Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Cricket ~~ Assessing Batsmen

Nominating the best sportsman is mostly very difficult because each player has a unique position in the team and lots of memorable performances under his belt. Same is the case with Cricket. When we talk about great batsmen, some names (that I will not take here to avoid controversy) come up who may have had some great knocks but were never the match winners or team-players. 


There are various parameters that are used, and most common of them is the batting average. For test matches this is as appropriate as it gets. Test matches are about making runs; as many as one can at whatever pace one feels comfortable. But when it comes to ODI and T20s, assessing batsmen on batting average often misguides the selection. Since limited overs games are pressure-oriented, high average batsmen mostly end up falling short of the required total. Having said that high strike-rate batsmen are no better because they don't stick around long enough to get to the target either.

One way of assessing batsmen for the limited overs versions of the game could be to take the product of Strike-rate and Average. Let's call it Batting X Factor. Batting X Factor gives you who has been making runs and making them at a healthy rate e.g. someone batting with average 40 and strike rate 70 has a batting X factor of 2800 while someone batting at average 30 and strike rate 100 has a batting X factor of 3000. Apparently Batsman A will have more runs under his belt but a more suitable limited overs player is someone who can manage runs (a little less even) but quickly.


This calculation puts a lot of big names under the hammer and thus proves why even after having great batsmen in the team teams always fell short of the target. Whereas only pinch hitters cannot do the job either.

1 comment:

H.M said...

Good effort but the assessment should be done on how many matches he had won for his team or how big match winner one batsman is.