Ranking System - Batsman with over 5000 Test Runs

[NUFAN]

With a bit of spare time recently I have come up with my own Test batsman ranking system.

The criteria I have set is a minimum of 5000 runs. I have made a list of retired players and a separate list for the current players.

For the record, I consider anyone who has had a longish career who scores above 0.000 to be a very good Test batsman.

Enjoy/rubbish the list.

Don Bradman 5.813
Wally Hammond 2.860
Jack Hobbs 2.824
Ken Barrington 2.105
Len Hutton 1.814
Javed Miandad 1.802
Greg Chappell 1.648
Garry Sobers 1.574
Sunil Gavaskar 1.550
Rohan Kanhai 1.500
Matthew Hayden 1.445
Neil Harvey 1.420
Viv Richards 1.398
Brian Lara 1.390
Clive Lloyd 1.311
Dennis Compton 1.152
Mohammad Azharuddin 1.098
Doug Walters 1.082
Bill Lawry 1.011
Allan Border 0.952
Justin Langer 0.883
Richie Richardson 0.857
Inzamam ul Haq 0.838
David Gower 0.769
Geoff Boycott 0.743
Mark Taylor 0.638
Steve Waugh 0.613
Gordon Greenidge 0.535
Colin Cowdrey 0.473
Marcus Trescothick 0.463
Martin Crowe 0.455
Aravinda de Silva 0.450
Gary Kirsten 0.448
John Edrich 0.400
Michael Slater 0.345
Michael Vaughan 0.306
Andrew Strauss 0.277
Desmond Haynes 0.254
Adam Gilchrist 0.232
Gundappa Viswanth 0.216
Saleem Malik 0.196
Graham Thorpe 0.189
Ian Chappell 0.168
David Boon 0.135
Graham Gooch 0.065
Mark Waugh 0.011
Herschelle Gibbs -0.019
Zaheer Abbas -0.022
Sourav Ganguly -0.033
Dilip Vengsarkar -0.111
Stephen Fleming -0.326
Nasser Hussain -0.391
Sanath Jayasuriya -0.403
John Wright -0.426
Alec Stewart -0.447
Michael Atherton -0.554
Carl Hooper -0.655
Arjuna Ranatunga -0.765
Marvan Atapattu -0.815
Ian Botham -0.885
Kapil Dev 1.691

Current Players

Kumar Sangakarra 2.448
Jacques Kallis 1.921
Alastair Cook 1.860
Ricky Ponting 1.770
Virender Sehwag 1.635
Sachin Tendulkar 1.536
Rahul Dravid 1.519
Mahela Jayawardene 1.504
Mohammad Yousuf 1.475
Graeme Smith 1.434
Kevin Pietersen 1.186
Younis Khan 0.605
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 0.568
VVS Laxman 0.532
Ramnaresh Sarwan 0.000
Chris Gayle -0.018
Mark Boucher -1.587

For Dravid, Chanderpaul, Laxman and Sarwan who are currently in the middle of a Test, I have not included this Test at all.

[Spark]

Interesting analysis. Any details on the methodology?

[vcs]

Negative indices for some players!

[weeman27bob]

Sangakkara seems to be rated far too high.

I mean yes he's a good batsman, but considerably better than Sobers and Lara, and better than Hutton? I, personally, don't think so.

[Spark]

I don't think it should be suggested for a moment that this is precisely indicative of a player's quality/greatness, so I think we should leave that aside from the outset.

[Teja.]

I for one, approve of this system.

[silentstriker]

What's the methodology? I'm trying to think of what it could be which would make it so that if Sangakarra and Cook retired, they'd be the 4th and the 8th best batsmen of all time...do you weigh the tally of runs per season very high instead of an average?


Though I must say, I can definitely see Alastair Cook breaking SRT's record of most runs some day.

[NUFAN]

Originally Posted by Spark

Interesting analysis. Any details on the methodology?

The figures are based on their full careers. Low scores are punished (excluding not outs) and high scorers are rewarded. Middle of the road scores mean nothing in this exercise.

High scoring not outs are definitely included, but are not as significant as they are for when you work out a batsman's average.

A bit vague I know

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Spark

I don't think it should be suggested for a moment that this is precisely indicative of a player's quality/greatness, so I think we should leave that aside from the outset.

Ya it's fun for the sake of it. I remember doing one for spinners which had Stuart Clark as the second best spinner of all time or something.

Actually I made like six or seven of these statistical threads back then. Ah to be bored.

[Rush]

Originally Posted by NUFAN

The figures are based on their full careers. Low scores are punished (excluding not outs) and high scorers are rewarded. Middle of the road scores mean nothing in this exercise.

High scoring not outs are definitely included, but are not as significant as they are for when you work out a batsman's average.

A bit vague I know

What is a middle of the road score? 50-99?

[Spark]

Would I be correct in saying then that it's weighted towards players who convert? That definitely explains Cook and Ponting's rating at a minimum. Reckon Ponting at his peak would be insanely high if so.

[Howe_zat]

Rewarding big scores would definitely help Cook, but I'd have thought on that criteria Lara would be among the very top.

[vcs]

I might be in the minority on this, but I still think Gilchrist > Sanga purely as a Test batsman, though I expect Sanga to keep up his form for a couple more years and change that. Would be interesting to see how many people agree with me.

[NUFAN]

Originally Posted by vcs

Negative indices for some players!

Haha yep. That's why I wrote that I consider 0.000 to be a very good Test batsman. I think -0.001 to -0.499 are still good test batsman.

Originally Posted by weeman27bob

Sangakkara seems to be rated far too high.

I mean yes he's a good batsman, but considerably better than Sobers and Lara, and better than Hutton? I, personally, don't think so.

Yeah, I know that's why I made two separate lists. Sangakkara and Cook both have good conversion rates and fail less often than most cricketers. Oops just realized that I didn't move Strauss to the current list..

Originally Posted by Teja.

I for one, approve of this system.

Haha good stuff.

[NUFAN]

Originally Posted by Rush

What is a middle of the road score? 50-99?

Nah less. Scores of 50-99 often impact matches.

Originally Posted by Spark

Would I be correct in saying then that it's weighted towards players who convert? That definitely explains Cook and Ponting's rating at a minimum. Reckon Ponting at his peak would be insanely high if so.

What do you mean by 'rating at a minimum'. Yeah Ponting would have dipped a little recently.

Originally Posted by Howe_zat

Rewarding big scores would definitely help Cook, but I'd have thought on that criteria Lara would be among the very top.

Lara could have been higher if I used a different point system for massive scores. Lara failed fairly often throughout his career, 62 single figure scores which didn't help him. But still anyone over 1.000 is an awesome batsman.

Originally Posted by vcs

I might be in the minority on this, but I still think Gilchrist > Sanga purely as a Test batsman, though I expect Sanga to keep up his form for a couple more years and change that. Would be interesting to see how many people agree with me.

They are completely different cricketers. I loved Gilly, but I am not too surprised that he's not ended up that high on this analysis as strike rate isn't a factor and he had quite a long weak period towards the end of his career.