Expert Blog

G versus V

How do we capture the true essence of a winning performance? Let’s explore and enjoy the fascinating interaction between cricket and numbers.

When we were young, the enduring debate used to be: who’s the better batsman, Sunil Gavaskar or Gundappa Viswanath?

With a Test career average of 51.1, 34 centuries and 10122 runs, Gavaskar seems to have clearly won that contest because Viswanath ended up with a Test average of 41.9, 14 centuries and 6080 runs.

But, being Gavaskar, he’ll always throw in new variables! At the Castrol Cricket Awards function the other night, Sunny claimed that Viswanath was the better batsman because only he could hit the good ball for a boundary.

In a sense, that’s the problem. So many variables, so many criteria… how the devil do we get to the truth? And can numbers alone point to the truth? How does one quantify the sublime beauty of a Viswanath square cut?

In response, I’d like to point towards the unmatched elegance of a Gavaskar straight drive, but that’ll get us nowhere. Let’s therefore stick to numbers, and let’s show how they can indeed unravel the big puzzles.

Of course the biggest puzzles today show up in one-day international cricket. How do we capture the true essence of a winning performance? We know it’s not enough to just score a lot of runs in ODI cricket; we must score them quickly too. So, how about an index that judiciously combines batting average with the strike rate? Well, that’s exactly what the Castrol Index does.

Since I am a diehard Gavaskar fan, we won’t use our index to compare G vs. V in ODI cricket. In any case, Viswanath played very little ODI cricket and Gavaskar… well back in 1975 he once took 173 balls to score 36 runs at a strike rate of about 21. But we can certainly compare Yusuf vs. Irfan or Sachin vs. Jayasuriya or Sehwag vs. Afridi.

These comparisons are fun. Cricket analytics is fun. I hope this column too will be good fun as we set out to explore and enjoy the fascinating interaction between cricket and numbers.

The cutting edge with numbers: Gavaskar wins the race because of his away performances

In the Gavaskar vs. Viswanath debate, it is fashionable to say that Viswanath won matches for India, while Gavaskar merely saved them

Let us plot the number of Tests played by Gavaskar and Viswanath to their cumulative batting average. To get an idea of the timeline, the 20-Test mark is around 1977, the 30-Test mark is around 1979 and the 40-Test mark would be just after 1981.

If we look at Tests played outside India (‘away’), Gavaskar was decidedly superior with a significantly better cumulative batting average than Viswanath.

If we look at Tests played in India (‘home’), Viswanath was well ahead of Gavaskar in their first 20 home Tests together (till about 1977 or so). Thereafter, they were almost at par – with Viswanath continuing to enjoy a slight edge almost till the end.

Interpretation: Since most of India’s victories came at home – and at home, Viswanath was arguably the better player – everyone associated Viswanath more with Indian victories.