Bowling Strikerates in test matches - how important are they?

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

Haha, i'd say I'm ignoring it, but still taking it into account.

I like it.

[Uppercut]

Can't for the life of me understand why you'd have an E/R cut-off at all. As if Waqar Younis should be punished for the fact that he took his wickets faster than other bowlers with the same average!

[bagapath]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

Can't for the life of me understand why you'd have an E/R cut-off at all. As if Waqar Younis should be punished for the fact that he took his wickets faster than other bowlers with the same average!

then what about ray lindwall and alan davidson? They averaged less than waqar but their SR was more than 60. Should we change our cut-off limits to add them too?

this is not about waqar per se. he was superb, no doubt. but when you define a SR and a bowling average as your cut off limit you are automatically defining the ER too. If you say an ER of 4 RPO is ok for a great bowler for the sake of including waqar, then remember that your opposition could be 360 for 9 at the end of the 90 over day. the higher your ER goes, the lower your SR would have to be to make sure the bowling average remains low enough to be called great. Since all great fast bowlers average under 25 and have a SR under 54 their ER should also be under 3. if you want to add waqar among the greats then go head and add him as an exception but dont lower the bar just to accommodate him.

[funnygirl]

A particular bowler is expensive means that the batsmen are taking chances against that particular bowler which can result in ''buying ''wickets.so in the end economy will be high,strike rate will be good .

A bowler is economical means that the batsmen are not taking chances,hence strike rate may not be that good.

Average will give the right assessment.

[Marcuss]

Kabir Ali - 2008 Season
Matches : 11
Overs : 311.3
Runs : 1106
Wickets : 59
Average : 18.74
Economy : 3.55
Strike Rate : 31.6

All be it divison 2, still an impressive season.

[Manee]

Indeed, a quite marvellous effort.

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by bagapath

then what about ray lindwall and alan davidson? They averaged less than waqar but their SR was more than 60. Should we change our cut-off limits to add them too?

I don't believe so, no. The idea of using one average strike rate to measure every bowler in every era isn't really a clever one.

this is not about waqar per se. he was superb, no doubt. but when you define a SR and a bowling average as your cut off limit you are automatically defining the ER too. If you say an ER of 4 RPO is ok for a great bowler for the sake of including waqar, then remember that your opposition could be 360 for 9 at the end of the 90 over day. the higher your ER goes, the lower your SR would have to be to make sure the bowling average remains low enough to be called great. Since all great fast bowlers average under 25 and have a SR under 54 their ER should also be under 3. if you want to add waqar among the greats then go head and add him as an exception but dont lower the bar just to accommodate him.

Actually, i'm in favour of having no limit on economy rate whatsoever, not "lowering the bar". Strike rate changes inversely to economy rate when average is a constant, and taking wickets quickly is, for the sake of statistical analysis, always better than taking them slowly. So given two bowlers, both averaging 23, I'll take the one with an E/R of 20 over the one with an economy rate of 2. Every single time. He's getting me a wicket almost every over!

[bagapath]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

I don't believe so, no. The idea of using one average strike rate to measure every bowler in every era isn't really a clever one.

Actually, i'm in favour of having no limit on economy rate whatsoever, not "lowering the bar". Strike rate changes inversely to economy rate when average is a constant, and taking wickets quickly is, for the sake of statistical analysis, always better than taking them slowly. So given two bowlers, both averaging 23, I'll take the one with an E/R of 20 over the one with an economy rate of 2. Every single time. He's getting me a wicket almost every over!

well, I disagree because test cricket doesn't work that way. it is a game spread over five days, long spells, defensive plays etc so that accuracy is important to main bowlers. Anyway, we can choose to believe what we like. All things considered when lists of truly great fast bowlers are made the 3+ ER bowlers are filtered out anyway. So I am cool with it.

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by bagapath

well, I disagree because test cricket doesn't work that way. it is a game spread over five days, long spells, defensive plays etc so that accuracy is important to main bowlers. Anyway, we can choose to believe what we like. All things considered when lists of truly great fast bowlers are made the 3+ ER bowlers are filtered out anyway. So I am cool with it.

While it's true that defensive bowling is often necessary in test cricket, i don't think that economy rate demonstrates a bowler's ability to do it. It moreso demonstrates how often they were asked to do it.

I'll take Steyn as an example, because he bowls an extremely attacking line. His role in the side is to take wickets, and when the ball is swinging he both pitches the ball up and attacks the stumps. I don't doubt that if he wanted to he could spend most of his time outside off stump a little shorter, and be much less threatening like Ryan Sidebottom. But because Jacques Kallis and Paul Harris do that job for his team, it's much better for him to be an attacking bowler.

Waqar Younis, too, could have spent all his time outside off stump had he wanted to. Even Daren Powell can bowl negatively in cricket, it's a much easier skill. But if you were captain of Pakistan in the nineties and you wanted someone to keep the runs down, would you throw the ball to him?

And when you only ever bowl aggressively, you end up with an excellent strike rate. And, conversely, a poor economy rate.

[Richard]

At the end of the day, a good (low) strike-rate causes results; whether the economy-rate is low or high defines whether these results are victories or defeats.

