A.V        RFM Eng  51 236  7456.0  31.59
  
    6.Thomson J.R       RF  Aus  51 200  6291.0  31.45
  
    7.Snow J.A          RFM Eng  49 202  6313.0  31.25
  
    8.Underwood D.L     LSP Eng  86 297  9212.0  31.02
  
    9.McDermott C.J     RF  Aus  71 291  8988.0  30.89
  
   10.Lillee D.K        RF  Aus  70 355 10919.0  30.76
  
  ...
  
  ...
  
   50.Abdul Qadir       RLB Pak  67 236  6516.0  27.61
  
   51.Waqar Younis      RFM Pak  87 373 10156.0  27.23
  
   52.Garner J          RF  Win  58 259  6903.0  26.65
  
   53.Wasim Akram       LFM Pak 104 414 10754.0  25.98
  
   54.MacGill S.C.G     RLB Aus  42 203  5231.0  25.77
  
  

  One reason for the low placement of Muttiah Muralitharan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in this table might be their skill in taking lower-order wickets quickly and effectively. This is indeed a great attribute of these bowlers, and not to be scoffed at. It is true these great bowlers would have taken many top-order wickets and quite a few lower-order wickets also.

  Table 2: Ordered by Difference between BQI and Bowling Average
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty BowAvge  BQI    Diff
  
  
    1.Marshall M.D      RF  Win  20.95  30.06   9.11
  
    2.Ambrose C.E.L     RF  Win  20.99  29.85   8.86
  
    3.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus  21.64  30.43   8.79
  
    4.Donald A.A        RF  Saf  22.25  29.27   7.01
  
    5.Trueman F.S       RF  Eng  21.58  28.44   6.86
  
    6.Lillee D.K        RF  Aus  23.92  30.76   6.83
  
    7.Hadlee R.J        RFM Nzl  22.30  29.09   6.79
  
    8.Bedser A.V        RFM Eng  24.90  31.59   6.69
  
    9.Imran Khan        RF  Pak  22.81  29.44   6.63
  
   10.Pollock S.M       RFM Saf  23.12  29.62   6.50
  
  ...
  
  ...
  
   50.Harbhajan Singh   ROB Ind  31.40  28.71  -2.69
  
   51.Sobers G.St.A     LM  Win  34.04  30.47  -3.57
  
   52.Danish Kaneria    RLB Pak  33.90  29.84  -4.06
  
   53.Abdul Qadir       RLB Pak  32.81  27.61  -5.19
  
   54.Vettori D.L       LSP Nzl  34.23  28.64  -5.59
  
  

  A few suggested that instead of determining the measure of difference between BQI and Bowling Average, a measure of quotient, say BQI/Bowling Average can be determined. This has its own merits. However the differences are likely to be minimal: 40 minus 25 and 35 minus 20 both will work out to 15 while 40/25 will work out to 1.6 and 35/20 will work out to 1.75. It is difficult to select one method over the other. What I have done, however is to provide this information also in the Table. It can be seen that there is virtually no difference between Tables 2 and 2A.

  Table 2A: Ordered by Quotient between BQI and Bowling Average
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty  BowAvge   BQI     Quot
  
  
    1.Marshall M.D      RF  Win   20.95   30.06    1.43
  
    2.Ambrose C.E.L     RF  Win   20.99   29.85    1.42
  
    3.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus   21.64   30.43    1.41
  
    4.Trueman F.S       RF  Eng   21.58   28.44    1.32
  
    5.Donald A.A        RF  Saf   22.25   29.27    1.32
  
    6.Hadlee R.J        RFM Nzl   22.30   29.09    1.30
  
    7.Lillee D.K        RF  Aus   23.92   30.76    1.29
  
    8.Imran Khan        RF  Pak   22.81   29.44    1.29
  
    9.Muralitharan M    ROB Slk   21.77   27.78    1.28
  
   10.Pollock S.M       RFM Saf   23.12   29.62    1.28
  
  

  
  2. Taking into account the batsman score at the time of dismissal
  

  Quite a few readers have also suggested that the batsman's score, at the time of dismissal, should be considered. This is an excellent idea and strengthens the concept of quality of wickets taken by bringing in a "when" factor in addition to the "who" factor. This suggestion falls smack in between the previous and the next suggestions in terms of implementation difficulties. I have gone over my notes and come out with the following methodology.

  Assign a weightage of 50% to the dismissed batsman's average [current or career, whatever it might be]. Assign the other 50% weightage to the batsman score at the time of dismissal, ranging from 100% credit for dismissal at 0 to 0% credit for any dismissal at or above the batsman average. A few examples are given below.

