Is KP worthy of No.1 title?

[TT Boy]

Firstly, your comments about Boeta Dippenaar are ridiculous. The man averages 42.87 in ODI cricket which places him 10th on the averages list of current players, a remarkable acheivement. Now, the fact that he is only striking at under 70 is irrelevant because quite clearly he is getting the runs on the board to compensate for the pace at which he bats. He did have a very poor Champions Trophy but that was no excuse to drop him for a slogger who has done nothing to prove that he's good enough at the highest level and who has only one innings of note and that was against Zimbabwe.

Now, I'm not going to get into the whole black vs white quota selection issue because I am no expert on that matter and discussing it quite frankly bores and annoys me. I find it amazing how you think that Loots Bosman should be in the ODI side ahead of Boeta Dippenaar considering that Dippenaar is quite obviously a better player, regardless of what colour he is. Also, can you provide evidence that Dippenaar has been given a "free ride" in South Africa's next Test series or is it just a rumour? He still has a national contract because he is a very good ODI player, although I agree he is not up to Test standard at the moment. Bringing Paul Harris and Morne Morkel into the equation is pointless, they aren't fighting for a contract up against Dipenaar or Bosman but up against the other bowlers.

Sadly, they are not. What is ridiculous however is when people continually suggest that Boeta should be in team in spite of South Africa’s incessant rhetoric which dictates that they want to play positive cricket.

“"That decision was made around the game plan. We want to get off to a quick start in the powerplays, exactly the way Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers have responded at the top. Boeta is unlucky, but he had five innings at the Champions Trophy to cement his place," Haroon Lorgat.

If that means playing a slogger in front of Boeta so be it but yet again that is fallacy for Human lost his place to Ashwell Prince not Loots Bosman. Prince, who only got a ticket to the Caribbean after firstly promising to improve his one day game (I.e. strike-rate) and secondly illustrating that if South Africa do indeed get into some trouble, he has the dogged determination alongside Kallis to steady the boat. Boeta doesn’t have such a quality for he may bat slow but that is not indication of his ability to firstly rescue situations or indeed flourish against good bowling.

In regard to evidence on Boeta’s free ride, try SuperSport’s website, use the search function and type in Boeta. The article dated around the late period of January should appear with Boeta explaining that he was ecstatic to be back in South Africa’s test side and that he was promised by Mr. Lorgat that he will open up in South Africa’s test series next winter. Human’s national contract would reinforce such a claim for surprisingly Boeta is contracted as a Test player not a ODI player.

And bringing up Harris and Morkel is not irrelevant for South Africa could have 8 bowlers under central contract if they liked for a number of their batsman over the past eighteen months who have played test cricket were originally not under national contract due to their penchant of not being any good.

 

[open365]

How the ICC player ranking system works is not transparent at all, and man like KP who played only one game in the CB Series and they played some decent knocks in this WC is ranked no.1 ahead of guys like Ponting,Jayasuriya,Kallis who all have been scoring heavily in the recent past.



Does the ICC player ranking take into account whether a player's innings was in a winning cause or not or in what situations those runs were made in.

That's ridiculous, Jayasuria isn't a better player than Pietersen right now, and i wouldn't say kallis is either, the only player who could rightfully lay claim to being No.1 apart from KP is Ponting.

I think people are forgetting just how good KP's record is, his stats are immense and he's been playing for 2 years and kept up the form he started in SA.

And yes the rankings take basicaly every variable statisticaly into account.

 

[pup11]

If rankings work purely on statistics then i would like to know how many more runs has Pietersen scored compared to Jayasuriya,Kallis and Ponting in the last 3 to 4 months.


If stats were the only thing to go by then Matty Hayden would be my pick as the no.1 batsman, he has crossed 1000 odi runs barrier this year in just 18 games (which btw is the quickest to 1000 runs in an odi calendar year by any batsman in odi cricket history).

 

[GIMH]

When KP catches and overtakes Hussey, he shall have the highest ODI average of any batsman who has ever played more than 20 innings

Not that that really adds anything to the argument

 

[open365]

If rankings work purely on statistics then i would like to know how many more runs has Pietersen scored compared to Jayasuriya,Kallis and Ponting in the last 3 to 4 months.


