***Official*** IPL 2009

[jeevan]

Dravid's SR for 100+ scores is 95 and not 117 as you mentioned. His highest SR ever in a 100+ innings is 112 vs SL at Taunton in 99. Out of his 12 100s, only 5 have SR of 100 or above.

For comparison, during the same period (From 96 March to till date, the world avg SR for 100+ scores is 97,

For 50+ scores, the SR is 82 which is quite ok but not exactly great. The world avg SR for 50+ scores since 96 is 99.

For 40+ scores, the SR comes further down to 80. The world avg SR is 85.

So while it can be argued that Dravid matches upto RoW for 100+ scores, the counterargument would be that he has scored only 12+ such scores in his entire career so far. He falls way behind in terms of 50+ scores, and 40+ scores.

So SRs of 82 and 80 are not exactly great.

Another way of seeing this is that Dravid has 110 scores of 40+ at SR of 80. That means there are 223 matches in which he did not cross 40, ie, about two thirds of his career. So what is his performance in those two thirds of his career?

I will ignore the average as it makes no sense. But the SR is 53. In essence, Dravid has an avg SR of 53 in 67% of matches he has played for India.

The corresponding SRs of Tendulkar is 66 (264 times/425 = 62% of his career) and Ganguly is 60 (199 times/311 = 64% of his career)

Your stats are actually weakening your point. If you want to make the case that Dravid was terrible in ODIs, you need to show that he was equivalent or worse than other average batsmen like Dinesh Mongia or Kaif and not that he was a bit poorer than Ganguly and a little bit even more so than Tendulkar (that we knew). .

What jumps out of your post is: i) In scoring < 40 runs, Dravid (67% of the time) was not all that off from Ganguly (64%) but perhaps not as good as Tendulkar (62%)
ii) In scoring at SR of 53 in his bad innings (as opposed to Ganguly's 60) he probably cost the team 2-4 runs if we had another Ganguly and 3-6 runs if we had another Tendulkar, in his place.
iii) In about half of the ODIs where Dravid was not-so-good as a batsman, he was the wicketkeeper. No evidence that he was a poor WK.
iv) When he was good (scored more than 40), he was equivalent to Ganguly in SR.

So all you have proved is that India had a WK who cost them <~ 5 runs per innings as a batsman compared to the very best ODI batsman (Tendulkar) when he was bad. But when he was good, he was at least as good as Ganguly. Does not sound like a liability at all !!

 

[ret]

when you consider how competitive ODIs are, a few balls could be a factor! I wouldn't look at it as he wasted 'only' a few more balls

We have all seen how the big 3 played. It looks like that in terms of SR Ganguly is average, Tendulkar above average and Dravid below. And you don't need stats to see that

 

[oitoitoi]

Bear in mind when Ganguly played most of his ODI's, over the last 4 years or so scores have increased a lot, better bats, more overs of fielding restrictions, they make a difference. It makes Viv Richards' record all the more remarkable. A player like Gayle who's really made his name as a top ODI batsmen has done it fairly recently.

 

[Uppercut]

interesting that Ganguly averages a good 6 points up over Dravid when they fail to cross 40 in terms of SR and yet his overall SR is only 2.5 points or so better than Dravid...



So obviously, he scores slower than Dravid when comparing only their 40+ scores, right?

Yep. I think the point he's trying to make is that when it comes to the real damaging innings- the ones with a strike rate of 50 or below- Ganguly doesn't come up with them as often as Dravid.

 

[Smith]

interesting that Ganguly averages a good 6 points up over Dravid when they fail to cross 40 in terms of SR and yet his overall SR is only 2.5 points or so better than Dravid...



So obviously, he scores slower than Dravid when comparing only their 40+ scores, right?

I've always believed Ganguly would not have played so many ODIs if he did not have Tendulkar as his opening partner. He is quite over rated in my opinion, and was only a tad better than Dravid in terms of rate of scoring. Tendulkar used to be so dominant that Ganguly's mediocrity used to be overlooked, just like for a time Aakash Chopra used to open consistently with Sehwag and used to be a silent spectator.

