Hypothetical selection decision - consistency

[Jamee999]

0 7.776%
100 25.92%
200 31.104%
300 26.496%
400 7.68%
500 1.024%


I think. This would make the average score 203.456, fwiw, but it might be that I've made a mistake and the average should be 200, which would make sense. idk.

 

[tooextracool]

Were you watching India's tour of New Zealand in March? India scored four centuries over three games, while New Zealand score six. Rahul Dravid hit four half-centuries and no hundreds, but his runs were regularly the difference between the two sides.

Brendon McCullum hit one century on a seriously flat pitch in a drawn game. Don't tell me you'd rather a batsman do that.

There are always exceptions to any rule. Yes I can look up a game and point out one time when someone scored a chanceless 40 where he consequently top scored and the team ended up winning by 39 runs. The point however, is that in the vast majority of games, 40s and 50s dont win games, 100s do. Although there are times when 100s dont either.

Regarding Dravid's performances on the NZ tour. Yes he performed. Yes he contributed. But arguably, his performances didn't win the series for India, because someone else invariably made larger contributions (also known as centuries) without which India might well have lost. The question here is not, " would you select someone who scores 40 every innings?" which might be an interesting question on its own. The question is, "would you rather have him over someone who scores a century, almost every test match?"

 

[tooextracool]

I have to disagree with Goughy, because while hundreds do win matches, if a person in my team was guaranteed to score 40 every innings, he'd be immediatly on the list. It's a contribution you can count on.

Perhaps so, although one would think, every time the team lost said player would be the first one to be criticized for not going on to convert his starts. For me A reminds me of Mark Butcher for the latter half of his career. Decent enough, but he was always going to be the man who would be first to make way for someone else.

Personally, anyone who scores 40 and gets out deserves to be criticized, far more than someone who scores 0 IMO. To get out on 40 usually involves throwing your wicket away because you have done all the hard work and you are the set batsman only to piss it away without going on to get a big score.

 

[silentstriker]

Perhaps one way of looking at this is to work out what would happen if all of your top 5 batsmen were of a particular type.

Batsman A: simple to work out - the top 5 will always score 200 between them. Which isn't great, but it's competitive, particularly if you know that they will score 200 in the 2nd innings too.

Batsman B: I find this harder to work out because I'm not a mathematician.

From my maths I can work out that the chance of getting zero runs is about 7.7% (60% x 60% x 60% x 60% x 60%)

The chance of getting 500 runs is about 1% (40% x x 40% x 40% x 40% x 40%)

Beyond that my maths breaks down. Can anyone else help?

0 7.776%
100 25.92%
200 31.104%
300 26.496%
400 7.68%
500 1.024%


I think. This would make the average score 203.456, fwiw, but it might be that I've made a mistake and the average should be 200, which would make sense. idk.

Yea, I'd take Player A. Guaranteed 200/5 in a Test match (both innings) from your top five is better than the 1/4 of the time where our team will be 100/5.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

0 7.776%
100 25.92%
200 31.104%
300 26.496%
400 7.68%
500 1.024%


I think. This would make the average score 203.456, fwiw, but it might be that I've made a mistake and the average should be 200, which would make sense. idk.

Yeah, you've made a mistake. 200 should be 34.56 % (10 * .6 * .6 * .6 * .4 * .4), 300 should be 23.04 %.

Good work in the absence of Pickup, though.

 

[Neil Pickup]

God bless Pascal's triangle.

 

[Jamee999]

The actual percentages:

7.776% 0
25.92% 100
34.56% 200
23.04% 300
7.68% 400
1.024% 500

 

[Goughy]

Nothing is 100% but cricket is a team game. You dont need everyone to fire ever game. What you need is big scores (and partnerships) from a couple of different players each game. Thats why a top 7 is key and depth important. It increases those odds, what you dont want is players that play regular cameos.

I dont know the answers but Id be interested if someone knows of a quick way to check.

What proportion of wins involved a century by a player from the winning team?
What proportion of losses include a century by a player from the losing team?


What is the ratio of 100s in wins to 100s in losses?

EDIT- Answer

100s 1366 winnng team, 468 losing team
Ratio 2.92-1

50s
2693 winning team, 2340 losing team
Ratio 1.15-1

Hundreds are key. The heavy lifting is often done by the strongest. 40s and even fifties are seldom the difference between winning and losing. The ability to score big in wins is essential to success. Its what separates the quality players from the ordinary. We are not looking for exceptions but trends and how to maximise the chance of victory. A 40 every game doesnt cut it.

 

[NUFAN]

Yea, I'd take Player A. Guaranteed 200/5 in a Test match (both innings) from your top five is better than the 1/4 of the time where our team will be 100/5.

You are looking at it from a team perspective, while I'm looking at is as an individual performance.

 

[Uppercut]

Nothing is 100% but cricket is a team game. You dont need everyone to fire ever game. What you need is big scores (and partnerships) from a couple of different players each game. Thats why a top 7 is key and depth important. It increases those odds, what you dont want is players that play regular cameos.

I dont know the answers but Id be interested if someone knows of a quick way to check.

What proportion of wins involved a century by a player from the winning team?
What proportion of losses include a century by a player from the losing team?


What is the ratio of 100s in wins to 100s in losses?

EDIT- Answer

100s 1366 winnng team, 468 losing team
Ratio 2.92-1

50s
2693 winning team, 2340 losing team
Ratio 1.15-1

Hundreds are key. The heavy lifting is often done by the strongest. 40s and even fifties are seldom the difference between winning and losing. The ability to score big in wins is essential to success. Its what separates the quality players from the ordinary. We are not looking for exceptions but trends and how to maximise the chance of victory. A 40 every game doesnt cut it.

I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion, but that's not the best analysis you've ever done. Teams are more likely to win matches when their players score more runs? ...

 

[silentstriker]

You are looking at it from a team perspective, while I'm looking at is as an individual performance.

We're talking about as a selector when picking a team. I would take 200/5 100% of the time over 100/5 a third of the time, even if it means sometimes you'd get 400/5.

 

[silentstriker]

Hundreds are key. The heavy lifting is often done by the strongest. 40s and even fifties are seldom the difference between winning and losing. The ability to score big in wins is essential to success. Its what separates the quality players from the ordinary. We are not looking for exceptions but trends and how to maximise the chance of victory. A 40 every game doesnt cut it.

Hundreds are only key because its rare that everyone always fires so you need hundreds. We're talking about them always scoring 40 runs. In this hypothetical situation, that analysis does not apply. A more interesting way to look at it would be to see what the winning percentage of a team is when the score is around 200/5 (say, plus or minus twenty runs) in both innings.

 

[Prince EWS]

We're talking about as a selector when picking a team. I would take 200/5 100% of the time over 100/5 a third of the time, even if it means sometimes you'd get 400/5.

I think his point was that you wouldn't actually get a whole team full of Player As, Player Bs or Player Cs - you'd get a "normal" team with one of those batsmen added in. So 200/5 isn't really correct - more 40/1.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Hundreds are only key because its rare that everyone always fires so you need hundreds. We're talking about them always scoring 40 runs. In this hypothetical situation, that analysis does not apply. A more interesting way to look at it would be to see what the winning percentage of a team is when the score is around 200/5 (say, plus or minus twenty runs) in both innings.

Not looking good, itbt.

Back to 1979:

wins 4, losses 10, draws 11

 

[silentstriker]

Both innings? Then that's fair enough. Although an average of 40 from all your top five isn't the best.

 

[zaremba]

I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion, but that's not the best analysis you've ever done. Teams are more likely to win matches when their players score more runs? ...

I was going to make this point myself. But that damn Ulsterman is always one step ahead

 

[zaremba]

Hundreds are key. The heavy lifting is often done by the strongest. 40s and even fifties are seldom the difference between winning and losing. The ability to score big in wins is essential to success. Its what separates the quality players from the ordinary. We are not looking for exceptions but trends and how to maximise the chance of victory. A 40 every game doesnt cut it.

But if the strongest fail to do any heavy lifting at all, they're not much use. And that's Batsman B six times out of ten.

And we're not talking about 40 every game, we're talking about two 40s every game. Which is a solid contribution.

And yes, in real life you can criticise the chap who gets out at 40, but that's not really the point of this exercise. But if we were going to go down that road at all, I would be pretty critical of a batsman who regularly got out for exactly 100 (quite apart from the fact that he got zero more often than not). Because if you get to 100, you've not only got your eye in, you should have the bowlers entirely at your mercy and in that situation you should be looking to cash in massively.

 

[weldone]

A - doesn't exist; simply bacause if he has the technique to score 40 runs in every innings I can't imagine himself retiring without a 100 (and ouch, without a fifty). If I assume he's very incosistent in converting, I can assume he retires with 5 hundreds and 10 fifties after, say, 80 tests.

B - Players almost similar to that do exist. Just make hundreds a bit more infrequent, remove some of the 0's, add some 4's, 13's, 33's here and there and some very infrequent 57's and 72's; and you might end up with a batsman you've watched for years.

C & D - doesn't exist. so doesn't matter.

I'm very sure that, with the slight modifications I've made for A and B, B is gonna retire being rated higher than A by almost all cricket fans (even if they end up with similar averages & assuming that they play against similar opponents in the same era).

I'm not casting my vote in this poll, however...Because I think, making such modifications wasn't allowed by the original poster.

 

[Burgey]

It doesn't matter if they exist or not, because it's a hypothetical question, innit?

Player A appears to be Shane Watson.

 

[Prince EWS]

Player A appears to be Shane Watson.

Indeed, and Batsman B is Marcus North.