Sehwag, an all-time Indian great?

[Richard]

Richard will claim Ramps & Hick > Sehwag as a test player, so what's the point?

Wrong. And well done on proving beyond all doubt that there's nothing new-to-board about you at all.

 

[Napier16]

The idea that luck evens-up is wrong and purely something for those idealistic of mind, or who've never given the matter serious thought, so I'll state such a thing. .

Agreed.

 

[zaremba]

As I say - I've read plenty, and dropped catches do seem to me to have increased. This is evident even in the time I've been watching. Even when I wasn't watching terribly seriously I still noticed when someone dropped a catch. I can't really put an exact time on it, but there are certainly more catches going down in recent times than there were when I started taking notice of the game. And I do tend to take more assidious notice of it than some people. For most, dropped catches are just another part of the game - for me, they're things that stand out way above almost anything else.

As I say - I recall Richie Benaud saying a few years ago that he thought catching standards had dropped even despite ground-fielding standards raising immeasurably in recent years. And the fact that dropped catches have been so common recently, having been apparently less so in times I don't remember and certainly less so in some earlier times I do, suggests that wasn't an unreasonable comment.

OK so you've noticed a decline in standards in the last 10 years and that you have a recollection of Richie Benaud saying something similar some time ago. And there was me hoping to see some evidence. But hey.

don't do prejudice. It's utterly pointless. I don't make-up my mind on players then search for facts to back-up such ideas.

You'll see that I had edited my reply to remove that swipe at you, because it wasn't particularly helpful. Whether you make up your mind on players then search for facts to back up your ideas is a matter on which others may be more qualified to comment than me, although from your readiness to "purify" Steve Harmison's bowling record by deleting his best performances, I have to admit to having my doubts...

"His achievements" is something I generally read as an average or something cumulative.

Well it includes averages and cumulative achievements, but is not limited to those things. Playing a match-winning innings would be regarded as an achievement by most right-minded cricket watchers, I suspect. But in any event, averaging 55 as a Test opener appears to me to be a pretty impressive cumulative achievement. There are a handful who have better records as openers, but not many.

 

[tin_tin]

He's a destructive batsman, and a very fine batsmen indeed. Tears bowling attacks to pieces.
He could become a great. But he dosnt have the grace or the flair of a Tendulkar or a Lara. Which sets those, and a few others apart from the rest.

 

[zaremba]

The idea that luck evens-up is wrong and purely something for those idealistic of mind, or who've never given the matter serious thought

...and statisticians, mathematicians, bookmakers, and cricket players since time immemorial.

 

[Richard]

OK so you've noticed a decline in standards in the last 10 years and that you have a recollection of Richie Benaud saying something similar some time ago. And there was me hoping to see some evidence. But hey.

As I say - I've read stuff as well. In most "older" match reports, dropped catches are far rarer than these days.

You'll see that I had edited my reply to remove that swipe at you, because it wasn't particularly helpful. Whether you make up your mind on players then search for facts to back up your ideas is a matter on which others may be more qualified to comment than me, although from your readiness to "purify" Steve Harmison's bowling record by deleting his best performances, I have to admit to having my doubts...

I wish I'd used a different term there now. There are any number I could have which equally accurately described what I was doing. "Compartmentalise" would perhaps have been best.

As I say - making your mind up on players then searching for facts to back up your ideas is such an inanely pointless thing to do it staggers me that anyone would think someone would do it. It simply makes zero sense at all. Can you think of one good reason why I, or indeed anyone, would do such a thing?

Well it includes averages and cumulative achievements, but is not limited to those things. Playing a match-winning innings would be regarded as an achievement by most right-minded cricket watchers, I suspect. But in any event, averaging 55 as a Test opener appears to me to be a pretty impressive cumulative achievement. There are a handful who have better records as openers, but not many.

As I say though - for mine, that flatters him, and not just because he's had more let-offs than most people enjoy. I'm not disputing that in gross form it appears impressive, not for a second. Simply that closer inspection, IMO, reveals it to be far less so.

 

[Richard]

...and statisticians, mathematicians, bookmakers, and cricket players since time immemorial.

OK, give me some serious statisticians, mathematicians and bookmakers who've espoused such a notion?

 

[Dissector]

I don't consider Sehwag a great yet though he could become one in a few years. I think he is comfortably India's second-best opening option when it comes to the all-time test team. I place very little weight on first-class performances for such purposes so I wouldn't really consider Merchant.

The important point about Sehwag is that while his big hundreds often come on flat pitches they usually contribute to the team: giving them a chance to win or helping to get a hard-earned draw. For the most part they don't come in the kind of game where the two teams score 600 in the first innings and the game is a near-certain draw by day 3.

The bottom line is that Sehwag has contributed to the Indian team against and in almost every test-playing country over a number of years. To me that makes him a very fine test player.

 

[Dissector]

OK, give me some serious statisticians, mathematicians and bookmakers who've espoused such a notion?

The law of large numbers says roughly that "luck evens out" over the long run.

 

[Napier16]

Unfortunately for Sehwag though. he's capable of hitting a six and therefore is automatically frowned upon by the purists who perfer Ian Bell types by default..automatically considering such a style to be more appropriate even though in reality it isn't.

His arial abilty as so often counts against him, regardless of how successful it is.

 

[zaremba]

OK, give me some serious statisticians, mathematicians and bookmakers who've espoused such a notion?

As for statisticians and mathematicians, I'm not going to start quoting names because I don't know the names (other than Marcus De Sautoy who was talking about it on Radio 4 the other week). However the point is very simple: if you take a large enough sample of random events (tosses of a coin being the classic example) then the "luck" will even itself out. Toss a fair coin a million times, and you should get reasonably close to a 50:50 split between heads and tails. This is "luck" evening itself out.

