Rank the 10,000 club

[srbhkshk]

so you admit batting in partnerships influences batsmen. thaaaank you.

and yes that absolutely means we should deal in absolutes as seen in your second sentence.

It's an intangible that can't be measured and could very well be having -0.1% impact on a batsman, the only one dealing in absolutes are the people who think it's a grand factor for certain.

 

[TheJediBrah]

So then it has a negative influence on their average? That's still an influence. Not sure what you're arguing here.

My apologies for being unclear. Basically I'm just having issue with the idea that having better batsmen around you will universally improve an individual's output/average, regardless of the player. I wasn't intending to say that it would never have an influence, but rather that trying to analyze it in order to rate a player is dumb because you can't accurately predict it. Or retrospectively analyse the effect it had on a player with any meaning.

 

[ataraxia]

My apologies for being unclear. Basically I'm just having issue with the idea that having better batsmen around you will universally improve an individual's output/average, regardless of the player. I wasn't intending to say that it would never have an influence, but rather that trying to analyze it in order to rate a player is dumb because you can't accurately predict it. Or retrospectively analyse the effect it had on a player with any meaning.

I never meant that. Generally, having better batting partners increases an individual's output and average. I never meant that there weren't anomalies.

 

[Burgey]

I do not see @pardus pointing out that Smith's record in England is inflated coz he did not play Anderson, for instance, in a series.

The only person whose record that helps is Anderson.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I never meant that. Generally, having better batting partners increases an individual's output and average. I never meant that there weren't anomalies.

Maybe, but that's still speculation.

 

[honestbharani]

and yes that absolutely means we should deal in absolutes as seen in your second sentence

You do realize he was doing it ironically?

 

[harsh.ag]

If Batsman A's output increases after getting better batsmen around him - "Oh it was easier for him to score runs, less pressure etc"
If Batsman A's output declines after getting worse batsmen around him - "Oh he couldn't handle pressure"
If Batsman A's output increases after getting worse batsmen around him - "We shouldn't use this to say he's better than other batsmen"

And so on.

 

[trundler]

Do we all agree to bin the average v X bowler stat though

 

[Burgey]

Yeah I don't get that stat. I can cop a "averages X when player Y is playing" type stat, but without some sort of analysis into how much a given player faced a certain bowler in any knock, how can you get an accurate or fair representation? And it can work against the batsman o the bowler in any given context.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Do we all agree to bin the average v X bowler stat though

I think it can still have some value if you actually have the right information, ie. "average purely from balls faced from X bowler" and not just the "average when playing against team with X bowler in it".

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I'm going to check back in a minute. The last person to have ranked the 10,000 club wins a gold fish in a bag.

 

[Coronis]

Do we all agree to bin the average v X bowler stat though

Still so naive..

 

[Daemon]

10,000 posts top 10

Daemon
Jono
sledger
PEWS
GIMH
Burgey
Athlai
Howe
UC
*****

 

[Burgey]

The good news is TPC has just over 7,200 runs, so once tests get up and running he'll have 10K within 18 months or so and go top.

 

[ankitj]

I think it can still have some value if you actually have the right information, ie. "average purely from balls faced from X bowler" and not just the "average when playing against team with X bowler in it".

I think the latter is more useful. It's ok to not score and merely survive a gun bowler and then milk his mediocre bowling partners. It counts as same number of runs for team.

 

[trundler]

Yeah I don't get that stat. I can cop a "averages X when player Y is playing" type stat, but without some sort of analysis into how much a given player faced a certain bowler in any knock, how can you get an accurate or fair representation? And it can work against the batsman o the bowler in any given context.

I think it can still have some value if you actually have the right information, ie. "average purely from balls faced from X bowler" and not just the "average when playing against team with X bowler in it".

Yeah and you have to take into account whether Shakoor Rana was umpiring as well.

For me novel stats such as that don't really reveal too much unless somebody's averaging 10 or 100.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I think the latter is more useful. It's ok to not score and merely survive a gun bowler and then milk his mediocre bowling partners. It counts as same number of runs for team.

Sure, looking at it purely from the batsman's point of view. But if the batsman needed to "merely survive" a gun bowler then that's indicative of the bowler being good and hence rightfully reflected in the head to head stats. Furthermore, more so than just runs scored, wickets taken in a head-to-head battle can absolutely have value. If a batsman gets out to a particular bowler with unusual regularity there's generally something there.

