DoG's Top 100 Test Bowlers Countdown Thread 100-1

[NUFAN]

Thats a fine effort from Turner to be ranked 67th considering he had 3 stumps impaled into his left shoulder.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.65

Neil Adcock (South Africa) 713

Quality Points: 679
Career Points: 34

Career: 1953-1962
Wickets: 104
Gold Performances: 1
6/43 vs. Australia at Durban 1958 (15.76)
Silver Performances: 2
Bronze Performances: 3

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 21.45 (21.11) 53.14 (61.45) 4.52
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (1953-1962): 21.45 53.14 4.52
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 22.45 54.47 4.86
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 21.33 52.67 4.38

 

[Burgey]

It’s no secret that DoG carries the Kiwi contingent on here at TOTAB in the 80s level.

 

[Bolo]

Interesting mix of players coming through. Statham so low is a bit of a surprise.

Clarks ranking is a bit of an issue for me. While he was actually a bunch better than some of the bowlers on this list, I don't think he's being penalized sufficiently for having a 3.x year career. He's really close to Adcock in points, who did a similar thing over 8.x years, and did it better according to criteria being employed.

Maybe an asymmetric weighting of years played would be appropriate for future iterations. It's not a huge deal to me if a player has played a long career or a very long one, but on really short ones it's a problem.

 

[Days of Grace]

It’s no secret that DoG carries the Kiwi contingent on here at TOTAB in the 80s level.

Not sure you'll still be saying that when you see AB's ranking in the updated batsmen version.

Interesting mix of players coming through. Statham so low is a bit of a surprise.

Clarks ranking is a bit of an issue for me. While he was actually a bunch better than some of the bowlers on this list, I don't think he's being penalized sufficiently for having a 3.x year career. He's really close to Adcock in points, who did a similar thing over 8.x years, and did it better according to criteria being employed.

Maybe an asymmetric weighting of years played would be appropriate for future iterations. It's not a huge deal to me if a player has played a long career or a very long one, but on really short ones it's a problem.

Adcock lost points because he only bowled in 15 innings away from home. You need 25 innings minimum to get full points for non-home and quality opposition. If he did get full points then he would be ranked near no.50.

In an earlier version I had wickets taken and length of career (which I measure in days) to be of equal importance. Now I see wickets taken, i.e. production, to be more important. 4 times more important in fact. (Ratio of 4:1 like average and strike-rate). Career length is seen as an added bonus or a tie-breaker. Maybe it can be more like 2:1 or equal again in the next version.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.64

Ritchie Benaud (Australia) 714

Quality Points: 640
Career Points: 74

Career: 1952-1964
Wickets: 248
Gold Performances: 1
6/70 vs. England at Manchester 1961 (16.24)
Silver Performances: 8
Bronze Performances: 7

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 27.06 (27.03) 66.46 (77.05) 4.31
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (1956-1961): 22.43 58.22 6.44
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 24.98 61.65 4.75
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 30.10 70.94 3.82

I wanted to see Ritchie Benaud in or around the top 50. Fantastic peak (which ranks at no.36) but a mediocre record against the quality opposition of his day.

 

[Bolo]

Adcock lost points because he only bowled in 15 innings away from home. You need 25 innings minimum to get full points for non-home and quality opposition. If he did get full points then he would be ranked near no.50.

In an earlier version I had wickets taken and length of career (which I measure in days) to be of equal importance. Now I see wickets taken, i.e. production, to be more important. 4 times more important in fact. (Ratio of 4:1 like average and strike-rate). Career length is seen as an added bonus or a tie-breaker. Maybe it can be more like 2:1 or equal again in the next version.

RSA didn't play enough away tests in his career to hit 25 innings. Im a big fan of away results, so penalizing him for this doesn't particularly bother me by itself. But the contrast with Clark does. It sounds like Clarks 3.x years is effectively considered better than 8.x for Adcock when in reality Adcock should be taking a small knock on longevity and Clark a huge one.

I don't know how to deal with the matches/years issue. As it sits, its hammering the older players/players from minor sides. But matches are important too.

I feel like maybe if you are below a certain number of years of play, years should count for more than matches or something similar.