If stats were the only thing to go by then Matty Hayden would be my pick as the no.1 batsman, he has crossed 1000 odi runs barrier this year in just 18 games (which btw is the quickest to 1000 runs in an odi calendar year by any batsman in odi cricket history).

The rankings don't work on a 3-4 month basis, they are incredibly complex and take a lot more into account than we can discover and debate.

It takes a hell of a good player in great form for a long time to reach the top.

 

[PhoenixFire]

The rankings don't work on a 3-4 month basis, they are incredibly complex and take a lot more into account than we can discover and debate.

It takes a hell of a good player in great form for a long time to reach the top.

Agree, there are many, many things that are taken into account when the rankings are made. It isn't just average or strike-rate. Whoever manages to get there must deserve it tbh.

 

[open365]

http://cricketratings.com/

The value of each player’s performance within a match is calculated using an algorithm, a series of calculations (all pre-programmed) based on various circumstances in the match.
All of the calculations are carried out using pre-programmed formulae, using the information published in a Test match scorecard. There is no human intervention in this calculation process, and no subjective assessment is made of the quality of the pitch or of the players.
TEST MATCH RANKINGS

For a batsman, the factors are:

* runs scored
* ratings of the opposing bowling attack; the higher the combined ratings of the attack, the more value i s given to the batsman’s innings (in proportion)
* the level of run-scoring in the match, and the team’s innings total; an innings of 100 runs in a match where all teams scored 500 is worth less than 100 runs in a match where all teams were bowled out for 200. And if a team scores 500 in the first innings and 200 in the second innings, a century in the second innings will get more credit than in the first innings (because the general level of run scoring was higher in the first innings)
* out or not out (a not out innings receives a bonus)
* the result. Batsmen who score highly in victories receive a bonus. That bonus will be higher for highly rated opposition teams (i.e. win bonus against the current Australia team is higher than the bonus against Zimbabwe.)

ONE-DAY RANKINGS

The principles behind the ODI Ratings are similar to those for the Test Ratings, with the following important differences:

Batsmen gain significant credit for rapid scoring. They only get a small amount of credit for being not out (because a not out batsman is, by definition, batting at the end of the innings when the value of his wicket is low)

Bowlers gain significant credit for economy. A bowler who bowls 10 overs 0 for 10 is likely to see his rating improve significantly, even though he hasn’t taken a wicket.

Players lose only ½ % of their points for missing a match for their country.

All ODI matches are considered equal, except for ICC Cricket World Cup matches, where good performances gain extra credit.

Big scores or wicket hauls against very weak nations get much less credit than the same performances against the main ODI countries.

 

[pup11]

Ok KP deserves to be the no.1, but then how do you justify Dhoni being no.2 in the rankings just before the start of the WC.


Now in the last one year Dhoni didn't do anything great, yeah he scored some runs in the home series in against SL and WI just recently, so is that good enough to see him through to the no.2 spot.

 

[PhoenixFire]

Ok KP deserves to be the no.1, but then how do you justify Dhoni being no.2 in the rankings just before the start of the WC.


Now in the last one year Dhoni didn't do anything great, yeah he scored some runs in the home series in against SL and WI just recently, so is that good enough to see him through to the no.2 spot.

Clearly yes, or else he wouldn't be there. I'm not saying for a minute that he was the 2nd best in the world, but he was according to the rankings.

 

[Nishant]

Clearly yes, or else he wouldn't be there. I'm not saying for a minute that he was the 2nd best in the world, but he was according to the rankings.

i think that we have to agree with the fact that there is a difference between the rankings and the actual fact of who is better than who. Dhoni is no. 2 according to the rankings...whcih is clearly fair taking into account the way the rankings are calculated. But, in terms of his value in the side compared to the likes of Ponting etc...he is nowhere near no. 2!

 

[PhoenixFire]

But the rankings were never intended to be a rating of who is better than who, just who is the form player/s in the world.

