Performance Review on World Cup Eve….

With each of the top 8 teams having completed their pre -World Cup ODI schedule, this is where they stand at the moment. This is a reflection of form as well as of basic team strength. The table below, shows the average total scored and conceded over a 50 over innings by each of the 9 teams in the last 5 matches played by each team against each of the other teams (40 matches in all). The Win-Loss columns describes results over these 40 matches, while the last column shows the rating, which corresponds to the February 07 rating in the graph above.

If one considers this statistical preview, then it is clear that Pakistan has been under performing in the last 14-15 months or so of ODI cricket. Australia have been pummeled into the pack by England and New Zealand, while the South Africans look like they are well and truly ahead of the other sides. However, inspite of their form, one cannot help feeling that a pummeling is just around the corner for them as well. Bangladesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe are perfectly capable of springing the odd nasty surprise as well. Add to this the wagaries of the weather in the Caribbean and you have a simmering brew which some teams might find to the liking – the others not.

The most open World Cup field in ODI World Cup history promises to throw up a classic World Cup.

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Batting in difficult conditions – has it really been India’s weakness?

One hears this argument all the time – that India struggle on the bouncy, seaming wickets outside the subcontinent, simply because the batsmen don’t put up enough runs and don’t deliver under pressure. Now, especially in Test cricket, this is not the case. The table below provides a comparison of the runs/wicket scored (S) and conceded (C) by each of the top 8 Test teams in Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies since the year 1990. It shows that India have had one of the better batting line ups in world cricket in those conditions in this period. India have the best runs/wicket record in Australia, England and the West Indies, have reasonable records in New Zealand and South Africa.

What the record reveals more starkly is the poor Indian bowling performances in these nations. They have the worst bowling record bar Sri Lanka or Pakistan (only in SA, elsewhere their record is superb) in each of the 5 countries.

So, it is not the batting which has hurt India overseas, but the lack of fast bowling. The batting has consistently been amongst the best in the world. The story has always been, that in 250 all out conditions, India inevitably ended up conceded 350-400, and in good batting conditions, India always conceded 500+. That left the batsmen with a basically un-winnable situation in almost every test match.

What this line up – with 3 decent pace bowlers (who are at least competitive) in the current team and in recent teams (especially this decade, when India have won 5 Tests in the countries mentioned above, while losing 7), has given India, is the ability to compete on somewhat equal terms with the opposition.

With any other bowling line up, the batting line up available to India in the last 16 years would have featured in many more test wins. That is what has changed this decade.

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Mapping Test Match Progress – I The Ashes 2006-07 Tests at Brisbane and Adelaide

I developed a very simple (not simplistic) method of mapping the progress of a cricket match some time ago. I used it to map One Day games, like this one in the Malaysian triangular series, and have used the principle development which makes this method possible in my Test and ODI ratings.

I write runs and wickets in terms of points. The run average for a Test match is the total runs scored divided by the total wickets fallen. 10 runs make 1 point, therefore 1 wicket is the run average divided by 10. A test match is said to progress with the fall of each wicket. The total points scored by each team is calculated at the fall of each wicket. This is essentially the state of the test match at that point in the test match.

The graphs reveal the extent of Australian dominance at Brisbane. They also reveal that England were in a similarly strong position early in the Australian first innings at Adelaide.

Several important conclusions can be drawn from graphs like these. Conclusions about competitiveness, conclusions about the story of the match. All the twists and turns become apparent. Below is a graph of a closely contest test match consisting of 4 completed innings, the lowest of which was 238 and the highest 286. The final result was a 12 run win for Pakistan.

Competitiveness can be visually assessed by determining the number of times the lines of each team cross. Surges, partnerships, batting collapses, trends etc. can also be visually assessed. In the Chennai Match, the two surges are Afridi’s century and Tendulkar’s century, both of which threatened to break the deadlock, before the spectacular collapse at the end (revealed in the graph as well), sealed Indias fate. All in all, this seems to be a robust method, which i have used in my ratings as well as here.

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Cricinfo’s Statsguru….

Statsguru on Cricinfo.com is one of the best, if not the best stats databases available online. One of the stats in this database has always intrigued me. It is the “bowler/fielder summary” in the list of batting stats. This provides a list of bowlers that a batsman has been dismissed by, and a run average for which this happens. I used to think at first, that when it said that Batsman X averaged Y against Z bowler, it is a measure of the number of runs the batsman has made off bowler Z per dismissal by bowler Z.

Not so. It is in fact, the number of runs made by a batsman in innings when he was dismissed by a particular bowler. So it does not provide a measure of a bowler’s mastery of a batsman. Take the example of Glenn McGrath and Sachin Tendulkar. McGrath has dismissed Tendulkar 6 times in Test cricket, and Tendulkar’s average against him is 22.16. This is Tendulkar’s average in all the innings in which he has been dismissed by McGrath. If you consider all the test matches that Tendulkar and McGrath have both featured (which obviously includes all the innings in which McGrath has bowled at Tendulkar in a Test match), Tendulkar’s scores have been

11, 0, 61, 0, 116, 52, 45,
4, 76, 65, 10, 10, 126,
17, 8, 2, 5, 55

So Tendulkar’s average in innings where McGrath bowled at him is 36.8.

The point is, that the 22.16 average appears in Tendulkar’s statsguru list, not McGrath’s. 22.16 is not a measure of Tendulkar’s performance against McGrath, 36.8 is. Similarly, McGrath’s “batsmen dismissed” results should list 36.8 vs Tendulkar. If the statistic is to be a real McGrath v Tendulkar statistic, then it must list the number of runs Tendulkar has made off the bowling of Glenn McGrath (in his innings against Australia) and divide that figure with the number of times McGrath has dismissed Tendulkar. That would be the truest McGrath v Tendulkar statistic. The current statistical measure is inaccurate, assuming that the purpose of the statistic is to provide a measure of a batsman’s performance against a particular bowler. This is important because statistics invariably cause the reader to find conclusions why they do not actually support, but seem to support.

Brian Lara has a 41.40 average in 15 innings in the “bowler’s dismissed by” result against Glenn McGrath’s name. In Test Matches where both Lara and McGrath have featured, Lara’s scores are as follows:

65, 9, 88, 43, 24, 14*,
65, 0, 26, 44, 2, 1, 2,
2, 9, 78, 132, 62, 3,
213, 8, 153*, 100, 7 , 0,
4, 0, 17, 182, 39, 16, 0,
35, 28, 14, 42, 68, 60,
30, 14, 13, 45, 226, 17

Lara has made 2000 runs in 42 complete innings in Tests where McGrath has played, an average of 47.16.

Lara’s average against Australia is 52.12 over 30 Tests, Tendulkar’s is 53.11 over 18 Test matches.

McGrath v Lara should read 47.16 (52.12)
McGrath v Tendulkar should read 36.80 (53.11)

It is clear that McGrath has had more success against Tendulkar than he has had against Lara. It is also clear that his difference is not as much as 22.18 vs 41.40 suggests. What it also reveals is the disparity between the number of Test innings that Tendulkar and Lara have played against McGrath (16 for Tendulkar vs 44 for Lara).

Cricinfo needs to revise this statistic in their statsguru in my view….

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