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Cricket Statistics Analysed  fra paolo's Baseball Archive  The Cathars Publications Cricketing Sabermetrics archive feedback Best viewed with Mozilla Firefox 29 December 2007 1236 hrs GMT Projections in the Shadow of Melbourne My pre-Christmas plans of identifying statistical indicators of why Pakistan lost against India, doing a little analysis of England's defeat in Sri Lanka and a career summary of Mahela Jayawardene, and projecting India's performance against Australia were all derailed by a series of hardware problems involving both of my laptops and my broadband connection. Nevertheless, I've managed to do a little work about India's bowlers, and I can offer some opinions about what happened in Melbourne starting on Boxing Day. First of all, these are my projections for the frontline Indian bowlers going into the series. Projections are based on a weighted average of performances in Tests since October 1, 2004, plus an element of regression to the mean of all bowlers bowling for that team. (A point to which I shall eagerly return at the end of this entry.) Bowler Average Economy Strike Rate Zaheer Khan 30.43 3.12 53.96 R P Singh 29.07 3.29 49.22 Harbhajan Singh 34.76 2.80 69.08 A Kumble 26.99 2.68 55.71 Well, that's a pretty good bowling attack, if you ask me. Harbhajan is the weak link (and he has fallen far from a peak), but he still keeps the runs down. Let's see what happened in Melbourne. Bowler Average Economy Strike Rate Zaheer Khan 37.40 4.28 52.40 R P Singh 66.00 3.66 108.00 Harbhajan Singh 54.00 3.52 92.00 A Kumble 26.57 3.72 42.80 One test's worth of statistics is, in terms of sabermetrics, relatively meaningless. However, if you rank the bowlers in terms of average and strike rate, you can see that I had a problem with Singh (for whom I have the least data), otherwise I've got them in the right order. In terms of Economy, my numbers are much too low. And thereby hangs my tale - Australia achieved much better batting results against India than I had expected. In part, I think, this is because South Asian grounds offer a lot of opportunities to bowlers to keep the scoring rate slow, where Australian wickets reward the bowler who can bowl at the wicket. On that basis, India probably need a second bowler who can penetrate batsmen's defenses, in order to have a chance at rescuing this series.14 December 2007 1107 hrs GMT Keys to Indian Victory India's beating of Pakistan represents the biggest triumph of batsmen over bowlers I've got on my records. The figures accumulated by batsmen on both sides are extremely high. I've awarded series scores (a number that adjusts the value of runs scored to reflect the quantity of runs in a series) of the following to batsmen: Player Total runs Series score Ganguly 534 70 Misbah-ul-Haq 464 60 Jaffer 378 48 Younis Khan 260 31 Kamran Akmal 249 30 By way of comparison, the highest score I've got before this series is a 52 amassed by Ricky Ponting against South Africa in 2005-6. No series has produced three batsmen with scores in excess of 40. Yet, the more observant among you might say, three of those five names are Pakistan batsmen. How come they lost? A-ha - here are the real keys to the Indian victory: (1) They batted deeper when it counted. Indian tailenders (those coming in 8 through 11) achieved a total series score of 15, from 165 runs; Pakistan tailenders accumulated 144 runs for a total score of 3. Why such a big difference? Because the Pakistan tailenders had more opportunities to score runs, but did a worse job of it. This advantage in the first Test proved decisive. Had play gone on for a session or two longer in each Test, Pakistan could well have lost the series 3-0. (2) In spite of the dominance of the bat, Anil Kumble bowled a top quality series, scoring 81 on my charts. Furthermore, while the whole three-match sequence was a graveyard for pace bowling, adding together Zaheer Khan and I Sharma, one gets a score of 42, which is pretty good, too. Sharma may have been relatively expensive, but he took wickets at a ferocious rate for this series, with a strike rate of 47 against a team average of 73.42.11 December 2007 1159 hrs GMT Zimbabwe vs West Indies ODIs Analysed The recent ODI series between Zimbabwe and West Indies started with the proverbial bang and ended with the proverbial whimper. In between, West Indies asserted a clear measure of superiority over a Zimbabwe team that has suffered much in recent years. Given my lack of experience in looking at ODI figures, and even more the enigmatic