This is the last of my posts inspired by Cricinfo’s idea of selecting the best team across formats from the years 1995 to 2017. Earlier posts can be found here: Selection By Stats – Test XI for last 25 years , Selection By Stats – Cricket ODI XI , Cricket – All Time T20 XI , Cricket ODI XI for the last 25 Years , Cricket Test XI For The Last 25 Years.

In this post the idea is to select the Best XI in terms of statistics. I have used batting average and strike rate to select batsmen and the keeper and the bowling economy rate and bowling average to select the bowlers. I have put in the all rounders in both categories. The ideal team balance is to have 4 batsmen, 1 keeper, 2 all rounders, 4 bowlers.

Graph 1: Batting Average and Batting Strike Rate

• Virat Kohli with a batting average of 50 at a strike rate in excess of 135 makes him probably the best T20 batsman of all time.
• Aaron Finch selects himself based on the average of 40+ and SR of 150+.
• Amongst the keepers ( highlighted in orange ) – it’s a choice between McCullum and Dhoni – one more comfortable opening and the other a master of finishes.
• Amongst the all rounders, Shane Watson’s batting prowess far exceeds the others.
• Maxwell & Munro have the best strike rates amongst all the batsmen.
• Kevin Peterson and Chris Gayle are other giants who stand apart from the rest with healthy averages and high strike rates in excess of 140.

Graph 2: Bowling Average and Economy Rate

• Generally the preference is more towards containment in this form and hence the economy rate probably takes precedence over the average.
• Rashid Khan is by far the pre-eminent T20 bowler. His average is around 13 and he has an economy rate less than 6.
• Daniel Vettori is the only other bowler apart from Rashid Khan with an economy rate less than 6.
• There is not much to choose between Badree and Narine. A host of other spin bowlers such as Mendis, Swann, Ajmal and Dockrell have economy rates less than 6.5 and averages less than 18. This also indicates how dominant spin bowlers have been over their fast bowling compatriots.
• Among the all rounders Shakib Al Hasan’s average is superior to other all rounders such as Afridi, Hafeez and Mathews who all have similar economy rates.
• 4 fast bowlers have similar economy rates – Steyn, Bukhari, Amir and Bumrah with the latter having a distinctly higher average.

The problem here is one of balance – spinners dominate the game and if you go strictly by the numbers one should just select 4 spinners. But that will make the bowling too predictable. All rounders are also a bit of a problem – none of them except ( Watson for batting ) can walk into the team on one skill only. Packing the team with all rounders adds options but comes at the cost of efficiency. The way I have chosen to resolve this is also to select atleast 2 bowlers with high batting strike rates – the rationale being they will mostly come at the end overs and try to maximize the score. Hence average does not matter as much as strike rate. Thankfully both Narine and Rashid Khan have strike rates in the range of 125 so this makes the selection problem easier! While I was tempted to choose Shakib as a bowling all rounder I decided to go with Vettori as i could not ignore the economy rate of 5.71! I am a fan of fast bowlers and find it tough to go into a team without two genuine fast bowlers – I settled on M Amir and Dale Steyn. Bukhari was another strong contender.Moving to the batting – since the team has Narine, I would use him as a pinch-hitting opener along with Aaron Finch. One down would be Virat Kohli followed by Kevin Peterson and Shane Watson.  Maxwell and Munro are alike as per numbers and I have chosen only one of them – Maxwell. At # 7 I would have MSD playing in as Keeper. 8 would be Rashid Khan followed by the tail of Vettori, Steyn and Amir. 12th man would be Shakib Al Hasan. If Shakib plays then Watson would open and Shakib would come either after Pieterson or Maxwell.

To summarize final team: S Narine, A Finch, V Kohli, K Pieterson, S Watson, G Maxwell, M Dhoni, R Khan, D Vettori, D Steyn, M Amir. 12th Man: Shakib Al Hasan.

