DoG's Top 100 Test Batsmen: Discussion thread

[stephen]

Not a huge fan of the 2:1 rating for away: home. Seems too much.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I tend to agree that every thing other than "career stats" is being given too much weighting to get an accurate judgement. Realistically overall career stats should probably make up 70-80% of the rating.

But that would probably defeat the purpose of the exercise which as far as I'm aware is to come up with something a little but different, which is unlikely to happen unless you give excessive rating to factors like home v away, peak period, etc.

 

[Starfighter]

I tend to agree that every thing other than "career stats" is being given too much weighting to get an accurate judgement.

By 'career stats' you really mean 'averages' don't you? *cue whoever's sig quote that is*.

 

[TheJediBrah]

By 'career stats' you really mean 'averages' don't you? *cue whoever's sig quote that is*.

no I mean whatever this means in the original post:

Hi all,

I will in the coming months present my top 100 test batsmen of all time using my standard countdown formula.

Before I do so, I want to make this countdown list more interactive, in that I want my fellow posters to decide on what measures I should use and how much weight to give each measure.

The measures I used for the top 100 test bowlers were as follows:

Wickets taken/years active/great bowling performances 10%
Career record 50%
Peak record (best 50 innings block) 20%
Non-home record 10%
Quality opposition record 10%

The career, peak, non-home and quality opposition records consisted of average, strike-rate and points-per-innings (using my individual innings performance metric).

I want the formula to be consistent for both batsmen and bowlers. I have decided to do away with the points per innings as it gives too much of an advantage to batsmen and bowlers who scored a lot of centuries or took a lot of five wicket hauls in their career. Instead, for batsmen, I only want to use average and strike-rate (with a ratio of 4:1, the same as for bowlers).

The three questions I have are:
1. Should I keep the same weights for each measure? I feel that peak, non-home, and quality opposition should have the same weight.
2. Should I drop the peak 50 innings measure and instead use a peak career record (i.e. when a batsmen achieved their best career average)?
3. Should a player get their full rating after only 50 innings (or about 30 test matches)? Or should it be 100 innings? I feel this works better for ODI players.

I look forward to your opinions. Cheers.

 

[Victor Ian]

Something seems wrong in X innings for full weight. What i mean is that 80 innings way back took many years to achieve. Now that is done in little over 5 years. Is it possible to be a sliding scale? Something as simple as debut before 1950 = 80 innings but debut after 1950 = 150 innings. Or perhaps it is based on a percentage of opportunity to play so New zealand players are not unfavourably penalised against english players who get the most opportunity to play. If you dont implement something like this you will likely bias this towards (lately) the big 3 teams.

 

[Uppercut]

I just now thought about:

Career runs and years active 10%
Home/Away 30% with 2:1 weighting in favor of away performances
Non quality/quality opposition with 2/1 weighting in favor of quality opposition 30%
Peak 50 innings 30%

50 innings minimum to get a full rating on any measurement.

All quality measurements now have equal weighting.

Your call obvs, but if I were doing it I'd drop the home/away qualifier on the grounds that a run is a run wherever it's scored. If it's not too much hassle I'd also make quality non-binary. I think dropping it altogether would be better than having it in as a binary. A binary will give you very funky results either side of the cut-off.

Average adjusted for peak+longevity would already be a great metric. The next most important thing to adjust for would be difficulty of bowling and conditions faced, which would be a lot more difficult to implement and take a bit of time and thought.

 

[Coronis]

Your call obvs, but if I were doing it I'd drop the home/away qualifier on the grounds that a run is a run wherever it's scored.If it's not too much hassle I'd also make quality non-binary. I think dropping it altogether would be better than having it in as a binary. A binary will give you very funky results either side of the cut-off.

Average adjusted for peak+longevity would already be a great metric. The next most important thing to adjust for would be difficulty of bowling and conditions faced, which would be a lot more difficult to implement and take a bit of time and thought.

I’m not sure about the 2/1 ratio but generally speaking, making runs abroad is more difficult then making runs at home, pitches are always different abroad and you’re in the opposing teams bowler’s most familiar and (likely) most preferred conditions. imo the batsman should be rewarded in this exercise for a great away record.

 

[zaremba]

I think you'll find that regardless of your methodology, the result is always Allan Border being ranked the second greatest batsman of all time behind Bradman. So this thread really only needs to rank from numbers 3-100. That'll hopefully save DoG a bit of work.

