The best at their peak?

[ankitj]

I posted this chart for 40 match moving averages for the quartet of great fast bowlers of 70's and 80's on another thread:

Then decided to do similar charts for the leading bowlers of 90's and 00's. Had 8 bowlers in mind but putting them together in one chart made it very crowded. So split them into 2 sets - those who retired before 2005 and those played post that. Here are two more charts:

Mostly they confirm what I already knew. For example, knew that Pollock was tremendous for first half of his career without anyone noticing it.

Draw your own conclusions!

 

[NUFAN]

Draw my own conclusions, I can't ffs!

I don't geddit? Why does the X axis start at 40? Shouldn't you be looking at the peak? There has to be a more accurate reader friendly graph out there.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Draw my own conclusions, I can't ffs!

I don't geddit? Why does the X axis start at 40? Shouldn't you be looking at the peak? There has to be a more accurate reader friendly graph out there.

Each point on the colourful lines () represents the average of the bowler over his last 40 Tests at that point in time. We can't have an average over the last 40 Tests unless he's played atleast 40 Tests, which is why the X axis starts at Test #40 for each bowler.

 

[NUFAN]

Each point on the colourful lines () represents the average of the bowler over his last 40 Tests at that point in time. We can't have an average over the last 40 Tests unless he's played atleast 40 Tests, which is why the X axis starts at Test #40 for each bowler.

It still doesn't look right though. When did Pollock's average get up to 28? When did Warne go above 30?

It doesn't look like the last 40 Tests. It looks like the graph maker has decided to give all the Test stars 39 warm up matches and then followed the rest of their careers.. Why can't the peaks start earlier on?

 

[Ikki]

NUFAN's right.

 

[G.I.Joe]

It still doesn't look right though. When did Pollock's average get up to 28? When did Warne go above 30?

It doesn't look like the last 40 Tests. It looks like the graph maker has decided to give all the Test stars 39 warm up matches and then followed the rest of their careers..

Warne hit a peak of 31 on the graph at Test #97. That simply means that his bowling average over matches 58 to 97 was 31. It wouldn't be reflected as an average of 31 on the conventional stats TV stations display because they look at whole careers, not chunks like on here.

 

[ankitj]

Sorry guys if it is confusing. I am looking at moving averages. The first point on the chart is the average for matches #1 to #40, the second point is for matches #2 to #41, 3rd point for #3 to #42 and so on.

Selection of 40 as the window size is somewhat a choice of convenience. Don't want to keep it too small so that it gets affected by too many flash in the pan events (like playing 3 match series at and away against a minnow might have a large influence if window size was ~20). Taking anything larger than 40 would leave very few distinct points for those who have played only 70-80 tests.

 

[NUFAN]

Now I understand!

So Warne's peak was actually from say Test number 4 to 44, Pollock's 20 to 60 or so.


McGrath, Donald and especially Ambrose come out looking very effective on your graphs, never going above 24.

 

[ankitj]

Yes, and check Marshall. He has only one point, the very first one, above 22. Apart from that he never had a 40 match period where he was above 22!

Notice the scale of the Y-axis. Stupid of me to have different scales in different chart. Can deceive you visually if you ignore the different scales.

 

[smash84]

great work Ankit.

Looks more impressive than it actually is

 

[ankitj]

So I thought that ODI bowler list was based on ERs and therefore did not include the peaks of bowlers like Donald, Waqar and Saqlain who used to take bucketful of ODI wickets but were not very miserly. So I decided to create a little table of my own with these 3 along side Murali, Akram, McGrath, Ambrose and Pollock who appeared in the ER based table, and also threw Warne in the mix. I looked at 100 match stretch (sounds much better than 98), and took the peak periods based on number of wickets for each. Here is what I get:

[B]Player		Start date	End date	Wkts	ER	Avg	SR[/B]
Saqlain		15-Oct-95	31-May-99	193	4.24	19.3	27.2
Donald		21-Oct-95	3-Oct-02	187	4.17	19.4	27.8
Muralitharan	14-Jul-00	2-Aug-05	185	3.33	16.3	29.4
[COLOR="Red"]Lee		9-Jun-01	3-Feb-06	185	4.62	21.2	27.5[/COLOR]
Waqar		15-Feb-90	26-Feb-96	180	4.46	21.1	28.4
McGrath		15-Jan-99	11-Mar-03	175	3.84	19.0	29.8
Akram		27-Apr-90	24-Feb-96	160	3.73	20.8	33.5
Warne		16-Dec-93	31-Jan-99	155	4.19	25.6	36.7
Pollock		2-Apr-97	5-May-01	152	3.80	21.6	34.1
Ambrose		12-Mar-88	16-Dec-93	149	3.50	21.2	36.3

Defining peaks in this way, Saqlain and Donald come out ahead of Murali on # of wickets, but Murali tops the ER and Average. Ambrose is second most miserly in the table but not a very prolific wicket taker.

About time I start adding Brett Lee to these lists. Done above.

 

[smash84]

Saqlain. WAG

 

[The Battlers Prince]

Sreesanth's peak was one delivery to Kallis. Pretty short I would say.

but unplayable nonetheless

 

[smash84]

 

[zaremba]

Great work, 8ankitj. Those graphs rock, in a mathlete kinda way.

 

[Howe_zat]

Yeah, some food for thought there Ankit. As you said it mostly tells us what we already knew, but there's some bits and pieces worth remarking on. What surprised me most was to see that Warne seems to have had a mid-career slump* I never knew about.

*Only a slump by his lofty standards, obv.

 

[Furball]

Yeah, some food for thought there Ankit. As you said it mostly tells us what we already knew, but there's some bits and pieces worth remarking on. What surprised me most was to see that Warne seems to have had a mid-career slump* I never knew about.

*Only a slump by his lofty standards, obv.

From memory it came slap bang between two Ashes series. Had tours to India in 1997/98 and 2000/01, a loss of form where he was dropped in the West Indies and shoulder surgery. In his book he mentions how he considered chucking cricket after the 1999 World Cup.

 

[weldone]

I posted this chart for 40 match moving averages for the quartet of great fast bowlers of 70's and 80's on another thread:

Then decided to do similar charts for the leading bowlers of 90's and 00's. Had 8 bowlers in mind but putting them together in one chart made it very crowded. So split them into 2 sets - those who retired before 2005 and those played post that. Here are two more charts:

Mostly they confirm what I already knew. For example, knew that Pollock was tremendous for first half of his career without anyone noticing it.

Draw your own conclusions!

Ambrose, Muralitharan, McGrath - WAGs!

 

[weldone]

What surprised me most was to see that Warne seems to have had a mid-career slump* I never knew about.

Won't surprise me if that was caused by being consistently destroyed by Azharuddin, Sidhu, Tendulkar, Laxman, Ganguly and Dravid over a considerable period.