  Batsman   Avge    Score  BQI-Fixed  BQI-Variable  BQI-Total
  
  Bradman   99.94   0      49.97      49.97         99.94
  
  Bradman   99.94   67     49.97      16.47         66.44
  
  Bradman   99.94   304    49.97      0             49.97 (any score above 99)
  
  Tendulkar 55.58   0      27.79      27.79         55.58
  
  Tendulkar 55.58   25     27.79      15.29         43.08
  
  Tendulkar 55.58   75     27.79      0             27.79 (any score above 55)
  
  Vettori   27.12   0      13.56      13.56         27.12
  
  Vettori   27.12   11     13.56      8.08          21.64
  
  Vettori   27.12   28     13.56      0             13.56 (any score above 27)
  
  

  Based on the modified calculation methodology, the revised tables are given below. This modification now reflects a significant improvement. It must, however, be noted the revised report is not comparable with the earlier reports since the basis has changed significantly. Previously the bowler got 100% of the Batting Average as credit. Now he gets 50% + x% as credit. As such the average BQI values have dropped and this report should be seen on its own.

  The only comparison possible will be between this option and the next option, to be done in future.

  
  Table 4: Ordered by BQI (Revised)
  
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty Mat Wkt  SumAvge BQI
  
  
    1.Hoggard M.J       RFM Eng  67 248  6412.0 25.85
  
    2.Caddick A.R       RFM Eng  62 234  6045.2 25.83
  
    3.McKenzie G.D      RF  Aus  60 246  6146.3 24.98
  
    4.Gough D           RF  Eng  58 229  5618.7 24.54
  
    5.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus 124 563 13766.6 24.45
  
    6.Snow J.A          RFM Eng  49 202  4910.8 24.31
  
    7.Marshall M.D      RF  Win  81 376  8973.4 23.87
  
    8.Ambrose C.E.L     RF  Win  98 405  9650.2 23.83
  
    9.Bedser A.V        RFM Eng  51 236  5581.4 23.65
  
   10.Lillee D.K        RF  Aus  70 355  8314.5 23.42
  
  ...
  
  ...
  
   50.Muralitharan M    ROB Slk 118 723 14511.2 20.07
  
   51.Danish Kaneria    RLB Pak  51 220  4410.2 20.05
  
   52.Vettori D.L       LSP Nzl  78 241  4810.6 19.96
  
   53.Benaud R          RLB Aus  63 248  4925.8 19.86
  
   54.MacGill S.C.G     RLB Aus  42 203  3807.4 18.76
  
  

  
  For a full list, please click here.

  No one can have complaints on the top ten bowlers. The only surprise is the presence of Matthew Hoggard, Andy Caddick and Darren Gough in the top four. The only reason, as already surmised, could be their playing against Australia and India quite frequently recently. Another reason could be the generally high current batting averages.

  
  Table 5: Ordered by Quotient of BQI and Bowling Average (Revised)
  
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty BowAvge BQI     Diff  Quot
  
  
    1.Ambrose C.E.L     RF  Win  20.99  23.83   2.84  1.14
  
    2.Marshall M.D      RF  Win  20.95  23.87   2.92  1.14
  
    3.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus  21.64  24.45   2.81  1.13
  
    4.Trueman F.S       RF  Eng  21.58  22.99   1.41  1.07
  
    5.Donald A.A        RF  Saf  22.25  22.41   0.16  1.01
  
    6.Hadlee R.J        RFM Nzl  22.30  22.49   0.19  1.01
  
    7.Pollock S.M       RFM Saf  23.12  23.06  -0.06  1.00
  
    8.Garner J          RF  Win  20.98  20.86  -0.12  0.99
  
    9.Holding M.A       RF  Win  23.69  23.37  -0.31  0.99
  
   10.Lillee D.K        RF  Aus  23.92  23.42  -0.50  0.98
  
  ...
  
  ...
  
   50.MacGill S.C.G     RLB Aus  28.15  18.76  -9.39  0.67
  
   51.Abdul Qadir       RLB Pak  32.81  20.64 -12.17  0.63
  
   52.Sobers G.St.A     LM  Win  34.04  21.11 -12.92  0.62
  
   53.Danish Kaneria    RLB Pak  33.90  20.05 -13.86  0.59
  
   54.Vettori D.L       LSP Nzl  34.23  19.96 -14.27  0.58
  
  

  
  For a full list, please click here.

  If one adds Wasim and Waqar to the top ten, this is almost a list of the top dozen pace bowlers of all time.

  
  3. Applying the cumulative batsman average at the beginning of the Test (as against the career average)
  

  Many people suggested applying "upto-current Test" batting average rather than the "career" batting average. This was the most voiced comment and deserves to be considered seriously. This has an impact at the early stages of a batsman's career. I had considered doing this earlier itself but ruled against it because of the complexity involved. Dynamic determination of the "upto-current Test" averages is very cumbersome. This method will slow down any analysis, even considering the high pentium speeds. The only alternative is to determine the "upto-current Test" averages as a one-off exercise for all 1866 Tests, store these static data within the match data for each player and use these any time required. Of course, the current averages will have to be created for each new Test as the data is appended. This exercise requires a redefinition of the database layout and considerable amount of programming since it is a systemic change. I will do this in the near future and make the results available to all the interested readers, even if not through a post in this blog.

