Cribbage's Standardised Test Averages (UPDATED November 2018 - posts 753-755)

[Prince EWS]

I wouldn't have guessed Goddard would've been so high. Wally Hammond is a bit of a weird one in there as well.

Goddard is a really interesting cricketer. He was known as a batting allrounder but this methodology of mine has always surprised me by basically placing him as an all-time great bowler. I thought at first that he'd perhaps just managed to maintain a good average through being used at the right times by a good captain (especially since he was captain for part of his career ), but after I coded in a metric to weed out such players (it has for a while punished the bowling longevity of bowlers who didn't carry a full bowling workload) and he stayed put it made me more interested in his bowling, so I dug into it. He was absolutely used as a frontline bowler in their attack most of the time, but his average seems to have been maintained by being frugal as **** even when he wasn't penetrative. Super-accurate, boring, left arm medium pace. I don't really know how to rate such a bowler, honestly. In weak attacks he'd be less valuable than a strike bowler with a similar average, but in stronger attacks -- or even attacks that had two gun bowlers and two lesser ones -- he'd be great at mounting pressure and allowing the more penetrative specialist bowlers some rest without letting the game get away. In attacks where he'd have the fourth or fifth best average, you'd be better off with him than someone who progressed the game more when he was on. And ultimately, he did take his wickets -- all 123 -- at a very good average (both raw and standardised), while shouldering a full bowling workload, managed to bag five several times, and also opening the batting.

I definitely think this ranking system overrates him by placing him ahead of Grimmett, Holding, Adcock etc, but I'm not quite sure where I do rate him as a bowler beyond that. I think in the context of a lot of attacks he would be better than bowlers who aren't that far below him on the list.

And yeah Hammond seems like a weird one too; I think it's caused a bit by the batting skew I mentioned in the post you quoted. It's saying he was the second best batsman of all time and that his bowling was the equivalent of Hadlee's or Benaud's batting, which I guess doesn't seem too far off.. but Hadlee's bowling should probably be rated the equal of Hammond's batting as well.

 

[andmark]

Goddard is a really interesting cricketer. He was known as a batting allrounder but this methodology of mine has always surprised me by basically placing him as an all-time great bowler. I thought at first that he'd perhaps just managed to maintain a good average through being used at the right times by a good captain (especially since he was captain for part of his career ), but after I coded in a metric to weed out such players (it has for a while punished the bowling longevity of bowlers who didn't carry a full bowling workload) and he stayed put it made me more interested in his bowling, so I dug into it. He was absolutely used as a frontline bowler in their attack most of the time, but his average seems to have been maintained by being frugal as **** even when he wasn't penetrative. Super-accurate, boring, left arm medium pace. I don't really know how to rate such a bowler, honestly. In weak attacks he'd be less valuable than a strike bowler with a similar average, but in stronger attacks -- or even attacks that had two gun bowlers and two lesser ones -- he'd be great at mounting pressure and allowing the more penetrative specialist bowlers some rest without letting the game get away. In attacks where he'd have the fourth or fifth best average, you'd be better off with him than someone who progressed the game more when he was on. And ultimately, he did take his wickets -- all 123 -- at a very good average (both raw and standardised), while shouldering a full bowling workload and also opening the batting.

I definitely think this ranking system overrates him by placing him ahead of Grimmett, Holding, Adcock etc, but I'm not quite sure where I do rate him as a bowler beyond that. I think in the context of a lot of attacks he would be better than bowlers who aren't that far below him on the list.

And yeah Hammond seems like a weird one too; I think it's caused a bit by the batting skew I mentioned in the post you quoted. It's saying he was the second best batsman of all time and that his bowling was the equivalent of Hadlee's or Benaud's batting, which I guess doesn't seem too far off.. but Hadlee's bowling should probably be rated the equal of Hammond's batting as well.

Would there be anyway of changing the maths to prevent the over-valuing of batting?

 

[Prince EWS]

Would there be anyway of changing the maths to prevent the over-valuing of batting?

It's basically only over-valued because batsmen play longer, and the "ideology" for lack of a better word of the algorithm is such that it finds batting allrounders more valuable because teams get to use them longer. If the AI could talk it'd say it didn't overvalue batting allrounders and they were just better.

