A different way to rate bowlers

[benchmark00]

MacGill > Warne.

 

[fredfertang]

Do you mean leg stump?

No - Its never been possible to get an lbw if the ball pitches outside the leg stump - until 1935 in order to get a decision the ball had to pitch in line as well as hit the pad in line

 

[SJS]

Its a good idea.

As with most statistical cricket studies, particularly involving players in the entire history of the game, it sufers from some inadequacies. You should try and address those which can be to make it better. Here are some suggestions - for whatever they are worth :-)

1) The starting point is the highest wicket takers in the game. Clearly, beyond a point these would be a factor of the number of Tests played. If we were to look at batsmen for example, no one doubts who is the greatest ever and yet he is already 39th on the list, Herchell Gibbs will push him into the 40's in a year or so and the there are Pietersen and Strauss coming on. He will keep going down and in your life time you might see him reach the 70's or 80's unless ICC/BCCI/PCB together and/or individually finish Test cricket for ever :-)

2) A better way to go about would be to take all players who have taken, say, a hundred Test wickets and then list them by the number of wickets per Test. This will still leave out a few legends but they will be too few and you wont have Kalis and Zaheer in and the Sid Barnes and the O'Reillys out (arguably two of the greatest bowers of all time out.

3) You could then take the top 50 or sixty from the list or have a cut off, of , say 4 or 3.75 wickets per test as an eligibilty criteria which would give you 51 and 79 bowlers respectively. Here is a list, for example with 3.9 as a cut off (purely arbitrary I agree)

[B]Player	Wkts[/B]

Barnes, S F	189
Lohmann, G A	112
Muralitharan	800
Turner, C T B	101
Grimmett, C V	216
O'Reilly, W J	144
Blythe, C   	100
[B][COLOR="DarkRed"]Steyn, D W *	211[/COLOR][/B]
Lillee, D K 	355
Peel, R      	101
Hadlee, R J	431
Warne, S K	708
MacGill, S C G	208
[B][COLOR="DarkRed"]Swann, G P*	113[/COLOR][/B]
Kumble, A 	619
[B][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mohammad Asif*	107[/COLOR][/B]
Marshall, M D	376
Croft, C E H	125
Bedser, A V	236
Tayfield, H J	170
Donald, A A	330
Trueman, F S	307
McGrath, G D 	563
Garner, J   	259
Trumble, H 	141
[B][COLOR="DarkRed"]Johnson, M G *	158[/COLOR][/B]
Roberts, A M E	202
Waqar Younis	373
Kaneria, D*	261
Saqlain Mushtaq	208
Davidson, A K	186
Harbhajan  	357
Laker, J C  	193
Reid, B A  	113
Chandrasekhar	242
Holding, M A	249
Alderman, T M	170
Pollock, P M	116
Gupte, S P	149
Ambrose, C E L	405
Snow, J A  	202
Imran Khan	362
McKenzie, G D	246
McDermott, C J	291
Fazal Mahmood	139
Lee, B       	310
Walker, M H N	138
Hughes, M G	212
Hall, W W 	192
Johnston, W A	160
Adcock, N A T	104
Wasim Akram	414
Tate, M W 	155
Bedi, B S  	266
Gough, D   	229
Benaud, R 	248
Walsh, C A	519
Thomson, J R	200
Lawson, G F	180
Gibbs, L R 	309
Pollock, S M	421
Shoaib Akhtar*	178
Ntini, M*    	390
Valentine, A L	139
Prasanna, E A S	189
Fraser, A R C	177
Yardley, B 	126
Caddick, A R	234
Botham, I T	383
Bishop, I R	161
Lindwall, R R	228
Hoggard, M J	248
Taylor, B R	111
Mankad, M H	162
Ramadhin, S	158
Gillespie, J N	259
Wardle, J H	102
[B][COLOR="DarkRed"]Anderson, J M*	188[/COLOR][/B]
Willis, R G D	325
Statham, J B	252
Verity, H    	144
[COLOR="DarkRed"][B]Umar Gul* 	108[/B][/COLOR]

4) I also feel that in such lists, where career stats are compared, players whose careers are on-going should be left out. At least those whose careers are relatively young, say unde ten years should not be included for their final stats my end up being different by some margin. If we removed such (under ten year career) players from my list, you remove those in bold reds viz Steyn, Swann, Asif, Jhonson, Anderson and Gul. If you were realy rigid and went by date of ctart of career rather than year you may get abonus in the form of Kaneria's name being expunged from the list :-)

Anyway, this is a very eminent list of 75 (74 without Kaneria) with much fewer anamolies - not none mind you.