Deep down you know that Smith is better than Border. And that thought excites you, yet makes you feel dirty.

 

[harsh.ag]

anymore than 10% and you're further penalising batsmen who were really good at home.

Don't want someone like Smith being penalized for "only" averaging 50 abroad, yes (if that's what you were pointing out). Could be solved by having an absolute cut off beyond which you get full points. So, if someone averages more than 50 abroad, they get full points in that category regardless of the average being lower than their home one. Between 45 and 50 gets you (full - x) points. And so on.

 

[Burgey]

Deep down you know that Smith is better than Border. And that thought excites you, yet makes you feel dirty.

He still has much to do over his career, but it’s looking that way

Not sure how I feel about discounting tons made in favour of SR. Kind of makes me think someone like Pujara’s series out here gets downplayed in favour of someone making 70(95). Let’s be honest, he was the difference between the sides, batting as he did

Also think there does need to be some allowance in favour of away runs but tbh I have no idea to what extent

 

[TheJediBrah]

It would be great for South Africans who have typically had an easier time batting away than at home recently. It also kind of rewards players for being not as good at home, to some extent.

 

[trundler]

Is there a way to put in a balls faced per innings qualifier? May solve the SR issue by rewarding longer innings as well.

 

[Burgey]

It would be great for South Africans who have typically had an easier time batting away than at home recently. It also kind of rewards players for being not as good at home, to some extent.

It’s pretty much great for anyone who’s versatile tbh. Smith “only” averages 55 or so away, so he’ll be rewarded for those runs which, in fairness, set him apart from a lot of other blokes who aren’t as consistent away from home. Someone like Huss will presumably be marked down owing to him being a complete home town bully cf his away record.

It should be noted TOTAB’s away average is, of course, second to none cf his home record - 56 away, 45 at home. For the seven years 83-89 with the Windies at their best and touring here virtually every two years, he averaged 60 plus. GOAT. Any system which doesn’t have him in the top two batsmen of all time is deeply flawed, and I will happily assist DoG in fixing it.

 

[Coronis]

It’s pretty much great for anyone who’s versatile tbh. Smith “only” averages 55 or so away, so he’ll be rewarded for those runs which, in fairness, set him apart from a lot of other blokes who aren’t as consistent away from home. Someone like Huss will presumably be marked down owing to him being a complete home town bully cf his away record.

It should be noted TOTAB’s away average is, of course, second to none cf his home record - 56 away, 45 at home. For the seven years 83-89 with the Windies at their best and touring here virtually every two years, he averaged 60 plus. GOAT. Any system which doesn’t have him in the top two batsmen of all time is deeply flawed, and I will happily assist DoG in fixing it.

Would genuinely fear for his safety if you ever came in contact with AB.

 

[Prince EWS]

By 'career stats' you really mean 'averages' don't you? *cue whoever's sig quote that is*.

Hey that's me.

 

[Burgey]

Would genuinely fear for his safety if you ever came in contact with AB.

Allan and I have been mates for years. Fear not.

 

[Days of Grace]

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions,

For now, I have decided to stick to my original formula of:

Career (runs/years active) 10%
Overall average/strike-rate/runs per innings (RPI is new) 50%
Peak average/strike-rate/runs per innings 20%
Non-home average/strike-rate/runs per innings 10%
Quality opposition average/strike-rate/runs per innings 10%

At the moment I have a 50 innings minimum for requirement for full points. I am considering 50 innings min for pre 1975, 75 for 1975-1999, and 100+ for 2000 onwards.

 

[trundler]

Allan and I have been mates for years. Fear not.

Ever since you were 10 and a life sized body pillow of AB was your best friend..?

 

[vcs]

Ever since you were 10 and a life sized body pillow of AB was your best friend..?

This is what pillows used to look like when Burgey was 10.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions,

For now, I have decided to stick to my original formula of:

Career (runs/years active) 10%
Overall average/strike-rate/runs per innings (RPI is new) 50%
Peak average/strike-rate/runs per innings 20%
Non-home average/strike-rate/runs per innings 10%
Quality opposition average/strike-rate/runs per innings 10%

At the moment I have a 50 innings minimum for requirement for full points. I am considering 50 innings min for pre 1975, 75 for 1975-1999, and 100+ for 2000 onwards.

IMO putting RPI is a terrible idea