The 2nd Greatest Cricketer From A Country

[Ikki]

If Beefy had ended his career in 1982 he would have been the greatest all rounder ever and there would have been little debate about it.

All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Maybe a bit about the batting but not that much

Miller's career averages are 37 with the bat and 23 with the ball.

For half his career he averaged 46 with the bat and 21 with the ball.

 

[smash84]

From this article as VCS earlier posted

Stats analysis: Imran Khan | Specials | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

"In the 1980s, Imran was in his pomp, and he was easily among the top five players in the world during this period. Till the end of 1988, both his batting and his bowling were in fine fettle: he averaged almost 40 with the bat and less than 18 with the ball, numbers which indicate quite emphatically just how dominant he was. He was even more lethal in the 14 months between November 1981 and January 1983: in 16 Tests during this period he averaged almost 48 with the bat, and took 104 wickets at an incredible average of 14.87"

 

[marc71178]

And yet in spite of that he never did a decent series double of runs scored AND wickets taken at the same time and his all rounder rating was never actually that good (both indicators that he never truly performed as an all rounder)

An average of nearly 40 looks good on paper, until you realise that it was significantly based on the not outs.

 

[Howe_zat]

Not sure why Imran having so many not outs counts against him. Surely if you're batting in the lower order, it's your job to finish not out?

 

[smash84]

And yet in spite of that he never did a decent series double of runs scored AND wickets taken at the same time and his all rounder rating was never actually that good (both indicators that he never truly performed as an all rounder)

An average of nearly 40 looks good on paper, until you realise that it was significantly based on the not outs.

I have raised this point before and Howe_zat raises it again as to why do not outs count against Imran when he comes lower down the order????

 

[vcs]

Not outs are not a bad thing to have, but I can see why people say they distort the averages. For example, in that table I posted comparing Imran, Hadlee, Botham and Kapil, it shows Hadlee has nearly as many runs as Imran in a comparable period and similar number of games (he also had as many fifties and 2 hundreds to Imran's 4), but the averages were vastly different, presumably because of not outs. Yet everyone thinks Imran was comfortably superior to Hadlee as a batsman. Now that might well have been the case as Imran's batting got better and better as his career progressed, but it shows that in the period where they were being compared, Hadlee was also contributing to a very good level with the bat (pretty similar to Imran) despite having a significantly lower average.

Here's the table I was talking about.

EDIT : Also, Lara's career average is a classic case of the number of not outs making a significant difference.. in this case, negatively.

 

[Howe_zat]

Not outs are not a bad thing to have, but I can see why people say they distort the averages. For example, in that table I posted comparing Imran, Hadlee, Botham and Kapil, it shows Hadlee has nearly as many runs as Imran in a comparable period and similar number of games (he also had as many fifties and 2 hundreds to Imran's 4), but the averages were vastly different, presumably because of not outs. Yet everyone thinks Imran was comfortably superior to Hadlee as a batsman. Now that might well have been the case as Imran's batting got better and better as his career progressed, but it shows that in the period where they were being compared, Hadlee was also contributing to a very good level with the bat (pretty similar to Imran) despite having a significantly lower average.

Here's the table I was talking about.

I see what you mean. Surely, though, that's just a case of people misreading what an average is supposed to mean? It's never been a measure of runs per innings, and treating it like that kind of defeats the point.

I guess what I'm saying is there's a reason we calculate average by dismissals, and not the number of innings, because not outs are actually pretty valuable. If the number of not outs ise all that separates Imran from Hadlee during that perod, why not let it separate them?

How much better is it to have a decent batsman out there shepherding the tail and eking out every last run? The likes of Border and Waugh were masters at it, and they have a huge number of not outs to show for it.

If you said that not outs unfairly or unreasonably inflate his average, are you saying that if Imran had another batsman to work with, he'd not have scored another run in any of those innings? Pretty harsh. Who knows how many he might have scored if he'd been "allowed" to see every innings through to dismissal. It might not have affected his average at all. It might have helped.

If anything, comparing Imran's average to a top-order batsman like Miller is doing both of them a great disservice, because they have different roles. Imran's not up against him with the bat, he's up against the Pollocks and Vettoris, all of whom seek to close out an innings and finish unbeaten. If Imran was one of the best in the business at it, why is that his fault?

 

[Ikki]

I have raised this point before and Howe_zat raises it again as to why do not outs count against Imran when he comes lower down the order????

And people who raise that fail to realise that batting so low and remaining not out is less important to a team than batting higher and actually making runs. That's why Imran has less runs per innings than these batsmen as well. Guys like Miller or Botham were middle order batsmen. Imran was a tailender+#7. You are talking about two different quality of batsmen. If you bat Lara at #7 he may average 80 because he is far more likely to be stranded batting that low. But would it make him >>>>>> Tendulkar/Ponting if he was actually scoring less per innings? Ironically, Lara's lack of not-outs hurt his average.