If I were to actually publish allrounder ranks like I have for batting and bowling I'd have a look at standardising that longevity more to take into account that batsmen tend to have longer careers, but given it's only really designed to comparing batsmen to batsmen and bowlers to bowlers I think it's fine in its current consistent state.

 

[andmark]

It's basically only over-valued because batsmen play longer, and the "ideology" for lack of a better word of the algorithm is such that it finds batting allrounders more valuable because teams get to use them longer. If the AI could talk it'd say it didn't overvalue batting allrounders and they were just better.

If I were to actually publish allrounder ranks like I have for batting and bowling I'd have a look at standardising that longevity more to take into account that batsmen tend to have longer careers, but given it's only really designed to comparing batsmen to batsmen and bowlers to bowlers I think it's fine in its current consistent state.

Yeah that's fair. It's a fun exercise all the same. If only Bradman could see that he really should've retired with the 100 average!

 

[trundler]

Kallis is as much of an all rounder as Hadlee IMO. 1.5 wickets per match whilst being an elite batsman makes him a batting all rounder. Should be lower than someone like Miller or Noble or Faulkner. Is there a way to account for that in theory?

 

[Prince EWS]

Kallis is as much of all rounder as Hadlee IMO. 1.5 wickets per match whilst being an elite batsman makes him a batting all rounder. Should be lower than someone like Miller or Noble or Faulkner. Is there a way to account for that in theory?

Yeah Kallis already only gets about 62% of his bowling longevity because he didn't have a full bowling workload, so it's theoretically already been accounted for. The disparity when you try to rank allrounders comes from the fact that Kallis's batting got him lots more points than Hadlee's bowling got even though Hadlee was ranked #3 and Kallis #5, because batsmen tend to play longer. In a way Hadlee's ~15 year career as a bowler is actually quite a bit more outstanding than Kallis's ~16 as a batsman, because batsmen tend to play longer as a general rule.

 

[Prince EWS]

If you look at the 20 bowlers with the longest careers:

1. N Kapil Dev (Ind) - 16.11
2. CA Walsh (WI) - 15.33
3. M Muralitharan (SL) - 15.31
4. Sir RJ Hadlee (NZ) - 14.82
5. A Kumble (Ind) - 14.69
6. GS Sobers (WI) - 14.34
7. DL Vettori (NZ) - 13.88
8. Wasim Akram (Pak) - 13.39
9. Imran Khan (Pak) - 13.24
10. LR Gibbs (WI) - 13.07
11. WPUJC Vaas (SL) - 12.85
12. SK Warne (Aus) - 12.22
13. Intikhab Alam (Pak) - 11.73
14. JM Anderson (Eng) - 11.59
15. R Benaud (Aus) - 11.51
16. CEL Ambrose (WI) - 11.49
17. J Briggs (Eng) - 11.10
18. BS Bedi (Ind) - 11.09
19. Waqar Younis (Pak) - 10.83
20. GD McGrath (Aus) - 10.75


And the 20 batsmen:
1. SR Tendulkar (Ind) - 22.62
2. S Chanderpaul (WI) - 17.49
3. Javed Miandad (Pak) - 16.91
4. GS Sobers (WI) - 16.69
5. A Ranatunga (SL) - 16.69
6. DPMD Jayawardene (SL) - 16.09
7. R Dravid (Ind) - 15.94
8. JH Kallis (SA) - 15.92
9. SR Waugh (Aus) - 15.65
10. SM Gavaskar (Ind) - 15.53
11. AR Border (Aus) - 15.44
12. PA de Silva (SL) - 15.35
13. DL Haynes (WI) - 15.07
14. IVA Richards (WI) - 14.93
15. RT Ponting (Aus) - 14.82
16. RN Harvey (Aus) - 14.53
17. KC Sangakkara (SL) - 14.43
18. CH Lloyd (WI) - 14.40
19. M Azharuddin (Ind) - 14.34
20. JG Wright (NZ) - 14.20

it's easy to see batsmen tend to play longer, so batting and bowling longevity is somewhat an apples/oranges comparison, especially since a bunch of the "bowlers" on that list were in fact allrounders who took on less of a bowling role towards the end of their careers to extend them.

