Who would you rather have come in at No. 6 for your team with 15 overs to go?

[Prince EWS]

That's cute. But Vik and I are saying that ODI cricket was played wrong before.

No-one's denying that OD batting tactics and skillsets have changed. The difference between absolutists and relativists here doesn't lie there. I actually agree with you there; the difference is in how I apply that information to how I rate players.

We can all observe that scoring rates have increased over time in ODI cricket. For absolutists, it's very important to figure out why this is the case when rating players -- if it's due to improvement in batting tactics over time, then modern bowlers' high economy rates need to be forgiven, but batsmen's strike rates do not. If it's due to the standard of bowling going down, however, then the opposite is true. If it's due to changes in rules or bat sizes or something like that, then both modern economy rates and olden day strike rates need to be forgiven. It is very important to an absolutist to decipher the cause as it will then impact on how the absolute skill of a player should be rated. You are writing to me as if I'm an absolutist who happens to disagree with you about the cause of the change in scoring rates -- that you think it's improved batting and think I think it's something else (I don't, ftr).

I think skill absolutism is an absolutely terrible way to judge players though; I'd rather scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon. I too recognise that scoring rates have changed in ODIs, but as a relativist all I need to do is recognise this rather than try to pinpoint why, as I rate player performances relative to their peers. It might be true that Bevan would be a slug in the modern game or it might be true that he'd score quicker -- the relativist position is that it just doesn't matter either way when rating him, because each player's value lies in what he's doing relative to everyone else at the time, not what he'd do if he was sent through a time machine to play imaginary cricket.

 

[Daemon]

I'm going to have to think about that some more. It's a new concept and I have to get my head around it.

For now I'm looking at it like this. Say Bevan and Maxwell were both available for the Black Caps right now.

I would see no place for Bevan in the side. We have enough cake with Guptill, Williamson and Taylor, and all of them score significantly faster than Bevan. He can't replace Elliott at 5 because he takes up balls that we'd rather Anderson, Ronchi and Santner got to face.

Maxwell, on the other hand, would walk straight in at 5 over Elliott any day of the week.

There is a certain irony here that many of the people accusing me of being a statsmonger have little to support Bevan over Maxwell other than his massive average. The truth is that once your SR falls below a certain level, you're a liability to the team, and the bigger your average the more balls you suck up therefore the bigger the liability. This is more true the lower down you bat.

This is assuming Bevan would play exactly the same way (in particular strike at the same rate) as he used to back then.

 

[Dan]

I'm going to have to think about that some more. It's a new concept and I have to get my head around it.

For now I'm looking at it like this. Say Bevan and Maxwell were both available for the Black Caps right now.

I would see no place for Bevan in the side. We have enough cake with Guptill, Williamson and Taylor, and all of them score significantly faster than Bevan. He can't replace Elliott at 5 because he takes up balls that we'd rather Anderson, Ronchi and Santner got to face.

Maxwell, on the other hand, would walk straight in at 5 over Elliott any day of the week.

There is a certain irony here that many of the people accusing me of being a statsmonger have little to support Bevan over Maxwell other than his massive average. The truth is that once your SR falls below a certain level, you're a liability to the team, and the bigger your average the more balls you suck up therefore the bigger the liability. This is more true the lower down you bat.

This assumes that Bevan in 2015 will bat exactly as Bevan batted in 1996, when his role was to chase 230 on a regular basis against good bowling attacks on less-roady pitches. Which is part of the absolutism problem.

If he's playing for the BLACKCAPS in 2015, he's no longer a product of 90s ODI cricket -- he's a product of this era -- and I think it's a big stretch to assume he'd play the same way irrespective of that.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

Maxwell's SR is 126. Bevan's is 72. Why is it so ridiculous to suggest that, in a form of the game where scoring quickly is crucial to winning the match, that Maxwell > Bevan?

Because he has not worked out that Maxwell actually averages 27 runs per match and Bevan only 29.

It will take time to teach people numeracy skills.

Some of them only watch one day cricket every four years. They're test fan boys. Average over 50 better than 30. End of.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Because he has not worked out that Maxwell actually averages 27 runs per match and Bevan only 29.

It will take time to teach people numeracy skills.

This is funny because you are absolutely terrible at statistics,

 

[OverratedSanity]

I'm going to have to think about that some more. It's a new concept and I have to get my head around it.

For now I'm looking at it like this. Say Bevan and Maxwell were both available for the Black Caps right now.

I would see no place for Bevan in the side. We have enough cake with Guptill, Williamson and Taylor, and all of them score significantly faster than Bevan. He can't replace Elliott at 5 because he takes up balls that we'd rather Anderson, Ronchi and Santner got to face.

Maxwell, on the other hand, would walk straight in at 5 over Elliott any day of the week.

