New feature - Batting impact, and why Hanif had more impact than Long Tom

[chasingthedon]

This feature concludes my batting impact study, and includes an in-depth comparison of Hanif and Tom Graveney.

A STUDY IN IMPACT, FINAL PART - WHY HANIF HAD MORE IMPACT THAN LONG TOM | Cricket Web

 

[cnerd123]

Fantastic work. Thanks for this!

 

[Burgey]

Thought you meant Tom Moody before I read the article. Nice work mate.

 

[mr_mister]

pretty solid system if Voges ends up top of the list for low impact runs. gets my approval

 

[Engle]

Great article. Due credit given to stalwarts of yore, especially Trumper and Faulkner.
Viv wasn't listed - yet I understood him to be a batsman who could make a definite impact to the game

 

[Bolo]

Great article. Due credit given to stalwarts of yore, especially Trumper and Faulkner.
Viv wasn't listed - yet I understood him to be a batsman who could make a definite impact to the game

Have a look at part 2 (linked at the top) for Viv. It's got his stats and an explanation.

 

[smash84]

interesting to find Md Yousuf rank so high on the list, and Lara

 

[Coronis]

Mm does seem to favour top order batsmen. Makes sense considering the basis though.

 

[chasingthedon]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

 

[cnerd123]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Would it be possible to get a complete list of your earlier work comparing all cricketers in terms of match impact?

Highest Impact ? the Most Impactful Test Players of All-Time | Cricket Web

You narrowed it down to the top 20 for each set of criteria, I was re-reading this recently and just wondered if it would be possible to see the full data.

 

[chasingthedon]

Would it be possible to get a complete list of your earlier work comparing all cricketers in terms of match impact?

Highest Impact ? the Most Impactful Test Players of All-Time | Cricket Web

You narrowed it down to the top 20 for each set of criteria, I was re-reading this recently and just wondered if it would be possible to see the full data.

I do intend to bring it all together and post at some point, when I get time. Cheers for asking.

 

[Bolo]

Thanks for the study. I like the concept a lot.

If you are putting further work into this, it's a little beyond the scope of this study but it would be interesting to know how much can we read into how much the impact of a player is dependent on how good/how much of a clutch player they were, and how much is circumstantially driven?

The top order bats almost all gain, and the lower order fall. Almost all of the modern big gainers are openers. They seem to be impact players on the basis of the opportunity provided by batting position rather than by being clutch players. A lower order bat will get an opportunity to bat less often and will not always have a chance for their innings to be impactful when they do bat. It would be interesting to know what the results are if normalised by batting position in order to define clutch players rather than just high impact. The two biggest gainers amongst the openers, Gavaskar and Smith, both had a reputation as clutch players and it seems like normalising for batting order would show them to be clutch players, while some of the other openers would be impact alone by virtue of opening.

Looking at Lara's gains, he seems to be in a group by himself. He had a reputation for playing some clutch knocks. But my gut tells me he would also gain in this type of analysis from being in a strong bowling and weak batting team- he is afforded more opportunity to be an impact player than is typical for players of his era by virtue of games being lower scoring than if he had played for a different team in the same circumstances. How much of the gains were from clutch knocks and how much were a product of chance as a result of the team he played for? You covered this in one way through the quality of opposition in the original article, but I'm not sure if it's possible to tweak this further without overly complicating things and moving too far away from your original focus. I'm not just interested in Lara in this regard, it's just that he stands out.

 

[chasingthedon]

Thanks for the study. I like the concept a lot.

If you are putting further work into this, it's a little beyond the scope of this study but it would be interesting to know how much can we read into how much the impact of a player is dependent on how good/how much of a clutch player they were, and how much is circumstantially driven?

The top order bats almost all gain, and the lower order fall. Almost all of the modern big gainers are openers. They seem to be impact players on the basis of the opportunity provided by batting position rather than by being clutch players. A lower order bat will get an opportunity to bat less often and will not always have a chance for their innings to be impactful when they do bat. It would be interesting to know what the results are if normalised by batting position in order to define clutch players rather than just high impact. The two biggest gainers amongst the openers, Gavaskar and Smith, both had a reputation as clutch players and it seems like normalising for batting order would show them to be clutch players, while some of the other openers would be impact alone by virtue of opening.

Looking at Lara's gains, he seems to be in a group by himself. He had a reputation for playing some clutch knocks. But my gut tells me he would also gain in this type of analysis from being in a strong bowling and weak batting team- he is afforded more opportunity to be an impact player than is typical for players of his era by virtue of games being lower scoring than if he had played for a different team in the same circumstances. How much of the gains were from clutch knocks and how much were a product of chance as a result of the team he played for? You covered this in one way through the quality of opposition in the original article, but I'm not sure if it's possible to tweak this further without overly complicating things and moving too far away from your original focus. I'm not just interested in Lara in this regard, it's just that he stands out.

Thanks for commenting Bolo - I'll look into your comments in detail ASAP. Cheers!

 

[Starfighter]

It could also be that the concept of a 'clutch player' is a spurious one founded on subjective impressions.

 

[chasingthedon]

It could also be that the concept of a 'clutch player' is a spurious one founded on subjective impressions.

It could be, and it's a very difficult premise to prove or disprove. The Hanif/Graveney comparison suggests there might be something to 'clutch' performance, but there could be other factors at work and it would obviously require a much larger sample size with rigorous conditions applied, but that larger sample size may also have the effect of hiding any such clutch performance. What I haven't done with all players, which I did with Hanif and Graveney, is to isolate only those matches where the batting team is either behind or relatively even, and ignoring when they were ahead. I do have the data, so it would be possible if involved.

My impact study was intended to identify those cricketers who had this ability, if any. However, if it is the contention that no one really has it, then whatever results were presented would be irrelevant in any case. If we could prove that it didn't exist in the first place, of course..

What's your opinion?