Is this a reasonable equivalence?

[Xuhaib]

So a slow Wednesday afternoon at work got me in to some deep nerdy cricketing stats thoughts.

I was wondering if we are to compare a performance of a batsman with a bowler what would be the ideal equivalence . So after much deliberation I came to this conclusion

Pacer 20 wickets =1000 test runs
Spinner 25 wickets =1000 test runs

why 20 for pacer to a 25 for spinner per 1000 runs I guess spinners tend to bowl more overs put less stress on body so provided no loss of form should have longer careers then batsman so Anderson with 651 wickets = 16275 runs thus exceeding Sachin runs tally of 15921 which puts him @ 796 spinner wickets and 637 fast bowler wickets sounds fair I think.

Somelike Wasim Akram with 414 test wickets puts him @ 10350 test runs close to Sunil Gavaskar again I can go with that while, Steve Smith currently with 8085 runs would be 323 fast bowler wickets & 404 spinner wickets.

Not everyone will agree with this equivalence some may find it silly but its an interesting take on the subject for some stats nerds like me.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I think it's a fair way off tbh. 1000 runs to 20 wickets is 50 runs per wicket, which is way more than the average. Should be closer to 1000 runs for 30 wickets

 

[Xuhaib]

I think it's fair since a good bowler would average roughly around 4 wickets a game while a good batsman would be expected to score 80-100 runs over a test match.
1 to 30 ratio means we are equating a century to 3 wickets a bit high for my liking

Ofcourse as I said its very subjective and everyone will have a different take on this.

 

[nick-o]

The maths in the opening post is wrong; you've actually calculated it on the basis of:

Pacer 40 wickets =1000 test runs
Spinner 50 wickets =1000 test runs

This would tally with your follow up that 4 wickets per match is equivalent to 100 runs per match for a pacer.

It's an interesting line of thought -- you could come up with almost identical equivalence if you just postulated that Sachin's 15921 = Murali's 800 = Anderson's 651---- the ratios would be close enough to 50 and 40 per 1000.

 

[Xuhaib]

Oh yes I was taking numbers for both innings for a batsman and for bowlers numbers for an individual innings .

Thanks for clarification ?

 

[Migara]

Actually no. Pacemen tend to bowl more in tests because they are more numerous. Up to now pacemen have bowled 2911238 balls taking 45695 wickets at 30.4. In comparison spinners have only bowled 1940647 balls and has taken 25015 wickets at 34.2.

The maths in the opening post is wrong; you've actually calculated it on the basis of:

Pacer 40 wickets =1000 test runs
Spinner 50 wickets =1000 test runs

This would tally with your follow up that 4 wickets per match is equivalent to 100 runs per match for a pacer.

It's an interesting line of thought -- you could come up with almost identical equivalence if you just postulated that Sachin's 15921 = Murali's 800 = Anderson's 651---- the ratios would be close enough to 50 and 40 per 1000.

 

[h_hurricane]

Great batsmen generally score between 70-90 runs per test. Great pace bowlers 4-5 wickets per test.

I think 18 runs per wicket is a reasonable equivalence for pace bowlers to batsmen.

Another way to look at it.

Bradman, the best batsman ever, scored 134 runs per test.

Barnes (assuming we can speak of him as a pacer, though it is debatable), arguably the best bowler of the early era, took 7 wickets per test.

If you compare them it is around 19 runs per wicket. Bradman of course was a better specialist than Barnes, but we get a general guidance.

For spinners, it is tricky as they are a lot more condition dependent than pacers. I will reserve my comments there.

 

[srbhkshk]

Any such analysis should really not try to base itself on how well it works for Tendulkar , Murali , Anderson etc. , those guys are outliers + they did not in fact play the same number of matches.

 

[nick-o]

-- you could come up with almost identical equivalence if you just postulated that Sachin's 15921 = Murali's 800 = Anderson's 651---- the ratios would be close enough to 50 and 40 per 1000.

Looking at that again, it seems unrealistic to compare the outliers in each discipline as a basis for a general rule.

With a few beers and a spare hour, I crunched some numbers.

The 50 top run scorers in history average out at career aggregates of 9171 runs

Of the 50 top wicket takers in history, 16 are spinners. They avergae out at career aggreates of 417.4 wickets

The other 34 of the top 50 wicket takers, assumed to be pacers for this calculation, avergae out at career aggregates of 360.2 wickets.

Crunching those numbers, the ratios are:

Pacer 39.3 wickets =1000 test runs
Spinner 45.5 wickets =1000 test runs

So I think ratios of 40 and 45 are probably better rule of thumb figures.

This would mean that 2nd place bowlers Warne and McGrath are close to parity with 1st place run scorer Sachin, with Murali and Anderson clear outliers.

[edited to add, just as srb posted while I was typing]

 

[honestbharani]

that sounds more reasonable... Still dont think you can weigh up the pacer and spinners that way but its better than the original.

 

[Nikhil99.99]

Great batsmen generally score between 70-90 runs per test. Great pace bowlers 4-5 wickets per test.

