The Minnow bashers

[Migara]

There could be an improvement to the stats. Why not used standardized data in ODIs? Example ER of 4.2 in 2008 is much better than that of in 1985. You have not made any corrections for that

 

[SJS]

The only substandard teams in Test history for mine are:
South Africa 1888/89-1901/02
New Zealand 1929/30-1958/59
Zimbabwe 2003-
Bangladesh 2000/01-

.

Pretty fair assessment that. I am not so sure about New Zealand. I think from about 1955, when they toured India, they were a fairly competent side. They drew three of the five Tests against India.

They had batsmen like Sutcliffe who scored over 600 runs in the series averaging 87. Reid scored 7 short of 500 and averaged over 70. John Guy scored a century and two fifties.

There bowlers had a tough time on the Indian tracks - no surprise at all.

Subhash Gupte was really the difference between the two sides. Put him in the Kiwi camp and the series result could be completely different.

They lost 3-1 NIl to West Indies after that - no surprise. India met the same fate or worse for years.

I think they were ready to compete at this stage at the top level.

 

[fredfertang]

Hadlee's 1949 New Zealanders were a decent side - bowling not terribly strong but some good batsmen - not their fault MCC saw fit to only allocate three days for the tests

 

[Migara]

I have changed some criteria a bit. Minute changes, and used Adjusted data instead of raw figures. The methodology can bee seen in Point system and Inclusion criteria

The top 30 ODI bowlers appeared as following.

[B]Pos	Player			Points[/B]

1	LS Pascoe (Aus)		1016
2	Waqar Younis (Pak)	960
3	B Lee (Aus)		939
4	SE Bond (NZ)		913
5	GD McGrath (Aus)	911
6	MG Johnson (Aus)	891
7	Wasim Akram (Pak)	882
8	SM Pollock (ICC/SA)	879
9	M Muralitharan (ICC/SL)	860
10	Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak)	846
11	NW Bracken (Aus)	845
12	J Garner (WI)		828
13	AA Donald (SA)		818
14	CEL Ambrose (WI)	797
15	M Ntini (ICC/SA)	789
16	Shoaib Akhtar (ICC/Pak)	783
17	SK Warne (Aus)		767
18	MS Kasprowicz (Aus)	753
19	Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ)	750
20	SL Malinga (SL)		741
21	MA Holding (WI)		735
22	DK Lillee (Aus)		728
23	Naved-ul-Hasan (Pak)	722
24	S Sreesanth (India)	695
25	IR Bishop (WI)		694
26	R Telemachus (SA)	692
27	CG Rackemann (Aus)	692
28	AME Roberts (WI)	691
29	RD King (WI)		685
30	WPUJC Vaas (SL)		683

 

[Migara]

When I have bit of free time, I'll run the process on batsmen.

 

[Ikki]

Len Pascoe? Are you kidding us?

I think you should have a wicket # qualification.

 

[Migara]

Len Pascoe? Are you kidding us?

I think you should have a wicket # qualification.

Got it as > 50 wickets and >3000 deliveries. I didn't use 100 because that will filter out the "big bird" (i.e. Joel Garner)

 

[Migara]

Len Pascoe, Hmm, the SR is very impressive. Possibly the best in the game. That may be the reason to get him up at there.

 

[Richard]

Pretty fair assessment that. I am not so sure about New Zealand. I think from about 1955, when they toured India, they were a fairly competent side. They drew three of the five Tests against India.

They had batsmen like Sutcliffe who scored over 600 runs in the series averaging 87. Reid scored 7 short of 500 and averaged over 70. John Guy scored a century and two fifties.

There bowlers had a tough time on the Indian tracks - no surprise at all.

Subhash Gupte was really the difference between the two sides. Put him in the Kiwi camp and the series result could be completely different.

They lost 3-1 NIl to West Indies after that - no surprise. India met the same fate or worse for years.

I think they were ready to compete at this stage at the top level.

Hadlee's 1949 New Zealanders were a decent side - bowling not terribly strong but some good batsmen - not their fault MCC saw fit to only allocate three days for the tests

New Zealand, by some reports, actually could have been a Test-class team when they were elevated in the 1930s.

It's just several of their best players weren't selected.

 

[fredfertang]

New Zealand, by some reports, actually could have been a Test-class team when they were elevated in the 1930s.

It's just several of their best players weren't selected.

The 1931 side was pretty poor but the 37 one was better and was without their best batsman, Stewie Dempster, who captained Leicestershire - Jack Cowie had an excellent record as an opening bowler in 37 but not surprisingly when he spearheaded the attack again 12 years later he was nothing like as threatening.

 

[Days of Grace]

I think maybe you forgot to take 30% off his rating, because he played less than 30 matches. Pascoe scores a rating of 576 on my original formula, giving him a ranking of no.53.

Great job on the points adjustments, although I don't agree with some of it. For example, wickets per innings, because the bowler can't help it if the captain doesn't give them the ball. Well...if the captain doesn't rate them, then it tells a lot, doesn't it? The top bowlers in the rankings would never miss out on bowling in a full ODI innings, anyway.

Can I ask you what software you use? I only use Microsoft Excel for the top players, and then just do the ratings manually for other players in the history of the game. It takes ages, trust me.

 

[Days of Grace]

I will adjust the test ratings for non-minnows when I have time.

