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DoG's Test Innings and Bowling Performances. Updates thread.

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Do you mean by percentage of overs bowled? Should I include all bowlers in the innings? If I did that would probably make it worse for Laxman, since Australia used 9 bowlers in total.

You could argue that the Australian attack wasn't entirely suited for the conditions. They played three quicks and one spinners, whereas two specialist spinners would have been better. Was MacGill on that tour?
Yeah, I think by % of overs bowled would be a better reflection
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
Yeah, I think by % of overs bowled would be a better reflection
The problem with doing that is sometimes a bowler with a very low rating will bowl the most overs in the innings. Take England's attack (of those who bowled 10% or more of the innings) when Gavaskar scored 221 at the Oval in 1979:

Rating at completion of matchCareer peak ratingAdjusted ratingOvers bowled
P Willey
35​
71​
47​
43.5​
PH Edmonds
552​
654​
586​
38​
IT Botham
884​
911​
893​
29​
RGD Willis
759​
837​
785​
28​
 

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The problem with doing that is sometimes a bowler with a very low rating will bowl the most overs in the innings. Take England's attack (of those who bowled 10% or more of the innings) when Gavaskar scored 221 at the Oval in 1979:

Rating at completion of matchCareer peak ratingAdjusted ratingOvers bowled
P Willey
35​
71​
47​
43.5​
PH Edmonds
552​
654​
586​
38​
IT Botham
884​
911​
893​
29​
RGD Willis
759​
837​
785​
28​
I don’t think that’s a problem though? It’s a more accurate representation of the attack faced
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
I don’t think that’s a problem though? It’s a more accurate representation of the attack faced
Would you like it for all bowlers in an innings, or just the bowlers who bowled 10% or more of the innings? Because if I include Slater and Hayden's ratings for Laxman's 281 then it will probably make the Australian attack look worse.
 

srbhkshk

International Captain
Would you like it for all bowlers in an innings, or just the bowlers who bowled 10% or more of the innings? Because if I include Slater and Hayden's ratings for Laxman's 281 then it will probably make the Australian attack look worse.
It's always gonna be a statistical problem, it's not really that the attack was weak - more that they batted the main bowlers into the ground and Australia was forced to bowl part-timers. Sort of a thing that always happens with very long innings.

Probable solution is to reduce the weight of part-timers if the innings was beyond X length, but retain it for less than X (or maybe a more gradual weight reduction). This probably biases the results in some other way though so I am not gonna claim it actually improves things.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
Or limit it to five bowlers maximum, since a "bowling attack" normally consists of four or five bowlers and any extra bowlers are considered as part-timers. We shouldn't punish batsmen who successfully saw off the main threats and were able to score runs off part-timers.
 

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Would you like it for all bowlers in an innings, or just the bowlers who bowled 10% or more of the innings? Because if I include Slater and Hayden's ratings for Laxman's 281 then it will probably make the Australian attack look worse.
Which it was! If those blokes are bowling overs.

It’s never going to be perfect unless you can get to the point of the number of balls each player faced from each batsman. But having a bowler who bowled 18/178 count for the same as a bowler who bowled 45 doesn’t make sense to me.

But others may disagree
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
If I weight the top 5 bowlers (McGrath, Kasprowicz, Warne, Gillespie, Mark Waugh) by the number of overs they bowled, then Australia's bowling attack rating rises to 650 from the original 608. This would be enough to take Laxman above Gooch and into 5th place but of course there would be changes to bowling attack ratings for all innings.
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
You should not penalize batsmen for playing well enough for long enough to force opponents to bowl their part timers or lesser bowlers longer.

For example, the ATG Windies side usually had no spinners. If a batsman batted for a long time against them, it's more than likely the likes of Richards and Logie bowled a lot of overs at them. It should actually mean the innings was that much better, not worse.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Yeah that surprises me a lot to be honest. In general I think the way these innings are rated systematically should reflect how we qualitatively rate innings watching them live or in the immediate aftermath and I don't think "that wasn't as good because the fielding captain was forced to turn to part-timers" is a thought any reasonable person has ever voiced here.
 

TheJediBrah

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Which it was! If those blokes are bowling overs.

