It Figures

Extrapolating high scores in Tests

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:29:51 +0000

Sanath Jayasuriya's 340 was the cornerstone of Sri Lanka's 952 for 6 declared, the highest total in Test cricket © Getty Images

When comparing the biggest team scores in Tests, the results can be a bit messy. This is because cricket often does not allow teams to carry their innings to completion, and big innings are often truncated by declaration or lack of time. We know for sure that the highest innings in a Test match is Sri Lanka’s 952 for 6 in 1997, but an interesting side question would ask if this is also the most ‘extraordinary’ score in Tests. For example, we know that the West Indies once made a score of 790 for 3. Where might such an innings have gone if it had continued? Can we compare it to Sri Lanka’s record? While we can never know for sure, it is possible to make a statistical estimate. The approach is to look at the way that innings naturally progress over a wide range of scores. Of course, there is plenty of variation between innings [part of cricket’s appeal], but there are statistical patterns. A team that is, say, five wickets down, will on average add a certain number of runs if the innings is played to completion.

The night-watchman story - Part II

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:13:36 +0000

Matthew Hoggard has played some vital night-watchman innings © Getty Images

In the first part I looked at a methodology for determining night-watchman situations and looked at individual performances. In this concluding part, I have done a team analysis and come to a conclusion whether the night-watchman experiment is a success or not. I have also looked at readers' comments.

There was a suggestion to use the day-end player data which is available in text scorecards. While accepting that this is available in most scorecards, I have to express the inability to do so at the current stage because I have to download quite a few scorecards, do a text-based data mining to extract this data, do some complex parsing work and link this data to the player and fall-of-wicket data already available. This is certainly possible. However, this will take too much time and resources and it is not possible to do this at this instance. Possibly at a later date.

The best night-watchman in Tests - Part I

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:10:00 +0000

Jason Gillespie averages 116 balls per stint as night-watchman © AFP

After a light-weight ODI related post last time around (The "Unfulfilled team innings in ODIs"), I am now reverting to Test matches and a considerably more complex analysis.

The night-watchman concept in Test cricket is a paradox. A batsman of far lesser ability is sent to bat in place of a far more accomplished batsman, in possibly inferior batting conditions. The better batsman is preserved to bat when conditions are better. But this is as much part of Test cricket as white clothing, follow-on, new ball after 80 overs et al and deserves an in-depth look.

This time I have taken a conscious decision to do this post in two parts. The first part will deal with the individual batsmen performances while the second one will analyse the whole night-watchman canvas by team and by period. In addition, I will take a view on whether the night-watchman concept has been successful. I will also incorporate relevant readers' suggestions.

'Unfulfilled' team innings in ODI matches

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:30:38 +0000

Ramiz Raja scored an unbeaten 102 off 158 balls as Pakistan limped to 220 for 2 and lost to West Indies by ten wickets in 1992 © Getty Images

Continuing the ODI analysis work, here is another aspect. What do I mean by "unfulfilled" innings? An example, from an imaginary match will suffice. England: 250 for 2 in 50.0 overs lost to Australia: 251 for 7 in 49.3 overs A single line summary of a match. It conveys a lot. We do not need any further match or player information to sense that there was something wrong as far as the England innings was concerned. What were the England batsmen thinking? Whoever be the Australian bowlers, should they not have gone on to score, say, 270 for 6 or for that matter, 290 for 9. Especially as the Australian bowlers seemed to have taken very few wickets, indicating a batsmen-friendly pitch and/or lack of penetration. Let us ignore the current favourite broadcasters' jargon, "no bounce", "two-paced", "not coming on to bat", "ball stopping" et al. The bottom line, especially in view of the Australian reply, was that English batsmen messed up, and messed up big time.

Why Australia's 2001 line-up is the best ODI side- A follow-up

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:37:49 +0000

Lower-order batsmen like Daniel Vettori get more recognition for their batting skills in this methodology © Getty Images

The original article received nearly 200 responses. Unfortunately not all could be posted, mainly because quite a few responses contained readers' own selection of their all-time best ODI teams. This was outside the theme of the article and I can assure the readers that they will have a chance later to come out with their views on this topic as well. Some posts were also rejected because they contained offensive language and/or referred to other responders in negative terms. I must thank the readers for the interest they have shown. I must confess that I keep learning new things because of the interaction. There are new perspectives which had escaped me the first time around. I have gone through all the responses. I have adopted the following three significant improvements. There were a few other valid suggestions which have not been implemented. These are summarised at the end, with my reasons for not implementing them.