I think 18 runs per wicket is a reasonable equivalence for pace bowlers to batsmen.

Another way to look at it.

Bradman, the best batsman ever, scored 134 runs per test.

Barnes (assuming we can speak of him as a pacer, though it is debatable), arguably the best bowler of the early era, took 7 wickets per test.

If you compare them it is around 19 runs per wicket. Bradman of course was a better specialist than Barnes, but we get a general guidance.

For spinners, it is tricky as they are a lot more condition dependent than pacers. I will reserve my comments there.

WPI (Wickets per innings) and RPI (Runs per innings) should be better.

Top 10 batsman with best RPI(min 20 matches)-

Bradman-87.45

Pollock-55.02
Weekes-55
Headley-54.75
Sutcliffe-54.22
Sangakarra-53.21
Labuschange-53.11
Smith-53.04
Hobbs-53.03
Barrington-51.95


Top 15 bowlers(min 20 matches)-

Barnes-3.78
Murali-3.43
Grimmett-3.22
O’Reilly-3
Hadlee-2.87
Shah-2.76
Ashwin-2.72
Lillee-2.68
Kumble-2.62
Warne-2.59
Steyn-2.56
Bedser-2.56
Donald-2.55
Herath-2.547
Imran-2.54


It now gets difficult to compare batsman and bowlers.Even between quick bowlers and spinners.S.F Barnes bowling style is really debatable.
If we consider him as a quickie then his RPI would be around 68.If spinner then probably around 60-63.

 

[shortpitched713]

You're comparing the counting stats of batsmen and bowlers over a career seems to be that application of this equivalence. I think whichever number of batsmen runs you set equal to a bowler wicket will end up giving you weird results.

That's because pace bowlers in particular, tend not to have the longevity of batsmen, but in my mind an individual great pace bowler is capable of consistent match winning performances over let's say a series that can overshadow what a batsman can consistently put out. In my mind even though 100s and 50s get you on the honours board just the same as a 5for or 3for, I would generally take the pace bowlers 5for for having the greater likelihood of being a match winning performance, generally speaking.

So basically, I think whatever number you pick, you're going to end up with weird outliers and results that just feel kind of off for mine.

 

[GIMH]

So basically Jimmy is the greatest cricketer of all time. Agreed

 

[TheJediBrah]

Actually no. Pacemen tend to bowl more in tests because they are more numerous. Up to now pacemen have bowled 2911238 balls taking 45695 wickets at 30.4. In comparison spinners have only bowled 1940647 balls and has taken 25015 wickets at 34.2.

This would be a relevant point except that there have been on average more pace bowlers per team than spinners

There have been more overs bowled by pacemen over the course of Test history, but for each individual bowler, I suspect that the spinners would bowl more overs.

 

[Daemon]

This would be a relevant point except that there have been on average more pace bowlers per team than spinners

There have been more overs bowled by pacemen over the course of Test history, but for each individual bowler, I suspect that the spinners would bowl more overs.

Unless you’re an NZer playing under KW

 

[Athlai]

Spin isn't real

 

[Raz0r6ack]

60 batting average ≈ 20 bowling average
58 batting average ≈ 21 bowling average
56 batting average ≈ 22 bowling average
54 batting average ≈ 23 bowling average
52 batting average ≈ 24 bowling average
50 batting average ≈ 25 bowling average
48 batting average ≈ 26 bowling average
46 batting average ≈ 27 bowling average
44 batting average ≈ 28 bowling average
42 batting average ≈ 29 bowling average
40 batting average ≈ 30 bowling average

 

[Migara]

This would be a relevant point except that there have been on average more pace bowlers per team than spinners

There have been more overs bowled by pacemen over the course of Test history, but for each individual bowler, I suspect that the spinners would bowl more overs.

Probably yes. The flip side would be since there are more pace bowlers, and they bowl more overs, chances of a spinner to take wickets becomes less. It can be argued that if there were 2 spinners per side, each spinner will take more wickets.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Probably yes. The flip side would be since there are more pace bowlers, and they bowl more overs, chances of a spinner to take wickets becomes less. It can be argued that if there were 2 spinners per side, each spinner will take more wickets.

I think you've got this all backwards

 

[Migara]

60 batting average ≈ 20 bowling average
58 batting average ≈ 21 bowling average
56 batting average ≈ 22 bowling average
54 batting average ≈ 23 bowling average
52 batting average ≈ 24 bowling average
50 batting average ≈ 25 bowling average
48 batting average ≈ 26 bowling average
46 batting average ≈ 27 bowling average
44 batting average ≈ 28 bowling average
42 batting average ≈ 29 bowling average
40 batting average ≈ 30 bowling average

Doesn't work this way unfortunately.

Batting averages and bowling averages (stating from higher numbers - obviously omitting 0 average with bat and infinity average with ball) both observe an exponential distribution. But we cannot assume that both have similar shapes, so we could describe a nice linear relationship as above like Bat = 50 - 0.5 * bowl.