 

[Smith]

Your stats are actually weakening your point. If you want to make the case that Dravid was terrible in ODIs, you need to show that he was equivalent or worse than other average batsmen like Dinesh Mongia or Kaif and not that he was a bit poorer than Ganguly and a little bit even more so than Tendulkar (that we knew). .

What jumps out of your post is: i) In scoring < 40 runs, Dravid (67% of the time) was not all that off from Ganguly (64%) but perhaps not as good as Tendulkar (62%)
ii) In scoring at SR of 53 in his bad innings (as opposed to Ganguly's 60) he probably cost the team 2-4 runs if we had another Ganguly and 3-6 runs if we had another Tendulkar, in his place.
iii) In about half of the ODIs where Dravid was not-so-good as a batsman, he was the wicketkeeper. No evidence that he was a poor WK.
iv) When he was good (scored more than 40), he was equivalent to Ganguly in SR.

So all you have proved is that India had a WK who cost them <~ 5 runs per innings as a batsman compared to the very best ODI batsman (Tendulkar) when he was bad. But when he was good, he was at least as good as Ganguly. Does not sound like a liability at all !!

First of all, let me clarify I don't want to prove anything.

Secondly, Dravid was quintessential link for the Indian team which hardly had a good middle order, and was prone to collapses more often. Rather than being an excellent player on his own, Dravid was undroppable simply because there was no one who could provide his utility in the team, being a solid batsman and a wicketkeeper.

Thirdly, Dravid scores at SR of 53 in 66% of his matches, and Tendulkar at 66% in about 62% of matches, there is a huge differential of about 13 points in their SR alone. So no comparison whatsoever there.

Fourthly, Dravid vs Ganguly is a non issue for me. I consider both as moderate ODI batsmen who were able to survive in the arena simply because of factors other than batting alone, for Dravid it was keeping. For Ganguly, captaincy and opening with Tendulkar.

So, no, the analysis does not weaken my case at all.

 

[Sanz]

I've always believed Ganguly would not have played so many ODIs if he did not have Tendulkar as his opening partner. He is quite over rated in my opinion, and was only a tad better than Dravid in terms of rate of scoring. Tendulkar used to be so dominant that Ganguly's mediocrity used to be overlooked, just like for a time Aakash Chopra used to open consistently with Sehwag and used to be a silent spectator.

I have been trying to ignore the utter load of rubbish being put up by you in this thread about Dravid but this one is bit hard to take. Comparing Ganguly's batting (in ODIs ) to that of Akash Chopra is the biggest pile of rubbish ever said on this forum.

Anyone who thinks that Ganguly (in Ganguly-Tendulkar ODI partnership) was a silent spectator Like Chopra (in Chopra-Sehwag Partnerships) is really talking out of his ASS.

 

[honestbharani]

I have been trying to ignore the utter load of rubbish being put up by you in this thread about Dravid but this one is bit hard to take. Comparing Ganguly's batting (in ODIs ) to that of Akash Chopra is the biggest pile of rubbish ever said on this forum.

Anyone who thinks that Ganguly (in Ganguly-Tendulkar ODI partnership) was a silent spectator Like Chopra (in Chopra-Sehwag Partnerships) is really talking out of his ASS.

Ganguly scored ODI hundreds in Australia and RSA MUCH before Sachin managed to... And as an opener... In fact, Sachin had quite a horrendous ODI record in Australia and RSA up till the 2003 WC, I think...

 

[SJS]

Ganguly just appears (gives the impression) of being a very fast scorer because of his ability to loft the ball out of the ground. But eventually the strike rate has to reflect the speed of scoring. Its amazing how many people are influenced by six hitting capabilities. I read the orther day some one saying Bradman would not have been a great ODI player because he did not hit sixes.

Has anyone heard of Zaheer Abbas. He batted in an era when a strike rate of 70 was considered fantastic and yet he averaged 84.8 with an average of 47.63. No Pakistani batsman (I mean proper batsman) comes anywhere close to him in strike rate except Afridi.

Look at this list. He is the only one from his era here and yet, except Afridi no one is above him and he was not a big hitter of sixes.