 

[trundler]

Where does Hobbs rank? I assume war years were discounted.

 

[Prince EWS]

Where does Hobbs rank? I assume war years were discounted.

Haha what exactly to do when a team players no Tests in a calendar year has been a common debate in this thread going back years. At the moment it just gives players no longevity when that happens -- so if England played no cricket in 1915 and Hobbs therefore obviously played no cricket either, he doesn't get any longevity for it -- but in previous versions I tried dealing with it in all sorts of different ways.

He still ranks 41st for longevity even taking that into account (it's given him about a 12.5 year career), but if you dig back through the archives (lol u kid), he used to rank much higher.

And to further illustrate my point, if he had a 12.5 year bowling career instead he'd be 12th on that list.

 

[trundler]

It's interesting to see Ponting and Richards right next to each other on the longevity list. They're right next to one another in terms of peaks and prolonged demises too.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

It would be nice if you can include the years these guys were active (in parenthesis), to get a fair bit of context into all of this.

 

[Coronis]

It's interesting to see Ponting and Richards right next to each other on the longevity list. They're right next to one another in terms of peaks and prolonged demises too.

Yet people want to consider Richards amongst the very top tier of batsmen but downgrade Ponting.

 

[weldone]

I have a theory about how a player's reputation is formed over the years. Let's see if CW agrees with me.

Let's take two players A and B (assume same era, same oppositions, same pitches, and even same SR for the sake of argument). Both A and B end up with exactly same numbers 10000 test runs @ 50 average. But their journey to reach those numbers are completely different.

Player A reached first 4000 runs @ average 64. When he reached 8000 runs he had an average of 56. He has a late career dip in form and ends up with 10000@50.

Player B reached first 5000 runs @ average 40. He improved over the years and had average 48 when he reached 9000 runs. After a late-career triple century his average hovers around 50-51 and he ends with 10000@50.

Who is supposed to have better reputation overall - A or B?

 

[Coronis]

I have a theory about how a player's reputation is formed over the years. Let's see if CW agrees with me.

Let's take two players A and B (assume same era, same oppositions, same pitches, and even same SR for the sake of argument). Both A and B end up with exactly same numbers 10000 test runs @ 50 average. But their journey to reach those numbers are completely different.

Player A reached first 4000 runs @ average 64. When he reached 8000 runs he had an average of 56. He has a late career dip in form and ends up with 10000@50.

Player B reached first 5000 runs @ average 40. He improved over the years and had average 48 when he reached 9000 runs. After a late-career triple century his average hovers around 50-51 and he ends with 10000@50.

Who is supposed to have better reputation overall - A or B?

I'd say Player B. Of course, I'd probably rather have a player who averaged between 48-52 his entire career then finished with 50 than either of them.

 

[Athlai]

A would definitely have the better reputation imo. Particularly internationally. B would be more beloved by their home country but would never have had the superstar aura that A had when they splashed onto the scene and dominated for 3-5 years. While B performs at that level later in their career, people don't get as hype about that.

 

[Coronis]

A would definitely have the better reputation imo. Particularly internationally. B would be more beloved by their home country but would never have had the superstar aura that A had when they splashed onto the scene and dominated for 3-5 years. While B performs at that level later in their career, people don't get as hype about that.

Oh right, player A would definitely have the better reputation, I would personally prefer B though.

 

[Starfighter]

A would definitely have the better reputation imo. Particularly internationally. B would be more beloved by their home country but would never have had the superstar aura that A had when they splashed onto the scene and dominated for 3-5 years. While B performs at that level later in their career, people don't get as hype about that.

I agree with this. First impressions count.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Is player A a Sachin Tendulkar

And player B a Virat Kohli?

 

[Starfighter]

Is player A a Sachin Tendulkar

And player B a Virat Kohli?

I think it's theoretical question. Tendulkar's start of career progression was not as described.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

I tried to put faces to those theoreticals.

Forgive me.