Stat Attack! Batsmen vs the top bowlers - study of last 25 years

[sifter132]

The stats include batsman who played on the same team as the bowlers because it says Hayden's top score is 380 but he made that against Zimbabwe. So it is unfairly weighted for people like Hayden, Lara ect. because it is taking stats from almost every game they played, even against terrible bowling line ups.

I didn't want to link each page, but that is not how it worked! For each country's batsmen I went back to the query and eliminated his countrymen from the bowling list. eg. for Hayden, the numbers quoted in my post are not matches when the top 25 played, the final numbers are only where the 18 non-Australian bowlers played in the opposition.

i think, as with my tweaks that also showed sangakkara in a better light, it's fairer to take his record as a batsman separate to a batsman keeper, and that record is outstanding

I'm always sceptical of doing that. For starters because I don't believe keeping wicket makes you a worse batsman, any more than Jacques Kallis is a worse batsman because he bowled. A lot of keepers have better averages without the gloves, some are worse - AB de Villiers comes to mind. Any increase is probably down to confidence ie. if you are picked originally to keep, then picked later in your career as a batsman, your batting will naturally be boosted because you know the team has faith in you as a player even without your 2nd discipline.

The other problem is the idea is it shortens careers and opens up other cans of worms ie. if we consider Sangakkara without gloves, why not consider Clarke only as captain, or Tendulkar after he hit puberty (), or other subsets of a players career? I didn't want to add any other biases so just went for the whole lot. When I've got another afternoon to kill, maybe I can do some more tweaking and add some of these variables

 

[blockerdave]

My main point about Sangakkara really is - taking his career as a whole his figures are excellent, taking his matches when playing only as a batsman his figures are freakish.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

The other problem is the idea is it shortens careers and opens up other cans of worms ie. if we consider Sangakkara without gloves, why not consider Clarke only as captain, or Tendulkar after he hit puberty (), or other subsets of a players career? I didn't want to add any other biases so just went for the whole lot. When I've got another afternoon to kill, maybe I can do some more tweaking and add some of these variables

not sure I agree with this. I remember when people were comparing lara's career to tendulkar's and there are quite a few areas lara wins in that comparison. the problem with them though was that had tendulkar retired at the same age as lara then he would have been winning in a few of those statistical areas (sorry, I can't remember which figures, though I presume the series in england and australia would have had a bearing)

not making this a lara v tendulkar thing but in that circumstance it doesn't feel right to punish tendulkar for not retiring earlier. if tendulkar had averaged 60+ from the age of 20-37 (a normal length career) could we really use stats from 16-40 to accurately guage him?

it comes up a bit with all-rounders too, imran in particular produces some odd results because he had an 18 year career but in the first 4 he was pretty much a bowler only and in the last 4 a batsman only. taking his career has a whole gets a bit confusing because in someways you have to consider the job he was being selected to do. is it fair to punish his bowling numbers when he was being picked for middle order runs and is it fair to punish his batting when he was being selected as a tail ender strike bowler? I don't think it's as cut and dry.

HOWEVER, I can't totally write off what you said either. going back to tendulkar, his stats from 16-20 are actually very good. so it would tend to make people use them so it becomes a bit of a case of cherry picking based on convenience. we're happy to use tendulkars numbers as a teenager, but we just pretend his career from 37-40 didn't happen because it suits him.

hmmm, so yeah, I just typed out a load of inconclusive nonsense. I think more than anything what this proves is sanagakkara is a bit under-rated.

 

[sifter132]

That's all pretty fair stuff Stinky I guess I always approach the Tendulkar stuff from the reverse. He is praised for longevity and mass of runs which I don't find fair, because he is aided by circumstances ie. there's no way Ponting or Kallis or Lara would have been picked for a strong team at 16, so Sachin gets 4-5 years of extra runs because he arrived when his team was weak. If Sachin debuted at 21 (similar to his competition), then he ends with 168 Tests, 13898 runs and 44 100s - very similar numbers to Ponting & Kallis. (But is still well ahead of them in ODIs...)

It's not entirely fair to bash Tendulkar too much though, he matches the others AND excelled in his teens. I just don't like the implication that you can't be the best ever unless you played for 20+ years. I think a stellar 10 years should be enough to make you a 'great', heck even a great 2 years got Andrew Flintoff plenty of plaudits

If anything, I personally tend to divide player's careers up into segments. Thats how I remember them - at their best. It's why I think Ricky Ponting is right up there as one of the greatest ever because he was a complete run machine for about 5 years there. The beginning and end of his career doesn't match up, but that doesn't really bother ME. Bothers a lot of others though