situation of Zimbabwe cricket, I'm slightly cautious about drawing firm conclusions. That said, though, here are some shaky ones. (a) West Indies are generally agreed to face a tough task in South Africa, and the Zimbabwe series shows that their problem lies not so much in scoring runs but in defending wickets. This is visible not so much from their batting figures, but from the Zimbabwe bowling ones. The Zimbabwe bowlers took wickets at a strike rate of 45.61. In the context of the West Indies' figure of 32.18, the recent South Africa one of 64 and the New Zealand one of 39.94, it really looks to me as if South African bowlers will prevent West Indies batsmen from building a decent innings. (b) West Indies are going to have to rely on their bowling to win them matches in South Africa. This isn't beyond the bounds of possibility, but looks unlikely given the dominance of JE Taylor in their attack. Here's today's table: Bowler Overs/Innings Strike Rate Taylor 9.46 20.64 Powell 9 36.00 Lewis 8.88 35.50 Samuels 7 84.00 Rampaul 6.75 54.00 Taylor had a great series, but after that things fall off pretty fast among the top 5 West Indies bowlers. All the remaining ones have strike rates worse than the team average for this series of 32.18. By contrast, the South Africans against New Zealand go can count 4 of their top 5 from the New Zealand series as above their team average, with the exception being the stingy Pollock. (c)Zimbabwe perhaps don't have as far to go as one might think to be competitive at the ODI level. Their economy of 5.07, while high, is tolerable against a strike rate of 45.61. Their main problem is an inability to defend their wickets against International-quality bowling. They really need the ability to stick around, because they are scoring runs at a reasonable rate, too - Scoring Rate = 74.4. Alternatively, if they could boost their Scoring Rate to a considerably higher level while not losing wickets any faster, they might find themselves winning a few more matches. 7 December 2007 1156 hrs GMT Guilty Men? The England cricket blogosphere, such as it is, has wasted no time looking for someone to blame for the defeat in the first test. James Anderson is a popular choice and, indeed, it may seem like he's a good target. I'm not so sure. One problem with non-Sabermetric cricket analysis is that it has a tendency to focus on the trees instead of the wood. Anderson did not bowl well, lacking both economy and penetration. This problem was exacerbated by the injury to Hoggard, and the reluctance to give some of his second innings overs to Bopara. However, all bowling has value, and while brickbats are tossed at Anderson's 4.32 economy, Sidebottom's horrific Strike Rate of 240 goes largely unremarked. Another problem with pointing fingers at Anderson is that the level of expectations he is carrying is beyond is actual abilities. His stats in recent years are dominated by an exceptional performance against India. Versus Bowling Average Economy Strike Rate India 28.85 3.25 53.25 RSA/AUS/SRL 81.00 4.39 110.67 However, Anderson's value lies in the fact that he can go out and bowl 15-20 overs per innings and take a wicket. As long as you bear in mind that he's a replacement, not a front-line bowler, you'll have his value in perspective. But more annoying about the whole spirit of England cricket commentary is the notion that "if only we'd done this or that differently" somehow they would have won. Nasser Hussain, writing in the print version of the London Daily Mail, seemed to think England lost owing to a want of ruthlessness. Yet as I showed in an earlier post here, on paper England just aren't good enough. Their bowlers give up too many runs for the quantity their batsmen can score, or vice versa. Sri Lanka were coming off a difficult tour against Australia, where spin is muffled and almost all teams look worse than they really are relative to the rest of the world. So where does that leave England? They are now likely to be without Hoggard, their best bowler, who is suffering a back injury. In the circumstances, I would probably make a virtue of necessity, and deploy two spin bowlers for the next Test, using spin to make up for the threadbare cupboard of pace, swing and seam; as well, I'd give Harmison a turn to open the bowling. As to whom of Sidebottom or Anderson to drop? Well, I'd give the chance to the guy showing the most vim in training and the changing room, something for which statistics offer no insight. 