 

[cover drive man]

Thanks sjs.

 

[honestbharani]

Should do the same for batsmen, tbh.. Both CDM and SJS, if you guys will be so kind.

 

[Athlai]

Yeah this is pretty interesting stuff guys. An argument that often comes with some of these guys (Hadlee, Murali etc.) is that their teammates took relatively few wickets. Wonder if there is anyway to apply this to attack strength for a particular time.

 

[Debris]

Yeah this is pretty interesting stuff guys. An argument that often comes with some of these guys (Hadlee, Murali etc.) is that their teammates took relatively few wickets. Wonder if there is anyway to apply this to attack strength for a particular time.

This is what I was wondering as well, although looking at the list there doesn't seem to be any really obvious skew towards those without strong support. The Windies pace attacks might be a bit disadvantaged though.

 

[SJS]

Yeah this is pretty interesting stuff guys. An argument that often comes with some of these guys (Hadlee, Murali etc.) is that their teammates took relatively few wickets. Wonder if there is anyway to apply this to attack strength for a particular time.

Yes there are a few ways to do it.

I have done some fairly comprehensive work on it but due to my mothers health and her passing away it hasn't been finished. I will do it one of these days. It is very interesting not only for comparing bowlers or batsmen across time but also comparing batsmen versus bowlers although the latter in a rather limited way. Let me just tell you one thing that Murali's 67 five wicket hauls are the equivalent of a 100 Test centuries !

Interesting, no ?

 

[Uppercut]

1) The starting point is the highest wicket takers in the game. Clearly, beyond a point these would be a factor of the number of Tests played. If we were to look at batsmen for example, no one doubts who is the greatest ever and yet he is already 39th on the list, Herchell Gibbs will push him into the 40's in a year or so and the there are Pietersen and Strauss coming on. He will keep going down and in your life time you might see him reach the 70's or 80's unless ICC/BCCI/PCB together and/or individually finish Test cricket for ever :-)

The fact that the analysis would be useless if it was to be done on batsmen is completely irrelevant, surely?

 

[Flem274*]

Can we change the thread title please? Hate seeing CDM sounding so apologetic for what was a pretty good idea.

 

[SJS]

The fact that the analysis would be useless if it was to be done on batsmen is completely irrelevant, surely?

I gave the example of batsmen purely because there is a unanimity about the greatest batsman which is missing with the bowlers. Otherwise I would have refered to the missing Syd Barnes which is an equally important omission in any list of all time great bowlers. He doesn't just have 189 wickets in only 27 wickets making his 7 per Test by far the highest for anyone who has taken even fifty Test wickets, his 24 five wkt hauls in 27 by far the greatest proportion, same with his 7 ten wicket hauls and his 49 wickets in just four Tests in his last test series; he was also the record holder for the highest number of Test wickets till as late as 1935.

If you think the example of batsmen as inappropriate, here is a bowler considered by many as the greatest ever and on any serious cricket writer/experts shortest list of all time greatest bowlers and he was missing in that list.

As I said in my previous post this is a proble that will remain with statistical studies covering entire history so this is not a criticism of CDM's laudable effort (as some are making it out to be) but a modest attempt to contribute to it.

If even this is not appreciated in the "new" CW I can go back into hibernation. I do have my nerw found love of photography to keep me company in my old age :-)

 

[Ikki]

Yeah this is pretty interesting stuff guys. An argument that often comes with some of these guys (Hadlee, Murali etc.) is that their teammates took relatively few wickets. Wonder if there is anyway to apply this to attack strength for a particular time.

That's the thing that skews it too much in favour of bowlers who had relatively little competition for wickets and bowled a more than usual. It obviously favours spinners, and especially Murali for he is the one spinner high on this list with little competition for wickets in comparison to Warne, O'Reilly and Grimmett.

I think this an interesting exercise and says more about bowlers like Lillee. Lillee had competition for wickets for a lot of his career and still managed huge hauls - he has 7 10fers, or one every 10 matches. He is higher on this list than even Hadlee, which is very impressive.

 

[Athlai]

Let me just tell you one thing that Murali's 67 five wicket hauls are the equivalent of a 100 Test centuries !

Interesting, no ?

Immensely, very keen to see how this develops.

