Eras in Test Cricket

[Days of Grace]

At the moment, I have an idea for adusting batting and bowling averages in the history of test cricket.

One must first get the batting and bowling averages for each team for each 'era', and then adjust a batsmen's or bowler's averages by those team's averages he was playing against.

But, I need to separate the 'eras' in test cricket. And easy way is to do by decade, but this produces a few anomolies.

Rather, I want to separate the eras into times the best teams and worst teams were most noticable.

I thought about this:
1877-1899 - until the end of the English tour of South Africa
1899-1914- Australian Ashes tour of England to start of the Great War
1920-1939: era of flat pitches and new teams being introduced (too long??)
1945-1954
1955-1964
1965-1974
1975-1984
1985-1994
1995-2004
2005-

Ten year blocks after WWII. However, it could be easily changed, e.g. 1945-1960, then 1960-1970 (until South Africa's isolation), etc.

For the present day, things started to change around 2003, i.e. Zimbabwe were substantially weaker after this point and the last of the great bowlers were all but gone.

Your thoughts on test cricket eras, esp. from our cricket historians ?

 

[Perm]

September 2001 onwards would be the current one IMO.

 

[Richard]

I wouldn't complain much at the periods up to WW2. Afterwards I'd probably go:
1946-1969 (it's a while, but I think 10 years is too short).
1970-2001 (that's August 2001 as well, not January).
2001-current.

You could maybe go 1946-1964 and 1964-2001 too.

But for mine it's absolutely essential to get one period starting in September 2001, as alluded to above. Whether you agree on the causes or not, there's irrefutably an explosion of scoring which irrefutably started exactly then.

 

[Perm]

I thought September was when the pitches became flatter and the bowling standards worsened?

 

[Jono]

September 2001 onwards would be the current one IMO.

Al Qaeda changed the face of cricket?

 

[Richard]

Also Bangladesh and post-2003 Zimbabwe are a tricky case, as there was a weak team (New Zealand) who were weaker for far, far, far longer in year terms, but who played less in 5 years than Bangladesh do in 1.

 

[Richard]

I thought September was when the pitches became flatter and the bowling standards worsened?

So do I, but some refuse to believe this, preferring to take the view that batsmen in general simply got better by some magic coincidence.

 

[Richard]

Al Qaeda changed the face of cricket?

It really is a borderline alarming coincidence.

(And TBF, there's one or two little things that you could argue made some amount of impact - most notably on Pakistan)

 

[stumpski]

I often use 1970 as a cut-off date. Not just the disappearance of South Africa - and obviously, the end of a decade - but also the emergence of several major talents - Lillee, Chappell, Willis, Marsh, Gavaskar, Zaheer among them - who were still at the top of the game a decade later.

 

[Perm]

So what actually happened in September 2001 to trigger the 'explosion of scoring', as you call it?

 

[Richard]

I often use 1970 as a cut-off date. Not just the disappearance of South Africa - and obviously, the end of a decade - but also the emergence of several major talents - Lillee, Chappell, Willis, Marsh, Gavaskar, Zaheer among them - who were still at the top of the game a decade later.

And possibly more significantly still, the start of the covered wickets era in the UK.

 

[Richard]

So what actually happened in September 2001 to trigger the 'explosion of scoring', as you call it?

As I said - some bowlers had just retired, a few went from good to poor and retired at some point that season. Pitches in my view irrefutably went from widely varied to very, very often offering very little to seam or spin.

And yes, perhaps one or two batsmen got slightly better at roughly that time. But too many did so so enormously at the exact same time to make me believe any of them deserve all the credit for the vast rise in their averages.

 

[Goughy]

These are the eras I used here

Methodology
Break the history of Test cricket into smaller groups and work out the 'global' Test bowling average for that period.

19th C- 22.38 Global bowling average

Pre WW1- 26.15 Global bowling average

Inter War Years- 33.33 Global bowling average

1945-75- 31.80 Global bowling average

75-90- 32.56 Global bowling average

1990s- 31.87 Global bowling average

2000s- 34.38 Global bowling average

 

[SJS]

It is statistically easier to divide eras by decades but its much better to have the major eras depending upon other important factors.