Which means this is in a roundabout way a compliment to Imran: he should have been batting higher. But it does mean that his average of 40 or 50 over how ever many years is somewhat misleading. Not misleading in the strict sense (runs divided by dismissals) but what that number usually denotes in terms of the quality of batsman or how people interpret that. If Miller or Botham were averaging 50 across 10 years...they were one of the best batsmen in the world because of their batting position. But who would seriously argue that Imran was as good as Gavaskar, Viv or Miandad because he averaged 50 across 10 years?

 

[Howe_zat]

And people who raise that fail to realise that batting so low and remaining not out is less important than batting higher and actually making runs. That's why Imran has less runs per innings than these batsmen as well. Guys like Miller or Botham were middle order batsmen. Imran was a tailender+#7. You are talking two different quality of batsmen. If you bat Lara at #7 he may average 80 because he is far more likely to be stranded batting that low.

Which is in a roundabout way a compliment to Imran: he should have been batting higher. But it does mean that his average of 40 or 50 over how ever many years is somewhat misleading. Not misleading in the strict sense (runs divided by dismissals) but what that number usually denotes in terms of the quality of batsman.

That's kind of what I said. An average is only misleading if you're comparing players with different roles. Imran, Miller and Atherton have the same batting average, and it'd be reasonable to say that opener Atherton was a better batsman than middle-order bat Miller, who in turn was better than lower-order batsman Imran.

It's the same when you compare bowling averages. Shane Watson has a bowling average of 31. Does that make him a comparable bowler to Zaheer Khan? Of course not. Jacques Kallis? By all means.

 

[Teja.]

It's the same when you compare bowling averages. Shane Watson has a bowling average of 31. Does that make him a comparable bowler to Zaheer Khan? Of course not. Jacques Kallis? By all means.

It's important to extend this analogy to Sobers too ftr, Reckon it's a great injustice to bowlers who average 30-odd and actually take a higher proportion of wickets per match to compare them to Sobers who averages 2.5 wpm. In fact I'd go as far as saying taking Sobers' bowling average on face value as rough quality of his bowling is more misleading than doing the same for Imran's batting average.

 

[vcs]

I see what you mean. Surely, though, that's just a case of people misreading what an average is supposed to mean? It's never been a measure of runs per innings, and treating it like that kind of defeats the point.

I guess what I'm saying is there's a reason we calculate average by dismissals, and not the number of innings, because not outs are actually pretty valuable. If the number of not outs ise all that separates Imran from Hadlee during that perod, why not let it separate them?

How much better is it to have a decent batsman out there shepherding the tail and eking out every last run? The likes of Border and Waugh were masters at it, and they have a huge number of not outs to show for it.

If you said that not outs unfairly or unreasonably inflate his average, are you saying that if Imran had another batsman to work with, he'd not have scored another run in any of those innings? Pretty harsh. Who knows how many he might have scored if he'd been "allowed" to see every innings through to dismissal. It might not have affected his average at all. It might have helped.

If anything, comparing Imran's average to a top-order batsman like Miller is doing both of them a great disservice, because they have different roles. Imran's not up against him with the bat, he's up against the Pollocks and Vettoris, all of whom seek to close out an innings and finish unbeaten. If Imran was one of the best in the business at it, why is that his fault?

Yes, it's fine to say he scores more runs per dismissal than Hadlee. That's a comparison of two lower-order batsmen who batted in pretty similar positions. Does scoring more runs per dismissal than Hadlee make him a more valuable contributor with the bat than him? To answer that question, you need to look at when those runs were scored, the match situation, the quality of the opposition etc. My guess would be that Hadlee might have been going for more and trying to accelerate the scoring, knowing that his partners would get out soon, and sacrificed his wicket a few times. The number of runs and big innings being similar tells me that their contribution with the bat was pretty close in that period. That's why I think you cannot just look at everything else being equal, and use the number of not outs to separate him from Hadlee.

 

[Ikki]

It's important to extend this analogy to Sobers too ftr, Reckon it's a great injustice to bowlers who average 30-odd and actually take a higher proportion of wickets per match to compare them to Sobers who averages 2.5 wpm. In fact I'd go as far as saying taking Sobers' bowling average on face value as rough quality of his bowling is more misleading than doing the same for Imran's batting average.

Sobers is a different case. It's not so much that the statistics make him appear better than he is, because they're mediocre. It's the opinions based on his performances, disregarding statistics, that make him overrated.