I have been writing a series of posts inspired by Cricinfo’s idea of selecting a dream team across formats from players in the time span of 1995 – 2017. The posts are of two types:

1. Team selected basis my personal preference :  See Cricket Test XI For The Last 25 Years , Cricket ODI XI for the last 25 Years , Cricket – All Time T20 XI
2. Team selected basis statistics : See Selection By Stats – Cricket ODI XI

This post falls in the second category and attempts to arrive at the ideal team based on statistics. The thing with test cricket is that conditions differ by country and not all players have the ability to adapt to conditions different from their home conditions. For the purpose of analysis, I have broken down the career averages further into country averages and selected players who demonstrate consistent performance across countries.  The selections and their rationale are as follows:

1. Openers: Graeme Smith and Chris Gayle

Following table shows average of shortlisted openers across different countries. The cells are highlighted in red are cases where the average falls below 35. Graeme Smith is the only opener who has an average of 35+ across all countries with just about making the cut in India and Australia. The second best seems to be Chris Gayle who apart from a bad record in India, averages 35 + every where. Sehwag has a dismal record in England, New Zealand and South Africa while having a pretty good record elsewhere. Alistair Cook surprisingly has a bad record in NZ and so do Warner and Hayden. New Zealand seems to be the toughest location for openers while all of them have great records against Australia and Pakistan.

2. Middle Order: Tendulkar, ABD, Kallis, Lara

Below table shows averages of shortlisted players by country. Averages below 35 have been highlighted in red.

This table pretty much establishes Sachin Tendulkar as the pre-eminent player of his generation. His lowest average is 44.66 against Pakistan and average 50+ in 6 of the countries. There are legions of fans who believe Rahul Dravid to be India’s best overseas batsman – however what is not so well known is that Dravid does not have that great a record in South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sachin on the other hand has a consistency that is unmatched. The only player who comes close to him is the South African maestro ABD who has a 40+ average across all countries.  Jacques Kallis also has 35 + against all countries but makes the cut marginally in England and Sri Lanka. Brian Lara never played in India in the stated period – however considering his record in Sri Lanka, I am quite sure he would have been successful in India too. The ones who missed out narrowly are Steve Waugh ( bad average in Sri Lanka ), Sangakara and H Amla ( both bad records in West Indies ) and Ricky Ponting ( Bad Record In India ).

3. Wicket Keeper : Adam Gilchrist

On a dismissal per innings basis Adam Gilchrist is way superior to the other keepers – however one must also remember that this is also a function of the strength of the bowling line up. Gilchrist was keeping to some of the best bowling units in this time period – McGrath, Warne, Lee, Gillespie to name a few. Hence i have discounted keeping statistics and assumed all keepers to be of equal calibre behind the stumps. If I consider their batting then Gilchrist, inspite of a insipid record in india and Pakistan, is way ahead of the rest of the keepers and hence walks into the team:

4. Bowlers: Glenn McGrath, Dale Steyn, Shaun Pollock, S Warne, A Donald ( 12th Man )

I have considered bowling averages and lumped spinners and pacers together. The cut off for the bowling average is 30. Here are the results:

Glenn McGrath’s record is awe inspiring and puts him streets ahead of any other bowler in the period. With the exception of Sri Lanka he averages less than 22 in every other country! Dale Steyn and Shaun Pollock’s averages go above 30 only in England and Australia respectively and are the next two entrants. There are 3 bowlers whose averages go above 30 in 2 countries – A Donald, S Warne and W Akram. Have chosen Shane Warne and Allan Donald as with this combination of 5 bowlers – I can always field 4 bowlers all with averages less than 30 in every country. Just going by pure numbers – I would put in 4 fast bowlers in India and West Indies.

A note about the other bowlers – while Kumble has been a match winner in India, his average in every other country is above 30. Similarly J Anderson’s averages dip in most countries outside England. Murali has a very good record in most countries – but struggled in Australia and India. Courtney Walsh surprisingly does not have a great record in Australia and both he and Ambrose lost out to the others owing to the fact that they did not play tests in a couple of nations. Dont be fooled by Waqar’s numbers – these are from 1995-2017, if we take the period prior to this his record is comparable to the best in the business. Fast bowlers surprisingly have a great record in the so called spin friendly tracks of the sub continent.