There is a certain irony here that many of the people accusing me of being a statsmonger have little to support Bevan over Maxwell other than his massive average. The truth is that once your SR falls below a certain level, you're a liability to the team, and the bigger your average the more balls you suck up therefore the bigger the liability. This is more true the lower down you bat.

That's because you assume Bevan would play the same way as he did in the 90s, which was a totally different environment to the one we have today.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

I disagree with this in bold. There are 300 balls. Both openers (I prefer one to be a 100+) and the number 3 should be 85 SR + ideally.

That's one way to look at it. The way I see it, though, is that the players lower down adjust to how the openers have played, so if the openers were too slow the middle order has to become more aggressive to compensate.

What you might have missed is the change in relative value of runs to wickets as the innings progresses. A wicket in the first over is massive, a wicket in the fiftieth over is essentially no more meaningful than a dot ball. This means there's a relative premium on batting average over strike rate at the top of the innings. This is not to discount players like McCullum at the top, but remember that McCullum was also an excellent hitter for a long time at 7.

Having said that, the general rule appears to be that the higher the strike rate the better, but for top order players this is only true up until the point where this start to seriously impact on average.

 

[Cabinet96]

Because he has not worked out that Maxwell actually averages 27 runs per match and Bevan only 29.

It will take time to teach people numeracy skills.

Some of them only watch one day cricket every four years. They're test fan boys. Average over 50 better than 30. End of.

What even is this posting?

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

This is assuming Bevan would play exactly the same way (in particular strike at the same rate) as he used to back then.

Do you know that he can play any other way?

If he could play another way, how would he play it?

You're guessing.

 

[Prince EWS]

IFor now I'm looking at it like this. Say Bevan and Maxwell were both available for the Black Caps right now.

I would see no place for Bevan in the side. We have enough cake with Guptill, Williamson and Taylor, and all of them score significantly faster than Bevan. He can't replace Elliott at 5 because he takes up balls that we'd rather Anderson, Ronchi and Santner got to face.

Yes, and that's skill absolutism. You're judging Bevan by his absolute skill/performance rather than his relative skill/performance.

For a relativist like me to compare Bevan to Williamson for example.. I'd consider directly comparing them to be silly. I'd comparing Bevan to Bevan's peers and see how far ahead of the mean he was, then compare Williamson to Williamson's peers and see the same, then compare the comparisons.

I'm a skill relativist for lots of reasons, but most of all it's because a player's job is to do what will work for his team at the time, and not play in a way that might appease absolutists in 20, 30, 40 years down the track, as sarcastically illustrated by Howe:

Typing out an email to the ECB to explain that they need to get players working on facing future standards of equipment and opposition to be considered good, rather than trying something pointless like winning matches

 

[Dan]

Because he has not worked out that Maxwell actually averages 27 runs per match and Bevan only 29.

It will take time to teach people numeracy skills.

If you switch the unit of analysis to innings batted, not matches played (Bevan only batted in 84% of ODIs he played, Maxwell 92%, which is a fairly significant skewing figure IMO), the numbers come out different:

Maxwell: 29.6 runs per innings batted
Bevan: 35.3 runs per innings batted

Not going to draw a conclusion based on it, just that Runs/Matches is flawed considering No Results and times when the respective batsmen in question aren't required.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

No-one's denying that OD batting tactics and skillsets have changed. The difference between absolutists and relativists here doesn't lie there. I actually agree with you there; the difference is in how I apply that information to how I rate players.

We can all observe that scoring rates have increased over time in ODI cricket. For absolutists, it's very important to figure out why this is the case when rating players -- if it's due to improvement in batting tactics over time, then modern bowlers' high economy rates need to be forgiven, but batsmen's strike rates do not. If it's due to the standard of bowling going down, however, then the opposite is true. If it's due to changes in rules or bat sizes or something like that, then both modern economy rates and olden day strike rates need to be forgiven. It is very important to an absolutist to decipher the cause as it will then impact on how the absolute skill of a player should be rated. You are writing to me as if I'm an absolutist who happens to disagree with you about the cause of the change in scoring rates -- you think it's improved batting and think I think it's something else.

I think skill absolutism is an absolutely terrible way to judge players though; I'd rather scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon. I too recognise that scoring rates have changed in ODIs, but as a relativist all I need to do is recognise this rather than try to pinpoint why, as I rate player performances relative to their peers. It might be true that Bevan would be a slug in the modern game or it might be true that he'd score quicker -- the relativist position is that it just doesn't matter either way when rating him, because each player's value lies in what he's doing relative to everyone else at the time, not what he'd do if he was sent through a time machine to play imaginary cricket.

You discuss relativsim to peers, and then possibly dismiss the current bowling as being entirely worse than the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's. That is kinda funny. I get where you're coming from. But there is some cherry picking going on here. Take a position PEWS.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

This assumes that Bevan in 2015 will bat exactly as Bevan batted in 1996, when his role was to chase 230 on a regular basis against good bowling attacks on less-roady pitches. Which is part of the absolutism problem.

