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

[TheJediBrah]

Simple rebuttal- spinner vs quick

You've lost me

 

[Migara]

Migara if we have 2 hypothetical bowlers, say a Shaun Tait who struggles to bowl 10 overs a day and a Matthew Hoggard who bowls 25 overs a day, then sure, you may have a point. Tait would have a limited value even if he had a much higher strike rate. But that's an extreme example and generally not particularly relevant when making practical comparisons.

This probably becomes important when you take players from yesteryear in to account. In timeless tests, SR don't matter at all. Runs given and number of wickets are the only thing to look at. However in recent history, SR plays more important role.

If WPM and WPI to be considered as a stat, it has to be done if the SRs are comparable only. If player A has SR of 55.0 and WPM of 4.0, and player B has SR of 56.0 and WPM of 5.5, it is prudent to select player B, because he has demonstrated greater fitness by bowling more overs. If I was the manager for a team, I would definitely sign up player B as my strike bowler.

 

[trundler]

Akhtar has a sub 50 SR but takes fewer than 4 wickets per match because he could rarely bowl a long spell. Miller is a similar case owing to his back issues.

 

[Bolo]

You've lost me

Spinners almost always have the ability to bowl more overs and almost always have worse SRs. You can't measure their value via SR alone. They probably take more WPI than quicks

 

[Migara]

Akhtar has a sub 50 SR but takes fewer than 4 wickets per match because he could rarely bowl a long spell. Miller is a similar case owing to his back issues.

Probably same with Shane Bond too. These are strike bowlers of highest caliber. However their performances limited by fitness. That is mirrored in WPM.

 

[Migara]

Spinners almost always have the ability to bowl more overs and almost always have lower SRs. You can't measure their value via SR alone. They probably take more WPI than quicks

Spinners SRs tend to be higher than that of pacers.

 

[Bolo]

Spinners SRs tend to be higher than that of pacers.

Typo. Edited to worse.

 

[TheJediBrah]

If WPM and WPI to be considered as a stat, it has to be done if the SRs are comparable only. If player A has SR of 55.0 and WPM of 4.0, and player B has SR of 56.0 and WPM of 5.5, it is prudent to select player B, because he has demonstrated greater fitness by bowling more overs. If I was the manager for a team, I would definitely sign up player B as my strike bowler.

A bit oversimplified. You also have to look at why they have such a different wpm though. If player A bowls less overs because of fitness issues then player B is clearly the better option, but if player A has fewer wpm because he's not required to bowl as many overs because the other bowlers in his team are better than the other bowlers in player B's team, then it's not an easy answer.

Akhtar has a sub 50 SR but takes fewer than 4 wickets per match because he could rarely bowl a long spell. Miller is a similar case owing to his back issues.

Yes exactly the sort of extreme example I'm talking about, could have used Akhtar in place of Tait

 

[TheJediBrah]

Spinners almost always have the ability to bowl more overs and almost always have worse SRs. You can't measure their value via SR alone. They probably take more WPI than quicks

Yes and you can't really compare them as a result. They are generally a very different type of bowler with very different roles.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I am starting to see why you guys rate wpm as a stat though. But the issue remains that using it doesn't necessarily accurately represent a better measurement of bowlers' quality. Any beneficial insight it gives regarding fitness of a bowler (which would be a measurement of relatively rare value) is far outweighed by the detrimental rewarding/punishing of bowlers based on the strength of the rest of their team's bowlers.

That's why using wpm as part of analysis like this is unlikely to give a more accurate rating of bowling quality.

 

[stephen]

Interesting discussion and indeed there was an article on how bowling attack quality impacted on the stats of individual bowlers on cricinfo recently.

It's fair to say that a fast bowler will be far more limited in their ability to take huge numbers of wickets per match due to fatigue and time. You can't have a strike bowler bowling 35 overs a day. Spinners are not so limited and can generally bowl all day if conditions suit.

Spinners therefore are more dependent on having garbage support to score highly on the wpm statistic, while quicks are probably more dependent on a combination of their strike rate and their fitness to take high wpm.

In any analysis that lumps spinners and quicks into the same basket, certain stats are going to favour one or the other. Similarly, the quality of the rest of the attack has a disproportionate affect on the wpm stat.

