Anantha Narayanan
All-time visiting XIs - part two
The second of a two-part series that objectively picks all-time XIs to tour Test-playing countries
Anantha Narayanan
18-Feb-2017
In part one of this two-part feature, I had covered the all-time best XIs to visit Australia, England and South Africa. There was very lively reader response and nearly 150 comments were received. In this article I will cover the other five countries - India, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I will also summarise the selections at the end.
It is strongly recommended that those who missed reading the first part, read that article before perusing this one. The lengthy introduction and explanation of the processes will go a long way towards clarifying the complex selection process. I will not publish comments that indicate a lack of awareness of the selection methodology. Just as a recap, I have summarised the process below.
- Only batsmen who have scored 500 runs and bowlers who have captured 25 wickets (20 for Pakistan) are considered for selection.
- The players are judged on three criteria: Longevity (Runs/Wickets), Performance (RpAI/Bowling average) and Quality of opposition (Bowling/Batting quality).
- RpAI (Runs per Adjusted Innings) is used instead of the Batting Average and is explained in depth in Part 1.
- The top ten batsmen and bowlers are shortlisted for selection.
- To the extent possible (almost 95%), the final selection is made from these players.
- The normal team will be comprised of six batsmen, four bowlers and a wicketkeeper. In each team there has to be an allrounder who will provide additional bowling support.
- The keeper is judged more on keeping skills and less on batting skills.
- For each team, a captain is selected.
Full post- The players are judged on three criteria: Longevity (Runs/Wickets), Performance (RpAI/Bowling average) and Quality of opposition (Bowling/Batting quality).
- RpAI (Runs per Adjusted Innings) is used instead of the Batting Average and is explained in depth in Part 1.
- The top ten batsmen and bowlers are shortlisted for selection.
- To the extent possible (almost 95%), the final selection is made from these players.
- The normal team will be comprised of six batsmen, four bowlers and a wicketkeeper. In each team there has to be an allrounder who will provide additional bowling support.
- The keeper is judged more on keeping skills and less on batting skills.
- For each team, a captain is selected.
All-time visiting XIs - part one
A selection exercise, based on performance metrics, of all-time XIs to tour Australia, England and South Africa
Anantha Narayanan
04-Feb-2017
I must thank Pawan Mathur for providing the spark, by asking for the best all-time XI to tour India. That enabled me to think of going all the way and creating this pair of articles. This was indeed a massive task inasmuch as it combined raw analysis, objective deductions, some subjective considerations and finally, nuanced team-selection processes. Some elements of my own personal preferences come in but I would put that at no more than five percent. I have been true to the numbers as much as I could have been.
What is the objective? Stated in a single sentence, it is to determine the best XI to tour each of the major Test-playing countries. All the selected players should have performed outstandingly in the respective countries but must also form an effective balanced XI which should be capable of doing well in imaginary series on the Elysian fields against the best XI the home team(s) could put together. Of course, the local conditions of the country would be replicated for these Tests: a few renowned pitch curators would already have reached there! All the players who visited the concerned country should be considered and should have equal chances. Most importantly I had to constantly remind myself that this was a true case of peer performance appraisal, despite the fact that I was analysing players from different teams. The common ground between the players was the country they visited.
There is a world of difference between selecting an all-time XI that visited a specific country and performed well there and selecting an all-time XI for the country. A lot of data is necessary but we cannot let the data overwhelm us. We must be able to clearly understand the importance of players being productive, performing and having a clear understanding of the level of opposition faced by the player. At rare times we should be prepared to take left-field decisions. We should not select the bowler combination blindly, based on pre-conceived ideas. We must be able to go against the wind.
Full postClocking the hours on a cricket field
A look at players to have spent the longest time on the field over their international careers
Anantha Narayanan
14-Jan-2017
The next article due from me is one in which I fine-tune the WQAI (Wicket Quality Average Index) concept with CTD (Career-to-date) values. And then I am planning a couple on the best teams to visit various countries, inspired by the excellent suggestion by one of my long-time readers, Pawan Mathur. However, I have decided to interject a lighter article in the midst of some heavy analytical ones. But there is no shortage of effort or time in preparation of this article - that much I have found out.
One specific request to the readers: If you feel that this type of lighter analysis is not your cup of tea, feel free to leave the cup on the nearby table and move on. Please do not waste your (and my) time by sending comments that you do not like this type of not-so-serious analysis. That sort of comment has zero value. Thank you.
