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DoG's Top 100 Test Batsmen: Discussion thread

Days of Grace

International Captain
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.
 

Logan

U19 Captain
1. We all know Don Bradman is the greatest. I want 100 innings as a minimum cut off

2. My order

Overall Career : 50%

Comparison to peers : 15%

Peak : 10%

Quality of bowlers : 15%

Away record : 10%

3. Peak should be when batsman achieved his best form.
 
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Burgey

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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.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
1. We all know Don Bradman is the greatest. I want 100 innings as a minimum cut off

2. My order

Overall Career : 50%

Comparison to peers : 15%

Peak : 10%

Quality of bowlers : 15%

Away record : 10%

3. Peak should be when batsman achieved his best form.
All batsmen will have their averages adjusted according to their era and the opposition that they faced. So we don't really need a comparison to peers measurement.

Also, I feel that instead of a straight cut-off, batsmen will lose points if they have not batted in at least 100 innings.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
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.
This countdown is going to be so much fun.
 

Burgey

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I hope you enjoy it. It would be a shame to put as much effort into these things as you do and not to like doing it :)
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Look forward to Voges cracking the top 30

Headleys rating will suffer if you take away points per innings right?
 
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Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
70-80 innings / 40-odd tests as cut off for full points. Maybe even less. Otherwise punishes players who didn't play a lot because they never had the opportunity, especially applicable to players who crossed one of the wars.
 

TheJediBrah

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Yeah if you've already got 10% for total runs/years active adding another 10% penalty for less than 100 innings is skewing things a bit too much IMO
 

h_hurricane

International Vice-Captain
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.
I liked that you mentioned "coming months". This is going to be a monumental effort. Might as well take one year as well. All the best !
 

OverratedSanity

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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).
I don't agree with this. Making tons and big scores is what elite batting is about. Also was hoping you'd ignore strike rate completely for batsmen. It's too misleading and actually rewards batsmen like sehwag who scored 20(15) abroad when 20(70) would have been much more useful.

Batting time and making big scores are big parts of test batting and this formula would properly capture that imo. There's no need for the parameters to be consistent for bowlers and batsmen at all, just treat them as different exercises.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
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.
1. I feel non-home should have a higher weight than 10% at the very least. With quality opposition, there is so much subjectivity that I would give it a low weight just so that it doesn't distort results much.

2. Peak 50 innings

3. There should be some way of rewarding longevity. Is there a better way to do that?
 

TheJediBrah

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1. I feel non-home should have a higher weight than 10% at the very least. With quality opposition, there is so much subjectivity that I would give it a low weight just so that it doesn't distort results much.
anymore than 10% and you're further penalising batsmen who were really good at home.

3. There should be some way of rewarding longevity. Is there a better way to do that?
the first metric he mentioned: "Wickets taken/years active/great bowling performances 10%" covers that pretty well
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
It's tricky. I know for the older era players you tend to say if they had a 20 year career like Bradman, Hobbs and Hammond they had a full career despite not playing anywhere near the amount of tests as modern players

But for someone like say Headley or Aubrey Faulkner who really only played a token test or two after world wars effectively ended their careers, do we consider them to have played a full career. As on paper their test careers going by span of time looks very long
 
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stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I don't agree with this. Making tons and big scores is what elite batting is about. Also was hoping you'd ignore strike rate completely for batsmen. It's too misleading and actually rewards batsmen like sehwag who scored 20(15) abroad when 20(70) would have been much more useful.

Batting time and making big scores are big parts of test batting and this formula would properly capture that imo. There's no need for the parameters to be consistent for bowlers and batsmen at all, just treat them as different exercises.
Agreed. I'd swap the rating for strike rate with the points per innings.

Also home vs away stats are important but I think you're better off splitting them 50/50. Also consider the UAE to be home for Pakistan since the attacks.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
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.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
I don't agree with this. Making tons and big scores is what elite batting is about. Also was hoping you'd ignore strike rate completely for batsmen. It's too misleading and actually rewards batsmen like sehwag who scored 20(15) abroad when 20(70) would have been much more useful.

Batting time and making big scores are big parts of test batting and this formula would properly capture that imo. There's no need for the parameters to be consistent for bowlers and batsmen at all, just treat them as different exercises.
All well and good but are you fine with batsmen like Barrington and Chanderpaul being ahead of Richards and Chappell?

To me, a ratio of 4:1 means that strike-rate is seen as a bonus that separates players with similar averages. The faster you score your runs or take your wickets, the better chance your team has of winning the game.
 
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OverratedSanity

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All well and good but are you fine with batsmen like Barrington and Chanderpaul being ahead of Richards and Chappell?

To me, a ratio of 4:1 means that strike-rate is seen as a bonus that separates players with similar averages. The faster you score your runs or take your wickets, the better chance your team has of winning the game.
I'm fine with chanderpaul>Chappell if that's what the formula leads to even though I disagree with the outcome. Getting tons separates the great from the very good.

The strike rate thing will punish players for sticking it out and surviving long periods of time which doesn't sit right with me. And through most of history batting strike rates aren't 100% accurately available anyway. Tons of problems with it imo.
 

TheJediBrah

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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.
This seems weird. Quality of opposition isn't a binary measurement, it's on a scale. Seems strange that a match against a team with, say "49% quality" gets half as much as against a team with "51% quality" if you catch my drift.
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
How is quality opposition calculated? 2:1 weighting in favour is too high if it is a straight cut off. Is there a possibility for 'good, average, bad' for say, 5:4:3, or will that be too much work?. 2:1 weighting in favour of away performances is definitely too high, something more like 5:4 or 7:5, maybe 3:2 at the most.

Not too keen on peak performance being given such a big rating either. Don't see why players who dazzled briefly then became worse should be rewarded that much or at all compared to ones who were more consistent through their careers for the same average.

All well and good but are you fine with batsmen like Barrington and Chanderpaul being ahead of Richards and Chappell?
Yeah, why not? What will you be using for strike rate for older players without complete balls faced? Maybe a 1:6 or 1:8 or even 10:1 ratio is better.
 

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