It’s never going to be perfect unless you can get to the point of the number of balls each player faced from each batsman. But having a bowler who bowled 18/178 count for the same as a bowler who bowled 45 doesn’t make sense to me.

But others may disagree
That's still not going to be perfect. It's a fun exercise but let's not pretend it's an accurate measure. Good bowlers have bad days, bowl worse in certain conditions, may be more tired or not at peak fitness at certain stages of games/series etc.

Just because an attack has McGrath and Warne in it, or 4 Windies quicks, doesn't mean it was bowling great on that day
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
This is the top 20 if I weight the top 5 bowlers (those who bowled the most overs) for each innings by the number of overs they bowled. Laxman moves up to no.3 and Sehwag drops to no.7. Clem Hill and Jayawardene drop out and Jayasuriya and Bradman move into the top 10. This is actually a better looking top 20, IMO.

1​
MDKJ Perera153*South Africa750Durban
2019​
21.07​
2​
BC Lara153*Australia751Bridgetown
1999​
20.00​
3​
VVS Laxman281Australia650Kolkata
2001​
19.79​
4​
GA Gooch154*West Indies764Leeds
1991​
19.63​
5​
IT Botham149*Australia604Leeds
1981​
19.56​
6​
Saeed Anwar188*India642Kolkata
1999​
19.53​
7​
V Sehwag201*Sri Lanka648Galle
2008​
19.36​
8​
ST Jayasuriya253Pakistan553Faisalabad
2004​
19.26​
9​
KR Mayers210*Bangladesh523Chattogram
2021​
19.16​
10​
DG Bradman270England612Melbourne
1937​
19.11​
11​
BKG Mendis176Australia624Pallekele
2016​
18.87​
12​
LD Chandimal162*India555Galle
2015​
18.58​
13​
BA Stokes135*Australia659Leeds
2019​
18.36​
14​
DPMD Jayawardene180England674Galle
2012​
18.23​
15​
AC Gilchrist149*Pakistan641Hobart
1999​
18.16​
16​
GL Jessop104Australia710TIe Oval
1902​
18.12​
17​
Azhar Mahmood132South Africa690Durban
1998​
18.01​
18​
CG Greenidge214*England557Lord's
1984​
17.94​
19​
C Hill188England581Melbourne
1898​
17.81​
20​
KJ Hughes100*West Indies818Melbourne
1981​
17.75​
 
Last edited:

Spark

Global Moderator
That's still not going to be perfect. It's a fun exercise but let's not pretend it's an accurate measure. Good bowlers have bad days, bowl worse in certain conditions, may be more tired or not at peak fitness at certain stages of games/series etc.

Just because an attack has McGrath and Warne in it, or 4 Windies quicks, doesn't mean it was bowling great on that day
Ultimately the only way to get vaguely close to "accurate" is to do what CricViz does and use actual ball-tracking data for every ball bowled in the game, which clearly you can't do historically.
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
Using 5 bowlers also seems wrong. 80s Windies and 2000 ustralia were just 4 bowler attacks. The others were just filling in time. If you survived those 4 you had done well. Even with all-rounders, and fifth bowler attacks, if you survived the first four, you're on your way to something special. No way should mark Waugh be figured into Australia's ranking.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
Waugh’s not really “figured into” the ranking so much because I have weighted it by overs bowled.

5 bowlers seems right, especially when you weight it by overs bowled. If it’s a four man attack then you won’t usually see much of the fifth bowler anyway.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
Which it was! If those blokes are bowling overs.

It’s never going to be perfect unless you can get to the point of the number of balls each player faced from each batsman. But having a bowler who bowled 18/178 count for the same as a bowler who bowled 45 doesn’t make sense to me.

But others may disagree
Should only count top 4 bowlers in the attack (by rating or overs bowled). Reason Slater and Hayden were bowling is because Laxman (and Dravid) were batting so well and main bowlers got exhausted.

Edit: looks like this has already been suggested.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
It’s rare to have five quality bowlers, and the system should award it. Batsmen should be rewarded for scoring runs when there was no respite. You could argue that Australia got punished for not having an allrounder at Kolkata in 2001.
 

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