6 December 2007 1156 hrs GMT South Africa vs New Zealand - ODI Bowling Analysis The world of ODIs is a kind of Through the Looking-Glass Land for me. All I learned about performance analysis in Test matches doesn't apply in quite the same way. Test batsmen need the ability to defend their wickets above all else; ODI batsmen have to keep an eye on the scoring rate. Likewise, ODI bowlers are not under the same pressure to take wickets, but do their teams no favours if they are expensive. You may recall that I posed the question of whether New Zealand's problems scoring runs were down to their batsmen or down to South Africa's bowlers. I should have done all the analysis at once, because now it is as clear as crystal to me. Let's look at a table: Player Overs Economy Pollock 29 2.62 Nel 28 5.86 Botha 25.67 4.79 Vettori 30 3.63 Mills 28 3.64 Gillespie 27 6.04 The average economy of three most-bowled South Africans is 4.39, and that of the New Zealanders is 4.40. But Pollock's figures stand out in dramatic contrast. That 2.62 is phenomenally low for a series where both sides averaged a 4.83 economy. Pollock also bowled the most maidens of anyone, with one more than Gillespie's 5. Pollock, one of my favourite players, probably ought to have been man of the series, or at least bowler of the series. He was the difference maker in shutting down the New Zealand bats. My overall impression of this series was that it was far tighter than it appeared at the time - it was pretty clear early on into South Africa's innings at Newlands that they were going to win. Looking at the series overall, New Zealand's team bowling average, economy and strike rate were better than South Africa's. New Zealand had a higher team Innings Average. But South Africa won. I put that down to luck in individual matches, or perhaps to home field advantage. 5 December 2007 1412 hrs GMT Fletcher Speaks! An interview by Jonathan Agnew with Duncan Fletcher, whose England coaching career ended in typical tragic fashion as hubris led to Nemesis, was broadcast during the Tea interval of today's Test match. In typical BBC fashion, they don't appear to have archived it on their TMS page, although it contained a couple of nuggets of interest, and I don't mean more involving the tedious personal shortcomings that attracted all the headlines in the first place. Most importantly, yet again Fletcher asserted there was too much cricket, both at the County and the International level. I think this is a laughable assertion. If more of a squad approach was taken, then there wouldn't be too much cricket. But if you play favourites, the way Fletcher was often alleged to do, then the burden on your eight or nine best players is indeed going to be heavy. By giving players a rest, just like teams with 25-man rosters do over the 162-game Major League Baseball season, one can increase the possibility of players being at their peak for crucial games. Let's have more of a squad system and more cricket, please. Secondly, Fletcher once again expressed his scepticism about the new Selection setup proposed for England. He offered the apparently logical opinion that since the captain is going to manage the team on the field and the coach is going to be held responsible for what happens, that they should be allowed to select the side for the match without having to look over their shoulder at the chairman of selectors. However, as with the 'too much cricket' argument, this is sort of projecting the past on the future, and not allowing for any adaptation to a new system. It could well be that responsibility will shift away from the coach to the new National Selector. Furthermore, one hopes the National Selector will be able to take a longer-term view of the side's development. Sportsmen are always keen to 'win now', but sometimes one needs to husband resources today, in order to sustain the effort tomorrow. It does look to me as if the Schofield Committee was trying to avoid another 'Fletcher era' of a taciturn public face apparently isolated from his colleagues and hostile toward the media. Finally, he addressed another aspect of the selection issue which left me shocked. If he heard that there was a fellow worth a look, one of his coaches would go and make a judgment. The national side really should have a methodical system of scouting, with people paid to go to cricket matches and watch for future England players. It's all like baseball was a hundred years ago, with the selector's mates pushing their favourites, not a modern system of regional scouts and national cross-checkers. 4 December 2007 1112 hrs GMT |
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