ODI bowlers: how they stand

[Migara]

When we compare bowling we look at average, Strike rate (SR) and Ecomomy Rate (ER), and tend to compare them. But the game has changed so much, the Ecomomy rates have risen. The following trends were studied in ODI bowlers stats. The qualification was 3000 balls bowled.







Averages and ERs are on the rise and SRs are coming down. But the SR lowering is not much compared to changes in averages and ERs.

What does this mean? ER of 4.0 in 2005 is better than Er of 4.0 in 1985, Avg of 27 today is better than that of 27 in 1985, and SR of 40 in 1985 better than a SR of 40 today. This may due to true betterment of some aspects of game. And equally it may not be.

[KiWiNiNjA]

So what you are saying is.......

Shane Bond is awesome?

[Migara]

This warrents an adjustment to the ER,SR and AVG in every ODI player. Each stat of the player was compared to average stats of all the bowlers at that time to gain a comarison. Then all stats were transformed using Average, ER and SR for all the bowlers ever bowled in ODIs.

Adjusted Strike Rates

Pos	Player			Adjusted SR
1	SE Bond (NZ)		27.5
2	B Lee (Aus)		28.9
3	Shoaib Akhtar (Pak)	29.7
4	Waqar Younis (Pak)	30.0
5	NW Bracken (Aus)	30.0
6	Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak)	30.0
7	AA Donald (SA)		30.9
8	C Pringle (NZ)		31.3
9	MF Maharoof (SL)	31.5
10	M Ntini (SA)		32.2
11	AB Agarkar (India)	32.7
12	BP Patterson (WI)	32.8
13	DK Lillee (Aus)		33.0
14	IK Pathan (India)	33.3
15	CRD Fernando (SL)	33.4
16	GD McGrath (Aus)	33.7
17	DJ Bravo (WI)		33.7
18	DW Fleming (Aus)	33.9
19	AME Roberts (WI)	34.0
20	A Flintoff (Eng)	34.3

Now it has only one spinner (Saqlain) in top 20! Bracken, Maharoof and Fernado surprised me there with there SRs. We may have to think unlike in tests the difference of Srs of spinners and pacemen are much much wider.

[Migara]

Adjusted Bowling Average

Pos	Player			ABA
1	SE Bond (NZ)		19.3
2	J Garner (WI)		21.5
3	NW Bracken (Aus)	21.8
4	Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak)	22.4
5	GD McGrath (Aus)	22.5
6	AA Donald (SA)		22.7
7	B Lee (Aus)		22.8
8	Shoaib Akhtar (Pak)	23.4
9	M Muralitharan (SL)	23.5
10	AME Roberts (WI)	23.7
11	MF Maharoof (SL)	24.1
12	M Ntini (SA)		24.3
13	MA Holding (WI)		24.5
14	DK Lillee (Aus)		24.5
15	Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ)	24.7
16	SM Pollock (SA)		24.8
17	Waqar Younis (Pak)	25.0
18	Wasim Akram (Pak)	25.0
19	A Flintoff (Eng)	25.3
20	Abdur Razzak (Ban)	25.3

The surprise packages are Maharoof and Abdur Razzaq. And shows how good Bond is. He tops the SR table as well.

[Migara]

Adjusted Economy rates

These are the guys who hated giving away runs.

Pos	Player			AER
1	J Garner (WI)		3.55
2	SM Pollock (SA)		3.59
3	CEL Ambrose (WI)	3.62
4	PS de Villiers (SA)	3.70
5	Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ)	3.80
6	M Muralitharan (SL)	3.83
7	MA Holding (WI)		3.83
8	GD McGrath (Aus)	3.85
9	RGD Willis (Eng)	3.88
10	GR Larsen (NZ)		3.89
11	P Utseya (Zim)		3.91
12	MD Marshall (WI)	3.92
13	Abdur Razzak (Ban)	4.00
14	AME Roberts (WI)	4.01
15	PR Reiffel (Aus)	4.03
16	EJ Chatfield (NZ)	4.03
17	CA Walsh (WI)		4.03
18	SE Bond (NZ)		4.03
19	TM Alderman (Aus)	4.05
20	Harbhajan Singh (India)	4.06

Now this contains lot of spinners. The surprise packages are Prosper Utseya and Abdur Razzak.

In all these tables Garner seems to be in the top 5. So without much doubt we can conclude that Garner was the best ODI bowler. Murali and Saqlain also appear in top 20, but not Warne, Kumble or Vettori. It's fair to think that Saqlain and Murali are some way ahead of Warne, Kumble and Vettori in ODIs.

[Prince EWS]

Razzak's an under-rated bowler, but his average is helped a ridiculous amount of help by games against poor teams.

In games against Bermuda, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, Scotland and Zimbabwe he has 58 wickets @ 18.77 with an economy rate of 3.58. Against everyone else he has 39 wickets @ 35.79 with an economy rate of 4.74. He's ODI standard, but he's not world class.

It's not really a surprise that he's on that list of top adjusted bowling averages, as he'd be on the list of top non-adjusted bowling averages as well. Neither factor in the poor standard of opposition that has featured in a very high percentage of his ODIs.

[Goughy]

Very nice correlation on the econ graph.

[Migara]

Originally Posted by KiWiNiNjA

So what you are saying is.......

Shane Bond is awesome?

Bingo!

[Richard]

TBH, I'm just happy splitting the game into 1970s\1980s and 1990s\2000s. In the former, an economy-rate under 4 was a basic requirement for a serious bowler; from the 1990s, it's been the sole preserve of the most outstanding performers.

[Somerset]

Interesting that Prosper Utseya is rated the 11th most prudent ODI bowler of all time based on the adjustments. Good to see Bond with a magnificant ranking in both the average and strike rate tables.

[Richard]

Prosper Utseya is an excellent OD bowler. Such a shame he'll almost certainly never get the chance to represent a serious ODI team.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Richard

Prosper Utseya is an excellent OD bowler. Such a shame he'll almost certainly never get the chance to represent a serious ODI team.

I reckon he'd have significantly different figures if he played for one though. Something resembling an average of 35 and an economy rate of 4.5 for mine.

[Somerset]

I agree that hes very good at keeping runs down, just thought that 11th of all time was a bit surprising.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Somerset

I agree that hes very good at keeping runs down, just thought that 11th of all time was a bit surprising.

As I hinted at in my previous post, the fact that he plays for Zimbabwe both flatters his economy rate and hampers his average. He's respected as a decent bowler by opposition batsmen and bowls pretty damn accurately. Rarely have batsmen bothered taking any real risks against him because they don't need to - the other bowlers leak all the runs.

I'm not saying he'd average 25 or go at 5.2 in another team, but the 11st best "restrictor" of all time flatters him greatly.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

I reckon he'd have significantly different figures if he played for one though. Something resembling an average of 35 and an economy rate of 4.5 for mine.

I'd not want to make predictions. He'd certainly be likely to be doing less well than he has done in games that are (ridiclously) classified as ODIs in his career to date.

But bowlers like Kumara Dharmasena have shown that, other than on complete concrete runways with tiny boundaries, bowlers of that ilk can be great successes.