Who would you rather have come in at No. 6 for your team with 15 overs to go?

[AldoRaine18]

Well, I'd definitely pick a player who averaged 53 and struck in the low 80s.

I still wouldn't pick a middle order batsman striking in the low 70s, even if he averaged 100.

You are possibly on your own with that one.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Mods please change my username to "absolutist scum".

 

[kiwiviktor81]

People don't really disagree with this. However, players' career statistics are as much a function of how often they find themselves in each of these situations as they are a function of their natural scoring rate. That Player A has a career strike rate of X and Player B has a career strike rate of X+5 doesn't necessarily mean Player B would score quicker than Player A in a given situation; it could just be that Player A faced many more situations throughout his career where a lower strike rate made sense and it impacted on his career statistics.

Let me put it this way - at four down with 15 overs to go, I'd rather have someone come in and slap a really quick 35 than average 50 and strike at 72 or whatever, but where people think you're being silly is the assumption that if a player comes in four down with 15 overs to go and he has a career strike rate of 72, he's going to actually strike at around that rate. Your fault is in seeing every player as two big flashing numbers - average and strike rate - instead of realising these numbers relate to each other, are fluid depending on the match situation and actually caused by the match situations each player has encountered in the past.

And that's before we even revisit the fact that you're absolutist scum when it comes to changing era standards.

Actually I entirely agree with you and think you make fair points here. However, I don't think I'm guilty of the accusations in this post. On average, Bevan demonstrated a strike rate of 72. This is a known fact about Bevan. On average, I don't know what over Bevan came to the crease but I'd guess 30-35.

All I'm really saying is that at no point in his career did Bevan regularly demonstrate the capacity for modern lower-order hitting that he would have needed to do to be suitable in a modern team. He demonstrated an outstanding ability to win games in his time, which makes him one of the greatest ODI players in history. Saying Bevan would definitely have struck at 82 in the modern day is speculation. The fact is that he hit at 72. Facts weigh heavier than speculations imo.

Still doesn't mean I'm going to pick him in an ATG team, or even in a NZ 2015 team, because I need proven hitters in the lower order and Bevan isn't one.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

That Player A has a career strike rate of X and Player B has a career strike rate of X+5 doesn't necessarily mean Player B would score quicker than Player A in a given situation; it could just be that Player A faced many more situations throughout his career where a lower strike rate made sense and it impacted on his career statistics.

Pursuant to this is a simulator result I found interesting. Ross Taylor batting 5 in an ATG team after Guptill, Astle, Williamson and Crowe, has a much higher SR than Ross Taylor at 5 in a 90's Black Caps side after Wright, Latham, Jones and Crowe. This is because in the former team Taylor tends to come in later and therefore hits out more often. His actual simulator stats are of course exactly the same; but the average match situation a player comes to the crease on can vary their SR by 10-15 by itself.

 

[Athlai]

Weird statistics:

Bevan has more innings with a SR over 100 than Maxwell.

33 vs 27

 

[Dan]

Out of curiosity, do you have a graph for the strike rates and averages of batsmen in their debut year across recent decades, say from 1990 (Tendulkar's debut)? It would settle at least one of the debates on this thread.

I did those by hand, so no. cbf digging through that much statsguru.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Weird statistics:

Bevan has more innings with a SR over 100 than Maxwell.

33 vs 27

Yeah but he's played 4 times as many games.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

I did those by hand, so no. cbf digging through that much statsguru.

No worries, I might do it myself at some point.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Weird statistics:

Bevan has more innings with a SR over 100 than Maxwell.

33 vs 27

Here's another interesting stat:

Bevan 232 games 21 sixes
Maxwell 55 games 54 sixes.

 

[dfrinku]

Neither of those stats are interesting.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Neither of those stats are interesting.

Perhaps this one?

Sixes per 1000 balls faced:

Maxwell 45
Bevan 2

 

[wellAlbidarned]

wow

 

[Furball]

You're aware that Bevan struck at 72 because that's all he often had to do?

The point of a finisher is that strike rate on its own doesn't matter, what matters is staying not out and winning the game. Something Bevan was am master at.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

You're aware that Bevan struck at 72 because that's all he often had to do?

The point of a finisher is that strike rate on its own doesn't matter, what matters is staying not out and winning the game. Something Bevan was am master at.

You're aware that sometimes Australia batted first?

 

[OverratedSanity]

It's a bit silly that you keep talking about how Bevan's style wouldn't lend itself well to a team filled with great batsmen, conveniently ignoring that Australia was chock full of incredible batsmen, and Bevan was a perfect fit for the team.

 

[Teja.]

The context we need is how and why the players in question have compiled that particular combination of average and strike rate; not context about this hypothetical match as such.

It's extremely unlikely that someone who averages 55+ and strikes at 75 over a long period has a lot of those runs coming in at 4 down with 15 overs to go. His record in that situation is probably a lot different. It's not that people think having someone come in and score 34* (45) on average is going to be more useful than having someone score 30 (25) instead; it's that
a) #6 batsmen are confronted with more than just this situation
b) someone with an average of 55 and a strike rate of 75 would very likely do something different in that situation.

If we lift the curtain and admit we're still talking about Bevan and Maxwell, I'd consider taking a high strike rate/mediocre average player like Maxwell in this specific situation (assuming batting first). But Bevan's overall career numbers aren't really the reason. When Bevan batted second he always scored at close to the optimal rate of what he was chasing, and given Australia had a really good attack, this meant he often didn't score very quickly in the second innings -- he just didn't need to. In first innings when he was setting a total, he averaged 52 and struck at 80 instead, which I think is a more accurate way to look at Bevan than as a 55/75 player. It's also worth noting that during Bevan's career, the global strike rate for all players was 72.19. During Maxwell's it's been 83.32. A strike rate of 80 during Bevan's career was roughly worth a strike rate of 92 during Maxwell's, which again isn't really near what Maxwell produces, but we've definitely moved away from the misleading blanket career number.

A player's strike rate is not just formed by his natural scoring ability, but the context of the situations he faces. If you give him a situation different from the one he's compiled most of the runs in his average and strike rate in, he will very likely produce a different average and strike rate in that new context.

Thread should have ended after this post.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

conveniently ignoring that Australia was chock full of incredible batsmen

I don't ignore this at all. It was, in fact, my counterargument to the argument that Bevan's SR was low because he had to do a lot of recovery jobs because the Aussie top order often collapsed.

 

[GIMH]

CW, stop the following immediately:

1. Using absolutist and relativist labels
2. Referring to cake
3. Posting in this thread

Cheers.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I don't ignore this at all. It was, in fact, my counterargument to the argument that Bevan's SR was low because he had to do a lot of recovery jobs because the Aussie top order often collapsed.

So you do agree that :

a) Even ATG lineups can collapse quite often

and

b) The better way to perform a rescue job after a collapse is to do what Bevan did, instead of slogging like Maxwell?

 

[Teja.]

I don't ignore this at all. It was, in fact, my counterargument to the argument that Bevan's SR was low because he had to do a lot of recovery jobs because the Aussie top order often collapsed.

kiwivictor,

Do you consider Bevan's SR of 80+ at an average of 52 in the first innings in a vaccum to be worthy of a spot in a NZ first innings batting lineup?