New feature: My Name is Ozymandias, King of Kings

Dave looks at the impact of England batsmen through the ages, and finds that one name stands apart.

Cricket Web - Features: My Name is Ozymandias, King of Kings

Space doesn't allow all 77 batsmen's impact profiles to be included in the feature - if anyone would like to see a particular batsman's impact profile, let me know and I'll post it here.

Interesting conclusion, and I will now spend at least an hour of my weekend going through Lord Ted's entire Test career for myself - those who I had promised to do a roast dinner for on Sunday will not thank you

fredfertang said:

Interesting conclusion, and I will now spend at least an hour of my weekend going through Lord Ted's entire Test career for myself - those who I had promised to do a roast dinner for on Sunday will not thank you

Click to expand...

These things have got to be done. I'm sure it's not the first thing.

Good study. Ted Dexter made my top 100 batsmen and interestingly, he makes the top 15 of English batsmen on significant innings played per match:

1. Sutcliffe 0.41
2. Hobbs 0.39
3. Barrington 0.39
4. Cook 0.37
5. Cowdrey 0.36
6. Compton 0.36
7. Boycott 0.35
8. May 0.35
9. Thorpe 0.33
10. Pietersen 0.32
11. Dexter 0.31
12. Hammond 0.31
13. Vaughan 0.30
14. Strauss 0.30
15. Hutton 0.29

* played over 50 matches. I haven't updated the records since last year, so Pietersen may drop down a couple of decimals.
** significant innings are played in wins, tight draws, and draws when one's team was behind the eight-ball.

Thanks Steve. There are a number of differences betwen our two studies, including:-

- your study covers batting performances in single innings, while mine covers all performances in a complete match, batting, fielding and bowling
- your grading of the significance of a performance is tied to the result, while mine takes into account the change in win probability before and after the relevant performance and the player's contribution to that change, regardless of the final result.

So my study shows the overall impact of a group of players I designated as England Batsmen, but isn't restricted to their batting. In which case it's not surprising we reach different conclusions.