If he's playing for the BLACKCAPS in 2015, he's no longer a product of 90s ODI cricket -- he's a product of this era -- and I think it's a big stretch to assume he'd play the same way irrespective of that.

Sure, but if you assume otherwise you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.

All I can say about Bevan was what he demonstrated in real life in actual cricket. What he did was score very slowly and usually not get out. That's fine. I have no reason, based on this, to think that he could possibly compete with a hitter like Maxwell for a No. 5 slot in today's game. At no point in his career did he demonstrate an ability to do this. So why consider the possibility that he may have been a completely different batsman in a different era?

I'm contending nothing more controversial than the idea that Bevan's demonstrated ability has declined severely in value because of the changing nature of the game. I don't see why that's a problem. I wouldn't pick John Wright or Andrew Jones in 2015 for similar reasons.

Viv Richards, Lance Cairns, Kapil Dev, Shaun Pollock, Sanath Jayasuriya et al, all the guys who demonstrated an ability to play the modern style of game, I probably would choose them in a modern team if they were available today.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

If you switch the unit of analysis to innings batted, not matches played (Bevan only batted in 84% of ODIs he played, Maxwell 92%, which is a fairly significant skewing figure IMO), the numbers come out different:

Maxwell: 29.6 runs per innings batted
Bevan: 35.3 runs per innings batted

Not going to draw a conclusion based on it, just that Runs/Matches is flawed considering No Results and times when the respective batsmen in question aren't required.

Thanks for that Dan. Your analysis still supports my main point that Maxwell's 30 is closer to Bevan's 50 than people would insitictively think merely looking at the batting average.

Good work.

Plus with the more attacking approach, it is likely that all batsman will bat more often. You're actually doing a lot of the leg work for Vik and I.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Yes, and that's skill absolutism. You're judging Bevan by his absolute skill/performance rather than his relative skill/performance.

For a relativist like me to compare Bevan to Williamson for example.. I'd consider directly comparing them to be silly. I'd comparing Bevan to Bevan's peers and see how far ahead of the mean he was, then compare Williamson to Williamson's peers and see the same, then compare the comparisons.

I'm a skill relativist for lots of reasons, but most of all it's because a player's job is to do what will work for his team at the time, and not play in a way that might appease absolutists in 20, 30, 40 years down the track, as sarcastically illustrated by Howe:

I agree with your reasoning, but aren't you leaving yourself open to thinking that a player who averaged 105 at U-17 level is better than Bradman because of skill relativism?

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

Yes, and that's skill absolutism. You're judging Bevan by his absolute skill/performance rather than his relative skill/performance.

For a relativist like me to compare Bevan to Williamson for example.. I'd consider directly comparing them to be silly. I'd comparing Bevan to Bevan's peers and see how far ahead of the mean he was, then compare Williamson to Williamson's peers and see the same, then compare the comparisons.

I'm a skill relativist for lots of reasons, but most of all it's because a player's job is to do what will work for his team at the time, and not play in a way that might appease absolutists in 20, 30, 40 years down the track, as sarcastically illustrated by Howe:

But you forget, he was playing the game inefficeintly and so was almost everyone else bar Dev, Viv, Cairns, et al. All you have is when the game was played wrong, Bevan was better than almost everyone on the mean (with almost everyone playing the game wrong), then you massively assume that if he played the game correctly he would still be ahead of the mean. It is fallacious. You have no information as to him playing the game efficiently.

You have at best, his ability to win matches, when the game was played incorrectly by most people. Its worthless information.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Even if Bevan plays like his usual in this era, he gets a gig in the recent teams. His SR is not 50.

 

[Prince EWS]

You discuss relativsim to peers, and then possibly dismiss the current bowling as being entirely worse than the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's.

Only in absolutist terms. To an absolutist like yourself or kiwiviktor, it's vital to figure out what the cause of increased strike rates is. One possible cause of increased strike rates could be declining bowling standards, and it'd be important as an absolutist to figure out if that was a factor. You seem to have settled on 'mostly improved batting tactics'.. and I'd agree!

To a relatavist it doesn't matter if they were better in absolutist terms though. It's just irrelevant to how they should be rated.

 

[Dan]

Sure, but if you assume otherwise you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.

Yes, if you assume context holds the key to everything and Bevan is super-adaptable, you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.
But, by the very same token, if you assume context does not matter at all and Bevan is super-unadaptable, you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.

We simply cannot know what Michael Bevan would do if he found himself batting at #5 for the Blackcaps in 2015. Speculating either way is pointless.

 

[Prince EWS]

then you massively assume that if he played the game correctly he would still be ahead of the mean.

Ahh that's where you're wrong. Again, you're projecting your absolutism onto me. I'd only have to assume that if I was an absolutist and thought how he Bevan would go in today's game actually mattered.

I don't assume to know that; I just don't care what the answer is. To me it's entirely irrelevant to how he should be rated.