luckyeddie said:
I've got a major problem with this (as you well know) because of one glaringly obvious omission - and it's one you can never resolve without a crystal ball.
It doesn't take into account the situation when the bad decision has gone against the batsman. A guy gets given out when he shouldn't have been. He scored 10. Perhaps he would have scored 50, 100, 200, 381 even.
It is my firm belief that over a long period of time, this sort of anomaly will agerage out - there's not really such a thing as an 'unlucky' or a 'lucky' player over a career - only over a short term. Dropped catches are part of the game - so, unfortunately, are bad decisions.
You mentioned Bradman.
Have you any idea what Bradman's career average should have been by your reckoning? Of course not - no evidence exists regarding any of his innings regarding chances offered and spurned, good or bad umpiring decisions and the like.
I think you're wasting your time.
It is my firm belief that most players have far more good luck over a career than bad. In most cases it's about the same, and in some cases it
seems to me that a few players get more than the rest. Equally, you occasionally get an unlucky player - Flintoff, for instance, has had more bad luck than good IMO. But until last summer he had only scored Test-runs against a third-string NZ attack.
You are quite right that it's never possible to make a certainty out of an innings terminated when it shouldn't have been. However, it is possible to make it a bit fairer - with any run-out with no real fault attached to the sufferer (eg Vaughan yesterday) or a bad Umpiring decision against the batsman, you simply count it as an unterminated innings, like a not out.
It's not perfect, but nothing is ever going to be. IMO it's still a better reflection than the scorebook.
Regarding older playres, yes, you can't do it as accurately for them, but evidence does exist - you still got cricket reporters in those days - and once, bored, I tried to work-out Bradman's first-chance Test average. It came to 107.32. Of course you can't do it to as accurate a degree until you get into camera-behind-the-wicket days (know when that was? I've always thought it was about 1960), but reports do usually mention dropped catches, missed stumpings and run-outs.
Really, though, it's not fair to use the first-chance average for multi-era comparisons. You've just got to hope that 56 is an accurate average for Walter Hammond. In the modern era, though, I'd say it's fair to use it for all players, because all innings are covered in detail.
