Cribbage's Standardised Test Averages (UPDATED November 2018 - posts 753-755)

[ankitj]

There's quite a difference between them even on that level. Someone like Gilchrist makes the kind of scores that change a match regularly - that's why his SR matters. Kapil doesn't. Ironically, it would be better for his team to actually stay in and bat with the tail than to score a quick 30. 30 runs doesn't change the momentum of a game in Tests.

But at Kapil and Imran's level, to have a comparable average former wouldn't need to convert quick 30's into watchful 100s but only 40's or thereabout. That doesn't look like a lot of difference.

So my point stands. Kapil vs Imran is same as Gilchrist vs say Sanga (or for argument's sake take any batsman who averages 5-6 runs higher than Gilly), but I am sure you have your reasons to rate Gilchrist higher than them.

I am myself not decided on Kapil vs Imran issue, and Imran is possibly my greatest cricketing icon, but we have to just grant that from a certain perspective Kapil could be considered a better or more skilled batsman.

 

[Ikki]

At Kapil and Imran's level, though, Dev's SR is pretty unimportant unless it helps to create a substantial score or swing in the match. His average indicates that these innings will be far less regular than someone like Gilchrist's. Guys like Gilchrist and Sehwag are not valuable simply because they score fast; but because they score a lot of runs fast.

I'd actually argue that at their level it would be far better to bat slower. A brisk 30 runs does nothing to the match really. But a pretty slow one can help turn a collapse or at least bring one brief period of stability.

You tried to equate Kapil and Gilchrist as if their was an inconsistency in my point.

 

[vcs]

At Kapil and Imran's level, though, Dev's SR is pretty unimportant unless it helps to create a substantial score or swing in the match. His average indicates that these innings will be far less regular than someone like Gilchrist's. Guys like Gilchrist and Sehwag are not valuable simply because they score fast; but because they score a lot of runs fast.

I'd actually argue that at their level it would be far better to bat slower. A brisk 30 runs does nothing to the match really. But a pretty slow one can help turn a collapse or at least bring one brief period of stability.

Yeah, but averaging 30 in the 80s was not the same as averaging 30, or even 35 today. If you can bump up Gilchrist's "effective" average to 50 in terms of how much his innings turned matches in favour of his team, I reckon you could add a good 7-10 points to Kapil's as well. Look at the quality of bowling attacks and batting averages going around back then. 40 was respectable for top-order batsmen.

 

[Ikki]

The bowling attacks of then weren't that much better than the 00s. And definitely not enough to add 7-10 points. That is just ridiculous.

 

[vcs]

The bowling attacks of then weren't that much better than the 00s. And definitely not enough to add 7-10 points. That is just ridiculous.

You don't think so? Especially if you weren't playing for WI...

 

[smash84]

The bowling attacks of then weren't that much better than the 00s. And definitely not enough to add 7-10 points. That is just ridiculous.

Ikki, the bowling attacks of the 80s and 90s might probably be the best bowling attacks of all time.

 

[Ikki]

WI was the only attack really for much of that decade that had a great attack. Pakistan did towards the end of the decade IIRC. The rest weren't that great.

NZ were Ok but a single Hadlee an attack does not make.
SL didn't.
Ind didn't.
Eng, nope.
Aus got much better towards the end of the 80s but definitely not a great attack.
SA didn't play tests.

The 90s had many great attacks. The 80s just had some great bowlers.

 

[smash84]

WI was the only attack really for much of that decade that had a great attack. Pakistan did towards the end of the decade IIRC. The rest weren't that great.

NZ were Ok but a single Hadlee an attack does not make.
SL didn't.
Ind didn't.
Eng, nope.
Aus got much better towards the end of the 80s but definitely not a great attack.
SA didn't play tests.

The 90s had many great attacks. The 80s just had some great bowlers.

But in 00s only Australia had a good attack. SA somewhat in the beginning of the decade.

 

[Ikki]

If you compare 00s attacks with the 80s.

Aus 00s > Aus 80s
Ind 00s > Ind 80s
Eng 00 > Eng 80s
SL 00s > SL 80s
+ SA

WI 80s > WI 00s
NZ 80s > NZ 00s
Pak 80s > Pak 00s

 

[Ikki]

But in 00s only Australia had a good attack. SA somewhat in the beginning of the decade.

