All-time World Cup XI

Monday, January 24, 2011

Who, among international cricket’s greatest players, will walk into a World Cup team? Our expert analyses some truly spectacular performances to give you a unit that you’d be proud of.

The 2011 World Cup is less than a month away, which is a good excuse to look back at some of the greatest performers in World Cup history. By the end of this article, I’ll pick the World Cup XI - the best-balanced group of eleven players based on actual World Cup performances, the operative words being ‘based on actual.’ I am not picking players based on potential or what might have been. I am solely considering World Cup performances and then selecting players to ensure the side is well balanced.

First, a few ground rules. I’ve only considered batsmen who have scored over 800 runs and bowlers who have taken over 20 wickets in World Cup matches. Second, I have accounted for differences across eras with batting strike-rates and bowling economy rates being adjusted for each tournament. The first criterion on minimum runs and wickets means certain players who have enjoyed WC success but have not played enough matches miss out - these guys get a special mention at the end. 

Batsmen

Here’s the list of the top 10 batsmen in WC history, based on batting momentum. The batting momentum measures overall batting performance, looking at runs per innings (which is similar to batting average) and strike-rate (which is adjusted for era of play). Turns out two batsmen stand out from the rest of the pack.

Player	Runs	Runs per innings	Adjusted strike rate	Bating Momentum
IVA Richards (WI)	1013	48.2	102.68	68.8
SR Tendulkar (Ind)	1796	51.3	93.82	68.7
ML Hayden (Aus)	987	47.0	94.75	63.3
HH Gibbs (SA)	1067	46.4	91.51	61.0
ME Waugh (Aus)	1004	45.6	91.70	60.1
DC Boon (Aus)	815	50.9	77.75	60.0
SC Ganguly (Ind)	1006	47.9	81.16	58.0
MD Crowe (NZ)	880	41.9	92.82	55.7
Saeed Anwar (Pak)	915	43.6	84.48	54.2
RT Ponting (Aus)	1537	42.7	85.15	53.4

Viv Richards and Sachin Tendulkar are probably the two greatest ODI players of all time, and that greatness showed on the biggest stage of them all. A bunch of Aussies fill up half the remaining spots in the top 10 with Matthew Hayden the best of the lot and winning the second opener’s slot. Surprisingly, Ricky Ponting comes in behind Mark Waugh and David Boon. It’s also interesting to see Gibbs so far up the list. Martin Crowe is the only non-‘top three’ batsman in this list which means that from a selection point of view, one will have to look beyond the table above for the No.5 and No.6 slots. Here’s a look at the next eleven batsmen in terms of all-time World Cup performances.

Player	Runs	Runs per innings	Adjusted strike rate	Bating Momentum
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	1085	35.00	102.64	49.92
BC Lara (WI)	1225	37.12	91.75	48.91
GA Gooch (Eng)	897	42.71	74.06	48.72
R Dravid (India)	860	40.95	78.51	48.53
G Kirsten (SA)	806	38.38	80.62	46.29
PA de Silva (SL)	1064	33.25	92.39	44.02
JH Kallis (SA)	923	36.92	78.56	43.77
A Ranatunga (SL)	969	33.41	89.01	43.11
Javed Miandad (Pak)	1083	36.10	79.25	43.05
ST Jayasuriya (SL)	1165	31.49	96.43	42.96
SR Waugh (Aus)	978	32.60	87.04	41.42

Adam Gilchrist selects himself as wicketkeeper and I’d pick him coming down the order at 7 instead of his conventional opening role, because there are just too many good openers to choose from. There’s healthy competition for the No. 5 slot. Steve Waugh gets my vote because he’s a regular No.5 who brings in a bowling option, having taken 27 wickets across WCs which is as many wickets as Craig McDermott and Courtney Walsh.

Bowlers

Similar to the Batting Momentum, an adjusted Bowling Efficiency, which looks at economy rates and bowling averages, has been used to identify the top WC bowlers. The list is headed by a couple of Kiwis.

Player	Wickets	Average	Adjusted economy rate	Adjusted Bowling Efficiency
SE Bond (NZ)	30	17.26	3.57	66.98
RJ Hadlee (NZ)	22	19.13	3.71	59.04
CEL Ambrose (WI)	24	20.79	3.32	58.04
GD McGrath (Aus)	71	18.19	4.16	57.83
CA Walsh (WI)	27	20.25	3.72	55.70
M Muralitharan (SL)	53	19.69	4.02	54.56
GB Hogg (Aus)	34	19.23	4.20	54.36
SK Warne (Aus)	32	19.5	4.15	54.03
B Lee (Aus)	22	17.9	4.92	52.67
Imran Khan (Pak)	34	19.26	4.59	51.26

 

People sometimes forget just how lethal Shane Bond was, spearheading an otherwise ordinary New Zealand bowling attack in 2003 and 2007. He is probably the single reason why they made it as far as they did (Super 6s in 2003 and semis in 2007) in the last two World Cups. Richard Hadlee is an automatic selection given his all-round prowess.  Curtly Ambrose may be marginally ahead of McGrath on points, but I’ll pick the Aussie given the number of wickets (71 versus 24) and the consistent performances across four World Cups. Muttiah Muralitharan wins the battle of the spinners, though it’s very close between him, Warne and believe or not, Brad Hogg! With these four bowlers picked, Imran Khan is a no-brainer for the No.6 bowling all-rounder spot.  In addition to his 34 wickets, Imran scored 666 runs at an average of 35.

So here’s what the final XI looks like:

Position	Player
1	SR Tendulkar (India)
2	ML Hayden (Aus)
3	IVA Richards (WI)
4	MD Crowe (NZ)
5	SR Waugh (Aus)
6	Imran Khan (Pak)
7	AC Gilchrist (Aus)
8	RJ Hadlee (NZ)
9	M Muralitharan (SL)
10	SE Bond (NZ)
11	GD McGrath (Aus)

As I mentioned up top, the criteria on minimum runs and wickets means a few people miss out, such as the likes of Zaheer Abbas, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Scott Styris who averaged 50, 58 and 70 respectively with over 500 runs each. Similarly, New Zealand’s one-hit wonder Geoff Allott and West Indian legend Michael Holding miss out despite having bowling averages around 17 runs per wicket. 

Two of the players in the World Cup XI will be playing in the 2011 edition - and one of them will be extra motivated to win his first World Cup. He has done pretty much done everything else there is to do - a World Cup triumph would a great way to cap things off!

Everyone loves an index

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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.