New feature: Zero to Sixty; Important Runs in Test Cricket

[chasingthedon]

A discussion on the forum following my feature on batting impact, notably highlighting Tom Graveney and Hanif Mohammad, which chiefly involved, myself, Bolo and Starfighter, regarding whether or not the phenomenon of 'clutch' ability even existed and could be shown objectively, or was it simply 'a spurious [concept] founded on subjective impressions', as Starfighter put it.

I have spent some time in the ensuing months trying to get to the bottom of this, and after discussing with interested forum members including Bolo, Starfighter and TheJediBrah, here are the fruits of my labours,

Zero to Sixty - Important Runs in Test Cricket | Cricket Web

 

[Victor Ian]

Great work. I followed your clutch runs thread and nice to see the results of those discussions.

 

[aussie tragic]

Good read

 

[trundler]

Fantastic stuff. Again. Great read.

So Burgey was right when he said that in a few years we'd think of Ponting as a genius 'you had to be there for' to fully appreciate. Yet to see a sound statistical analysis that doesn't have Bradman streets ahead. Still waiting.

Also flopdulkar lololol

 

[MartinB]

Very interesting

With regards Peter May (taken from: THE HIGHEST IMPACT BATSMEN IN TEST HISTORY | Best Of Impact Index)

His batting average of 47 completely camouflages the fact that a) The 1950s was the lowest scoring decade after World War 2 (till date). b) England was unbeaten for longer in a series than any period of their entire history (till date). c) Despite being in a world-beating side, he absorbed more pressure (of falling wickets) than any other Englishman, before or since, which suggests that without him, they wouldn’t achieved anything near as much then. d) His third-innings turnarounds and his big match performances are legion enough to inspire a unique brand of awe.

There top 5 impact batsmen where:

Bradman, May, AB de Villiers, Greg Chappell, Brian Lara. Neil Harvey comes in 9th

 

[Bolo]

Fantastic stuff. Again. Great read.

So Burgey was right when he said that in a few years we'd think of Ponting as a genius 'you had to be there for' to fully appreciate. Yet to see a sound statistical analysis that doesn't have Bradman streets ahead. Still waiting.

Also flopdulkar lololol

This is kinda why he surprises me here. Never seemed to be digging deep like Waugh or G Smith when it was needed. Just a natural bat doing what came naturally with just about no regard for the match, bowler etc.

Seems like he was basically doing the bare minimum, which is a whole lot more remarkable than big efforts.

 

[trundler]

Well of course there's Old Trafford 05'.

Ponting actually has a very high average coming in at low scores. A third innings average in the 30s though.

 

[jaideep]

Sangakkara's stats is missing.

 

[chasingthedon]

Sangakkara's stats is missing.

Not sure what you mean by missing - he doesn't make the first list as his 5199 important runs is below my cut-off. My next article will review all of the batsmen though, and of course his numbers will be discussed then.

 

[Bolo]

When will the next part be released? Some oddities are fresh in my mind, but it would be good to get confirmation in the form of additional bats

 

[chasingthedon]

When will the next part be released? Some oddities are fresh in my mind, but it would be good to get confirmation in the form of additional bats

Pressure! J/K, should be within the next week. The biggest issue time-wise is it takes so long to format tables in our clunky editor.

 

[stephen]

Great read, top work.

It's easy to look at Ponting's average and forget just how ridiculously good he was. He was a run machine whose average suffered dramatically by playing on past when his eye went.

And it was his eye going, since when he returned to shield cricket after retirement he averaged 100, suggesting it was simply that age had diminished his reflexes somewhat.

 

[stephen]

Who is the biggest downhill skiier you found? The player who made the lowest percentage of important runs relative to the number of innings they played?

 

[Victor Ian]

Not sure what your clunky editor is, but if it is the same as posting here, then Excel is your buddy. Like I showed DaysOfGrace, it is easy once you have a template setup.

