Ian Botham vs Shaun Pollock

[subshakerz]

Now Shami's average is boosted by not outs. He gets punished for being a deserted tailender while the big boys go bash whack out and leave him on his own? Poor guy.

Um that is working against your argument.

 

[subshakerz]

Bro this is South Africa, and much of his career was in the 1990s. Furthermore, he played a disproportionate proportion of his games at home which negatively affected his average.

His best batting phase was in the early 2000s though. However, I can concede that the difference might not be as much as 2 points given playing more at home.

 

[Bolo.]

Great we agree NOs make a difference then. Just saying it in different ways.


I don't read the data that way since average is still affected by NOs. What is that data for Hadlee and Ashwin? I'm assuming Pollock is better but just curious.


Again Pollock is batting at 8/9, that position doesn't allow for longer innings even if he is settled in the crease.

I give up on trying to explain that runs and outs are what impact average.

Hadlee is
10-41
25-67
50-115

Ashwin
10-41
25-58
50-82

He is far ahead, but my intention of posting his averages wasn't to show that he was better than players like Hadlee and Ashwin. His career and away averages do that well enough.

My intention was to show that he was often screwed out of a higher average by innings ending before got more runs and got out. As everyone typically is. You shouldnt be asking this question if you doubt the veracity of the data on account of NOs, because trends are clear, but if you do, run it yourself WRT bats with a negligible number of NOs. You will see the same trend. The more runs they have scored, the more runs you are expecting them to score before being dismissed.

Consider what your last paragraph means in the context of this conversation. If staying NO reduces your expected average in relation to batting until dismissal, coming in at 8 or 9 is going to more heavily impact your average than if you were coming in higher up.

 

[subshakerz]

I give up on trying to explain that runs and outs are what impact average.

Hadlee is
10-41
25-67
50-115

Ashwin
10-41
25-58
50-82

He is far ahead, but my intention of posting his averages wasn't to show that he was better than players like Hadlee and Ashwin. His career and away averages do that well enough.

He isn't far ahead of Hadlee tbh. But then I don't mind saying he is a tad better than Hadlee but certainly in the same class of bat rather than say Kapil.

My intention was to show that he was often screwed out of a higher average by innings ending before got more runs and got out. As everyone typically is. You shouldnt be asking this question if you doubt the veracity of the data on account of NOs, because trends are clear, but if you do, run it yourself WRT bats with a negligible number of NOs. You will see the same trend. The more runs they have scored, the more runs you are expecting them to score before being dismissed.

Consider what your last paragraph means in the context of this conversation. If staying NO reduces your expected average in relation to batting until dismissal, coming in at 8 or 9 is going to more heavily impact your average than if you were coming in higher up.

You are jumping the gun frankly. The problem is you are making conclusions on data that is small to begin with. Pollock only crossed 50 18 times in his career for eg out of 156 innings.

Bottomline is he was a lower order bat at 8/9 with a low run output. Yes we can suggest that some of NOs he may have converted to higher innings but the fact is we can't say with confidence how much higher the would have scored with Donald other tailenders to bat with and him needing to swing his bat too. I don't know why you can't see that when you admit earlier by eye test he didn't seem as good a bat too.

I suggest we just table this chat since seem to be talking oast each other. But I appreciate the respectful back and forth.

 

[Coronis]

Pollock in the 90’s - 1404 @ 31.90
Pollock in the 00’s - 2377 @ 32.57

Higher RPI and rate of 50+ scores in the 90’s actually.

So Pollock kept scoring in a flat 2000s era after scoring in a non-flat 1990s era.

Wow how humiliating for Pollock.

 

[subshakerz]

Pollock in the 90’s - 1404 @ 31.90
Pollock in the 00’s - 2377 @ 32.57

Higher RPI and rate of 50+ scores in the 90’s actually.

I already conceded above that the flat bat advantage should be minimal for Pollock.

 

[Bolo.]

He isn't far ahead of Hadlee tbh. But then I don't mind saying he is a tad better than Hadlee but certainly in the same class of bat rather than say Kapil.


You are jumping the gun frankly. The problem is you are making conclusions on data that is small to begin with. Pollock only crossed 50 18 times in his career for eg out of 156 innings.