If the strike-rate is too high, all games will be drawn. If the economy-rate is too high, all games will be lost.

It's pretty much as simple as that. Same way bowlers change draws to results, and batsmen determine whether that result is a win or a loss.

Average is clearly the most important tool in assessing a bowler \ bowling attack, but if the strike-rate is too high despite a good average you still won't win games. And if the economy-rate is too high despite a good average, you'll still lose games.

All-in-all, I'd say strike-rate is fractionally more important than economy-rate when the limitless-over game is concerned. You cannot say strike-rate\economy-rate is more or less important than average, because average is a combination of strike-rate and economy-rate.

In the one-day game, economy-rate is far more important than strike-rate. When the overs are limited, you can win games without taking wickets (though, naturally, it never happens like this, as wickets will result from a low scoring-rate).

[Uppercut]

Would you rather have a bowler averaging 23 with a low strike rate or a bowler averaging 23 with a high strike rate?

[Richard]

Depends entirely on the circumstances. Given that a long-term record will not produce the exact same performance match after match, it is more of an indication of what sort of performance you can expect. Someone with a high strike-rate and low economy-rate is exceptionally unlikely to ever get 25-112-1 but also exceptionally unlikely to ever get 20-50-7. And obviously vice-versa. Generally a high strike-rate and low economy-rate is indicative of a more consistent bowler, whereas a low strike-rate and high economy-rate is indicative of a bowler more given to extremes. Not absolutely always, of course, but generally.

Also, of course, strike-rate and economy-rate are a result, not a cause. It's how you bowl that you've got to ask what you want, not what result you want, because the result you want is obvious.

How you bowl + conditions = ER\SR. The former is controllable; the latter completely uncontrollable (for the player), so thus the result is partially controllable. You can't say "I want an ER\SR of ___", you can only say "I want someone who bowls in ___ fashion".

And sometimes (in some conditions) a Stuart Clark type bowler will produce more useful results; sometimes a Dale Steyn one will; sometimes an Andrew Flintoff one will. I've mentioned this before.

[Uppercut]

I think that's just acknowledging the limits of statistical analysis. It's no different from saying that sometimes a spinner will do a better job and sometimes a fast bowler will do a better job.

Once you've decided that a bowler who takes wickets quickly is better than one who takes them slowly, it's ludicrous to put a limit on how quickly they should take their wickets. Assuming average as a constant, it's essentially saying "take wickets no faster than this, but no slower than this". Surely, the faster you take wickets, the better?

I know what you're saying about economical bowlers, but the stats can't show us that. They can only show us how many runs each bowler conceded per wicket, and how many balls it took them, on average, to take one. A good E/R is an irrelevant function of those two variables. It doesn't demonstrate a bowler that was good for tough days in the field, it just demonstrates a bowler who took his wickets more slowly but for the same amount of runs as another player.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

I think that's just acknowledging the limits of statistical analysis. It's no different from saying that sometimes a spinner will do a better job and sometimes a fast bowler will do a better job.

Once you've decided that a bowler who takes wickets quickly is better than one who takes them slowly, it's ludicrous to put a limit on how quickly they should take their wickets. Assuming average as a constant, it's essentially saying "take wickets no faster than this, but no slower than this". Surely, the faster you take wickets, the better?

Well, a) that isn't particularly relevant to my above post and b) no, not at all. Provided a strike-rate is good (let's say, below 60) then I couldn't give a damn if it's 40 or 50, if the resultant average is the same.

A bowler averaging 24 is the same whether he's doing it by taking wickets crazily quickly or only relatively quickly. In fact I'd say that I'd much rather a bowler who can average 24 by keeping a good economy-rate than one who can average it by smashing stumps regularly and being repeatedly whacked through extra-cover and clipped to mid-wicket. A good economy-rate is much more of a boost to the rest of the attack than a poor one is, and as long as you're not striking stupidly slowly (which it's almost impossible to do with such a good average) then you're going to be forcing results.

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by Richard

Well, a) that isn't particularly relevant to my above post and b) no, not at all. Provided a strike-rate is good (let's say, below 60) then I couldn't give a damn if it's 40 or 50, if the resultant average is the same.

A bowler averaging 24 is the same whether he's doing it by taking wickets crazily quickly or only relatively quickly. In fact I'd say that I'd much rather a bowler who can average 24 by keeping a good economy-rate than one who can average it by smashing stumps regularly and being repeatedly whacked through extra-cover and clipped to mid-wicket. A good economy-rate is much more of a boost to the rest of the attack than a poor one is, and as long as you're not striking stupidly slowly (which it's almost impossible to do with such a good average) then you're going to be forcing results.

I don't agree. Wickets give the rest of the team much more of a boost than economical bowling IMO. You get a brand new batsman to bowl at instead of one who's still there but has been kept quiet. That sounds a bit simplistic, but essentially it's the difference between coming on first change with the score 46/2 rather than 23/1. I'll most certainly much prefer the former.

Besides, in test cricket, there are far more situations where you need wickets quickly to ensure a result than when you need wickets slowly to prevent one.