Ranking the Auxiliary skills in test cricket

[reyrey]

It sounds like you trying to compare the secondary skills of 1 player to around 4? OFC the 5th bowler is going to lose that one. How do you feel about 1 5th bowler vs 1 slip vs 1 tail end bat?

Another possible way to compare the value of the skills might be something like this

-The slip cordon takes 90% of chances, and only drops one chance per Test.

- 5th bowler (pace) has an ER of 3, averages 30 and over his career takes on average 2 wickets per match. 6th bowler (spin) ER 3 averages 45 and 1 wicket per 2 Tests (this would be similar to having Stokes and Root as bowlers)

- Tailend batting: number 8 averages 25, number 9 averages 20, 10 averages 15, 11 averages 10 (this tail is similar to Bresnan, Swann, Broad, Anderson in the early 2010s)

 

[kyear2]

Why are Simpson, Chappell, Hammond and Hooper being thrown around as names for Cordon and compared with Steve Waugh, Allan Border, Viv Richards and Joe Root for 5th bowler??

Multiple reasons.

It was in the context of the discussion where moderate relief bowlers more than suitably demonstrated the ability to fill the role.

Basically, it didn't take a significant amount of comparative skill to be efficient.

Also, who are the best 5th bowling options. Kallis, Greig, Mustaq, Simpson, Barlow, Worrell Hammond?

By the very nature of the position, it's not one that projects greatness.

As I said earlier, it's the one of the three that has the lowest skill entry level, as well as possibly the lowest ceiling as well.

 

[capt_Luffy]

Multiple reasons.

It was in the context of the discussion where moderate relief bowlers more than suitably demonstrated the ability to fill the role.

Basically, it didn't take a significant amount of comparative skill to be efficient.

Also, who are the best 5th bowling options. Kallis, Greig, Mustaq, Simpson, Barlow, Worrell Hammond?

By the very nature of the position, it's not one that projects greatness.

As I said earlier, it's the one of the three that has the lowest skill entry level, as well as possibly the lowest ceiling as well.

As I said, comparing the Greatest Ever Slippers to 5th bowlers who more often than not were 7th or 8th bowlers, is plain Wrong. Want to compare Hammond's slipping, do with the best 5th option. Now depends on what you consider a 5th bowler, so depending on definition it will be someone like Keith Miller and Ian Botham. Won't go that far, but I think it makes reasonable sense to compare Kallis' secondary to tertiary.

 

[kyear2]

Where do we draw the line between batting all-rounder, "fifth bowler" and very occasional bowler? In England teams that I can remember for example, the likes of Marcus Trescothick, Ian Bell, Graham Gooch and Dan Lawrence have all had a bowl at some point, usually in a desperate attempt to break a 200+ partnership, but none of them bowled frequently or regularly enough to make a difference to the main bowlers' workloads. Whereas you'd expect someone like Stokes or Watson to get some overs in in every innings unless the opposition was getting rolled cheaply.

Forgot Watson in the previous list, yeah he definitely qualifies as among the better ones. Injury free Stokes is definitely a front line bowler though.

The 5th bowler is exactly that, more than just part timer and someone who regularly performed in that role in tests.

The 5th bowler is also someone who wouldn't get selected for that particular skill alone.

 

[kyear2]

Well it has to be somewhat high because we don't want people who generally were not considered reliable bowling options. Those can be filtered down to 6th/7th/etc options. At least from there you can filter out for batting/bowling/part-timers.

Who actually does qualify under that cutoff?

 

[kyear2]

I agree that we don't really want to be comparing part time filth. At >10% of bowling though, I reckon you are only comparing to the elite tail enders, and none of the slips.

The high end skill level of Mark Waugh or Richie Richardson is higher than than of any lower order bat, or any 5th bowler.

Impact in series won tends to be higher for the slip catchers as well.

But more importantly when one reads through match reports or summaries as I often do, and predominantly for India and Pakistan... One would be surprised by the amount of drop catches in the cordon that are noted that either directly lead to loses or missed opportunities to win matches. It's not a one off.

Teams like Australia when a problem developed with dropped chances off their bowlers, drafted in Simpson. It was treated as a priority.

Oh, and elite tailenders is very much an oxymoron.

 

[peterhrt]

Teams like Australia when a problem developed with dropped chances off their bowlers, drafted in Simpson. It was treated as a priority.

Same with England. Phil Sharpe and Graham Roope were picked primarily for their slip catching.

 

[Bolo.]

The high end skill level of Mark Waugh or Richie Richardson is higher than than of any lower order bat, or any 5th bowler.

Impact in series won tends to be higher for the slip catchers as well.

But more importantly when one reads through match reports or summaries as I often do, and predominantly for India and Pakistan... One would be surprised by the amount of drop catches in the cordon that are noted that either directly lead to loses or missed opportunities to win matches. It's not a one off.

Teams like Australia when a problem developed with dropped chances off their bowlers, drafted in Simpson. It was treated as a priority.

Oh, and elite tailenders is very much an oxymoron.

Sure they are better slips than anyone but an ATG specialist is in primary at batting or bowling. We aren't trying to compare how good they are at their job though, just how much value they bring.

Ritchie took a catch a match. We some recent data that said that the teams that were performing the worst were taking about 70% of catches. To simplify, that's basically an extra dropped catch every 3 games. @ an average of 30 runs a wicket, that's around 10 runs a game. This is ATG compared to bad. Kapil adds more than 30 runs more than Murali without even considering additional parnership runs.

Sure, drops can swing games. Just not as often as tail end runs. In the last few years, I reckon something like half of close games have come down to tail end runs. Far fewer for drops.

 

[subshakerz]

To summarize, if I had a team and had to skimp out on the quotient or quality of one of the secondary skills, it's that one. That's the one you'll be willing to make the sacrifice of quality for. You don't want consistent lower order collapses, and you can't afford it in the cordon.

Would you allow one slip to be non elite to allow a better 5th bowler?