30 Test hundreds

[cnerd123]

It was a little too effective the last time I did this.

[Insert holocaust joke here]

 

[OverratedSanity]

Aids joke was better imo

 

[honestbharani]

Actually HB you are wrong about this, completely. If you average 20ish against all bowlers of a team, you average 20 overall. Not sure why some people are even arguing against that.

Yes,.. theoretically. What I meant was in reality it is not what happens. You do not get out to every bowler of the opposition and neither do you score the same runs off every bowler you face. This stat, more than a number of other stats, is one which is completely utterly meaningless without some kind of context setting. Anyways, more than arguing the point I just wanted to give it back to TJB coz its a bad day and I have had enough of the condescending posts from the troll. I am done here. Not gonna respond to him on this again. Point has been made enough from all sides. Folks can read and make up their own minds.

 

[91Jmay]

I took the 20 runs as 20 runs vs Steyn. Obviously averaging 20 against SA is poor, but that is totally different to what to OP said to be honest.

 

[indiaholic]

The 20 number that is being stated is his average in games when Steyn is playing. Not his average against Steyn individually.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Actually HB you are wrong about this, completely. If you average 20ish against all bowlers of a team, you average 20 overall. Not sure why some people are even arguing against that.

I've seen people argue a lot of really bizarre **** on here, but for so many people to not understand something as simple as how an average works this badly is something new

I think I explained pretty clearly where I'm pretty sure these people were going wrong. Doubt they'll listen to reason though.

I think those on each side of this discussion are talking about slightly different things, but using the same term to describe both, thereby causing confusion.

not really, these posts are all unequivocally wrong:

Yeah, you have to play a big old innings to get 60 balls from one bowler in most cases. Especially a number 3 who isn't likely going to face the first few overs of Steyn. So scoring 20 against one bowler in a career you are likely going pretty well overall.

the theory being if you average 20 against 4 bowlers in a side you'd average 80 against the team

You are not playing only one bowler in a match though. 4 or 5 bowlers at least in which case you'll be averaging 80 or 100 per innings if you average 20 per bowler.

A batsman averaging 20 against a bowler is bloody impressive actually.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I took the 20 runs as 20 runs vs Steyn. Obviously averaging 20 against SA is poor, but that is totally different to what to OP said to be honest.

If what you meant was that averaging 20 against Steyn, and averaging infinity against everyone else (which is what a few people seem to be saying) is good, then yes. That would be good.

Simply averaging 20 against a bowler, for a specialist batsman, is not good. It doesn't mean you're not a good batsman, because you might average 100 against everyone else, but it means that bowler has the wood over you comfortably.

 

[srbhkshk]

The 20 number that is being stated is his average in games when Steyn is playing. Not his average against Steyn individually.

To be fair, even if it was 20 individually against Steyn it would still be crap unless you averaged like 100 against all other SA bowlers and played only 2-3 times against Steyn.

 

[indiaholic]

Over a large enough sample size, I don't think it is possible to average more than 20-30 against the likes of McGrath and Steyn. Bowlers are just a superior class of human being.

 

[indiaholic]

To be fair, even if it was 20 individually against Steyn it would still be crap unless you averaged like 100 against all other SA bowlers and played only 2-3 times against Steyn.

Not too convinced by numbers like that. Makes a substantial difference what stage of the innings you are coming in to face him etc. Sample size will never be large enough to get a meaningful average.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Over a large enough sample size, I don't think it is possible to average more than 20-30 against the likes of McGrath and Steyn. Bowlers are just a superior class of human being.

Do we have any stats on this? Just thinking purely logically, since they average low-20s, the average batsman against them must average low-20s, including tail-enders though.

It'd be really interested to see if anyone did average 40+ against these bowlers over a decent sample size. ****ed if I know how to look up stats like that though.

Not too convinced by numbers like that. Makes a substantial difference what stage of the innings you are coming in to face him etc. Sample size will never be large enough to get a meaningful average.

Sample size is only relevant if you need it to be. If you're trying to prove beyond doubt that Batsman A is not good against Bowler B then sample size is important.

But if all your trying to show is how well Batsman A performed against Bowler B in his career then sample size is irrelevant, because you're not trying to "prove" anything. You're just purely looking at the statistics.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Over a large enough sample size, I don't think it is possible to average more than 20-30 against the likes of McGrath and Steyn. Bowlers are just a superior class of human being.

Given that both bowlers average above 20 vs the entire spectrum of Test batsmen, it is a fair bet that over a big sample size, elite Test batsmen (including who you want, within reason) will average significantly above 20 vs both.

 

[srbhkshk]

Over a large enough sample size, I don't think it is possible to average more than 20-30 against the likes of McGrath and Steyn. Bowlers are just a superior class of human being.

Dude these bowlers average 20-25 against all batsmen overall, why do you think the best batsmen will be getting out to them with the same frequency?

 

[indiaholic]

Fun McGrath stat: His average against right handed batsmen was 16.25

 

[TheJediBrah]

Bloody left-handers. Do nothing but cause trouble.

 

[Tom Halsey]

It'd be really interested to see if anyone did average 40+ against these bowlers over a decent sample size. ****ed if I know how to look up stats like that though.

Blogs: Anantha Narayanan: Head-to-head stats for Lara, Tendulkar, Muralitharan, Warne and eight others | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

Table 9 here has McGrath vs selected batsmen. Only starts from when CricInfo started tracking player v player stats though, hence how it says Atherton only got out to him six times for instance.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Obviously all very small samples but Gibbs, Strauss, Astle all averaging 50+ v McGrath

 

[indiaholic]

Given that both bowlers average above 20 vs the entire spectrum of Test batsmen, it is a fair bet that over a big sample size, elite Test batsmen (including who you want, within reason) will average significantly above 20 vs both.

Exaggerating a bit obviously, i thought the better class of human being gave that away. But having said that elite batsmen average say 50ish, while the normal batsman averages around 34? So that makes them about 50% better. So I expect the elite to average about 32 against McGrath.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Exaggerating a bit obviously, i thought the better class of human being gave that away. But having said that elite batsmen average say 50ish, while the normal batsman averages around 34? So that makes them about 50% better. So I expect the elite to average about 32 against McGrath.

Kallis averages 44 against Mcgrath, KP 27, Lara 45, Graeme Smith 16


No Head-to-head average for McGrath v Tendulkar given in that article though which is weird. In fact if you look at the Sachin Tendulkar table it seems the author mostly just picked the bowlers that Tendulkar did really well against . . . obviously a Tendulkar fan lol

 

[Tom Halsey]

Exaggerating a bit obviously, i thought the better class of human being gave that away. But having said that elite batsmen average say 50ish, while the normal batsman averages around 34? So that makes them about 50% better. So I expect the elite to average about 32 against McGrath.

Rereading my post, it comes across quite snarky, which wasn't the intention - sorry.

I think your numbers are probably about right, though I recall reading another article (can't remember where now) which indicated that, putting together all of McGrath's ball-by-ball stats vs top batsmen (can't remember their definition, might have been 40-plus average or something) he averaged high-20s, which was by some distance the best performance since these stats started being tracked, the rest of the ATG bowlers (Steyn, Murali, etc) were all comfortably in the 30s. I have to say though that in that CricInfo article I linked to in McGrath's stats it is hard to see how his average vs elite batsmen would have been high 20s, seeing as he seemed to average more than that vs most.

I recall the writer predicting that had these stats been around in Ambrose's time he might have been comparable to McGrath, based on his bowling average vs the average batting average of the batsmen he dismissed.