About five years ago, I did a study on the topic of time spent on the field by players. It was a raw first attempt and needs to be revisited now for the following reasons:
Full postAshwin's incredible streak
In the last couple of years R Ashwin has produced one of the most prolific 20-Test sequences by any bowler
Anantha Narayanan
22-Dec-2016
As 2015 dawned, India seemed to be slipping to the familiar lows of 2011-12: two tough and unsuccessful tours to England and Australia had just got over. While the batting looked promising, their bowling cupboard was near bare. R Ashwin, the leading spinner, had a particularly harrowing time, having gathered only 15 wickets in the five Tests he had played, at a huge cost of 45 runs per wicket, and was dropped from the Test team.
Then India went to Bangladesh, hoping to put the disappointment from the 2015 World Cup behind them, and things started looking up, at least for Ashwin. Not many would have suspected this to be the beginning of one of the greatest streaks of performance by a bowler in Test history.
Full postPlayers who said goodbye on a high v those who faded away
A look at the last ten Tests of players' careers, and how they compare with their averages through the rest of their careers
Anantha Narayanan
10-Dec-2016
On Friday night, when my 12-year-old grandson, Abhay, a committed F1 follower like me, called at 10pm and informed me that Nico Rosberg had announced his retirement, I was stunned. We are both Lewis Hamilton fans, however, for Abhay, Hamilton came second to Kimi Raikkonen. A few days back, we had endured a harrowing race in which Rosberg, because of Hamilton's slowing down strategy, was forced to hold off two racing tigers, in the form of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, to cling on to second place. Rosberg won the World Championship title, virtually in the last corner of the Abu Dhabi track. We both agreed that Rosberg was a true champion and deserved his narrow win.
Now we heard that Rosberg had forsaken about 100 million dollars - the salary earnings of a top driver for four years or so - and quit immediately after reaching the pinnacle. His World Championship win became more poignant. Let me wish him every happiness off the track, with his wife and daughter. Nico, you have risen immeasurably in the eyes of many F1 followers.
The next day, I was battling a severe cold, and sleeplesly ruminating on Rosberg, when the idea dawned on me that I had never looked at the end of the careers for Test players. We had vaguely talked of Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar playing a few Tests too many and Sunil Gavaskar playing fewer than he should have. But a purely objective and numbers-based analysis? No. So I shelved my about-to-be-edited article and started on this one, which looks at the way players' careers have ended. I assure readers that there will be no subjective statements and this will be pure analysis, and the conclusions similar.
Full postPlayer support viewed across the complete team
The support - or the lack of it - that a player got from the batsmen, bowlers and wicketkeeper he played with
Anantha Narayanan
12-Nov-2016
This article is in three parts. The first is the main article extending the scope of player support to all the disciplines: batting, bowling and wicketkeeping. The second is a primer into the CTX methodology I have been using in various analyses I have done recently. The third is an analysis-based all-time best Pakistan XI, as asked for my long-time reader, Abdullah Khalid.
A. Total Support Analysis
In my last article I had done an analysis of the support received by the other batsmen in the team. There was an excellent response from the readers. The most important comments were posted by Mohanlal and couple of other readers who mentioned that the support should be looked at in its totality, including bowlers. This seemed to make a lot of sense. What is the point of having an excellent batting unit if the team has a weak bowling attack, as India has had often. Or the futility of a good bowling attack let down by the batting unit not putting enough runs on board. So I decided to extend the concept to its full extent: including batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper. This will complete the fascinating exercise.
In my last article I had done an analysis of the support received by the other batsmen in the team. There was an excellent response from the readers. The most important comments were posted by Mohanlal and couple of other readers who mentioned that the support should be looked at in its totality, including bowlers. This seemed to make a lot of sense. What is the point of having an excellent batting unit if the team has a weak bowling attack, as India has had often. Or the futility of a good bowling attack let down by the batting unit not putting enough runs on board. So I decided to extend the concept to its full extent: including batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper. This will complete the fascinating exercise.
The initial cut-off turned out to be simple. I decided on 25 Tests since that represented a very decent Test career: maybe nearing 100 wickets or 2000 runs, or a combination of 1000 runs and 70-80 wickets; 609 players qualified. Now came the actual work. Easier said than done. This turned out to be one tricky process as I started work on it. Instead of explaining all the obstacles on the road, I will explain the selection process first.
Full postBatsmen who played lone hands, and those who didn't
A look at the support received by batsmen through their Test careers, using a new measure - the Batsman Support Index
Anantha Narayanan
08-Oct-2016
Let me start with a perusal of Test No. 1201 during India's maiden tour of the recently readmitted South Africa. The boy prodigy, still in his teens, was playing in his 18th Test and was yet to cross 1000 runs - something he would do 14 more times in the next 21 years. Against a fierce bowling attack, he had around him the batting sextet of Ravi Shastri, Ajay Jadeja, Sanjay Manjrekar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Pravin Amre and Manoj Prabhakar. Not exactly a group that inspires confidence. Even so, Sachin Tendulkar scored a patient 111.