 

[Nishant]

But the rankings were never intended to be a rating of who is better than who, just who is the form player/s in the world.

in that case....after the world cup, Hayden will be no 1?

 

[PhoenixFire]

in that case....after the world cup, Hayden will be no 1?

But it's also about consistensy of form. If Hayden continues playing like he is, then yes he will end up being number 1, but he hasn't been playing this well for long enough to warrant a number one place.

 

[Nishant]

But it's also about consistensy of form. If Hayden continues playing like he is, then yes he will end up being number 1, but he hasn't been playing this well for long enough to warrant a number one place.

i guess thats true...but what has dhoni done over the last few months that warrant him a no. 2 position? He has a few fifties and thats it...surely thats good but not no.2 material

 

[open365]

Arguing over the ratings is pointless and futile, it's based on a set mathmatical formula which in case i'm very much mistaken doesn't follow international ODIs.

 

[Pratters]

KP's current rating of 808 is higher than any rating Ponting has achieved in his career (Ponting's highest is 805).

I am with Bowman (Open365) though. For me, any ratings are only an indicator. It is a set of formulas which, while it will keep a lot of factors into account, cannot be a complete and final fact on who is the best batsman/bowler right now. For instance..

Currently the top 5 ODI batsmen are:

1 K.P. Pietersen ENG 808 808 v Sri Lanka, 04/04/2007
2 R.T. Ponting AUS 786 805 v South Africa, 12/03/2006
3 M.E.K. Hussey AUS 766 863 v New Zealand, 28/01/2007
4 S.T. Jayasuriya SL 761 838 v Bangladesh, 14/02/2003
5 G.C. Smith SA 757 784 v India, 25/11/2005

Looking at the ratings, I would say that the top 5 batsmen are doing quite well and Pieterson and Ponting are making truckloads of runs right now. For saying who is the best batsman, I would have to go into deeper analysis.

Pieterson of course deserves the rating of no. 1 according to the given ratings though, as he fulfils the criteria required to be number 1 by the given ratings.

 

[marc71178]

On top of that, you can't justify having Prince and Boeta in the same team, along with Kallis. It just won't work.

But England frequently play Vaughan, Joyce and Bell together.




































Oh, I see what you mean...

 

[Matt79]

That is purely and simply a stereotype. There is very little to suggest that Kallis, and in the later part of his career Dravid are inflexible batsmen. They both perform a certain role in the team but are perfectly capable of playing differently to that role, case in point Kallis's recent innings against West Indies. However, most of the time it is in the team's best interest if they play more conservatively and are thus seen as less flexible because they have less opportunity to showcase it.

but I do think you're a little off with Dravid and Kallis (as short pitched mentioned). There are plenty of examples of Dravid teeing off at the death since 2001 onwards, and doing so very successfully. He just often chooses not to do it, because with Tendulkar, Sehwag, Ganguly, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Uthappa, Gambhir and whoever else has graced the ODI team in the past, they've generally been the strokemakers of the team, and its been Dravid's role to be the rock and anchor the innings.

I dare say in recent times his strike rate has often been ahead of Ganguly and Sachin actually, so I think you've overestimated his inflexibility. Kallis is an even more straight forward case, he clearly bats how he bats because he wants to/is told to, not because he can't bat in any other way.

My criticism remains - you misunderstand if you think I'm saying that I think they are BAD players because of their lack of flexibility. I'm just saying compared to the very best, like a Ponting, a Tendulkar of yesteryear, or a KP or Hussey, its legitimate to point out that both Dravid and Kallis have struggled on multiple occasions to lift the run rate when their team needed them to. That doesn't make them not generally very fine players or not the best players in their teams, but it is a concrete reason to rank them below somebody who can do the role they choose to do, but can also do other, more difficult, roles with consistent success - someone like Clarke.

 

[pup11]

Yeah, I think Matt makes a fair enough point there, Dravid and Kallis are there in their respective teams to play a certain role which they do pretty well but to expect lot of other dimensions in their batting is not right because thats not their style of batting.




But in odi cricket blokes like Clarke,Hussey,Boucher are more useful because these sort of batsmen are more flexible in adapting to different situations of an odi game.