  Conclusion

  It is amusing to see people complaining, even abusing the "Indian ***********" about the absence of their favourite bowlers from the list, most prominently Wasim Akram. Not having understood the analysis is a possible reason. The other reason is the difficulty in accepting any list which does not meet their perceived conclusions.

  If I make a list of bowlers who have taken a hat-trick in Tests, Wasim Akram will appear twice. Dennis Lillee, Murali, Anil Kumble, Waqar and Richard Hadlee etc would not be on the list while Peter Petherick, Alok Kapali, Andy Blignaut, James Franklin and Irfan Pathan will appear in that list. Should one disown such a list because of the absence of the marquee names?

  Just for the record, here is my own list, in alphabetical order, of the all-time great bowlers, taking all factors into consideration. This should satisfy the readers who should know that there is no narrow-minded chauvinism at work here.

  Sydney Barnes, Bishan Bedi, Richard Hadlee, Michael Holding, Lillee, Malcolm Marshall, Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan, Waqar Younis, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram.

  A few have rightly commented on the dilution of the average because great bowlers tend to take lower-order wickets. Michael Clark and Onkar Walavalkar, among others, have given the example of someone taking all ten wickets would have the average batting average lowered significantly. My submission is that this list does not rate the bowlers at all. It is an alternative measure, hitherto untapped. The same Kumble whose ten-wicket haul in Delhi had an average batting average of 31 would have a higher average of batting average in the West Indies match in St Lucia - in which he took three wickets - of 41. It works both ways and over a long career, these variations even out. The points are well made, I concede.
  
  Other interesting comments are by people complaining that the need is to enjoy the game and not reduce it to numbers or terming such analysis as useless or me as jobless (possibly I am !!!). Let me reply by saying that there are different types of cricket followers. There are those who only like to watch the game, they would not even bother about the batsman's strike-rate or some such simple measure. There are a few who are only number nerds. There are millions in between, the author included, who enjoy both watching the game and analysing it. If one does not want to see such analysis why get into this blog, which is purely an analyst's corner, at all? Entry to this blog is voluntary.

  The comments for this post have been the most received so far for any post and have been very enjoyable, whether bouquets or brickbats. I have been made to think in a lateral manner and I thank all those who took the time to comment. It has been a great experience.

  Comments (33)

  March 14, 2008

  Posted by Ananth Narayanan at in Trivia - bowling

  The bowlers who took the most high-quality wickets

  	Malcolm Marshall dismissed plenty of top-class batsmen without giving away too many runs © Getty Images

  About a month back, I had done a post on the most consistent bowlers in Tests, as part of an analysis on bowlers. I had mentioned then that there would be two measures for bowlers - the second one is on the quality of wickets taken by bowlers.

  In view of the very high number of comments received, we will close the comments by evening of Friday, 21 March so that a comprehensive follow-up can be posted.

  Consider three recent innings summaries:

  West Indies 215 all out (Sehwag 3-33, Patel 3-51, Kumble 3-57)
  These numbers suggest Virender Sehwag was the best of the lot and Anil Kumble the worst. In reality, it was the other way around. Kumble took the wickets of Chris Gayle, Brian Lara and Dwayne Bravo. Munaf Patel took the wickets of Daren Ganga, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Denesh Ramdin, while Sehwag collected the tailenders - Ian Bradshaw, Jerome Taylor and Pedro Collins. Another example:

  India 240 all out (Ntini 3-41, M Morkel 3-86)
  Makhaya Ntini captured the wickets of Wasim Jaffer, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly while Morne Morkel captured the wickets of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Kumble and Zaheer Khan. For that matter, the spell of Andre Nel, who captured only two wickets - those of Sehwag and Dravid - is better than that of Morkel.

  Bangladesh 259 all out (Ntini 4-35, Steyn 4-66)
  Here both bowlers took the same number of wickets, but Dale Steyn took the top four while Ntini mopped up the tail.

  In the wickets column of scorecards there is the bland pronouncement that a bowler has captured x number of wickets. There is no information on whose wickets he captured. This analysis seeks to secure such information.

  The computation is simple. Every wicket captured by a bowler in the 1865 Test matches played so far is analysed, and the sum of career batting averages of the batsmen dismissed is calculated. It is then divided by the number of wickets captured by each bowler and a Batting Quality Index (BQI) arrived at. It's a simple but exhaustive calculation, which is impossible manually.

  The top ten bowlers in this list - criterion being at least 100 Test wickets - ordered by BQI is startling. (I would appreciate it if readers do not immediately write in saying "Wasim Akram is the greatest", "Who are these clowns", "Boje and Dillon could not find a regular place in their teams" etc.)