Let us move forwards 14 years and over 100 Tests for Tendulkar. The batsmen surrounding him in the Wanderers Test (Test No. 1823) in 2006 were Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni. If the first group was tin, this one was almost platinum. There was no weak spot. The difference in the quality of the supporting batsmen in the two Tests is amazing. Tendulkar, with his 24-year career, could go through two complete generations of batsmen and had such diametrically opposite situations in his career.
However, there were batsmen who lacked any quality support right through their careers. Sunil Gavaskar, in his fourth Test, in Port-of-Spain (Test No. 686), had as supporting cast Syed Abid Ali, Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Sardesai, a raw Gundappa Viswanath, ML Jaisimha and Eknath Solkar. A couple of passable batsmen but nowhere near the group of the 2000s. This was not the case only with teams like India. Allan Border, right through his career, was in the company of middling batsmen. In Test No. 986, the other six batsmen were Steve Smith, Graeme Wood, Greg Ritchie, Kim Hughes, David Hookes and Wayne Philips.
Full postCurtly a foreigner in no land
A measure to judge how good a bowler is, especially overseas
Anantha Narayanan
10-Sep-2016
Let me quickly reflect on my last two articles. The earlier article related to the bowler performances across the years. It was a very important analysis based on historic data. There were over 120 comments. The more important article was the recent one: on the boundary-scoring pattern changes. A momentous bat size change law is recommended by MCC, partly based on this data I have provided.
There were only 21 comments and I wondered why. I realised that the latter article was primarily on pattern changes across the years. It was almost completely raw data. The law change, if it comes about, would change the game significantly but the players would adapt, as would the followers. There was nothing personal or interesting. On the other hand, readers identified with many of the bowlers and in good humour engaged in jousts with others. They were ready to fight on for their players' cause. And the comments were incisive and sought a lot more data.
Based on the comments received, I have made this article a complete exposition of bowlers' away performances. The article will move top down in a hierarchical manner: the career, regions, countries, series and finally Tests.
Full postPushing boundaries
An analysis of the trends in frequency of boundaries hit that could force a change in the laws of cricket
Anantha Narayanan
06-Aug-2016
In 2014, Fraser Stewart, Cricket Academy Manager, MCC, asked whether I could do a comprehensive analysis of the boundary-hitting trends in Tests and ODIs. The MCC was extremely concerned with the way bats were becoming thicker and wider and contemplated making changes to the laws to bring some balance to the game. I provided a set of reports. The matter stayed there. The MCC must have looked at the numbers and the other related factors and decided that it was not yet time for the line to be crossed.
Then the 2015 World Cup 2015 was played. Those interested can read my review of the World Cup indicating how batsman-friendly the entire tournament was. And then the trend continued in Tests, especially down under. This April, Fraser again approached me with a request to redo the analysis and provide the recent and current trends. I ensured that the numbers for the 2015 World Cup and the years 2015 and 2016 for both ODIs and Tests were covered in detail.
The MCC considered the numbers provided, in conjunction with other equally important factors like scientific data, anecdotal data, bat sizes, ground sizes etc, and finally came out with a very important status paper. Their key recommendation is outlined below:
Full postLooking beyond wickets and averages
An analysis of the quality of wickets of Test bowlers using various measures including Weighted Wickets Index and Difference Index
Anantha Narayanan
10-Jul-2016
This is a follow-up to the bowler streaks article published last month. In addition to providing additional analysis on the topic by specifically responding to a couple of very nice queries, I have also attempted to present a new concept to get additional insights to the vexed question of "Wickets - how good are they?" In summary, akin to "Supply-side Economics" being presented as an alternate economic theory, I have tried to present this analysis as the study of bowling from the angle of the dismissed batsmen.
One often repeated query on the article centered on the number of wickets taken by the bowlers. Muttiah Muralitharan's 800 was said to contain over 160 wickets against the so-called "minnows" while Shane Warne's 708 wickets was seen to be more valuable since it contained only 17 wickets against these weaker Test teams. This argument seemed quite sound until I pointed out a fundamental error in this assumption. Is the wicket of Shakib Al Hasan less valuable than that of, say, Ishant Sharma? The former is a top batsman of a weaker team while the latter is a tail-ender of a better team. There was no response.
To solve this, I said that I would determine an index using the quality of batsman dismissed. This process will ensure that Shakib would get his due credit as a top-flight batsman with an average of 39.76, while Ishant will be accorded treatment deserving his batting average of 8.89. At one stroke this would solve all problems, including dismissals of batsmen like Bevan Congdon, Ravi Shastri or Roshan Mahanama - average batsmen from top teams.
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