Friday, December 23, 2011

India vs. Australia: Player head-to-head

Who holds the advantage in India’s much awaited tour of Australia? Our expert looks at a man-versus-man analysis and thinks the visitors have a slight edge.

India is set to take on Australia in what should be a competitive four match series. This is about as good a chance India will have to win a series Down Under since they’ll be going up against an inexperienced Aussie side that’s in the midst of transition. India, for their part, has had a poor year in Tests given their form in 2009 and 2010. The West Indies tour was an unconvincing 1-0 victory and the England debacle is still fresh in most people’s memory. A series victory in Australia is just what the team needs in an effort to climb back to the top of the Test rankings.

For the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, Australia has named their 13-man squad. The final XI will come down to a toss-up between Hilfenhaus and Starc for the third seamer position and a fitness decision on Shaun Marsh. Marsh will play and bat at three if fit, else Daniel Christian will get in and bat at six.

The Indian batting line-up selects itself assuming everyone stays fit, with Kohli joining the ‘Fab Five’ of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag and Gambhir. The bowling line-up is less certain with questions on Ishant’s fitness - you’ll probably end up with Zaheer, Ishant (if fit), one of Umesh Yadav/Abhimanyu Mithun/Vinay Kumar/Varun Aaron with Ashwin and Ojha fighting for the spinner spot. In doing my player head-to-head, I assumed India will end up going with Umesh and Ashwin.

Below is a snapshot of the player head-to-head by position.

What stands out is Australia’s lack of experience. On the bowling front, Zaheer Khan has more wickets in his career than the entire Australia team combined. With the batting, Australia will have Cowan, Warner and Marsh/Christian who between them have 5 Test matches worth of experience. If you did a head-to-head down the list, here’s what my picks would be:

Australia 0-1 India: Sehwag over Cowan, though watch out for Cowan - he’s been in good form on the domestic circuit and impressed with a century in the tour game

Australia 0.5-1.5 India: Calling it even between Warner and Gambhir, based on Warner’s early credentials and form to counter Gambhir’s experience

Australia 0.5-2.5 India: Dravid over Marsh, easy pick

Australia 1-3 India: Called it even on Tendulkar and Ponting, since Sachin has not had a great year and Ponting is starting to look better (plus he’s going to be out to prove a point in this series, which is when he is at his most dangerous)

Australia 1.5-3.5 India: Clarke-Laxman is another difficult one, I would have picked Laxman 3 months ago but Clarke’s looked good lately with 3 hundreds in his last 8 innings, called it even

Australia 2.5-3.5 India: Mr. Cricket ahead of an inexperienced Kohli

Australia 2.5-4.5 India: Wasn’t easy picking Dhoni over Haddin (this is one I am the least sure of, Dhoni was outplayed by Prior on India’s last overseas tour), but Dhoni tends to come good when it counts

Australia 3-5 India: Ashwin vs. Lyon seems like a dead heat, and should be one of the more intriguing battles this summer

Australia 3-6 India: Zaheer Khan over any Aussie bowler, assuming Zak stays fit

Australia 3.5-6.5 India: I would have picked Ishant if not for his fitness concerns, throw in anyone else (Mithun, Vinay Kumar and Aaron) and I’d give the advantage to Starc/Hilfenhaus with the home advantage, calling it even for now

Australia 4.5-6.5 India: Pattinson has looked very promising in his two Tests so far, expect him to cause the Indian batsmen some trouble

Overall, the head-to-head is a fairly close one but India wins 6.5-4.5. Whether that translates into success on the field is something only time will tell, for now I’ll go with a prediction of India winning the series 2-1.

Friday, November 04, 2011

The best ODI batsmen of all time

Our expert sheds light on the greatest batsmen in the 50-over format. Read on to see if your favourites have made the cut.

I was engaged in a couple of conversations this week on who are the best ODI batsmen of all time.

Everyone talks about Sachin Tendulkar (but then again it’s hard to have any cricket conversation about all-time anything without mentioning Tendulkar). My Aussie friend was convinced Ricky Ponting would crack the top three, while Brian Lara also got some votes. I decided to use some numbers to settle the debate.

There are a few basic stats that we can look at for determining the best - the Castrol batting momentum is a measure of overall performance in an innings that combines runs scored and strike rate. Applying the same criteria over the course of a career (average and strike rate) gives us an adjusted batting momentum. In addition, I have thrown in few other factors:

- Strike rates have been adjusted for the era in which a batsman played in. For instance,  Viv Richards’ strike-rate of 90.2 in the 1980s stood out a lot more in that time and has been appropriately increased based on the average strike rate of batsmen in the 80s compared to that of the 2000s.

- A “volume of runs” bonus for longevity/sheer magnitude of achievement has been added, i.e. the more runs one has scored in a career, the higher this bonus.

Finally, only batsmen with over 6000 runs have been considered.

Here’s what the final table looks like with the final adjusted batting score indicated in the final column:

Rank	Player	Runs	Ave	SR	Adj SR	Total
1	IVA Richards (WI)	6721	47.00	90.20	101.02	70.0
2	MS Dhoni (India)	6497	51.15	88.52	88.52	69.3
3	SR Tendulkar (India)	18111	45.16	86.32	89.34	68.4
4	MG Bevan (Aus)	6912	53.58	74.16	79.35	67.8
5	RT Ponting (Aus)	13686	42.63	80.60	82.21	59.7
6	JH Kallis (SA)	11372	45.48	72.88	74.34	58.3
7	MJ Clarke (Aus)	6622	45.35	78.10	78.10	57.2
8	DM Jones (Aus)	6068	44.61	72.56	79.09	56.5
9	ML Hayden (Aus)	6133	43.8	78.96	78.96	55.5
10	BC Lara (WI)	10405	40.48	79.51	82.69	55.4

The top four are a notch above the rest and there’s not a lot to tell them apart. Richards is on top with an average of 47 and strike rate of 90 in an era when such numbers were unheard of. MSD is ranked ahead of Sachin at number 2 - the Indian skipper has a better average and strike rate, and Sachin’s “volume of runs” bonus did not get him ahead. (FYI - this bonus was a simple number from 1-10 with Sachin getting a 10 as the highest run getters in ODIs, and everyone else getting a pro-rated bonus based on their career aggregate).

Michael Bevan is the highest rated Aussie because of his average, which is the highest on this list. Ponting and Kallis come in at 5 and 6. The surprises are Michael Clarke and Dean Jones in the top 10 and both have very similar numbers. Clarke seldom gets credit for his achievements and it’s only a matter of time till we start thinking of him as one of the all-time greats. Dean Jones, who averaged over 44 for the bat will probably be more (in)famous for his commentary, but he’s arguably the most underrated batsman of all time. Brian Lara rounds out the top 10.

Honourable mentions go to Sehwag, Gilchrist, Saeed Anwar, Mohammad Yousuf and Sourav Ganguly who just missed out on making the cut.

Overall, it’s a pretty stellar group of batsmen in this list and Viv Richards is top of the charts.