Bottomline is he was a lower order bat at 8/9 with a low run output. Yes we can suggest that some of NOs he may have converted to higher innings but the fact is we can't say with confidence how much higher the would have scored with Donald other tailenders to bat with and him needing to swing his bat too. I don't know why you can't see that when you admit earlier by eye test he didn't seem as good a bat too.

I suggest we just table this chat since seem to be talking oast each other. But I appreciate the respectful back and forth.

Im not interested in debating how far ahead of bats like Hadlee and Ashwin he was. I value the batting contribution of bats who were worse than them highly, and obviously rate the value of their batting.

Im not jumping the gun on low sample sizes. i dont think Pollocks expected RPI after hitting 50 (if allowed to bat innings to completion) would have been 164. But I do think it would have been more than 82. And you do too, you just dont want to admitt it.

Your output is always going to be significantly lower than your average at 8 or 9, especially when you are a decent bat. You arent really expecting the pure tail enders to get out before that are you?

And note on eyetest: Rabada looks a better bat than Waugh to me. Eyetest often doesnt equate to results.

 

[subshakerz]

Im not interested in debating how far ahead of bats like Hadlee and Ashwin he was. I value the batting contribution of bats who were worse than them highly, and obviously rate the value of their batting.

Im not jumping the gun on low sample sizes. i dont think Pollocks expected RPI after hitting 50 (if allowed to bat innings to completion) would have been 164. But I do think it would have been more than 82. And you do too, you just dont want to admitt it.

Your output is always going to be significantly lower than your average at 8 or 9, especially when you are a decent bat. You arent really expecting the pure tail enders to get out before that are you?

And note on eyetest: Rabada looks a better bat than Waugh to me. Eyetest often doesnt equate to results.

Well Hadlee also likely can reach 82 post-50, what does that tell us of the data then?

I consider Pollock what he was, a 8/9 level based on batting position and output that is pretty much Ashwin/Hadlee level, though he is better than them.

And it's not the case that Pollock maxed on output in that position. He is below guys like Vettori who batted in that position but with higher output but lesser average.

What is odd is you wanted to use run output to measure quality in Imran Kallis case but not here.

Do you consider Kapil a better bat than Pollock and if so, why?

 

[Randomfan]

If you are batting 7 or lower. 24-25 runs per inning is a very good output. Expecting a lot more seems harsh.

To put it in context,

One of the best lower order batsman, Imran Khan, while batting 7 or lower - 27 runs per inning.

 

[subshakerz]

If you are batting 7 or lower. 24-25 runs per inning is a very good output. Expecting a lot more seems harsh.

To put it in context,

One of the best lower order batsman, Imran Khan, while batting 7 or lower - 27 runs per inning.

RPI of 24 is good in the Ashwin/Hadlee level.

Vettori and Kapil had notably better RPI batting 7 and above.

Imran got better and scored runs up the order unlike the others.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Is it worth exploring the unwritten assumption here that higher average = better batsman? As I'm not sure that necessarily holds when we're talking about batting in the lower order.

Obviously not getting out is a Good Thing and requires batting skill, and especially when there's a set batsman at the other end you want to stay in to support them. But also there may be times (say if you're left batting with a bunny whose neither likely to score runs nor survive very long) that what is optimal for the team is hitting out and adding as many runs to the scoreboard before the innings ends - even though this may come at a cost to their personal average due to less red ink.

The #9 with 22 RPI and a 24 avg might be more valuable (better?) than the #9 who adds 15 RPI but averages 28.

I think there's some talking past one other here as subs' terminology is slightly off but there may be something to his point that Pollock's average flatters his contribution to his team due to the NOs. (Terminology is off because what Pollock's average *doesn't* flatter is, well, his average. Indeed his average probably would be better if he'd batted slightly higher up the order and been stranded less.)

I didn't watch nearly enough Pollock to know how he batted with the tail and whether he should have adjusted his approach. From his stats he looks like a batsmen who may have been better suited to batting higher more often - in a team less overloaded with allrounders than that SA side he presumably would have.

 

[subshakerz]

Is it worth exploring the unwritten assumption here that higher average = better batsman? As I'm not sure that necessarily holds when we're talking about batting in the lower order.

Obviously not getting out is a Good Thing and requires batting skill, and especially when there's a set batsman at the other end you want to stay in to support them. But also there may be times (say if you're left batting with a bunny whose neither likely to score runs nor survive very long) that what is optimal for the team is hitting out and adding as many runs to the scoreboard before the innings ends - even though this may come at a cost to their personal average due to less red ink.