  Table 1: Ordered by BQI
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty Mat Wkt  Sum of   BQI
  
                                        BatAvge
  
  
    1.Boje N            LSP Saf  43 100  3453.0  34.53
  
    2.Flintoff A        RFM Eng  67 197  6652.0  33.77
  
    3.Connolly A.N      RFM Aus  29 102  3444.0  33.76
  
    4.Giles A.F         LSP Eng  54 143  4812.0  33.65
  
    5.Dillon M          RFM Win  38 131  4366.0  33.33
  
    6.Collinge R.O      LFM Nzl  35 116  3825.0  32.97
  
    7.Zaheer Khan       LFM Ind  53 170  5599.0  32.94
  
    8.Caddick A.R       RFM Eng  62 234  7706.0  32.93
  
    9.Hoggard M.J       RFM Eng  66 247  8118.0  32.87
  
   10.Martin C.S        RFM Nzl  37 125  4086.0  32.69
  
  

  The list is headed by virtually unknown bowlers. Why does this happen?

  Possibly because they do not bowl at the end, picking up tail-end wickets. The other more established bowlers get the opportunity. These bowlers tend to bowl during the middle of the innings.

  The other peculiarity is the presence of the three current England bowlers. Here the possible reason is that England has played Australia and India recently and the average of batting averages for these two teams is quite high.

  I would be interested in reading comments from interested readers on possible reasons for this peculiar situation.

  136.Steyn D.W         RFM Saf  20 105  2655.0  25.29
  137.Barnes S.F        RFM Eng  27 189  4646.0  24.58
  138.Blythe C          LSP Eng  19 100  2449.0  24.49
  139.Wardle J.H        LSP Eng  28 102  2416.0  23.69
  140.Noble M.A         ROB Aus  42 121  2859.0  23.63
  141.Turner C.T.B      RFM Aus  17 101  2291.0  22.68
  142.Giffen G          ROB Aus  31 103  2229.0  21.64
  143.Peel R            LSP Eng  20 102  1960.0  19.22
  144.Briggs J          LSP Eng  33 118  2025.0  17.16
  145.Lohmann G.A       RFM Eng  18 112  1755.0  15.67
  

  At the other end of the table we have the pre-World War-I players, indicating very low batting averages for batsmen playing at that time. Dale Steyn is a surprise inclusion, possibly because his last 54 wickets (over 50%) have been against the weaker batting teams of New Zealand, West Indies and Bangladesh, who have lower batting averages.

  For a full list, please click here.

  However let us seek to address this situation by looking at two other measures. The first is the difference between BQI and the career bowling average for the bowler. While it is true that having a high BQI means that the bowler has picked up better quality wickets, it might be more than offset by a high bowling average, which means the bowler has conceded a lot of runs for each wicket captured. The difference between these two figures will give a clear indication of the bowler's quality. The higher the difference, the better the bowler.

  Table 1: Ordered by Difference between BQI and Bowling Average
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty   BowAvg  BQI    Diff
  
  
    1.Marshall M.D      RF  Win   20.95  30.06   9.11
  
    2.Davidson A.K      LFM Aus   20.53  29.51   8.97
  
    3.Ambrose C.E.L     RF  Win   20.99  29.85   8.86
  
    4.McGrath G.D       RFM Aus   21.64  30.43   8.79
  
    5.O'Reilly W.J      RLB Aus   22.60  31.12   8.53
  
    6.Barnes S.F        RFM Eng   16.43  24.58   8.15
  
    7.Laker J.C         ROB Eng   21.25  29.30   8.05
  
    8.Croft C.E.H       RF  Win   23.30  31.22   7.91
  
    9.Miller K.R        RF  Aus   22.98  30.65   7.68
  
   10.Adcock N.A.T      RF  Saf   21.11  28.17   7.07
  
  

  Ha! The list looks a lot more 'normal'. This is certainly a list of the outstanding bowlers of all time. Again, no mails bringing up other bowlers' names please. These are great bowlers who will stand comparison with anyone outside the list.

  136.Giles A.F         LSP Eng   40.60  33.65  -6.95
  137.Yadav N.S         ROB Ind   35.10  28.14  -6.96
  138.Wright D.V.P      RLB Eng   39.11  31.06  -8.06
  139.Boje N            LSP Saf   42.65  34.53  -8.12
  140.Venkataraghavan S ROB Ind   36.12  27.56  -8.56
  141.Emburey J.E       ROB Eng   38.41  29.69  -8.71
  142.Abdul Razzaq      RFM Pak   36.93  27.66  -9.27
  143.Shastri R.J       LSP Ind   40.96  31.69  -9.27
  144.Mohammad Rafique  LSP Bng   40.76  31.35  -9.41
  145.Hooper C.L        ROB Win   49.43  31.52 -17.91
  

  Again, one feels vindicated. Boje is at the end with a huge negative difference. There is no denying that these are bowlers of average skills and in case of Mohammad Rafique, playing for a weak team. The last in this list is Carl Hooper, a very ordinary bowler indeed.

  For a full list, please click here.

