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All time bowling ratings (Statistical ranking by SS/AS)

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
All time bowling ratings (Statistical ranking by Silentstriker/aussie tragic)

Per this post, I've decided to rank the bowlers. This is purely based on the statistics, and it also includes the ICC rating, which incorporates things like the quality of opposing batsmen, etc.

If you want a specific bowler ranked, let me know, and I just have to input his stats into the spreadsheet. I ranked eight bowlers to get started...and here are the results:

Note: A rating of 100 based on this criteria implies the 'ideal' bowler (not 'perfect' because you can theoretically get >100 rating, but 'ideal').

Top 20

  1. Marshall (97.23)
  2. McGrath (94.59)
  3. Donald (94.50)
  4. Ambrose (94.25)
  5. Trueman (94.20)
  6. Garner (93.605)
  7. Waqar (93.597)
  8. Hadlee (93.50)
  9. Davidson (93.46)
  10. Imran (91.48)
  11. Lillee (90.44)
  12. Holding (89.49)
  13. Pollock (88.79)
  14. Lindwall (88.67)
  15. Miller (87.77)
  16. Hall (87.12)
  17. Akram (86.71)
  18. Hall (86.56)
  19. Walsh (86.17)
  20. Pathan (71.95)

Anyway, thoughts? Ideas? Remember, this is based purely on stats, but what stats count the most is based on opinion, and this isn't supposed to be the end all and be all of all bowler rankings. Special thanks to aussie tragic for coming up the idea and some of the formulas.
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Code:
Stats	McGrath	Lillee	Marshall Ambrose Hadlee	Pathan	Khan	Akram	Trueman
Ave.	21.66	23.92	20.95	20.99	22.3	30.79	22.81	23.62	21.58
Econ	2.51	2.76	2.69	2.31	2.63	33.31	2.55	2.59	2.62
S/R	51.78	52.02	46.77	54.58	50.85	55.8	53.75	54.65	49.44
Wkts	4.54	5.07	4.64	4.13	5.01	3.64	4.11	3.98	4.58
TO	40.3	36.1	33.2	36.3	36.7	47.3	35.4	31.9	33.9
MO	34.8	36.6	40.4	36	33.4	34.1	35.9	33.1	34.5
ICC	914	884	910	912	909	650	922	830	898

Ratings									
Ave	32.32	29.26	33.41	33.35	31.39	22.73	30.69	29.64	32.44
Econ	4.98	4.53	4.65	5.41	4.75	0.38	4.90	4.83	4.77
S/R	19.31	19.22	21.38	18.32	19.67	17.92	18.60	18.30	20.23
Wkts	4.54	5.07	4.64	4.13	5.01	3.64	4.11	3.98	4.58
TO	5.04	4.51	4.15	4.54	4.59	5.91	4.43	3.99	4.24
MO	4.35	4.58	5.05	4.50	4.18	4.26	4.49	4.14	4.31
ICC	24.05	23.26	23.95	24.00	23.92	17.11	24.26	21.84	23.63
									
Final:	94.59	90.44	97.23	94.25	93.50	71.95	91.48	86.71	94.20
Full numbers for those interested, rounded to two decimal places.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
I think no matter what formula you use to work out the top bowlers in history it will always throw up the same nucleus of names although not necessarily in the same order.
By the end of his career I would be surprised if history judges Pathan quite that kindly, but only time will tell.
 

aussie tragic

International Captain
Okay, as transferred from another thread (Since SS isn't promoting GM-OLAS anymore :)) here are the agreed formulas for establishing the Top 20 Pace Bowlers

35 points for Ave (20.00 is ideal) ---------------------- (700/Ave = 35)
25 points for ICC Rating (950.0 is ideal) ------------- (Best ever/38 = 25)
20 points for SR (45.0 is ideal) ------------------------- (900/SR = 20)
5 points for Econ (2.20 is ideal) ------------------------ (11/econ = 5)
5 points for Wkts/Match (5.0 is ideal) ----------------- (W/M = 5)
5 points for Top Order Wkts (40.0% is ideal) -------- (% Wkts 1-3 / 8 = 5)
5 points for Middle Order Wkts (40.0% is ideal) ---- (% Wkts 4-7 / 8 = 5)

* The “ideal” is obviously set as a very rare mark achieved by few *

And the Top 20 Pace-Bowlers (Min 150 wkts) are:

1. Barnes: 109.5
2. Marshall: 94.6
3. McGrath: 92.0
4. Donald: 91.9
5. Ambrose: 91.8
6. Garner: 91.7
7. Trueman: 91.6
8. Davidson: 91.1
9. Hadlee: 91.0
10. Younis: 90.9
11. Imran: 89.1
12. Lillee: 88.0
13. Holding: 87.0
14. S. Pollock: 86.5
15. Lindwall: 86.4
16. Miller: 85.5
17. Bishop: 84.8
18. Akram: 84.3
19. Hall: 84.2
20. Walsh: 83.9
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I use the same weight but slightly different formulas:

