Everyone loves an index

Our expert gives you some fascinating insight on how valuable player performances are measured using certain parameters.

Okay, perhaps, not everyone. There are indeed some people who love to say that lies, damned lies and statistics are three expressions to describe the same falsehood.

But look around. Indices abound. Poverty index, cost of living index, Sensex, Nifty …

Sometimes, we use an equivalent word. For example, ‘quotient’ (think of IQ, EQ; in fact, I won’t be surprised if there’s a quotient for each alphabet), ‘coefficient’ or ‘rate’. But they all mean approximately the same thing.

Why this excessive fascination for an index? The answer is pretty simple. There are far too many numbers flying around, with each number telling its own story. The only way to see the big picture is to intelligently integrate all these numbers into one ‘I-will-tell-all’ number.

Think of ODI cricket, which is now very much the flavor of the season. We have batting and bowling averages; we have strike rates, run rates, asking rates, economy rates. Each of these numbers tells us something, but do they unequivocally tell us who the world’s most valuable cricketer is?

That’s really the crux of the problem. It is not easy to come up with a single ‘I-will-tell-all’ number. But it is worth trying, and sometimes we come pretty close to that elusive number. The Castrol Index, for example, does a good job. It managed to predict India’s World Cup ODI team almost perfectly.

How is the Castrol Index computed? Look around this portal for clues; you’ll find them strewn here and there … but the actual formula itself has to be a secret.

To get a good general idea, let me explain, instead, the most valuable player index (MVPI) with which I am personally involved.

The key idea in the MVPI is to collapse a player’s batting, bowling and fielding performance into a single statistic – which we could continue to call the ‘run’ (within quotes).

Think of a Sachin Tendulkar who has scored 200 runs in 147 balls, that’s 4 runs every 3 balls. On the average, an ODI innings score is 250 in 300 balls; or 5 runs in 6 balls. So Tendulkar was expected to score about 123 runs in 147 balls. Instead, he scored 200, i.e., 73 more. We therefore argue that Tendulkar’s 200 runs are actually equivalent to 200 + 73 = 273 ‘runs’ (note the quotes).

There’s a similar argument for bowlers too. Imagine that Zaheer Khan has figures of 10-1-45-3. In 10 overs, a bowler is expected to concede 50 runs in an ODI match. By conceding 5 runs less, Zaheer has earned 5 ‘runs’. We also assume that a wicket is worth 25 ‘runs’ (because the average score with 10 wickets is 250). This earns Zaheer another 75 ‘runs’; so, in all, he has earned 80 ‘runs’.

That’s how we go. A player amasses ‘runs’ by batting, by bowling and by fielding (every catch is 5 ‘runs’, every direct run out is 25 ‘runs’). Add up all these ‘runs’ and we get the most valuable player index, or MVPI.

Now while the MVPI performs admirably in most cases, it can occasionally be misleading. For instance, one can question why every wicket must be worth 25 ‘runs’. Isn’t Tendulkar’s wicket more valuable than Munaf Patel’s wicket? Or imagine a situation where a batsman scores a match-winning 45 not out when no other batsman reaches double digits. Surely this knock is worth much more?

That’s why I’m truly impressed by the Impact Index (II) devised by Jaideep Varma, Jatin Thakkar and their team. The II rates every player’s performance in an ODI match on a 5-point scale, relative to other performances in the same match. So a match-winning 45 not out on a treacherous pitch would probably earn the player 5 out of 5, even though it is not, by itself, an earth-shaking score.

It is my personal opinion that a judicious combination of MVPI + II will offer the best index of player performance. MVPI will give the combined index its ‘body’, while II will provide a powerful discriminating ‘edge’. And, together, we might have an index that every cricket fan would truly love.