[B]Player        	Runs	HS	100s	50s	Avg	S/R[/B]
Shahid Afridi*	5642	109	4	29	23.31	110.91
[B]Zaheer Abbas	2572	123	7	13	47.63	84.8[/B]
Kamran Akmal*	1918	124	5	2	26.64	84.79
Misbah-ul-Haq	1385	 *79	0	8	39.57	82.2
Moin Khan	3266	 *72	0	12	23	81.3
Saeed Anwar	8824	194	20	43	39.22	80.67
Ijaz Ahmed	6564	 *139	10	37	32.33	80.3
Imran Nazir*	1784	160	2	9	24.78	80.22
Abdul Razzaq*	4465	112	2	22	29.97	79.96
Shoaib Malik*	4837	143	6	31	35.31	79.24
Younis Khan*	5379	144	6	35	33.41	77.2
Azhar Mahmood	1521	67	0	3	18.11	76.51
Salim Malik	7170	102	5	47	32.89	76.41
Rashid Latif	1709	79	0	3	19.42	76.4
Salman Butt*	2459	136	8	11	38.42	76.34
Basit Ali	1265	 *127	1	9	34.19	75.79
Mohd Yousuf*	9242	 *141	15	62	43.19	75.35

The difference in eras was huge.

In India we keep screaming about the big hitting of Kris Srikkanth. It seems unbelievable that his one day strike rate was just 71.7 !! And remember, Zaheer belonged to an era slightly older than Zaheer's.

I wonder what Afridi's strike rate would have been in Zaheer's time.

 

[honestbharani]

the thing is strike rates need to be judged by context... And for context, you always need to look a little beyond the scorecard alone.. Also, the funny thing abt Srikkanth's strike rates is that in most of his good knocks in that WCC, he actually batted like a proper opener. Seeing off the new ball and then cashing in against the first and second change bowlers...

 

[SJS]

It is difficult to find a place which gives all the data but a quick manual calculation brought up this.

Zaheer Abbas hit 13 fifties and 7 centuries in his 62 ODI games. In these 20 innings he scored 1729 runs in 1721 innings - just over 100 as strike rate.

He hit 16 sixes (8 in three consecutive innings against the Indian spinners) and 161 boundaries. Thats a total of 740 runs. This makes just 42.8 percent of his runs in these innings. He ran over 57 percent of his runs !

In the innings in which he did not hit a single six, he scored his runs at 92.8 per 100 balls and scored only 36 percent of his runs in boundaries.

 

[SJS]

the thing is strike rates need to be judged by context... And for context, you always need to look a little beyond the scorecard alone.. Also, the funny thing abt Srikkanth's strike rates is that in most of his good knocks in that WCC, he actually batted like a proper opener. Seeing off the new ball and then cashing in against the first and second change bowlers...

No it was not the context. Thats all that was expected in those days. When he was scoring those runs at 71 per hundred balls, Gavaskar at the other end was scoring them at 50 per 100 balls or so. He looked very quick to us then for thats all we had seen.

And he did not try to play out the new ball, he hit unorthodox shots from the beginning.

You have to understand the difference. The context IS different but its not the context of the match, it is the context of the era.

Hitting a ball over cover point for six or a lofted boundary was looked down upon. Today Tendulkar does it and we call him the greatest batsman India has produced.

In September 1986, Raman Lamba made his debut against Australia. India were chasing 250 in 47 overs. It was considered a HUGE ask. Lamba was batting at number three after Sreekanth and Gavaskar. Gavaskar scored 26 in 56 balls and got out after a partnership of 86 with Sreekanth. Sreekanth went on to score a hundred in 104 balls. Lamba scored 64 in 53 balls and India won with six overs to spare !!

He scored 74 in 68 balls in Delhi in the same series and then a hundred (102) in 120 balls at Gwalior.

Yet he was ridiculed by the Bombay cricketers for being a "latth-baaz" He played proper drives but he did not mind hitting them from point to extra cover. He would have been a sensation today. Yet he was ridiculed. My friends from Bombay (I was playing in Delhi then) said this wasn't cricket, it was a disgrace. That was the context.

