Suggestions for top 30 bowlers countdown

[The Sean]

Agreed, but how do we do that? Cricinfo doesn't have that option.

Howstat has this function, where you can see a bowler's wickets taken by top order (1-3), middle order (4-7) and tail (8-11).

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Sunilz putting some dirt in the eyes

Nah.. His points are valid when comparing CW favorite Imran with Kapil ( or Hadlee ).

 

[venkyrenga]

Howstat has this function, where you can see a bowler's wickets taken by top order (1-3), middle order (4-7) and tail (8-11).

Can you link me to the stats where I can see the bowlers' record in say 90s against no.1-7?

 

[TheJediBrah]

A bowler who is better at getting top order batsmen out should be rewarded but the trouble with taking percentages is that if you have to bowlers equally adept at taking top order wickets yet one also blows away the tail more often, that bowler would be penalised as he would have a lower percentage of top order wickets despite being as good at that. So WPI would have to be factored in some way and if era/conditions/bowling strength are taken into account it's a useful measure. Lotta work though.

Nah because if you compare 2 bowlers with a similar average and one has a higher percentage of top order wickets then they are a more valuable bowler.

If the one you are "penalising" was equally good at dismissing the top order, but better at dismissing the tail then they'd have a significantly better average anyway

 

[trundler]

Nah because if you compare 2 bowlers with a similar average and one has a higher percentage of top order wickets then they are a more valuable bowler.

Not necessarily. Ignoring other factors, one could be picking up 5 WPM overall including 3 top order bats and the other could be picking up 4 and 3. Which is better?

 

[TheJediBrah]

Ignoring other factors, one could be picking up 5 WPM overall including 3 top order bats and the other could be picking up 4 and 3.

I don't understand

Do you mean the second guy is getting 7 wpm?

 

[trundler]

I don't understand

Do you mean the second guy is getting 7 wpm?

4 total out of which 3 are top order batsmen.

 

[TheJediBrah]

4 total out of which 3 are top order batsmen.

In that case the guy taking 5 wpm is going to have better stats than the guy taking 4wpm anyway so it doesn't matter. He's not going to get overtaken based on this alone

 

[The Sean]

Can you link me to the stats where I can see the bowlers' record in say 90s against no.1-7?

For each player on their main page there is a section called "Graphs" and a link to "Analysis of Wickets Taken by Batting Order" - as below:

 

[venkyrenga]

For each player on their main page there is a section called "Graphs" and a link to "Analysis of Wickets Taken by Batting Order" - as below:

hmm.. But I a looking for the same data for certain periods and not the entire career. This may still be useful, thanks.

my opinion would be in Test cricket that wicket-taking ability - SR - is more important than containment - ER.

Of course, both being brilliant is the ideal, but if it's one or the other then I'd always tend to throw my preference behind the bowler who can get teams out more quickly and give his team more time to score the runs they need. Certainly, there is no way I would recommend the formula you suggested above that punishes a poor ER but doesn't reward a good SR. That's the exact opposite of where my thinking would lie.

In that case would you agree that batsmen should be rewarded for no. of balls faced per dismissal ?

 

[TheJediBrah]

In that case would you agree that batsmen should be rewarded for no. of balls faced per dismissal ?

That's not quite the same thing like you are saying it is. Matches are decided by who scores the most runs. For batsmen run scoring is the premium factor. For bowlers, the best way to win games is to stop the other team scoring runs and in a 5 day game the best way to do that is to get them out. Hence wicket-taking is the premium factor.

 

[Engle]

SR is more important in Test bowling cause they have to get 20 wickets in a limited amount of time to win

 

[Engle]

I was keen on finding out which Test bowler has the highest quality of victims (i.e highest Batting average) with a qualification of 200 Test wickets.
This is similar thinking along the lines of top-order victims.
And the answer was Zaheer Khan

 

[venkyrenga]

As a standalone metric, SR is obviously more important than ER. But that is not the question. The question is, what works better when combined with average. For a given average, is a low SR bowler better than a low ER bowler? In other words, is high ER better than low ER?

 

[Migara]

Nah because if you compare 2 bowlers with a similar average and one has a higher percentage of top order wickets then they are a more valuable bowler.