 

[Migara]

I think the latter is more useful. It's ok to not score and merely survive a gun bowler and then milk his mediocre bowling partners. It counts as same number of runs for team.

And of course there could be one not-so-gun batsman who could tonk the opposition's star bowler. Like Navjot Sidhu for India who put off the spinners.

 

[Altaican]

Do we all agree to bin the average v X bowler stat though

Couple of things, right? Firstly how much importance do you give to performance against the best when you rate players. For example Lara has pretty pathetic stats against India (and quite honestly gets away with it). If his stats against India and Australia were swapped, and his career stats were still same, would you still rate him as high? I certainly wouldn’t.

Secondly, ultimately it’s the individuals that make up an attack. For example - do you think Aussie attacks from mid-90s to mid-2000s were at the same level with & without McGrath? If you think they were different, how different were their levels?

If you think presence of just one individual (McGrath in this case) is not enough to make an overall difference to the ENTIRE attack, then “average vs bowler in the team” is trash for you.

If, in your mind, absence of just one player (McGrath) significantly reduces the overall strength of the ENTIRE attack from, for example, “Australia of 2000s” level to “Australia of 80s” level then the “average vs bowler in team” could be important to you.

So second question is how much weight you give to the impact of just one individual bowler on the ENTIRE attack of the team.

Another example is if Marshall missed a series or two in 80s West Indies, it probably would NOT have made a significant difference (from the match context as well as difficulty of batting context) because West Indies of the 80s had such a phenomenal overall attack

Obviously the stat is useless to draw any conclusions unless the sample size is large enough (at least >= 15 innings) for both cases, AND all in the same era. In India vs Australia case from mid-90s to mid-2000s, this particular factor should not be an issue because you have decent sample sizes, with and without McGrath

 

[_00_deathscar]

Couple of things, right? Firstly how much importance do you give to performance against the best when you rate players. For example Lara has pretty pathetic stats against India (and quite honestly gets away with it). If his stats against India and Australia were swapped, and his career stats were still same, would you still rate him as high? I certainly wouldn’t.

Secondly, ultimately it’s the individuals that make up an attack. For example - do you think Aussie attacks from mid-90s to mid-2000s were at the same level with & without McGrath? If you think they were different, how different were their levels?

If you think presence of just one individual (McGrath in this case) is not enough to make an overall difference to the ENTIRE attack, then “average vs bowler in the team” is trash for you.

If, in your mind, absence of just one player (McGrath) significantly reduces the overall strength of the ENTIRE attack from, for example, “Australia of 2000s” level to “Australia of 80s” level then the “average vs bowler in team” could be important to you.

So second question is how much weight you give to the impact of just one individual bowler on the ENTIRE attack of the team.

Another example is if Marshall missed a series or two in 80s West Indies, it probably would NOT have made a significant difference (from the match context as well as difficulty of batting context) because West Indies of the 80s had such a phenomenal overall attack

Obviously the stat is useless to draw any conclusions unless the sample size is large enough (at least >= 15 innings) for both cases, AND all in the same era. In India vs Australia case from mid-90s to mid-2000s, this particular factor should not be an issue because you have decent sample sizes, with and without McGrath

Again, while certainly accepting of the opinion that Lara > Sachin, the problem I have with this very particular methodology is that it is one very specific bowler (and thus, for Sachin, a much smaller sample size than for Lara), and again, ignoring the other supposedly world class ATG bowler that the very same team had!

While there is merit to the idea (testing vs the best), it's a very limited test instead of an overall performance of how the player did if all we include is just the one bowler, as good as he was (Steyn was arguably better anyway, and Ambrose and Donald weren't far behind if at all).

Conversely, I showed in an earlier post that if you take the top 10 bowlers of Sachin's time (a MUCH larger and varied sample size) and see his average vs them, it's certainly lower than his overall average, but not by much. And in his 1993-2002 peak period, it's around about his overall average (though a dip from his 63 or so peak around that period).
The point being, Lara's average is around about the same as Sachin's when you apply that exact filter for him (removing Steyn, because he wasn't playing when Lara was, and obviously his own countrymen, and adding in Kumble instead - therefore an easy argument to be made that this is already therefore considerably weaker...).

So in short, against the very best bowling Sachin faced, his average is the same as Lara's is.
Against a very specific bowler (or two?), it's lower. Which, without going into too much detail, this also suggests its higher vs another bowler or two than Lara's is.