Any thoughts on when India, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka ceased to become minnows?

 

[Beleg]

umm, Pakistan were never minnows?

 

[Days of Grace]

Ok, how about West Indies, India, and Sri Lanka?

 

[Xuhaib]

umm, Pakistan were never minnows?

From feb-march 2007 they have been minnows.

 

[Richard]

Any thoughts on when India, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka ceased to become minnows?

As I say - for mine they never were. They came in when they had many good to excellent players (a few examples: Headley, Constantine, Martindale, Francis, Griffith, Merchant, Nissar, Amar Singh, Jahingir Khan, Nayudu, Armanath, Wazir Ali, Wettimuny, Mendis, Dias, Madugalle, Ranatunga, de Silva), both had more than earned their stripes (unlike Bangladesh), and they were never a pushover at any point after their elevation.

The lack of Test cricket both India and West Indies got in the 1930s was disgraceful. Had more games been scheduled for them, cricket would have been almost recongiseable for what it is today as far back as then from a World Championship POV.

 

[Richard]

From feb-march 2007 they have been minnows.

Being substandard doesn't work like that. It's not a short-term thing - there has to be 3 or 4 years of it at best. And of being constantly, unyieldingly, thrashed.

 

[fredfertang]

As I say - for mine they never were. They came in when they had many good to excellent players (a few examples: Headley, Constantine, Martindale, Francis, Griffith, Merchant, Nissar, Amar Singh, Jahingir Khan, Nayudu, Armanath, Wazir Ali, Wettimuny, Mendis, Dias, Madugalle, Ranatunga, de Silva), both had more than earned their stripes (unlike Bangladesh), and they were never a pushover at any point after their elevation.

The lack of Test cricket both India and West Indies got in the 1930s was disgraceful. Had more games been scheduled for them, cricket would have been almost recongiseable for what it is today as far back as then from a World Championship POV.

It was 1967/68 before England managed to win a Test series in the Caribbean and while the Windies performed poorly in the Tests in the pre war series in England they did produce a number of top class players and in George Headley a true great – their poor performances were also unexpected given that a team in 1923 that didn’t play Tests had done pretty well and that England, albeit never at full strength, couldn’t win a series in the Caribbean – if the early Windies sides were minnows then you might as well apply the same classification to the England sides in the aftermath of WW1 and WW2 or at Headingley last week

There is a stronger case for describing India as minnows but ultimately for similar reasons I dont think it's made out and Sri Lanka became genuinely competitive very swiftly and I don't think there is any case there at all.

For Pakistan they were fine to start with - lost 2-1 in the inaugural tests against India and then drew their first series away against a full strength England and beat Australia in their first Test against them - they lost their way for a few years after that because Fazal Mahmood at his peak was the architect of their victories and was not adequately replaced for a generation but they still had good players

I agree its a shame there were less chances for India and WI in the 30's but I am sure the constraints would have been economic above all for players and administrators alike

 

[Migara]

I think maybe you forgot to take 30% off his rating, because he played less than 30 matches. Pascoe scores a rating of 576 on my original formula, giving him a ranking of no.53.

Great job on the points adjustments, although I don't agree with some of it. For example, wickets per innings, because the bowler can't help it if the captain doesn't give them the ball. Well...if the captain doesn't rate them, then it tells a lot, doesn't it? The top bowlers in the rankings would never miss out on bowling in a full ODI innings, anyway.

Can I ask you what software you use? I only use Microsoft Excel for the top players, and then just do the ratings manually for other players in the history of the game. It takes ages, trust me.

I also use Excel. First I copy the data from cricinfo to a text file. Then it can be imported without much hassle. Any way Wickets per match and Wickets per innigs would only differ in 0.05 at maximum when the number of matches are large. The exceptions are for the all rounders, like Cairns, who refrained from bowling due to injury, but batted, and for people like Jayasuriya, who only later became good with the ball.

 

[Migara]

I made a mistake while calculating the points. Actually error was I had added % instead of reducing it for the number of matches. The revised list occured as following

[B]Pos	Player			Points[/B]
1	Waqar Younis (Pak)	962
2	B Lee (Aus)		923
3	GD McGrath (Aus)	906
4	SE Bond (NZ)		897
5	Wasim Akram (Pak)	888
6	SM Pollock (ICC/SA)	873
7	M Muralitharan (ICC/SL)	855
8	J Garner (WI)		845
9	Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak)	841
10	NW Bracken (Aus)	830
11	AA Donald (SA)		817
12	CEL Ambrose (WI)	801
13	M Ntini (ICC/SA)	775
14	Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ)	771
15	Shoaib Akhtar (ICC/Pak)	769
16	SK Warne (Aus)		765
17	DK Lillee (Aus)		762
18	MA Holding (WI)		755
19	AME Roberts (WI)	718
20	CG Rackemann (Aus)	710
21	IR Bishop (WI)		703
22	Naved-ul-Hasan (Pak)	701
23	CJ McDermott (Aus)	687
24	WPUJC Vaas (SL)		676
25	TM Alderman (Aus)	668
26	D Gough (Eng)		668
27	DW Fleming (Aus)	668
28	C Pringle (NZ)		667
29	CR Matthews (SA)	663
30	J Srinath (India)	649