1.Pre Golden Age (1977 to 1994) : : This is an era of comparatively poor bating conditions and un/under prepared wickets. The bating averages were generally low. It can also be called The WG Era.

2.The Golden Age (1895 to 1914) : This is the era when wickets improved and so did batting averages. Bowling was still of high quality. So the contests were very even between bat and ball. This can also be called the Hobbs Era.

3. Inter-war Era (1919 to 1939) : The era saw batting dominate as never before with excellent batting conditions. It can also be called the Bradman Era.

4. Post War Era (1945-1970) : The cricket started after the war with most of the great players in the evening of their careers. The world had lost some of its best bowlers. Bradman dominated the first three years and there was some good cricket till the early fifties and then more and more defensive tactics came into the game and long boring innings started driving the crowds away. The bright spot was provided by the West Indians under Worrell and to an extent by Australians under Benaud but by and large the captains of England (almost all of them), those like Lawry from Australia, those from the new entrants to Test cricket from India, Pakistan and NewZealand - but most of all the English, really drove the spectators away. Lots of slow runs were scored and unattractive cricket held sway. Giving birth to the limited overs cricket towards the end of this era. I prefer to call it the dull era of cricket though if, like the earlier ones, we want to associate with an all time great, it has to be the Sobers era.

5. The Modern Era (1970 to 1989) : The one day game, first in the form of the Gillette cup in England, onto the international matches brought the spectators back to cricket fields. It also brought the greatest crisis in the game since bodyline in the form of the Packer Issue. The limited overs game slowly but steadily started influencing the techniques of the batsmen and improving strike rates. Stroke play became more aggressive and innovation became more acceptable. Out fielding standards reached unprecedented levels and fielding got more importance than ever before in the game. The world also saw some of the greatest assemblage of allrounders across the world. The period also saw the great domination by the West Indies and their battery of fast bowlers for which reason I would like to call it the Windies Bodyline Era.

6. The Current Era - 1990 till date. : The limited overs cricket has reached its peak and started to decline in the fifty fifty format. Batting has changed considerably with innovation having brought some new strokes to cricketing manuals. It also saw the coming to the close of the great era fast bowlers not just from the West Indies but also from Australia. A couple of great bowlers each from Pakistan and West Indies lasted just the early years of this period and then we had relative mediocrity in bowling as well as more batsman friendly regulations.

This along-with the advent of two weak teams in the Test firmament saw batting averages of more batsmen be in the fifties around the world than perhaps at any other time in the history of the game.

This era was dominated by two all time great bowlers and two alltime great batsmen. Tendulkar, Lara, Warne and Murali. Unforunately, in an era where great amount of runs were scored, we may not be able to do justice to these greats, particularly the two batsmen, and one will have to wait and see how history treats them, twenty years from now.

I call it the Batsman's Era.

 

[Days of Grace]

Thanks for all the replies, esp. SJS, top effort!

I have decided to go with the following:
1877-1896- pre golden era
1897-1914 - golden era, Barnes/Hobbs era
1920-1939 - Bradman era, good batting pitches, more great batsmen then bowlers #1
1945-1960 - post war era
1960-1970 - South Africa on their best, Sobers, Pollock, last of the uncovered pitches
1970-1979: post-uncovered pitches era, dawn of the West Indies pace quartet
1980-1994: West Indies past quartet era
1995-2003: South Africa back to being a full force, Australia approaching invincibility, West Indies' decline, allround professionalism in the game
2003-present day: batting era, Zimbabwe become minnows

I'm getting the home and away batting and bowling averages for each team from each era and adjusting batting and bowling averages for individual players from there.

 

[Goughy]

The only definition Id take serious issue with would be the 1970s one.

1975 saw the end of uncovered pitches and the introduction of a 'trial by fire' with Lillee and Thomson which led almost immediately to Clive Lloyd adopting the West Indian pace quartet.

Cricket was far more different in 1977 than it was in 1972 and it changed more in 5 years than it changed from 1955 to 1970.

1975 is the logical cutoff point of an era as the late part of the decade fits with 'modern' cricket and the early part of the decade fits with 'post war' cricket.