 

[Uppercut]

I gave the example of batsmen purely because there is a unanimity about the greatest batsman which is missing with the bowlers. Otherwise I would have refered to the missing Syd Barnes which is an equally important omission in any list of all time great bowlers. He doesn't just have 189 wickets in only 27 wickets making his 7 per Test by far the highest for anyone who has taken even fifty Test wickets, his 24 five wkt hauls in 27 by far the greatest proportion, same with his 7 ten wicket hauls and his 49 wickets in just four Tests in his last test series; he was also the record holder for the highest number of Test wickets till as late as 1935.

No, I see why you did it, I just don't think it's a very good analogy. Using runs per match as a method of judging batsman is just comically poor, you're essentially taking weaknesses in one of the worst analyses you could possibly do and using them to explain what's wrong with a completely different one.

Although your conclusions are all good, so I suppose you can write this off as a bit pedantic .

 

[honestbharani]

I gave the example of batsmen purely because there is a unanimity about the greatest batsman which is missing with the bowlers. Otherwise I would have refered to the missing Syd Barnes which is an equally important omission in any list of all time great bowlers. He doesn't just have 189 wickets in only 27 wickets making his 7 per Test by far the highest for anyone who has taken even fifty Test wickets, his 24 five wkt hauls in 27 by far the greatest proportion, same with his 7 ten wicket hauls and his 49 wickets in just four Tests in his last test series; he was also the record holder for the highest number of Test wickets till as late as 1935.

If you think the example of batsmen as inappropriate, here is a bowler considered by many as the greatest ever and on any serious cricket writer/experts shortest list of all time greatest bowlers and he was missing in that list.

As I said in my previous post this is a proble that will remain with statistical studies covering entire history so this is not a criticism of CDM's laudable effort (as some are making it out to be) but a modest attempt to contribute to it.

If even this is not appreciated in the "new" CW I can go back into hibernation. I do have my nerw found love of photography to keep me company in my old age :-)

nah, SJS, you will see that UC is alright, though IMO he is somewhat dogmatic about his views. And I understand your frustration with the "new CW" but there are still quite a few of us around from the old times.. BB, myself, bagapath, Jono, Matt79, TC and so many others. You really shouldn't be denying us your wisdom because of a few others... A humble request.

 

[honestbharani]

No, I see why you did it, I just don't think it's a very good analogy. Using runs per match as a method of judging batsman is just comically poor, you're essentially taking weaknesses in one of the worst analyses you could possibly do and using them to explain what's wrong with a completely different one.

Although your conclusions are all good, so I suppose you can write this off as a bit pedantic .

You know.. Not Outs can mean so many different things in different situations that there is no right or wrong about this... To me, contextually a not out innings can mean anything ranging from a 4* when you know the game is about to be drawn to a 150* not out winning you the game... So there are only 2 ways to approach this. Either include all not outs or juz abandom them in your analysis altogether. To me, both approaches have equal merits.

 

[Matt79]

That's the thing that skews it too much in favour of bowlers who had relatively little competition for wickets and bowled a more than usual. It obviously favours spinners, and especially Murali for he is the one spinner high on this list with little competition for wickets in comparison to Warne, O'Reilly and Grimmett.

I think this an interesting exercise and says more about bowlers like Lillee. Lillee had competition for wickets for a lot of his career and still managed huge hauls - he has 7 10fers, or one every 10 matches. He is higher on this list than even Hadlee, which is very impressive.

That's a fair point in some ways, but I think the undoubted advantage top spinners can be shown to be able to maintain in wickets-per-match terms is the too-often overlooked balancing factor to the disadvantage they suffer in strike-rate terms, as compared to quick bowlers. Spinners will normally strike at a relatively lower rate, but they have the ability to bowl much longer spells. Theoretically the average by combining wickets and reflect this, but I don't think it quite does.

 

[cover drive man]

Can we change the thread title please? Hate seeing CDM sounding so apologetic for what was a pretty good idea.

Thanks flem





Will begin some work on a batting one now I'll see if I can find the top hundred test runscorers. Obviously Bradman will be on top but I think it's worth a dabble. SJS, I'd be willing to help you with any ideas you have on this and feel free to give criticism.

 

[cover drive man]

Although I can't seem to find a list that goes to 100, if anyone knows anywhere, it'll be appreciated.

 

[Matt79]

Pick another title you'd like - all I could think of on the fly was "CDM's Garden of Statistical Delights" which might be counter-productive to the intention behind renaming it!