  Another analysis I have done is to consider the number of lower-order wickets taken by a bowler and determine a % of lower-order wickets taken.

  Who is a lower-order batsman? For the purpose of this exercise, I have defined it as a batsman batting at positions 8 to 11, and averaging less than 25 [to take care of situations when a Adam Gilchrist or Kapil Dev or Ian Botham might have batted at No. 8 or lower]. Only Daniel Vettori, with a batting average of 26.39, goes out of this classification. But then who can say that Vettori, with two Test centuries, is not an allrounder.

  Initially I did this analysis based on batting average. However, that distorted the complete picture since the batting averages of batsmen during pre-WW-I and recently those from Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have been quite low. Hence I have gone back to the batting position.

  In addition, any nightwatchman, determined through a proprietary algorithm, is considered as a lower-order batsmen.

  Table 3: Ordered by % of lower-order wickets
  

  
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Cty Mat Wkts LowOrder Wkts
  
                                            & %age
  
  
    1.Zaheer Khan       LFM Ind  53  170    23 (13.5)
  
    2.Collinge R.O      LFM Nzl  35  116    18 (15.5)
  
    3.Boje N            LSP Saf  43  100    16 (16.0)
  
    4.Martin C.S        RFM Nzl  37  125    22 (17.6)
  
    5.Edmonds P.H       LSP Eng  51  125    22 (17.6)
  
    6.Flintoff A        RFM Eng  67  197    36 (18.3)
  
    7.Reid B.A          LFM Aus  27  113    21 (18.6)
  
    8.Pathan I.K        LFM Ind  28  100    19 (19.0)
  
    9.Intikhab Alam     RLB Pak  47  125    24 (19.2)
  
   10.Ghavri K.D        LFM Ind  39  109    21 (19.3)
  
   11.Hall W.W          RF  Win  48  192    37 (19.3)
  
   12.Mushtaq Ahmed     RLB Pak  52  185    36 (19.5)
  
   13.Allen D.A         ROB Eng  39  122    24 (19.7)
  
   14.Srinath J         RFM Ind  67  236    47 (19.9)
  
   15.Thomson J.R       RF  Aus  51  200    40 (20.0)
  
  

  This is a very good table, showing bowlers whose tally of lower-order wickets is less than 20% of the career wickets. It shows the value of Zaheer Khan to the Indian attack, as also Flintoff, Martin and Pathan to their respective teams.

  134.Vettori D.L       LSP Nzl  77  238    81 (34.0) 
  135.Gupte S.P         RLB Ind  36  149    51 (34.2) 
  136.Rhodes W          LSP Eng  58  127    44 (34.6) 
  137.Mallett A.A       ROB Aus  38  132    46 (34.8) 
  138.Johnson I.W       ROB Aus  45  109    39 (35.8) 
  139.Adams P.R         LSP Saf  45  134    48 (35.8) 
  140.Giffen G          ROB Aus  31  103    37 (35.9) 
  141.MacGill S.C.G     RLB Aus  42  203    74 (36.5) 
  142.Wardle J.H        LSP Eng  28  102    38 (37.3) 
  143.Noble M.A         ROB Aus  42  121    47 (38.8) 
  144.Briggs J          LSP Eng  33  118    50 (42.4) 
  145.Lohmann G.A       RFM Eng  18  112    52 (46.4) 
  

  At the end of the table, these are bowlers whose tally of lower-order wickets is greater than a third of their total. It looks as if these bowlers have often been brought in to clean up the tail. There are quite a few pre-WW-I bowlers. A surprise is the presence of Vettori and MacGill, especially, who seems to have been brought in to bamboozle the tail despite the presence of other fast bowlers.

  For a full list, please click here.

  Some possible reader queries are anticipated and answered below.

  1. At what individual score does the bowler dismiss the batsman. It is true that, for the fielding team, it is better for a batsman to be dismissed at 10 rather than 100. However, that is a more complex computation and has been done in a different context.

  2. Whatever happens, capturing Tendulkar's wicket, even when he is on 100, is invaluable since he is capable of scoring a lot more runs than, say, when Dinesh Kartik has scored 25. It has been assumed that Tendulkar's wicket is Tendulkar's wicket, whatever be his individual score. Also, it might be true, in certain cases, that capturing Brad Haddin's wicket at 10 might be more valuable than capturing Matthew Hayden's wicket when he is at 100.

  3. What about current form? While it may be true a few matches back Sehwag's wicket was going quite cheaply, his potential, as shown in the Adelaide Test, can never be underestimated. It is also true that even when Rahul Dravid or Ricky Ponting are going through indifferent form, their wickets are extremely valuable, because of their potential to score big.

  Comments (129)

  February 15, 2008

  Posted by Ananth Narayanan at in Trivia - bowling

  Bowler consistency analysis - a follow-up

  	Muttiah Muralitharan: on top of the charts © AFP

  The post on "Bowler Consistency" received many comments, some silly, some sceptical, some dismissive, some appreciative and some happy at the thinking process it initiated. There were many relevant comments, which warrant a follow-up post.

