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Standardised Test Bowling Averages Across Time

Goughy

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Sobers
Test Av = 34.03
Standardised Av = 30.22

and

Donald
Test Av = 22.25
Standardised Av = 21.33
 
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Matt79

Matt79

Global Moderator
Great effort by Goughy. No methodology is ever going to be perfect, but given you'll have to make some generalisations and assumptions in any model, this seems to be a pretty reasonable setup.

Lindwall, O'Reilly, and Shaun Pollock please?
 
allout

allout

Cricket Spectator
Goughy said:
If anyones interested just post a player and Ill try to do their standardised average.

Its an effort to make averages form different time periods more comparable. Obviously though, there is no perfect way of doing it.
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hey, good work done.
can u tell me Standardised Test Bowling Avg. of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Imran Khan, C Walsh.
Thanks in advance.
 
Prince EWS

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
wpdavid said:
I'm not sure about the no draws bit. Sometimes drawn games say something about the ability or consistency of the bowler.
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Agreed. Also, once you remove the draws, the weighting should change. It's quite likely the the global bowling averages of the periods in result games would all be lower, so because they are the only games being considered, the weighting would realistically be a different one than what it quoted.
 
Perm

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Wow, this sort of thing is waaay over my head. An interesting way of comparing bowling averages though, good stuff Goughy.
 
Goughy

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
wpdavid said:
I think this is a fantasic idea, albeit with a few minor issues.

I'm not sure about the no draws bit. Sometimes drawn games say something about the ability or consistency of the bowler. Or about the lack of support from the rest of the attack. Also, haven't there been 4 day test matches (or even 3?) which made a draw more likely?

The other thing is that it doesn't fully take into account where bowlers actually played their test cricket. So Lillee, for instance, benefits from hardly playing any tests in the subcontinent, whereas McGrath went there and did well. I don't think Trueman played a single tets there, either.

I suppose fully scientific approach would look at the global averages in each of the countries where they played in each period, but that might take some doing.
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Prince EWS said:
Agreed. Also, once you remove the draws, the weighting should change. It's quite likely the the global bowling averages of the periods in result games would all be lower, so because they are the only games being considered, the weighting would realistically be a different one than what it quoted.
Click to expand...
Obviously I think removing draws is absolutely essential when trying to standardise such a thing. Games where 1 team is capable of taking 20 wickets are comparable across time and continents. They are played effectively on the same thing, a result wicket. Unfortunately, including draws makes any realistic comparison futile as 101 other factors become involved and it is impossible to standardise.

Comparing players with a set and level criteria and is the only possible way to go. By removing draws an attempt is being made to level the playing field and get comparissons of players on similar types of tracks (ie a wicket on which a team is capable of losing 20 wickets on)

Also the Global average does include that for draws. Only the players average doesn't.
 
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Prince EWS

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Goughy said:
Obviously I think removing draws is absolutely essential when trying to standardise such a thing. Games where 1 team is capable of taking 20 wickets are comparable across time and continents. They are played effectively on the same thing, a result wicket.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but you're effectively accounting for them twice with the global bowling average adjustment. In era with lots of draws, the global bowling average will be higher - so you'd account for such by removing the draws, but then account for it again by lowering their average by a figure which was quite possibly only a result of the matches you didn't include anyway.

Goughy said:
Also the Global average does include that for draws. Only the players average doesn't.
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Exactly, which is a real problem. You have to do it to either both or neither, or your data becomes inconsistent. I don't have any problem with you removing the draws, but if you do, you'd have to remove them from the global averages as well or you'd get inconsistencies.
 
Goughy

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Prince EWS said:
. In era with lots of draws, the global bowling average will be higher - so you'd account for such by removing the draws.
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No, the global bowling average is at its highest in the 2000s and there are fewer draws now than in any previous period.

It certainly isnt accounted for twice.
 
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