Why Australia's 2001 line-up is the best ODI side

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:25:46 +0000

Joel Garner averaged 18.85 in ODIs, the lowest among bowlers with at least 50 wickets © PA Sports

Post-Note: "I urge readers to read and understand the reasoning behind the analysis. It is NOT to determine the best ODI team across years or teams. Rather it is to determine the best team that walked on to the field, as 11 players. Many comments have been made ignoring this fact. So much so, no comment which lists the readers' favourite team will be published. Let me add that over 50 comments have gone unpublished because of this." For my next post, I wanted to stay away from Test cricket, on which most of the recent It Figures posts have been. At the other extreme we have Twenty20, which has had an all-pervading presence on almost all the channels on television, and the web and print media as well. That leaves the often-ridiculed form of cricket, one-day internationals. I never thought I would say this, but I have already started longing for ODI cricket. This time I have taken for analysis a topic which I had looked at for Tests, and am now adapting to ODIs: how strong is an ODI team and how do the teams compare over the 37 years of ODI cricket? Where does the 2007 Australian team stand when compared to the West Indian teams of early 1980s, or for that matter the Australian teams of the late 1990s? It has turned out to be a fascinating study.

So near yet so far

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:24:58 +0000

Brian Lara: the one batsman who managed to add another 100 after getting a triple hundred © Mid-day

When Virender Sehwag strode out on the fourth day of the recent Test against South Africa in Chennai, he already had 309 runs to his name. There would have been a great many fans wondering how far he could go: could he top Brian Lara’s 400? Statistics, however, indicate the fans were very likely to be disappointed [as they were]. The truth is that while 309 and 400 sound like reasonably similar scores, they are not. In fact, it is harder for a batsman to add another 100 runs if he has already made 300, than it is at almost any other score.

Sensational sessions

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:38:29 +0000

Jack Hobbs made his highest Test score of 211 as England hammered 503 runs on a single day at Lord's in 1924 © The Cricketer International

Test cricket has changed in many ways over the decades; to the statistician, one of the most striking is the speed at which it is played. By that, I don’t mean the speed of bowling or scoring, though these are important, but simply the sheer amount of cricket that gets played in any given hour or day. Today, it is rare to see even 90 overs bowled in six hours, but in days gone by, 140 or even 150 overs in a day was commonplace. On the second day of the Lord’s Test of 1946, India and England wheeled through no fewer than 161 six-ball overs. For spectators, it must have been rich entertainment when batsmen were on the attack. One of the most productive innings came at Lord’s in 1924, when England put South Africa’s bowlers to the sword, scoring 503 runs on the second day, for just two wickets, in less than five-and-a-half hours. England scored 200 runs before lunch and another 223 between lunch and tea. While 200 or more in one session is rare enough, keeping it up for two sessions in a row appears to be unique.

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

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:34:41 +0000

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.

The bowlers who took the most high-quality wickets

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:16:20 +0000

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.

Hanging in there after a hundred

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:58:07 +0000

It is well known that some batsmen are better than others when it comes to going on to very big scores after getting a start. The differences between individuals can be surprising; for an extreme recent example look at two of today’s top opening batsmen, Matthew Hayden and Virender Sehwag. A comparison of the last 10 Tests centuries for each batsman shows a remarkable contrast.

Bowler consistency analysis - a follow-up

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:49:16 +0000

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.

The most consistent bowlers in Tests

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:22:00 +0000

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.

Extreme batting - fastest and slowest innings in Tests

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:24:43 +0000

What are the fastest and slowest Test innings of all time? A simple question like this is actually tricky, thanks to the extreme range of possible scores. Comparing innings large and small, based on scoring speed alone, is unsatisfactory. For instance, Adam Gilchrist’s 102 off 59 balls in 2006 was considerably faster that Nathan Astle’s 222 off 168 balls in 2002; both were freakish innings, but which was the more remarkable? One way to answer this is by measuring how far each innings deviates from normal innings of similar size. To do this, we take every innings of a given size – in terms of runs scored – calculate the average (or mean) balls faced, and then calculate the standard deviation, which is a measure of the spread or variability of the data. We can then give the most exceptional innings a z-score (the number of standard deviations from the mean) which becomes a measure of how extraordinary the innings were.

The best batsmen at each position

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:44:02 +0000

My blog post from January 9 has received a fair number of comments. Some of the readers have raised relevant queries and points which deserve a response. Here is my attempt to answer them, and also check out the best batsmen at each position. The opening-position conundrum A couple of readers have suggested that the two openers be allotted a number other than 1.00. The two suggestions offered are 1.5 or 2.0 for both openers. Both suggestions have their merits. 1.5 is more correct since the total for the two batsmen comes to 3.0 which is the sum of 1 and 2. However it does not look good as 1.0 or 2.0 would do. Allotting 2.0 to both batsmen is probably the better solution since it allows one to maintain continuity in numbers from 2.0 to 11.0. The other major benefit is that when an opener bats at 3.0, the variance will be a more correct 1.0 than the somewhat bloated 2.0 as is currently the case. Hence I have decided to allot both openers 2.0 and re-do the tables.