  First of all, an apology to the readers. I used "spell" when I really meant "innings spell". A spell is an uninterrupted stint of bowling. What I really meant was the bowling done during an innings. So I have coined an alternate term called "innspell" which is exactly what it means, the complete bowling effort during an innings, often consisting of multiple spells. Many thanks to the readers who took me to task on this issue.

  There were many relevant comments on bowler strike-rates and other pertinent measures such as bowling support, pressure situations, bowling accuracy etc. I do not want to mix up the criteria. Bowler strike-rate is not to be confused with the ability of bowlers to be more consistent. That is one of the most important of bowler measures and warrants a separate post. A similar situation exists with the other measures as well.

  I am also determined that I will keep the analysis as simple as when the post started. Finally, one factor should not be forgotten: what I have stated is that if a spin bowler bowls 11 overs or above and takes at least a wicket, this innspell is considered to be a success as compared to a bowler who bowls a similar innspell and comes out wicketless. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this statement.

  However the one comment which also impressed me a lot was the suggestion to reward bowlers for taking more than one wicket in an innsspell. Hence I have added a simple linear weightage factor to a successful innsspell. For each wicket captured, a weightage of 10% is given. Thus a 1-wkt capture makes this value as 1.1, 2-wkt capture as 1.2 and so on upto the two 10-wicket captures of Laker and Kumble as 2.0. This tweak should satisfy most readers. The Bowler Consistency Index value is computed as a % of "number of relevant spells x 2.0".

  Readers will note that this method will increase the consistency ratings of bowlers who have captured more wickets in their career. An alternative would have been to consider a one-wickett haul to have a value of 1.0 and anything more as 1.1. This would still have left the disparity between insspells which fetched two wickets, and those that fetched more than two.

  The most significant comment was that 30 innspells are not sufficient. The lowering of the bar has allowed quite a few relatively insignificant bowlers to walk through at the expense of bowlers who have served for longer periods. Hence I have raised the bar, and considered only the bowlers who have bowled a minimum of 50 innspells, which translates to around 30 Tests, possibly 4-5 years of Test cricket. A total of 143 bowlers have qualified under this criteria compared to 276 bowlers with the lower cut-off.

  There were a few (mostly unwarranted) comments on Mervyn Dillon. He has taken 131 wickets in 38 Tests, not a bad haul. Just taking a "wickets per Test" criterion, he is ahead of more well-known bowlers such as Derek Underwood, Kapil Dev, Vaas, Zaheer Khan, Daniel Vettori, Sarfraz Nawaz, Michael Kasprowicz and S Venkataraghavan. Comments should be made only after verifying facts and making allowance for his playing in a weak West Indies team all his career.

  The revised table is given below.
  

  
  
  Bowler Consistency Analysis (Revised with weightage) - Min 50 relevant spells
  
                                      <----Innspells---->
  
  SNo Bowler            Bow Ctry  Mat Relevant Successful BCIdx  Wkts Wkt/IS
  
                                                 Total
  
    1.Muralitharan M    ROB  Slk  118    201     267.3    66.49   723  3.60
  
    2.Grimmett C.V      RLB  Aus   37     66      84.6    64.09   216  3.27
  
    3.Kumble A          RLB  Ind  125    215     262.4    61.02   604  2.81
  
    4.Hadlee R.J        RFM  Nzl   86    138     168.1    60.91   431  3.12
  
    5.Bedi B.S          LSP  Ind   67    107     129.6    60.56   266  2.49
  
    6.Warne S.K         RLB  Aus  145    250     302.8    60.56   708  2.83
  
    7.Donald A.A        RF   Saf   72    124     150.0    60.48   330  2.66
  
    8.Trueman F.S       RF   Eng   67    115     138.7    60.30   307  2.67
  
    9.Lillee D.K        RF   Aus   70    124     149.5    60.28   355  2.86
  
   10.Gupte S.P         RLB  Ind   36     54      64.9    60.09   149  2.76
  
   11.Dillon M          RFM  Win   38     55      66.1    60.09   131  2.38
  
   12.Imran Khan        RF   Pak   88    125     150.2    60.08   362  2.90
  
   13.MacGill S.C.G     RLB  Aus   42     76      91.3    60.07   203  2.67
  
   14.Wasim Akram       LFM  Pak  104    161     192.4    59.75   414  2.57
  
   15.Danish Kaneria    RLB  Pak   51     84     100.0    59.52   220  2.62
  
   16.Croft C.E.H       RF   Win   27     50      59.5    59.50   125  2.50
  
   17.Chandrasekhar B.S RLB  Ind   58     87     103.2    59.31   242  2.78
  
   18.Saqlain Mushtaq   ROB  Pak   49     78      91.8    58.85   208  2.67
  
   19.Gough D           RF   Eng   58     91     106.9    58.74   229  2.52
  
   20.Laker J.C         ROB  Eng   46     77      90.3    58.64   193  2.51
  
   21.Trumble H         ROB  Aus   32     53      62.1    58.58   141  2.66
  
   22.Ambrose C.E.L     RF   Win   98    164     191.5    58.38   405  2.47
  
   23.Marshall M.D      RF   Win   81    147     171.6    58.37   376  2.56
  
   24.Bishop I.R        RF   Win   43     67      78.1    58.28   161  2.40
  
   25.Cork D.G          RFM  Eng   37     57      66.1    57.98   131  2.30
  
  

  (Click here for the full table.)