I've added a link to a template sheet here (download it rather than use in google sheets which will sheet you off)

If you can paste your data into excel, or libre spreadsheet - this should work. If you are working with some other table restrictions I am happy to waste my time making this work for you if it means you have more time to do what you do best.

Imp. Runs	Player	Imp%	ImpInns	%ImpAv	RegAv	AvDiff	%Diff
11812	Tendulkar (234)	0.741	0.713	55.98	47.94	8.04	0.028
9988	Lara (183)	0.838	0.803	56.43	42.76	13.67	0.035
9560	Chanderpaul (227)	0.81	0.814	49.79	58.97	-9.18	-0.004
9558	Ponting (165)	0.722	0.579	65.02	33.4	31.62	0.143
9307	Dravid (201)	0.712	0.718	51.42	53.14	-1.72	-0.006
8919	Gavaskar (176)	0.881	0.822	54.72	36.46	18.26	0.059
8606	Cook (210)	0.704	0.727	42.01	48.76	-6.75	-0.023
7957	Kallis (173)	0.616	0.634	50.36	63.51	-13.15	-0.022
7572	Border (186)	0.681	0.705	48.23	56.38	-8.15	-0.024
7473	Jayawardene (176)	0.639	0.713	44.22	64.95	-20.73	-0.074

I copied this from your article and created the table in a few moments from the sheet.

 

[jaideep]

Not sure what you mean by missing - he doesn't make the first list as his 5199 important runs is below my cut-off. My next article will review all of the batsmen though, and of course his numbers will be discussed then.

I didnt expect Sangakkara's important runs to be so less.My bad.

 

[Bolo]

I didnt expect Sangakkara's important runs to be so less.My bad.

Really surprising. He is behind Jayawardene by a massive margin despite more career runs for the same team batting higher up the order. Sanga must be the anti-ponting on this list

 

[trundler]

I'm just glad there's something to back up my suspicious that Ponting is far ahead of Sanga

 

[chasingthedon]

Not sure what your clunky editor is, but if it is the same as posting here, then Excel is your buddy. Like I showed DaysOfGrace, it is easy once you have a template setup.

I've added a link to a template sheet here (download it rather than use in google sheets which will sheet you off)

If you can paste your data into excel, or libre spreadsheet - this should work. If you are working with some other table restrictions I am happy to waste my time making this work for you if it means you have more time to do what you do best.

Imp. Runs	Player	Imp%	ImpInns	%ImpAv	RegAv	AvDiff	%Diff
11812	Tendulkar (234)	0.741	0.713	55.98	47.94	8.04	0.028
9988	Lara (183)	0.838	0.803	56.43	42.76	13.67	0.035
9560	Chanderpaul (227)	0.81	0.814	49.79	58.97	-9.18	-0.004
9558	Ponting (165)	0.722	0.579	65.02	33.4	31.62	0.143
9307	Dravid (201)	0.712	0.718	51.42	53.14	-1.72	-0.006
8919	Gavaskar (176)	0.881	0.822	54.72	36.46	18.26	0.059
8606	Cook (210)	0.704	0.727	42.01	48.76	-6.75	-0.023
7957	Kallis (173)	0.616	0.634	50.36	63.51	-13.15	-0.022
7572	Border (186)	0.681	0.705	48.23	56.38	-8.15	-0.024
7473	Jayawardene (176)	0.639	0.713	44.22	64.95	-20.73	-0.074

I copied this from your article and created the table in a few moments from the sheet.

Cheers - our features are edited in Wordpress and tables have to be added as html code, at least that’s my understanding.

 

[chasingthedon]

Really surprising. He is behind Jayawardene by a massive margin despite more career runs for the same team batting higher up the order. Sanga must be the anti-ponting on this list

Let me check this - CricketArchive changed its format and I had to append two separate lists, I may have messed that up.

 

[Bolo]

Let me check this - CricketArchive changed its format and I had to append two separate lists, I may have messed that up.

Ya, Sanga is definitely missing a few thousand runs