It doesn't, it makes perfect sense. I've said this before and much as I may try to keep repetitions to a minumum, it annoys me greatly when people keep saying the exact same thing about me as if I'd never offered a refutal.
Economy-rates are the most important thing in bowling. A bowler with a good economy-rate is a good ODI bowler. Hence, batting against the best bowlers is likely to mean you're going to have to score a bit slower if you want to score at all. If you try to score at 90 per 100 balls, you're not often going to get many. It's only rubbish bowling that will allow you to do this and score heavily.
Hence, someone like Knight, who scored slower and against a better calibre of bowler than Jayasuriya, is a better player than Jayasuriya who scored quicker against a lesser calibre of bowler than Knight. Ditto Gilchrist. And Jayasuriya > Gilchrist, really - he has far more of a "novelty" factor.
Gilchrist and Jayasuriya > Knight when it comes to bashing rubbish bowling. Knight > Jayasuriya and Gilchrist when it comes to scoring against the best attacks. And for me, the latter makes a better batsman than the former.
What irks me about this is the theoretical possibility that both batsmen and bowlers could do well at the same time. What is good for one should be bad for the other - and hence, what is good for each bowler should be bad for opposition batsman.
Theoretically, a team could finish their 50 overs on 0/100. All the bowlers would have economy rates of 2 and all the two openers would have nice big not-outs to add to their averages. Theoretically, everyone has played exceptionally here, but the target is smaller than a ant's eyeball and the team that batted first would almost certainly lose.
ODIs more than anything else are about adapting to ever-changing state of the game. If you come on to bowl second change and the opening bowlers haven't taken any wickets, bowling your spell straight through as 10-40-0 is not going to be as helpful as you'd think, as the batting side will still be no wickets down with about 15 overs remaining and will hence have a completely free licence to swing from the hip. Similarly, taking 3 tailend wickets at the death in your last two overs despite going for 30 off them is going to be pretty poor as well. It is much the same as batting: if you come in at 5/75 and score 30 (18) and then get caught at long on, you've batted ridiculously, but similarly, if you come with 10 overs to go with nine wickets in hand and score 10* (30), you've played an equally horrible innings.
For mine, there are far too many small periods in one day cricket where both teams are content. The fielding captain is thinking "I'll just slow things down, spread the field and bring on some accurate bowlers" while the batsmen are thinking "We'll just steady the innings here and pick off a few single before going for the assault later." The result - the bowlers go for about 4rpo and are happy, while the batting team consolidate their position, and are happy. Someone should be displeased by proceedings or we don't really have a contest, do we?
All these factors are why ODI stats are hard to judge. What "stat" you are trying to better changes from game to game, from spell to spell, from innings to innings and from situation to situation. 10-42-0 can be a great spell in some situations and a poor spell in others so it's wrong to just look at a bowler's economy rate to judge them. The same goes for their average, though, as wickets at (especially, but not limited to..) the death are often quite useless. Personally, I think most people put a little too much weighting on bowling averages and a little too much weighting on batting strike rates, but I also think you, Richard, go a little too far the other way. All are important within each match, and career ODI stats can actually mean very little if a player's role changes from game to game. Hypothetically, a bowler ties down some absolute carnage from all other directions to finish with 10-43-0 in
three consecutive matches including some superb death bowling in each game; the opposition reach 320 and his team chases it down both times. In his fourth match, he is expensive early against pinch-hitting sloggers but then takes vital wickets, exposing the lower order, and then the opposition gets bundled out. He finishes with 10-64-4. He has bowled well in all matches and done the job required of his team in every game, yet his stats are going to look poor in all departments: an average of 48.25 going at 4.83rpo - absolutely shocking stats. The nature of the different things required at different times of ODIs means you can't just look at overall stats like these; you have to examine each game and the roles the bowlers (and batsmen, for that matter) play.
You're not wrong. Goes to show that a game-by-game breakdown is always preferable to an overall average.