  Muralitharan is on top, followed by Grimmett, Kumble, Hadlee and Bedi. This is not a bad quintet. The next five bowlers are Warne, Donald, Trueman, Lillee and Subash Gupte. There should be no complaints there either. The top 25 table now includes most bowling stalwarts, which should satisfy most readers. The weightage of values and raising the cut-off bar has taken away most of the lesser, shorter-duration bowlers.

  I have added another variable, the average wickets per innspell, which is indicative of the bowler performance. Muralitharan is way ahead of the other bowlers, having taken 3.6 wickets per innspell. Compare the numbers for some of the other greats. Donald - 2.66, Kumble - 2.81, Pollock - 2.30, Warne - 2.83, Lillee - 2.86 and Ambrose - 2.47. It shows what a wonderful wicket-taking bowler Muralitharan is, even if you concede that the bowler at the other end was not always competing with him in taking wickets. Note also that Flintoff is the only bowler in the top-50 whose wickets per innsspell figure is less than two.

  The unfortunate aspect of increasing the cut-off is that this has excluded the pre-World War I all-time greats such as Sydney Barnes, George Lohmann etc. In order to be fair to these great bowlers I have given below a list of five such pre-WW I bowlers.
  

  
  
  Barnes S.F          RFM  Eng   27     48     64.9     67.60   189  3.94
  
  Lohmann G.A         RFM  Eng   18     32     40.2     62.81   112  3.50
  
  Giffen G            ROB  Aus   31     35     43.3     61.86   103  2.94
  
  Briggs J            LSP  Eng   33     42     51.8     61.67   118  2.81
  
  Blythe C            LSP  Eng   19     35     43.0     61.43   100  2.86
  
  

  
  Look at Barnes' wickets per innspell figure - it is higher than Muralitharan's.

  Comments (37)

  February 8, 2008

  Posted by Ananth Narayanan at in Trivia - bowling

  The most consistent bowlers in Tests

  	Shane Bond has never gone wicketless in an innings in Test cricket © Getty Images

  The batsmen tend to get analysed lot more and it is now the turn of Test bowlers. Two not-so-normal measures will be discussed in the next two posts.

  Bowler consistency

  How does one measure a Test bowler's consistency. Complex statistical measures will neither indicate the real consistency nor be understood by all. If I pepper this article with words such as Sigma, Skew, Mean deviation or Variance, I would have lost more than half the readers. What is needed is a cricketing definition of consistency and a simple easy-to-understand methodology which will be understood by all readers.

  What makes a consistent bowler? The answer is easy: one who bowls good spells most of the time. How does one define a good spell? There are many definitions, most of which would be too subjective. The only objective measure we have is the "wickets captured" information. The importance of taking wickets in Test matches is also incorporated in this computation.

  Taking the 1860-plus Tests which have been played so far, on an average a pace bowler takes a wicket every 66 balls, while the strike-rate for a spinner is 80 balls. At the two extremes are George Lohmann, with a strike-rate of 34, and Carl Hooper with a strike-rate (if you can define it thus) of 120. Taking all these factors into consideration, I have taken 66 balls in an innings for the pace bowlers and 78 balls for spinners as base figures to determine whether a bowler has bowled a relevant spell or not.

  First we determine the number of relevant spells, which is defined as an innings in which a bowler has - depending on whether he is a spinner or a fast bowler - bowled at least 78 or 66 balls, or an innings in which the bowler has captured a wicket or more. Then we determine the number of successful spells - the bowling stints in which the bowler has taken at least one wicket. We then derive the Bowler Consistency Index. In ODIs, a wicketless spell, such as Kapil Dev's 7.0-4-4-0 against West Indies could be an outstanding one because of the economy factor, but not in Tests. A bowler such as Bapu Nadkarni in 1964 in Chennai with a spell of 32-27-5-0 would today be booed off, as also Ken Barrington and Brian Bolus, the immobile batsmen.

  Let us see the table. These are current upto the fourth test between Australia and India in Adelaide.
  