In the 80s only WIndies had a great attack if you wish to look at it like that. They were so far ahead of the rest it was a joke. In the 00s SA and SL were much closer to Aus than NZ and Pak were to WI.

 

[morgieb]

Not really sure whether I support you there. NZ = (or maybe slightly worse than) SL and Pakistan = South Africa (SA were probably better overall, but they had heaps of poor patches as well).

 

[Ikki]

Pakistan also were under par though. If you compare the SA attack even directly (not accounting for flat pitches or anything) with Pak of the 80s they are way ahead when you also account for SR.

SA were only 3 runs and 5.5 balls worse than Aus for the 00s. Pak were 6.6 runs and 16 balls worse than WI in the 80s.

Simlarly, SL were 4 runs and about 10 balls worse than Ausin the 00s. NZ were 6.6 runs and 17 balls worse than WI in the 80s.

Those are very large differences.

 

[r3alist]

m.asif - what a waste - this guy had all the ingredients to break all sorts of records and join the elite grouping of bowlers in crickets history

 

[smash84]

If you compare 00s attacks with the 80s.

Aus 00s > Aus 80s
Ind 00s > Ind 80s
Eng 00 > Eng 80s
SL 00s > SL 80s
+ SA

WI 80s > WI 00s
NZ 80s > NZ 00s
Pak 80s > Pak 00s

Hmmm. A fair assessment I should say.

 

[Howe_zat]

I'm willing to bet the Bangladesh attack is better now than 20 years ago too.

 

[The Sean]

This is fascinating stuff Cribb - looking forward to seeing the batsmen's version.

I might have missed him in the original list, but what did CTB Turner end up with?

Spofforth's numbers are a surprise to me. I expected the likes of Lohmann/Blythe/Briggs to take a big hit because they filled their boots on the walking wickets that were the South African Test team of that era. But Spofforth (like the other Australians of the 19th Century) played all his cricket against England so I'm genuinely surprised that his average blows out that badly.

 

[Prince EWS]

This is fascinating stuff Cribb - looking forward to seeing the batsmen's version.

I might have missed him in the original list, but what did CTB Turner end up with?

Spofforth's numbers are a surprise to me. I expected the likes of Lohmann/Blythe/Briggs to take a big hit because they filled their boots on the walking wickets that were the South African Test team of that era. But Spofforth (like the other Australians of the 19th Century) played all his cricket against England so I'm genuinely surprised that his average blows out that badly.

Turner's fifth on the list - 20.08.

England's batsmen averaged a collective 16 in the 1870s and 20 in the 1880s, which punished Spofforth quite a bit. Lohmann doesn't suffer quite as much as you'd think because, even though he cleaned up South Africa, the Australian team of the 1890s he played a fair bit against averaged over 26. There was a pretty significant rise in batting averages in the 1890s in general, a decade which Spofforth missed out on. The way it's split up at decades creates a couple of problems but I'm ironing that out to a large extent at the moment (for example, wickets taken in 1972 will be compared to standards of 1967-77 rather than the current 1970-80 standard it's using for those wickets), so there'll be a revised bowling list just before the batting one comes out.

 

[The Sean]

Ha ha so I DID completely miss Turner. Had I seen him on 20.08 my surprise about Spofforth's average would have been even greater!

Thanks for the explanation though, I'd never realised that there was such a significant increase in collective batting averages from the 1880s to 1890s. And yeah fair enough about Lohmann too - even taking away his South African bonanza, his record against Australia IIRC is something like 77 wickets at 15. Freak.

 

[bagapath]

PrinceEWS... when is the batting list coming out?

 

[Prince EWS]

PrinceEWS... when is the batting list coming out?

After I've finished tweaking the bowling one.
I'm currently in the process of making my program a lot more automatic so I don't have to do as much manual work (essentially - the holy grail of making it download and interpret cricinfo pages itself). Once that's done it'll all move very quickly and I'll be able to do a whole lot of other stuff too, like peaks.