Sreekanth was a sensation because those times were different. He was just not what an opening batsman was supposed to be. Even Sreekanth faced people making fun of his batting early on but he was from Tamil Nadu and they had a strong voice in BCCI (even though not as strong as Bombay). It was tougher for people like Lamba.

They said he will never play Test matches although he was scoring big hundreds (and triples) in Ranji Trophy. So he tried to slow down. It didn't get him a great Test career, we just lost a fabulous ODI cricketer.

 

[SJS]

Mohinder Amarnath scored his odi runs at 57.7 per 100 balls and yet played 85 games.

Given below are the six most economical ODI bowlers in history (Minimum 2000 balls bowled) Look at the career span.

[B]Player        	 Country	 Career	 Matches	 Overs	 Mdns	 Runs	 Wkts	 Avg	 Best	 E/R[/B]

Garner, J	 West Indies	 1977-1987	 98	 888.2	 145	 2752	 146	 18.85	 5/31	 3.10
Willis, R G D	 England	 1973-1984	 64	 592.1	 97	 1968	 80	 24.60	 4/11	 3.28
Hadlee, R J	 New Zealand	 1973-1990	 115	 1019.4	 185	 3407	 158	 21.56	 5/25	 3.31
Holding, M A	 West Indies	 1976-1987	 102	 912.1	 99	 3034	 142	 21.37	 5/26	 3.33
Davis, S P	 Australia	 1986-1988	 39	 336.0	 46	 1133	 43	 26.35	 3/10	 3.37
Roberts, A M E	 West Indies	 1975-1983	 56	 519.1	 76	 1771	 87	 20.36	 5/22	 3.4

The last of those six retired in 1990. Thats the context.

The scoring rates have increased tremendously over the last two decades.

 

[SJS]

Here are the ODI economy rates of the bowlers of the current Test playing countries for the last four decades. - Runs per 100 balls. It gives an idea od the batting strike rate change over each decade.

Its also interesting to see that the strike rates have been dropping since the 80's. With rising economy rates and dropping strike rates the bowling averages are dropping fast OR the batsmen are now scoring more runs per wicket at a much faster rate.

[B]Decade	Eco	Avg	Str Rate[/B]

1970's	64.1	26.6	41.6
1980's	69.2	31.1	44.9
1990's	73.3	31.8	43.4
2000's	78.9	32.1	40.7

 

[Uppercut]

Ganguly just appears (gives the impression) of being a very fast scorer because of his ability to loft the ball out of the ground. But eventually the strike rate has to reflect the speed of scoring. Its amazing how many people are influenced by six hitting capabilities. I read the orther day some one saying Bradman would not have been a great ODI player because he did not hit sixes.

Has anyone heard of Zaheer Abbas. He batted in an era when a strike rate of 70 was considered fantastic and yet he averaged 84.8 with an average of 47.63. No Pakistani batsman (I mean proper batsman) comes anywhere close to him in strike rate except Afridi.

Look at this list. He is the only one from his era here and yet, except Afridi no one is above him and he was not a big hitter of sixes.

[B]Player        	Runs	HS	100s	50s	Avg	S/R[/B]
Shahid Afridi*	5642	109	4	29	23.31	110.91
[B]Zaheer Abbas	2572	123	7	13	47.63	84.8[/B]
Kamran Akmal*	1918	124	5	2	26.64	84.79
Misbah-ul-Haq	1385	 *79	0	8	39.57	82.2
Moin Khan	3266	 *72	0	12	23	81.3
Saeed Anwar	8824	194	20	43	39.22	80.67
Ijaz Ahmed	6564	 *139	10	37	32.33	80.3
Imran Nazir*	1784	160	2	9	24.78	80.22
Abdul Razzaq*	4465	112	2	22	29.97	79.96
Shoaib Malik*	4837	143	6	31	35.31	79.24
Younis Khan*	5379	144	6	35	33.41	77.2
Azhar Mahmood	1521	67	0	3	18.11	76.51
Salim Malik	7170	102	5	47	32.89	76.41
Rashid Latif	1709	79	0	3	19.42	76.4
Salman Butt*	2459	136	8	11	38.42	76.34
Basit Ali	1265	 *127	1	9	34.19	75.79
Mohd Yousuf*	9242	 *141	15	62	43.19	75.35

The difference in eras was huge.