If the one you are "penalising" was equally good at dismissing the top order, but better at dismissing the tail then they'd have a significantly better average anyway

The issue with support is very similar. When there are more strike bowlers, the team more often approaches the tail of the opposition and hence easy wickets. That means teams with higher number of strike bowlers can take wickets cheaper and quicker, than teams with one or two such bowlers.

 

[miscer]

Fundamentally, cricket is a team (and conditions) dependant sport. Any analysis comparing two players is going to be flawed. Here are some facts:

- Most players are suited to their home conditions but some especially conditions dependant disciplines are benefitted more than others (spin in asia)
- All players will perform better in ATG teams than in poor teams; yes mcgrath wouldve had slightly worse stats playing for zimbabwe; very simple analysis (excluding the other atg) for almost every bowler proves this point
- Good batting helps your bowlers (they can attack / have more runs to defend) and good bowling helps your batters
- Cricket is a team sport where separating individual performance from the team and context is IMPOSSIBLE

We should do the exercise but #s 1-15 will all be pretty much equal in my book. Just because some bowler takes a bunch of wickets at 21 bowling with the greatest fast bowling attack ever seen doesn't make him better than someone bowling at 23 carrying the attack so that opposing batsmen can block everything and then attack his colleagues for runs. If you can't understand that, you don't know cricket.

However with all that said I don't agree with adding random factors like fielding or bowling support because you just really don't know what the level of benefit is as the samples are too small with too many confounding variables.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That’s a long-winded way of saying Jimmy Anderson should be Number 1.

 

[Engle]

As a standalone metric, SR is obviously more important than ER. But that is not the question. The question is, what works better when combined with average. For a given average, is a low SR bowler better than a low ER bowler? In other words, is high ER better than low ER?

Yes. What AVG tells is how many runs did a bowler concede to get a wicket combined with SR which tells how quickly did he get that wicket.
By getting wickets quickly, you prevent partnerships from developing.

AVG and SR should be used for specialist bowlers.

ER can be used for batting All-rounders
e.g. B.D'Oliviera has a low ER of 1.95 but a high SR of 121.40 in comparison to John Snow who has an ER of 2.68 but an SR of 59.5

 

[Gob]

Yes. What AVG tells is how many runs did a bowler concede to get a wicket combined with SR which tells how quickly did he get that wicket.
By getting wickets quickly, you prevent partnerships from developing.

AVG and SR should be used for specialist bowlers.

ER can be used for batting All-rounders
e.g. B.D'Oliviera has a low ER of 1.95 but a high SR of 121.40 in comparison to John Snow who has an ER of 2.68 but an SR of 59.5

Yeah but then again the amount of runs you concede for a wicket is directly proportionate to the amount of runs you concede in an over. I don't think there are any easy ways to determine what's more important based on basic statistical analysis. It's just that all the great bowlers we have seen seem to be averaging in a similar range hence we tend to take it as the primary yardstick

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Fundamentally, cricket is a team (and conditions) dependant sport. Any analysis comparing two players is going to be flawed. Here are some facts:

- Most players are suited to their home conditions but some especially conditions dependant disciplines are benefitted more than others (spin in asia)
- All players will perform better in ATG teams than in poor teams; yes mcgrath wouldve had slightly worse stats playing for zimbabwe; very simple analysis (excluding the other atg) for almost every bowler proves this point
- Good batting helps your bowlers (they can attack / have more runs to defend) and good bowling helps your batters
- Cricket is a team sport where separating individual performance from the team and context is IMPOSSIBLE

We should do the exercise but #s 1-15 will all be pretty much equal in my book. Just because some bowler takes a bunch of wickets at 21 bowling with the greatest fast bowling attack ever seen doesn't make him better than someone bowling at 23 carrying the attack so that opposing batsmen can block everything and then attack his colleagues for runs. If you can't understand that, you don't know cricket.

However with all that said I don't agree with adding random factors like fielding or bowling support because you just really don't know what the level of benefit is as the samples are too small with too many confounding variables.

Its impossible to determine the degree of help provided by fielders or co bowlers, but its a factor and must admit it. Here in CW, 20avg bowler is better than 22 avg bowler irrespective of team support.funny.