It is of course possible that you will get a wide difference between heads and tails. In theory you could even get a million heads. However this becomes vanishingly unlikely. What we are talking about here is a trend, but an extremely powerful trend.

You won't necessarily see "luck" evening out in the course of a single innings, but will almost certainly see it over the course of a career. It's for this reason that you've been forced, in another thread, to describe Sehwag as "an extreme statistical anomaly".

Bookmakers earn their living on the basis of this principle. Luck evens itself out so that, ultimately, the odds which they set (which are of course slightly loaded in their favour) determine that they will make a profit.

If you'd like to do some further reading on this then I could try to dig out some names of "serious statisticians mathematicians and bookmakers" for you, but you or I might both conclude that life is too short.

 

[zaremba]

The law of large numbers says roughly that "luck evens out" over the long run.

Thank you, that's the term that I was looking for.

So Richard here is a list of "serious" mathematicians who espouse (and developed) this theory (with thanks to wikipedia):

Jacob Bernoulli
S.D. Poisson
Chebyshev
Markov
Borel
Cantelli
Kolmogorov

 

[Lillian Thomson]

It depends what constitutes luck though. Although FCA is utter **** it doesn't rely on luck evening itself out. A batsman can play and miss 50 times in an innings - which most people would consider a tad fortunate - but that is less lucky than someone who plays one false shot in the entire innings and is dropped as a result.

 

[Richard]

As for statisticians and mathematicians, I'm not going to start quoting names because I don't know the names (other than Marcus De Sautoy who was talking about it on Radio 4 the other week). However the point is very simple: if you take a large enough sample of random events (tosses of a coin being the classic example) then the "luck" will even itself out. Toss a fair coin a million times, and you should get reasonably close to a 50:50 split between heads and tails. This is "luck" evening itself out.

It is of course possible that you will get a wide difference between heads and tails. In theory you could even get a million heads. However this becomes vanishingly unlikely. What we are talking about here is a trend, but an extremely powerful trend.

You won't necessarily see "luck" evening out in the course of a single innings, but will almost certainly see it over the course of a career. It's for this reason that you've been forced, in another thread, to describe Sehwag as "an extreme statistical anomaly".

Of course he is. Most players have less good fortune than he does. There's only Trescothick that I can think of who's matched his profit from let-offs in my time watching.

However, to suggest that all players have roughly the same amount of luck, or that all players have the same amount of good luck as bad, is simply wrong. It's not remotely possible for it to work that way - luck is too random.

If you do a "delivery per let-off" calculation for 50 batsmen over a career, I'd be surprised if you got two players who had comparable (let's say identical to 5 SF) numbers. All batsmen are slightly different, and you get extreme anomalies like Sehwag and Trescothick who get far more than the regular.

Someone like Andrew Flintoff, for example, I can only recall having about 6 let-offs in his entire Test career - and these came in 2 innings'.

No batsman ever comes close to facing 1,000,000 Test deliveries. And if you do the heads\tails 1,000 times experiment 100 times, you'll almost certainly get different results every single time, even if only by 10 h\ts.

 

[zaremba]

As I say - I've read stuff as well. In most "older" match reports, dropped catches are far rarer than these days.

I honestly don't know where to begin with this. My fear is that, if I begin, I may never end. So I will leave it at this:

 

[Richard]

A batsman can play and miss 50 times in an innings - which most people would consider a tad fortunate - but that is less lucky than someone who plays one false shot in the entire innings and is dropped as a result.

Indeed it is - which is why numbers of runs aren't everything when assessing an innings. They are important though.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I honestly don't know where to begin with this. My fear is that, if I begin, I may never end. So I will leave it at this:

Very wise. Do some reading up on Aspergers Syndrome and then go to the pub instead.

 

[zaremba]

Of course he is. Most players have less good fortune than he does. There's only Trescothick that I can think of who's matched his profit from let-offs in my time watching.

However, to suggest that all players have roughly the same amount of luck, or that all players have the same amount of good luck as bad, is simply wrong. It's not remotely possible for it to work that way - luck is too random.

If you do a "delivery per let-off" calculation for 50 batsmen over a career, I'd be surprised if you got two players who had comparable (let's say identical to 5 SF) numbers. All batsmen are slightly different, and you get extreme anomalies like Sehwag and Trescothick who get far more than the regular.

Someone like Andrew Flintoff, for example, I can only recall having about 6 let-offs in his entire Test career - and these came in 2 innings'.

No batsman ever comes close to facing 1,000,000 Test deliveries. And if you do the heads\tails 1,000 times experiment 100 times, you'll almost certainly get different results every single time, even if only by 10 h\ts.

And yet you're prepared to say the following:

Unlucky batsmen are exceptionally rare. Virtually no batsman over a long career will have more bad luck than good.

So bad luck is "evened out" over the course of a long career, but good luck isn't?

 

[Richard]

Very wise. Do some reading up on Aspergers Syndrome and then go to the pub instead.

That's a waste of time. Asperger's Syndrome is so varied a spectrum that one cannot possibly hope to think they know a thing about one case based on another.

 

[Richard]

And yet you're prepared to say the following:

So bad luck is "evened out" over the course of a long career, but good luck isn't?

Eh? No. No amount of luck is evened-out - simply bad luck for a batsman is far, far rarer than good luck for a batsman.

You've heard, surely, people say that if all catches were taken and all Umpiring decisions given correctly, no game would last beyond 2 days? That's a considerable exaggeration, but it's on the right track. If luck between batsmen and bowlers was evenly distributed, scores would be considerably lower.