 

[trundler]

In the batting one it was years and Headley came out third as a result.

 

[Bolo]

You have to strike a balance. Headley should take a knock on number of matches even if it was outside of his control, regardless of years played, but it's going to be too big this way. An English player who only plays for 2 years could end up with an effective greater longevity ranking than him, and really short careers in terms of years should take a big knock.

 

[NUFAN]

Is anyone going, right 64th, thats a World O/16th XI player (without taking into account batting, fielding, captaincy).
That seems right/low/high.

Just me? Ok.

 

[Days of Grace]

You have to strike a balance. Headley should take a knock on number of matches even if it was outside of his control, regardless of years played, but it's going to be too big this way. An English player who only plays for 2 years could end up with an effective greater longevity ranking than him, and really short careers in terms of years should take a big knock.

Headley and Pollock are a good case-in-point in the batting list. Both scored around 2000 runs. I won't reveal where they ended up but Headley got 46 career points vs. Pollock's 29. That seems about right to me. If I gave equal weight to runs vs. career length then it would be 71 vs. 31. Which would be giving too much to Headley, I feel.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.63

Hugh Trumble (Australia) 715

Quality Points: 662
Career Points: 52

Career: 1890-1904
Wickets: 141
Gold Performances: 4
6/74 vs. England at Adelaide 1902 (15.66)
6/53 vs. England at Manchester 1902 (17.84)
8/65 vs. England The Oval 1902 (15.85)
7/28 vs. England at Melbourne 1904 (17.66)
Silver Performances: 2
Bronze Performances: 5

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 25.93 (21.79) 67.37 (57.44) 5.24
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (1893-1904): 24.95 65.61 5.85
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 26.72 66.61 4.51
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 26.26 68.57 4.87

 

[Starfighter]

I was not expecting any pre-Great War era players to come in this high. Makes me wonder where Barnes is going to come.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.62

Saeed Ajmal (Pakistan) 717

Quality Points: 669
Career Points: 47

Career: 2009-2014
Wickets: 178
Gold Performances: 1
7/55 vs. England at Dubai (DSC) 2012 (17.24)
Silver Performances: 2
Bronze Performances: 8

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 26.14 (28.11) 67.55 (65.12) 5.14
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (2010-2014): 23.74 61.35 5.78
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 26.14 67.55 5.14
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 26.42 66.18 5.48

I can hear the moans now. But this is a statistical analysis, not a popularity contest. Ajmal's matches in the U.A.E. count as non-home. However, if you remove the U.A.E. matches, his non-home average stays at 26.42.

 

[morgieb]

Yeah on statistics Ajmal making it is acceptable. Don't think there's a good statistical way of completely discounting the wickets he threw.

 

[morgieb]

I was not expecting any pre-Great War era players to come in this high. Makes me wonder where Barnes is going to come.

It's worth noting that the 1900-1914 wasn't that bowler-friendly. 19th Century yes but that era isn't too dissimilar to modern cricket. Barnes could easily be Top 5.

 

[Days of Grace]

No.61

Mitchell Starc (Australia) 719

Quality Points: 669
Career Points: 50

Career: 2011-
Wickets: 182
Gold Performances: 0
Best Performance: 5/34 vs. South Africa at Durban 2018 (14.43)
Silver Performances: 4
Bronze Performances: 8

Overall Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 25.89 (28.18) 51.61 (49.37) 4.44
50 Innings Peak Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings (2015-2018): 21.82 44.03 5.42
Non-Home Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 25.74 50.98 3.95
Quality Opposition Average/Strike-Rate/Points Per Innings: 27.10 53.88 4.47

 

[harsh.ag]

Didn't expect Starc to make the list at all. Color me surprised.

 

[stephen]

Didn't expect Starc to make the list at all. Color me surprised.

He's had a 7 year career with 180 wickets at under 30. More than enough to be on this list. I note that his average had gone down in the analysis. I didn't expect that.

 

[Starfighter]

He's had a 7 year career with 180 wickets at under 30. More than enough to be on this list. I note that his average had gone down in the analysis. I didn't expect that.

As I brought up yesterday the average analysis is quite a bit more generous to those who play in the modern era than those who played in the equally difficult sixties too.