Years or Test - Which is the best way to test longevity?

[AndrewB]

There was an article in the ACS journal which gave a method of adjusting a player's career statistics, though it focused on English players.

The method is basically:
- let N be the number of seasons in which the player played (here 'summer of 2000' and 'away series in 2000-01' would count as 2 seasons).
- let M be the number of matches that England played in those seasons.
- the adjustment factor for the players figures (matches played, runs scored etc) is then 5N/M.

The assumption here is that an 'average' season would include 5 Tests.

 

[Victor Ian]

I'm just not really a fan of this whole longevity matters class. That matters if you are picking for a dynasty. It becomes more absurd when you try to start putting weights to your numbers.

It's actually quite simple... (N-M)*n)^(1/s) / ((p-Q)n^2)^(1/3)

Or...Just pick a number of years/tests to exceed at an excellent output. Then you are not trying to make excuses for entering a team too young, retiring too late, etc. KISS.

 

[TheJediBrah]

If you're picking an Earth ATG team that's touring the Milky Way and the journey will take 25 years with regular stops for Test matches along the way, but you can only pick one squad, then longevity would objectively matter

But you'd have to predict it from a bunch of young players, unless you are from the future and know which players had longer careers

And if we have the technology to travel the Milky Way at the required speed maybe time travel or predicting the future is possible too so that's fair enough

 

[Coronis]

It doesn’t have to be either or, and I don’t think there should be a hard and fast formula to it either.

Personally, I’ll give the length of the career more weight than number of tests played, the amount of tests played has varied drastically throughout history, there’s just no way to attempt to compare fairly otherwise.

For example, Bert Oldfield had a 17 year career between the wars, playing 54/63 possible tests during his career. If he’d retired just after the recent NZ tour he would’ve been keeping since 07 and played 150+ tests

 

[subshakerz]

It doesn’t have to be either or, and I don’t think there should be a hard and fast formula to it either.

Personally, I’ll give the length of the career more weight than number of tests played, the amount of tests played has varied drastically throughout history, there’s just no way to attempt to compare fairly otherwise.

For example, Bert Oldfield had a 17 year career between the wars, playing 54/63 possible tests during his career. If he’d retired just after the recent NZ tour he would’ve been keeping since 07 and played 150+ tests

I think when bringing cricketers from previous eras it gets tougher

One of the reasons I rate McGrath so highly is he has something like 110 tests in a stretch of worldclass performance. However some pointed out that his span of performances from 95 to 2007 is roughly equal to Hadlee's from 78 to 90 yet Hadlee played maybe 40 less tests.

So we can't give McGrath points for a larger sample size? Why not?

 

[Coronis]

I think when bringing cricketers from previous eras it gets tougher

One of the reasons I rate McGrath so highly is he has something like 110 tests in a stretch of worldclass performance. However some pointed out that his span of performances from 95 to 2007 is roughly equal to Hadlee's from 78 to 90 yet Hadlee played maybe 40 less tests.

So we can't give McGrath points for a larger sample size? Why not?

I mean you can, if you want. It hardly seems fair though, its not like Hadlee was skipping tests or anything McGrath was just fortunate enough to play in an era with more tests and for a team that gets more tests.

 

[subshakerz]

I mean you can, if you want. It hardly seems fair though, its not like Hadlee was skipping tests or anything McGrath was just fortunate enough to play in an era with more tests and for a team that gets more tests.

Well it's not fair, sure. But it's just a ground reality that McGrath kept that level of performance for way more tests than any pacer and should get credit.

Similar to Tendulkar averaging nearly 60 for a period of 157 tests. But then that has time longevity of being 18 years also.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Everyone assumes that playing lots of tests in disadvantageous, but it is often the reverse. ATGs/ATVGs who play 5 test series have time to salvage their stats even if they struggle for the 1st couple of tests by working out opposition, and really put the foot on the throat against demoralised sides who struggle. Thus it boosts their stats.

 

[subshakerz]

Everyone assumes that playing lots of tests in disadvantageous, but it is often the reverse. ATGs/ATVGs who play 5 test series have time to salvage their stats even if they struggle for the 1st couple of tests by working out opposition, and really put the foot on the throat against demoralised sides who struggle. Thus it boosts their stats.

This sounds fine in theory but in reality these ATGs most of the time dont need to salvage their stats or consistently suck for two tests in a row because of not adapting. The only one I recall consistently doing that was Lara and he made up for it by scoring a daddy.

5 test series just give ATGs more opportunities to produce worldclass performances, which is a fair argument.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Years, while keeping in mind how many of his team's tests the player misses.

Also, one thing people do very often is just look at career span to evaluate longevity i.e. Last year the cricketer played minus the first year, and often ignore periods within that span where he might have missed a lot of tests due to bring dropped or injured.

For instance, Ken Barrington debuted in 1955 and played his last test in 1968, and ice seem posters give him longevity credit for a 13 year career. When the reality is he debuted in 1955 played two tests ,but then was out of the team until 1959. For all intents and purposes, he onlyhad a 9 year test career.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Everyone assumes that playing lots of tests in disadvantageous, but it is often the reverse. ATGs/ATVGs who play 5 test series have time to salvage their stats even if they struggle for the 1st couple of tests by working out opposition, and really put the foot on the throat against demoralised sides who struggle. Thus it boosts their stats.

Why does this "working out" only happen in one direction for you? Wouldn't it also be likely this ATG player who only got to play 2-3 test series would have been figured out by the opposition if he had to play longer series?

 

[reyrey]

Well McGrath averages 19 in the 1st Test of a series and 23 for the rest.

 

[Victor Ian]

Why does this "working out" only happen in one direction for you? Wouldn't it also be likely this ATG player who only got to play 2-3 test series would have been figured out by the opposition if he had to play longer series?

Which is part of what makes a great. The greats can account for 'being worked out'. The benefit of the longer series is that it helps take away 'lol sample size', but otherwise short and long both present pros and cons

 

[BazBall21]

Years with batsmen. Mixed bag with bowlers. There are cases where it's not completely black and white though.

 

[ankitj]

Looking forward to applying nth match of the series filter to stats