  
  
  Bowler Consistency Analysis - Min 30 spells
  
  No Bowler           Bow Team  Mat  <------Spells-----> Consistency
  
                                     Relevant Successful    Index
  
   1. Bond S.E        RFM  Nzl   17      30      30         100.00
  
   2. Jones S.P       RFM  Eng   18      30      30         100.00
  
   3. Reid B.A        LFM  Aus   27      39      38          97.44
  
   4. Muralitharan M  ROB  Slk  118     201     195          97.01
  
   5. Miller C.R      ROB  Aus   18      30      29          96.67
  
   6. Dillon M        RFM  Win   38      55      53          96.36
  
   7. Bedi B.S        LSP  Ind   67     107     103          96.26
  
   8. Barnes S.F      RFM  Eng   27      48      46          95.83
  
   9. Grimmett C.V    RLB  Aus   37      66      63          95.45
  
  10. Briggs J        LSP  Eng   33      42      40          95.24
  
  11. Adcock N.A.T    RF   Saf   26      41      39          95.12
  
  12. Donald A.A      RF   Saf   72     124     117          94.35
  
  13. Blythe C        LSP  Eng   19      35      33          94.29
  
  14. Giffen G        ROB  Aus   31      35      33          94.29
  
  15. Vincent C.L     LSP  Saf   25      35      33          94.29
  
  16. Flintoff A      RFM  Eng   67     101      95          94.06
  
  17. Croft C.E.H     RF   Win   27      50      47          94.00
  
  18. Kumble A        RLB  Ind  125     215     202          93.95
  
  19. Lever J.K       LFM  Eng   21      33      31          93.94
  
  20. Trueman F.S     RF   Eng   67     115     108          93.91
  
  21. Wasim Akram     LFM  Pak  104     161     151          93.79
  
  22. Steyn D.W       RFM  Saf   18      32      30          93.75
  
  23. Tauseef Ahmed   ROB  Pak   34      47      44          93.62
  
  24. Robins R.W.V    RLB  Eng   19      31      29          93.55
  
  25. MacGill S.C.G   RLB  Aus   42      76      71          93.42
  
  

  (Click here for the full table.)

  The two injury-prone speedsters Shane Bond and Simon Jones have bowled 30 successful spells in their career, a 100% record. In fact Bond has the unique distinction of never having gone wicketless in an innings in his entire career: his three sub-11-over spells have also been fruitful. Muralitharan has bowled over 200 spells and has gone wicketless in only six of these, which is the very definition of consistency. Then we have a few vintage greats. Bishan Bedi Allan Donald are in the top 15. Andrew Flintoff, Anil Kumble, Wasim Akram and Stuart MacGill are in the top 25.

  Note the very high degree of consistency of otherwise pedestrian bowlers like Mervyn Dillon, Colin Miller and Tauseef Ahmed.

  Just as a matter of interest, the last five bowlers in this group are listed below. The last two places are filled, as expected, by one part-timer from West Indies, known more for his batting prowess, and an Australian spinner of limited skills.
  

  
  
  Julien B.D         LSP  Win   24    40     27      67.50  
  
  Mackay K.D         RFM  Aus   37    39     26      66.67  
  
  Whittall G.J       RFM  Zim   46    38     25      65.79  
  
  Hooper             ROB  Win  102    99     64      64.65
  
  Bright             SLA  Aus   25    31     20      64.52
  
  

  
  The six unsuccessful spells of Muralitharan are given below. Note the long gap between such rare instances, especially between 1999 and 2006, when he went 55 Tests without missing out even once.
  

  
  
  1306  1995  Pak    17.0  3  53 0
  
  1358  1997  Nzl    33.0  6 136 0
  
  1387  1997  Ind    46.0  9 137 0
  
  1416  1998  Nzl    23.0  9  33 0
  
  1474  1999  Zim    24.0  6  51 0
  
  and after 7 years
  
  1796  2006  Pak    13.0  3  46 0
  
  

  
  In view of the number of comments made, I have tried to answer these in the blog itself.

  1. This is only an "invented" common-sense based analysis. Do not read more into this than that.

  2. If we do a list of triple-centurions, we will have Lawrence Rowe, Bob Cowper and John Edrich in that list. We will not have Tendulkar, Dravid, Ponting and Richards there. Does it make them any less greater batsmen. Take this list like that.

  3. Maybe 30 spells is too low. It shoud be increased to 50 spells. However I could not resist the temptation to include Bond (for his pure career).

  4.What I have written here is a simple definition of consistency which is totally different to strike rate or bowling average or bowling accuracy. If a batsman scores 100 and 0, and another batsman scores 40 and 40, the later would be considered more consistent while the former's average would be higher. Similarly a bowler who has captured 20 wickets in 5 tests at the rate of 4 wickets per test would be considered more consistent than one who captures 8, 0, 8, 0, and 8 wickets even though the later might have captured more wickets at possibly better strike rate.

  5. I have used "spell" to denote the bowling effort during an innings for want of a suitable word. A more apt word might be "Innings analysis".

  6. The next blog will answer some of the questions raised.

  7. A full list of qualifying bowlers will be made available shortly so that readers can check all the bowlers themselves. The list has been mailed individually to readers whose comments indicated a need to look at such a list.

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