• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

What are the most important statistical measures for test bowlers?

Days of Grace

Days of Grace

International Captain
Been rethinking my test bowling ratings recently. I can't decide whether to rate bowlers on a combination of bowling average/strike rate or strike rate/economy rate and what ratio to give each measure.

At the moment I am leaning towards a combination of strike-rate/economy rate with a weighting of 2:1 in favor of strike-rate. Conversely, I am thinking of it being 2:1 in favor of economy rate for ODI bowlers. Or would runs per wicket and strike-rate with a 2:1 weighting in favor of runs per wicket be better for test bowlers, since the main things we use to judge a bowler when looking at his stats are average and strike-rate?

Have I got the combination and ratio correct? I would appreciate any feedback.

In addition, how much more important is batting average than strike-rate in tests? At the moment I have it 6:1 in favor of average, but maybe I could give more weight to strike-rate?
 
Burgey

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Wickets and strike rate much more important than ER in tests imo. Hypothetically you could have a bloke do a Krejza and take 8/200 at say 6 rpo and not be very effective but realistically that doesn't happen often. If you're taking wickets quickly then you're winning tests, even if the batting side is scoring quickly (like this session just gone in India).
 
Last edited:
cnerd123

cnerd123

likes this
If you have the SR and the Economy you can work out the Average
If you have Average and SR you can work out the Economy
If you have Average and Economy you can work out the SR

The three are connected. By using any two you are inadvertently using the third as well.

For me I have always liked the idea of trying to measure the 'value' of each wicket the bowler takes - some combination of where in the order the batsman was batting, what his career record or recent form was leading into that innings, what the score was when the wicket was taken, what the 'par' score for the conditions were, and stuff like if the bowler is playing home/away and if it's a dead rubber or live match.

There is even that gambling thing they do where they figure out the odds of a team winning the game at any given moment, and I saw an article somewhere where they tried to find the most 'impactful' performances as those spells/innings that saw the greatest change in the odds of the player's team winnings from when they started to when they ended. Smth like that done for the 'impact' of a wicket can be added into the value calculation.
 
OverratedSanity

OverratedSanity

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Nah. The pure percentage means nothing. If bowler A has 200 top order wickets and 50 tailend wickets, and bowler B has 200 top order wickets and 100 tailend wickets in the same number of matches, it's clear that bowler B is just as effective as A at taking out the top order but has the added benefit of also running through the tailmore often. B shouldn't be punished for having a "lower percentage" of top order wickets.
 
harsh.ag

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
OverratedSanity said:
Nah. The pure percentage means nothing. If bowler A has 200 top order wickets and 50 tailend wickets, and bowler B has 200 top order wickets and 100 tailend wickets in the same number of matches, it's clear that bowler B is just as effective as A at taking out the top order but has the added benefit of also running through the tailmore often. B shouldn't be punished for having a "lower percentage" of top order wickets.
Click to expand...
By all else equal, I meant the same number of wickets as well. Your point is well made though. Although it is taken care of by the average and SR stats which are to be used in conjunction.
 
Days of Grace

Days of Grace

International Captain
Might as well use a SR 2:1 ER ratio, if that is the case.

An average/SR combo puts too much emphasis on wicket taking?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top