ODI outlier bowler performances: an overview

Our expert takes on an analysis of bowlers whose performances have stood apart from their teammates’.

Last year, I had done an analysis of outperforming innings in ODI matches . This table was dominated by Shahid Afridi. It is very fair that I do the same for the forgotten species, the bowlers. The ideas are similar. I determine the RpO values of the bowler and team and determine the ratio between these two values. This has turned out to be an interesting analysis and led to surprising conclusions.

First, let me clarify that this cannot be done based on wickets captured. There are only 10 wickets available and anyone who has captured 5 or more wickets has outperformed his teammates. Vaas, with 8 wickets, would have outperformed his fellow bowlers by a factor of 4. It would be silly for me to analyze this.

So I would do this analysis based on the RpO (Runs per Over) values which show wide variations and there is no limit to the numbers, either way.

I have selected 4 overs as the minimum for inclusion. This is based on the fact that a typical opening spell could be 4 overs long and if a bowler had a great opening spell and the others messed up. The RpO of the bowler is compared to the RpO of the other bowlers and a ratio arrived at. I set a limit of 3.00 for consideration of a bowling spell to be a truly outlier performance.

The results are fascinating. 196 bowling performances qualified. This is out of a total of about 19000 bowling spells, working out to 1%, making this a truly exclusive selection. There are lot more variations in this analysis than the batting one.

The top-20 entries are listed below.


Walsh’s own figures had to be seen to be believed. A single run in 27 balls and 5 wickets. No wonder it is 10+ times more economical than the rest of the team.

The unknown Karim – that too against Australia – bowled  a truly great spell of 3 for 7 in 8+ overs. The others leaked runs like Christmas and the ratio is a whopping 8.85.

Now the one-and-only Ambrose who conceded only half a run an over as against his team’s 4.38 resulting in a ratio of 8.76.

Kapil had similar figures to Ambrose, and the rest of Indian bowlers conceded over 4 runs per over.

Finally another wonderful bowler, Wasim Akram, identical figures to Kapil, and the other bowlers did only slightly better.

Out of 196 such stellar performances, the following bowlers have done this feat most often,

Note: Muralitharan’s spell of 10 overs in which he captured 5 for 9. However, his fellow bowlers were quite generous, resulting in a ratio of 5.82.

Shaun Pollock: 10 times (Most under-rated bowler)
Garner:         6 times
Walsh:          5 times
Ambrose:        5 times
Kapil Dev:      5 times
Chatfield:      5 times (very surprising entry)
Akram/Imran Khan/McGrath/Hadlee/Vaas/Price: 4 times

A very revealing performance measure indeed!