It's still a useful stat but not as an absolute value. I think wpm works better as a stat that filters at the bottom end rather than proves at the top end. Miller's low wpm should count against him but Lillee's high wpm shouldn't count as much for him over someone like McGrath who sits between the two.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Largely agree Stephen, but I still don't think it's a useful stat when applied in a vacuum. Ftr though spinners can definitely get fatigued. I've bowled a 30 over day as an offie and my fingers were ****ed

 

[Bolo]

Workhorses and dead middle over grunt bowlers vs express/moving ball specialists/injury prone/unfit bowlers/tail end specialists etc. Most bowlers fall into one or more of the latter categories to various extents.

You expect the workhorses to average more and strike slower, which if balanced correctly could compensate for higher WPM. You will run into problems like WI where they are not getting enough opportunity for WPI because the rest of the team are knocking over the bats too quickly, but even here they are partly compensated by bowling fresher and bowling at less set bats. Not enough here it seems to me looking at their ratings. But it's a very hard one to apply consistently. WI like Lanka on the opposite end are outliers. Accounting for outliers is always going to give headaches in a blanket system.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Workhorses and dead middle over grunt bowlers vs express/moving ball specialists/injury prone/unfit bowlers/tail end specialists etc. Most bowlers fall into one or more of the latter categories to various extents.

I don't think this is true at all. I dare say it would be more like a bell curve with most bowlers somewhere in the middle

Not to mention that the same bowlers can vary completely in terms of workhorse/strike bowlers depending on the team they are playing in.

 

[Bolo]

I don't think this is true at all. I dare say it would be more like a bell curve with most bowlers somewhere in the middle

Not to mention that the same bowlers can vary completely in terms of workhorse/strike bowlers depending on the team they are playing in.

Yes it's a bell curve. It's why I'm talking about various extents. This doesn't impact on the validity of the statement.

Philander and Starc don't only bowl with the moving ball. They just do it disproportionately because they are disproportionately better at it (and in the case of Philander due to slightly less complimentary reasons as well). Their WPM (reasonable) ends up below what you would expect from their excellent SRs as a result.

 

[stephen]

Largely agree Stephen, but I still don't think it's a useful stat when applied in a vacuum. Ftr though spinners can definitely get fatigued. I've bowled a 30 over day as an offie and my fingers were ****ed

Yeah but you're hardly (as far as I'm aware) anywhere near test match quality/ fitness.

 

[Days of Grace]

I am starting to see why you guys rate wpm as a stat though. But the issue remains that using it doesn't necessarily accurately represent a better measurement of bowlers' quality. Any beneficial insight it gives regarding fitness of a bowler (which would be a measurement of relatively rare value) is far outweighed by the detrimental rewarding/punishing of bowlers based on the strength of the rest of their team's bowlers.

That's why using wpm as part of analysis like this is unlikely to give a more accurate rating of bowling quality.

Once again and for the final time, I am NOT using WPM in my analysis. I’m using points per innings, which takes into account runs per wicket, balls per wicket, conditions, opposition, result, etc.

You can take 5/150 in a losing cause and get a high WPM but you won’t rate that highly on my PPI.

I don’t understand why you guys are debating the merits of WPM when I’m not using it.

 

[Starfighter]

They're inextricably linked no matter how you slice it.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Once again and for the final time, I am NOT using WPM in my analysis. I’m using points per innings, which takes into account runs per wicket, balls per wicket, conditions, opposition, result, etc.

You can take 5/150 in a losing cause and get a high WPM but you won’t rate that highly on my PPI.

I don’t understand why you guys are debating the merits of WPM when I’m not using it.

lol sorry DoG at this stage we are just having the discussion for the sake of it and using your thread as the war zone

There must be some correlation though because what sparked the discussion was the unexpectedly low rankings of a few West Indian greats, presumably as a result of a reduced wpm, and hence PPI

Yeah but you're hardly (as far as I'm aware) anywhere near test match quality/ fitness.

Quality?

No.

Fitness?




**** No

 

[ankitj]

Can't wait to find out who misses out on top 20. Rabada, Ashwin, Kumble and Andersen are already going to be tad higher than where most people will rate them. Kumble doesn't surprise me because he did get ranked around #15 in Wisden 100 study ahead of few like Akram, Waqar, Holding, Garner etc.