Paper finds Waugh, Ponting the "best" ever captains

[Spark]

So I was browsing arXiv, looking at recent uploads (as I do) when I stumbled upon this: "Identifying the greatest team and captain - A complex network approach to cricket matches"

We consider all Test matches played between 1877 and 2010 and One Day International (ODI) matches played between 1971 and 2010. We form directed and weighted networks of teams and also of their captains. The success of a team (or captain) is determined by the 'quality' of wins and not on the number of wins alone. We apply the diffusion based PageRank algorithm on the networks to access the importance of wins and rank the teams and captains respectively. Our analysis identifies {\it Australia} as the best team in both forms of cricket $-$ Test and ODI. {\it Steve Waugh} is identified as the best captain in Test cricket and {\it Ricky Ponting} is the best captain in the ODI format. We also compare our ranking scheme with the existing ranking schemes which include the Reliance ICC Ranking. Our method does not depend on `external' criteria in ranking of teams (captains). The purpose of this paper is to introduce a revised ranking of cricket teams and to quantify the success of the captains.

It's 1am and I'm currently lying in bed with a laptop so I can't exactly read the paper thoroughly, but the historical rankings are:

Tests:

Australia
South Africa
England
West Indies
Pakistan
India
Sri Lanka
New Zealand
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

ODIs

Australia
South Africa
West Indies
England
Pakistan
India
New Zealand
Sri Lanka
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

And for Test captains:

Steve Waugh
Graeme Smith
Ricky Ponting
Greg Chappell
Richie Benaud
Clive Lloyd
Ian Chappel
Allan Border
M. S. Dhoni
Nasser Hussain
Peter May
Bill Woodfull
Sir Vivian Richards
Sir Frank Worell
Sourav Ganguly
Kim Hughes
Ray Illingworth
Geoff Howarth
Andrew Strauss
Stephen Fleming

ODI captains:

Ricky Ponting
Graeme Smith
Imran Khan
Hansie Cronje
Arjuna Ranatunga
Stephen Fleming
Clive Lloyd
M. S. Dhoni
Sir Vivian Richards
Kapil Dev
Allan Border
Mahela Jayawardene
Brian Lara
Daniel Vettori
Paul Collingwood
Sourav Ganguly
Mohammad Azharuddin
Rahul Dravid
Javed Miandad
Wasim Akram

There's also an era-by-era list of rankings which I cbf copying. Again, not sure of the methodology, seems to be some version of Google's PageRank. And obviously this is brand new on arXiv and as such might not yet be published anywhere, but interesting nonetheless

 

[morgieb]

That methodology seems very flawed tstl.

 

[Spark]

Oh, and what this has to do with physics (which is what arXiv is for), I have no ****ing clue.

 

[Spikey]

clarke > waugh

 

[benchmark00]

clarke > waugh

How did you do the eyes?

 

[smash84]

should Pakistan be number 5 in tests in terms of historical ranking?

WI has now been **** for almost a decade and a half

 

[Spark]

How did you do the eyes?

Think uvelocity came up with this one

 

[weldone]

Burn the paper, man!

 

[Furball]

should Pakistan be number 5 in tests in terms of historical ranking?

WI has now been **** for almost a decade and a half

Have Pakistan ever had a 20 year period at the top of the pile?

 

[Jayzamann]

G-banger killing it.

 

[smash84]

Have Pakistan ever had a 20 year period at the top of the pile?

Nope. But they haven't had a 20 year period at the bottom either

 

[Howe_zat]

Did Ikki write this particular paper?

 

[smash84]

Ikki missing in action for quite some time now.

Should have been here during the Ind-Aus series

 

[Burgey]

No, it should be Imran. Because he led his team to test... Oh

Because unlike the others he won a WC. Oh.

He left his team unified and on the rise, unlike any other captain ever... Oh

Under his tutelage Pakistan won everywh..... Hmmm

 

[BoyBrumby]

Ponting being so high makes me extremely dubious about the formulae used. Until the very arse-end of his reign I doubt Australia ever went into a series as second favourites, with the possible exception of India away, which Gilchrist wore the armband for in any event.

 

[Furball]

No, it should be Imran. Because he led his team to test... Oh

Because unlike the others he won a WC. Oh.

He left his team unified and on the rise, unlike any other captain ever... Oh

Under his tutelage Pakistan won everywh..... Hmmm

Outstanding work sir.

 

[The Sean]

There seems as well to be a strong bias toward "modern" era (post-1970) captains in the Test list - I'm wondering why old timers with statistically excellent captaincy records such as Armstrong, Jardine, Bradman and Hasset have missed out. Perhaps there is a cut off minimum number of Tests as captain?

 

[The Sean]

Ha ha just looked at the Test list again - KIM HUGHES????? Lolz and so on...

For the uninitiated, this is Kim Hughes' record as Australian Test captain:

Played 28 - Won 4, Drew 11, Lost 13.

 

[L Trumper]

Ponting being so high makes me extremely dubious about the formulae used. Until the very arse-end of his reign I doubt Australia ever went into a series as second favourites, with the possible exception of India away, which Gilchrist wore the armband for in any event.

Nah! he was gun in ODI captaincy, where his style works very well.

 

[Burgey]

Ha ha just looked at the Test list again - KIM HUGHES????? Lolz and so on...

For the uninitiated, this is Kim Hughes' record as Australian Test captain:

Played 28 - Won 4, Drew 11, Lost 13.

Haha yes, I saw that. A very, very odd inclusion.