 

[hang on]

but it is exactly these sorts of analyses that indicate that he wasn't really overrated. not to say that the parameters and criteria that gird such analyses are infallible, but they are objective enough to cast a decent light on his quality.

Reliance ICC Player Rankings

 

[smash84]

Yes, it's fine to say he scores more runs per dismissal than Hadlee. That's a comparison of two lower-order batsmen who batted in pretty similar positions. Does scoring more runs per dismissal than Hadlee make him a more valuable contributor with the bat than him? To answer that question, you need to look at when those runs were scored, the match situation, the quality of the opposition etc. My guess would be that Hadlee might have been going for more and trying to accelerate the scoring, knowing that his partners would get out soon, and sacrificed his wicket a few times. The number of runs and big innings being similar tells me that their contribution with the bat was pretty close in that period. That's why I think you cannot just look at everything else being equal, and use the number of not outs to separate him from Hadlee.

Then again we are back to the debate of how useful stats really are. If we have to go back to each and every match situation then how much can we use stats?

The fact that Imran and Hadlee have a big difference in the number of not outs (how much of a difference is there actually. Any stats on that???) might mean that Hadlee was trying to score quickly, or maybe he was not as solid a batsman than Imran or maybe the team requirements were completely different??? It could mean n number of different things.

 

[Ikki]

but it is exactly these sorts of analyses that indicate that he wasn't really overrated. not to say that the parameters and criteria that gird such analyses are infallible, but they are objective enough to cast a decent light on his quality.

Reliance ICC Player Rankings

Well, analyses like that can be changed depending on the criteria. From the looks of it batting-allrounders are favoured a bit more there.

Apart from Sobers' period in the 60s where he was a genuinely good bowler, for the majority of his career he was crap. Averages in the 40s and SRs near 3 digits are just plain bad. Anyway, this has been discussed to bits so I'll leave it at that.

 

[hang on]

think it is the case of being able to do enough batting and bowlingwise in the same match that kept his ratings so high.

 

[Ikki]

Again, that depends what you consider enough. Is taking 2 wickets by itself a plus if it comes for some 80 odd runs or after 34 overs? Does that outweigh, for example, scoring 30-40 runs with the bat if you are a bowling-allrounder? I'd consider not. Besides a handful of years in his career where he was a genuinely good bowler he wasn't good at all. Even during his best years with the ball (the 60s) he only has 3 years where he averages less than 30 runs and strikes faster than 80 balls a wicket. And we're talking about a 20 year career here.

This is why I have problems rating batting all-rounders higher. Not all players have to bowl but they all have to bat. That intrinsically makes a bowling all-rounder more important IMO.

 

[hang on]

it would depend on whether the bowling all rounder actually made those 30 odd runs after taking a number of wickets. it seems that there was a greater polarity in imran's batting and bowling than in sobers's in the context of the same match. essentially, imran did one or the other such that his all round performances are less significant than sobers's. i might have the way the ratings work completely wrong, of course.

unless the allrounder index is 'biased' in favour of batting allrounders in the way its algorithms are set up (anyone able to throw light on this piece of arcania?!), the ratings of allround performances do serve to show that sobers did contribute 'enough', at least more than imran did.

granted, there might be a bias in the analyses, but we cannot just assume that.

 

[vcs]

Then again we are back to the debate of how useful stats really are. If we have to go back to each and every match situation then how much can we use stats?

The fact that Imran and Hadlee have a big difference in the number of not outs (how much of a difference is there actually. Any stats on that???) might mean that Hadlee was trying to score quickly, or maybe he was not as solid a batsman than Imran or maybe the team requirements were completely different??? It could mean n number of different things.

Agree. Essentially, this is what my contributions to the Sobers vs. Imran (vs. Hadlee) threads come down to.. I'm not in a proper position to judge their impact without having watched them. This also makes me reluctant to dismiss Sobers's bowling based on stats alone, when people speak so highly of his impact as an allrounder.

Based on that table, I was stating my hunch that Hadlee was actually quite close to Imran with the bat in the indicated period. Of course I could be wrong. But if someone said that it's merely Imran's superior average that makes him better with the bat, I would be reluctant to accept it.. but if they offered other reasons, I would be more than willling to take that explanation.

 

[salman85]

I don't know if it's just humblness on Hadlee's part,but i remember him saying in an interview "Out of us (Kapil,Hadlee,Botham and Imran),Imran was the one i rated most highly.He was more consistent"

No one is likely to say 'I was the best',but what i've gathered from interviews of the 4 great allrounders from the 80s,Imran has generally been thought of as the best of the lot.

Sobers vs Imran is a differenent discussion though.