In India we keep screaming about the big hitting of Kris Srikkanth. It seems unbelievable that his one day strike rate was just 71.7 !! And remember, Zaheer belonged to an era slightly older than Zaheer's.

I wonder what Afridi's strike rate would have been in Zaheer's time.

No it was not the context. Thats all that was expected in those days. When he was scoring those runs at 71 per hundred balls, Gavaskar at the other end was scoring them at 50 per 100 balls or so. He looked very quick to us then for thats all we had seen.

And he did not try to play out the new ball, he hit unorthodox shots from the beginning.

You have to understand the difference. The context IS different but its not the context of the match, it is the context of the era.

Hitting a ball over cover point for six or a lofted boundary was looked down upon. Today Tendulkar does it and we call him the greatest batsman India has produced.

In September 1986, Raman Lamba made his debut against Australia. India were chasing 250 in 47 overs. It was considered a HUGE ask. Lamba was batting at number three after Sreekanth and Gavaskar. Gavaskar scored 26 in 56 balls and got out after a partnership of 86 with Sreekanth. Sreekanth went on to score a hundred in 104 balls. Lamba scored 64 in 53 balls and India won with six overs to spare !!

He scored 74 in 68 balls in Delhi in the same series and then a hundred (102) in 120 balls at Gwalior.

Yet he was ridiculed by the Bombay cricketers for being a "latth-baaz" He played proper drives but he did not mind hitting them from point to extra cover. He would have been a sensation today. Yet he was ridiculed. My friends from Bombay (I was playing in Delhi then) said this wasn't cricket, it was a disgrace. That was the context.

Sreekanth was a sensation because those times were different. He was just not what an opening batsman was supposed to be. Even Sreekanth faced people making fun of his batting early on but he was from Tamil Nadu and they had a strong voice in BCCI (even though not as strong as Bombay). It was tougher for people like Lamba.

They said he will never play Test matches although he was scoring big hundreds (and triples) in Ranji Trophy. So he tried to slow down. It didn't get him a great Test career, we just lost a fabulous ODI cricketer.

Two very interesting contributions. Abbas is the perfect example of a hard-running, sensible attacking cricketer from another era. The cultural difference between eras is crazy- Lamba couldn't get in the test side for being too attacking, nowadays Yuvraj plays because everyone is hypnotised by his dominant six-hitting.

 

[Briony]

I thought the IPL was over for 2009.

 

[Pratters]

I thought the IPL was over for 2009.

Albertus is still not performing!

 

[ret]

Another piece of stats in games that India won

Tendulkar - 213m, 10140r @ 57 avg w/ 31 H, SR 90
in tournament finals - 15m, 1100r @ 100 avg w/ 5H, SR 97 [probably the biggest match winner in the world]


Ganguly - 149m, 6938r @ 55, w/ 18H, SR 78
tournament finals - 7m, 483r @ 80 w/ 2H, SR 83


Dravid - 157m, 5672r @ 52 w/ 8H, SR 76
tournament finals - 2m, 36r @ 18, SR 53


Tendulkar has been phenomenal in the finals that India has won, averaging almost 100, and Ganguly has been terrific too

 

[Briony]

Warnie's Royals will play an exhibition match against Middlesex at Lord's on July 6th.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/World/20090530/1264414.html

 

[nightprowler10]

Another piece of stats in games that India won

Tendulkar - 213m, 10140r @ 57 avg w/ 31 H, SR 90
in tournament finals - 15m, 1100r @ 100 avg w/ 5H, SR 97 [probably the biggest match winner in the world]


Ganguly - 149m, 6938r @ 55, w/ 18H, SR 78
tournament finals - 7m, 483r @ 80 w/ 2H, SR 83


Dravid - 157m, 5672r @ 52 w/ 8H, SR 76
tournament finals - 2m, 36r @ 18, SR 53


Tendulkar has been phenomenal in the finals that India has won, averaging almost 100, and Ganguly has been terrific too

Sachin still a loser. Here's proof: