Best ODIs "Finisher"

[trundler]

You mean average in wins? It means ****

I just wanted to bump an ordinary thread from over a decade ago.

 

[ankitj]

Normally, yes. In the context of this thread it is likely meaningful though. Finisher is pretty arbitrary- average in wins is maybe a better measure than overall average

Why?

Match result is not a condition that applies when one is playing unlike pitch condition or quality of opposition. And wins rather than being effect of scoring runs by a batsman is more likely to be cause. You score more runs when likelihood of win is higher i.e. against weaker teams and favourable conditions e.g. home grounds. When you apply filter of wins, weaker teams and favorable conditions are oversampled.

Also if you play in a weaker team your team rarely wins when you play poorly so wins filter self selects only good performances. Hence Kumble has a better average in wins than Warne in tests.

 

[Bolo]

Match result is not a condition that applies when one is playing unlike pitch condition or quality of opposition. So how can that influence one's performance? And wins rather than being effect of scoring runs by a batsman is more likely to be cause. You score more runs when likelihood of win is higher i.e. against weaker teams and favourable conditions. When you apply filter of wins, weaker teams and favorable conditions are oversampled.

Also if you play in a weaker team your team rarely wins when you play poorly so wins filter self selects only good performances. Hence Kumble has a better average in wins than Warne in tests.

Yes, but the label of finisher as opposed to overall bat quality implicitly suggests this type of filter is being applied. A finisher (in the bevan sense) is the guy who carries your team over the line and a good finisher and a good bat dont necessarily carry the same connotations. Average in wins is pretty meaningless without context, but it isn't necessarily that different to the way we think of bevan- he is mostly highly regarded as a finisher because of his average in wins.

Not to say that a Waugh/bevan comparison is meaningful though. The fact that bevan averaged 20 or whatever more than Waugh shows the limitations if this framework. Just saying that it has more meaning in this context than it ordinarily would.

 

[ankitj]

One may average 100 in 50 games his team wins and 5 in other 50 his team loses. If you count only wins you excuse latter 50 completely when the batsman miserably failed to contribute to a win which of course didn't happen. I would rather just look at something like average in matches when chasing a total of say 250+ irrespective of the result.

Isolating an individual's impact to a win is not straightforward. You would have to develop a metric like what was the probability of winning the game when the batsman walks in and what did it change to when he got out or till the end of innings if he was not out. Someone might be getting to it:

https://criconometrics.substack.com/p/8-a-new-way-to-understand-limited

Edit: but even then the batsmen on the other end might be making all the difference to win probability.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I think the perception of Bevan is that he was adept at pacing an innings and steering his team home within the context of the situation. That's not really something that Buttler is going to do very often. He might well finish off a lot of matches, but not through any thoughtful adjusting of his natural game.