An alternate look at ODI bi-lateral series

The recently concluded South Africa-India ODI series made for some compelling viewing. Let’s analyse the battle between the two.

The recently concluded ODI series between South Africa and India had a scoreline of 3-2. Without, in any way, taking the credit away from India for the spirit they showed, their never-say-die approach, their admirable fight against odds and the depletion of the team strength through multiple withdrawals, it is necessary to conclude that the difference between the two teams was wide.

South Africa won the first match by two kilometres, the fourth by a kilometre and the fifth by 250 metres. India won the second match by a metre and the third by 10 metres. Three deliveries, with slightly differing results could have made the scoreline 5-0. For South Africa, the wins were by huge margins while the losses were desperately close.

So I looked at the idea of incorporating win margins (for defending wins) and resources still available (for chasing wins) and working out an overall series analysis. Only the final results are used for this analysis.

Since a win is a win, I allot 10 points for winning a match. This is just an arbitrary number. The other 90 points are allocated between the two teams based on the win margins and resource utilization. The only thing to remember is that the balls remaining is a resource which can be computed in a linear equation (10/300). However, there is a gradually depleting valuation of wickets remaining since the top order wickets are more valuable than the late order wickets (although during India’s chasing innings at Centurion, it was the other way around, the clowns batted ahead of the heroes!!!).

Let us look at the tables.

The final numbers reflect the series results quite nicely and are also reflective of the Team strength values which stood at 66 and 58. Of course, South Africa did not have Kallis and India were minus Sehwag, Tendulkar and Gambhir.