Average: 700/Average (20 is ideal)
Econ: 12.5/Econ (2.5 is ideal)
S/R: 1000/SR (50 is ideal)
Wkts: Wkts
Top Order: 5*(%/40), 40% is ideal
Middle Order: 5*(%/40), 40% is ideal
ICC Rating: Rating/38 (950 is ideal)
 

aussie tragic

International Captain
silentstriker said:
I use the same weight but slightly different formulas:

Average: 700/Average (20 is ideal)
Econ: 12.5/Econ (2.5 is ideal)
S/R: 1000/SR (50 is ideal)
Wkts: Wkts
Top Order: 5*(%/40), 40% is ideal
Middle Order: 5*(%/40), 40% is ideal

ICC Rating: Rating/38 (950 is ideal)
I dropped the Econ to 2.2 as I found that 2.5 wasn't that rare (Davidson has 1.97), while your 40% on wkts % is probably closer to the so called unlikely result. (I've now amended my post above to 40% for wkts ratio and only Akram goes up one spot to 18th)

Note: My intent was that it should be extremely unlikely to get a 100 score, but Barnes the freak went and blew the curve :wacko:
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
aussie tragic said:
I dropped the Econ to 2.2 as I found that 2.5 wasn't that unachievable, while your 40% on wkts % is probably closer to the so called unachievable result.

Note: My intent was that it was impossible to get a 100 score, but Barnes the freak went and blew the curve :wacko:
McGrath has 40.3% percentage top three wickets, for example. I think of it as 'ideal', not really 'unachievable'. Several bowlers have an S/R of less than 50, so thats not unachievable either. So none it would work if your idea was 100 to be unachievable. I just think of 100 as an ideal bowler, so I like the 2.5 econ, 50 S/R, and 40% top order wickets.
 

aussie tragic

International Captain
silentstriker said:
McGrath has 40.3% percentage top three wickets, for example. I think of it as 'ideal', not really 'unachievable'. Several bowlers have an S/R of less than 50, so thats not unachievable either. So none it would work if your idea was 100 to be unachievable. I just think of 100 as an ideal bowler, so I like the 2.5 econ, 50 S/R, and 40% top order wickets.
Yeah, so does Wes Hall 40.1% and Bob Willis an amazing 41.2% for top 3, while Marshall has 40.4 for 4-7. Perhaps unachiveable is the wrong words, extremely rare is better and as Younis has an SR of 43, I set the SR at 45. Doen't matter much either way :)

Edit: Actually, I like SR of 50 better as it pushes GM down to 4th :)
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Added Alan Donald, Sydney Barnes, Waqar Younis to mine.

And Barnes just shattered all bowling criteria. Lillee is tittering on the edge of the top 10.
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Added Pollock, Lindwall, Miller.

EDIT: And also added Bishop, Hall, Walsh.

There we have our top 20. Surprised @ Imran being knocked out of the top 10. Seems Lilian Thompson may have been right about that after all (though Lillee is out of it as well).
 
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The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Guys, this is fascinating - thanks for putting this together. Barnes, even when you don't do the formulas and look at wickets/test and average, is clearly a freak - he played in an era when ball dominated bat, of course, but still outshone his contemporaries who bowled in the same conditions to an almost embarrassing degree. I'd be interested in the score Lohmann, Spofforth and Turner would get in this study - though they played in such bowler friendly conditions that the ratings (particularly for Lohmann) might be skewed to an unrealistic degree.

But moving to the modern era, not only do we have confirmation of the greatness of Marshall and McGrath, but perhaps it's time to give Allan Donald the credit he deserves? I've always rated Donald highly, and unquestionably rate him among my top 20 pace bowlers of all time, but based on these criteria perhaps he should be moving much closer to my top 10...

I may have to rethink some stuff.

Again - kudos on this analysis. Top effort.
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Incidentally - there's a slightly difference between SS and aussie tragic rankings. Which one is "official"? ;)
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
The Sean said:
Incidentally - there's a slightly difference between SS and aussie tragic rankings. Which one is "official"? ;)
Neither - we used the same weight but our formulas differed slightly (he used 2.25 econ as base, I used 2.5, for example). You can pick one ;).
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I am going to remove Barnes as he is a statistical anomaly. Lohmann is another one - he scores a totally ridiculous 140, making him insanely ahead of anyone on the list.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
There is no point in having a list based on stats and then removing anyone you don't agree with, it's not as if there's money at steak.:unsure:
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Spoforth (101.42), Turner (106.35), Lohmann (140, wtf?) completely are off the charts.

I removed them because they played in an era so different, I don't think the statistics are really the same. I think a separate list of pre-1920 players might be whats needed.
 

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