We need more meaningful stats-Ed Cowan

[Flem274*]

Cricket has always fancied itself a deeply statistical game, yet somehow has become increasingly bogged down in small categories of data, giving little to no thought as to how meaningful they are. Thanks in part to Michael Lewis' gift of storytelling, the word Moneyball is now not only synonymous with baseball but commonplace within business parlance to signify thinking outside current evaluation parameters. Considering the similar cadences and skill sets of baseball and cricket, it can't be long before cricket too has an overhaul of its archaic statistical processes and starts to measure what is relevant rather than simply what is easy.

Ed Cowan on more meaningful statistics in cricket | Opinion | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

Quite liked this article. Thoughts?

 

[Noble One]

Great article, I read it only minutes before you posted it.

Ed Cowan is a much better writer than he is a cricketer (and he is a very good cricketer).

 

[Top_Cat]

He's right, of course, but measuring relevant performance measures over the course of a 6-hour day's play would be a nightmare. That and if you were serious, you'd have to measure the effect of conditions, pitch, different days, etc. all of which SABRmetrics doesn't, of course, do. It would be a nightmare to have to do every game.

EDIT: Honestly, all articles like this do is make me wish even more that Cowan was in line for Test selection so he could write about it.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, as the pro-in-stats TC says, while this thought is right, it is almost impossible to come up with stats that can be considered completely correct for cricket. There are just so so many variables involved that a pinch of stats + a pinch of personal judgement is about the best way you can ever judge cricket and cricketers. And that is the beauty of the sport.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

First Chance Average
Catches per Innings for Wicket Keepers
Dollars Taken in Bribes

Those are the key stats currently missing from our repertoire.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

As a baseball lover, I have always wondered about SABRmetrics in cricket.
Not skilled enough at mathematics to do anything about it though.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

First Chance Average
Catches per Innings for Wicket Keepers
Dollars Taken in Bribes

Those are the key stats currently missing from our repertoire.

I don't know about FC averages, but I know Ross Taylor has a KFC average of 15.

 

[DingDong]

He's right, of course, but measuring relevant performance measures over the course of a 6-hour day's play would be a nightmare. That and if you were serious, you'd have to measure the effect of conditions, pitch, different days, etc. all of which SABRmetrics doesn't, of course, do. It would be a nightmare to have to do every game.

EDIT: Honestly, all articles like this do is make me wish even more that Cowan was in line for Test selection so he could write about it.

some of them do get used in sabermetrics in era+, ops+ etc..especially the field they play in
some stuff like pitch conditions etc dont matter in baseball

i agree with what ur saying though its useful because at bats in baseball are so much shorter there's no need for something like that in cricket

 

[DingDong]

something that might be a useful stat is how many balls a batsman hits in the air at a catchable height through the infield although its impossible to keep track of something like that unless you have a bunch of statisticians working 24/7 with cricket being played in different time zones

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

something that might be a useful stat is how many balls a batsman hits in the air at a catchable height through the infield although its impossible to keep track of something like that unless you have a bunch of statisticians working 24/7 with cricket being played in different time zones

Yes, interesting.

Classifications along the line of GB (Groundballs), LD (Line-drives), FB (Flyballs).
Maybe some sort of Strike Zone judgement statistics. %age of balls played that needed to be played at , didn't need to be played at. Defended/Attacked. etc

The problem with the different grounds and field conditions is that it would require a decent sample size to give each ground and condition a weighted rating. Easy to do when each team plays 162 games a season, but not so in Cricket.

 

[NUFAN]

It's not that difficult to get stats for some of the things mentioned in the thread if we were to start today. Of course the big problem with this is the 100 odd years of Cricket history which wouldn't be calculated.

Perhaps when we start a new format T10, we can use the new stats..

Cowan's articles are the best from any current player at the moment IMO.

 

[Jono]

Awesome article.

The point is you don't necessarily need SABRmetric levels of detail to exist. Any gradual improvement through further analysis would be beneficial.

There has to be some reasonable batting statistic which is able to tell me that Rahul Dravid is much better than Mohammad Yousuf even though Yousuf averages more than Dravid.

Edit: For some reason I thought Yousuf retired with an average of 55-56. Obviously dropped heavily after his epic 2006. Point still stands, replace Dravid with Inzy.

 

[Flem274*]

Just dig up a video of Mohammad Yousuf playing a well directed short ball.

When Pakistan were in NZ and Aus a couple of years back he had a bad time against it.

 

[Jono]

That's not a batting statistic though, which is the point.

Anyway Ed Cowan specifically mentions things like proportion of team runs and scoring shot percentage are pretty simple statistics that can be very useful. It is possible, and probably likely, that teams take it into account. The whole point is bringing the ability for such analysis to the viewer/fan.

 

[Uppercut]

There has to be some reasonable batting statistic which is able to tell me that Rahul Dravid is much better than Mohammad Yousuf even though Yousuf averages more than Dravid.

That's how it's done- make up your own conclusion first then look for a stat that tells you what you want to hear .

I think "runs" may be good enough for that tbf.

 

[DingDong]

Awesome article.

The point is you don't necessarily need SABRmetric levels of detail to exist. Any gradual improvement through further analysis would be beneficial.

There has to be some reasonable batting statistic which is able to tell me that Rahul Dravid is much better than Mohammad Yousuf even though Yousuf averages more than Dravid.

Edit: For some reason I thought Yousuf retired with an average of 55-56. Obviously dropped heavily after his epic 2006. Point still stands, replace Dravid with Inzy.

impossible to do with stats unless u manually give them a different weight for the runs they scored which will bring human bias into it

those kinds of different opinions exist in every sport from cricket to baseball and that's why we debate these things

 

[DingDong]

that's how it's done- make up your own conclusion first then look for a stat that tells you what you want to hear .

I think "runs" may be good enough for that tbf.

+1

 

[benchmark00]

Forget meaningful stats, I just want a meaningful relationship!

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Who's going to own up to sending the statsguru a Christmas Card every year?

 

[NasserFan207]

I think the most interesting aspect of this article is how he believes this will happen anyway due to organisations like the IPL, where business acumen comes into play.

Should keep an eye on it.