The #9 with 22 RPI and a 24 avg might be more valuable (better?) than the #9 who adds 15 RPI but averages 28.

I think there's some talking past one other here as subs' terminology is slightly off but there may be something to his point that Pollock's average flatters his contribution to his team due to the NOs. (Terminology is off because what Pollock's average *doesn't* flatter is, well, his average. Indeed his average probably would be better if he'd batted slightly higher up the order and been stranded less.)

Some good points here.

Yes, Pollock ending up NO at the end doesn't really help the team per se and he would have been more suited to smack the ball a bit which wasn't his forte really.

And yes his contribution may be exaggerated here because his actual output wasn't that high.

As for average flattering, this is in the sense that the difference between his average and his RPI is unusually high compared to even other lower order bats.

 

[Bolo.]

Is it worth exploring the unwritten assumption here that higher average = better batsman? As I'm not sure that necessarily holds when we're talking about batting in the lower order.

Obviously not getting out is a Good Thing and requires batting skill, and especially when there's a set batsman at the other end you want to stay in to support them. But also there may be times (say if you're left batting with a bunny whose neither likely to score runs nor survive very long) that what is optimal for the team is hitting out and adding as many runs to the scoreboard before the innings ends - even though this may come at a cost to their personal average due to less red ink.

The #9 with 22 RPI and a 24 avg might be more valuable (better?) than the #9 who adds 15 RPI but averages 28.

I think there's some talking past one other here as subs' terminology is slightly off but there may be something to his point that Pollock's average flatters his contribution to his team due to the NOs. (Terminology is off because what Pollock's average *doesn't* flatter is, well, his average. Indeed his average probably would be better if he'd batted slightly higher up the order and been stranded less.)

I didn't watch nearly enough Pollock to know how he batted with the tail and whether he should have adjusted his approach. From his stats he looks like a batsmen who may have been better suited to batting higher more often - in a team less overloaded with allrounders than that SA side he presumably would have.

Well put.

From watching him, yes, he would have been better suited to batting higher up.

He was poor at strike farming at the end of overs- his MO was boundary or dots, even in ODIs, because he was very bad at placing the ball by specialist standards.

He wasn't particularly aggressive naturally. He did usually try to get a bit wilder when batting with pure tailenders. But a most of the time he was batting wasnt with proper tailenders- when he came to the crease he was batting with decent bat, when it often makes sense to slow down. And there were often one or two decent bats below him, at which point you just want him playing his natural game. The average game for him might be a bit less than 2 partnerships with genuine tailenders, and these don't usually last long.

Maybe he could have gone a bit more nuts with tailenders? Im not sure. Its tough to ask a bat who isnt test quality to not play their natural game and swing into test fields set to stop them from scoring boundaries, and he already did it plenty.

 

[shortpitched713]

Is it worth exploring the unwritten assumption here that higher average = better batsman? As I'm not sure that necessarily holds when we're talking about batting in the lower order.

Obviously not getting out is a Good Thing and requires batting skill, and especially when there's a set batsman at the other end you want to stay in to support them. But also there may be times (say if you're left batting with a bunny whose neither likely to score runs nor survive very long) that what is optimal for the team is hitting out and adding as many runs to the scoreboard before the innings ends - even though this may come at a cost to their personal average due to less red ink.

The #9 with 22 RPI and a 24 avg might be more valuable (better?) than the #9 who adds 15 RPI but averages 28.

I think there's some talking past one other here as subs' terminology is slightly off but there may be something to his point that Pollock's average flatters his contribution to his team due to the NOs. (Terminology is off because what Pollock's average *doesn't* flatter is, well, his average. Indeed his average probably would be better if he'd batted slightly higher up the order and been stranded less.)

I didn't watch nearly enough Pollock to know how he batted with the tail and whether he should have adjusted his approach. From his stats he looks like a batsmen who may have been better suited to batting higher more often - in a team less overloaded with allrounders than that SA side he presumably would have.

Underutilized =/ overrated

The average is a pretty fair indication of the batsman capability barring some very out of norm circumstances, simple as. But for whatever reason (probably because his bowling was essential too), you wouldn't bump him up a spot in the lineup. So Pollock was generally a bit underutilized as a bat. Not a huge loss, given how monumental of a contributor to SA he was anyway.