Overall the team has quite a bit of overlap with my earlier selection based on personal choices. While the openers are different, the middle order ( including the keeper ) is identical. I had a narrow preference of Ambrose over McGrath and Akram over Pollock. Warne and Steyn feature in both teams. In terms of geography mix this team is dominated by South Africans ( 5 ) followed by Australians ( 3 ), West Indians (2) and 1 Indian.

If I were to select the best XI to play against each country in that country excluding players from the host country ( for example, Sachin cannot play against India, McGrath not against Australia etc ) then the choices would be the following:

1. Australia: Sehwag, Cook, Sangakara, Tendulkar, Y Khan, Kallis, Stewart, Akram, Steyn, Donald, Ambrose
2. England: Cook, Smith, Chanderpaul, H Amla, Dravid, S Waugh, Gilchrist, Donald, Murali, McGrath, Walsh
3. India: Cook, Hayden, Amla, Jayawardene, Kallis, Chanderpaul, A Flower, Donald, Steyn, McGrath, Ambrose
4. NZ: Smith, Gayle, Dravid, Sangakara, Ponting, Kallis, Gilchrist, Akram, McGrath, Walsh, Murali
5. Pakistan: Sehwag, Hayden, Dravid, Ponting, ABD, Kallis, Dhoni, Warne, McGrath, J Anderson, Walsh
6. South Africa: Gayle, Warner, Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting,S Waugh, Gilchrist, Warne, Ambrose, McGrath, Walsh
7. Sri Lanka: Sehwag, Cook, Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting, Y Khan, Gilchrist, Warne, Akram, Steyn, McGrath
8. WI: Hayden, Cook, ABD, S Waugh, Dravid, Ponting, Gilchrist, Akram, Steyn, McGrath, Anderson.

This was quite a fun post to write and I hope you enjoyed reading it too!

 

As a part of its 25 year anniversary celebrations, Cricinfo is inviting readers to pick their dream teams across formats in the 25 year period from 1995 to 2017. The T-20 shortlist has 29 batsmen including 5 keepers, 9 all rounders and 20 bowlers.See full list of players here .Readers need to pick atleast 4 batmen including a keeper and 5 from the all-rounders and bowlers. Here’s my pick based on what I have observed and followed over the years:

Shane Watson (AR ), Sunil Narine ( Bowler ), Virat Kohli (Batsman), Kevin Pietersen ( Batsman ), AB De Villiers ( Batsman ), MS Dhoni ( WK ), Shakib Al Hasan (AR), D Bravo (AR ), Rashid Khan ( Bowler ), Dale Steyn ( Bowler ), Lasith Malinga ( Bowler )

The team is packed with all rounders and theoretically bats all the way down to #8 and has 7 bowling options with 3 spinners and 4 medium pacers. The batting opens with Sunil Narine and Shane Watson. Both have fantastic records at the top of the innings and in addition to this can also contribute with the ball. In fact Sunil Narine is one of the most economical bowlers around in the T20 format and Shane Watson is certainly not a bad choice as the 7th bowling option! The middle order consists of the RCB pair of Virat Kohile and ABD along with Kevin Pietersen. Together this is a supremely destructive middle order which on its day can dismantle the best of bowling attacks. They are followed by MS Dhoni one of the best finishers in the game. In addition they also have two all rounders in Shakib and Bravo who can contribute with the bat as well. In terms of bowlers, the team has a wide variety to choose from. Lasith Malinga & Dale Steyn form the lead fast bowlers. Malinga has one the most destructive yorkers in the game and many a times was virtually unplayable. Dale Steyn is widely regarded as one of the all time greats of the game and together both form a potent fast bowling unit. In addition to this Dwayne Bravo would play the role of the third seamer with Shane Watson as the 4 option. The spin bowling resources are equally impressive. Sunil Narine and Rashid Khan are some of the most economical bowlers in this format and also have the knack of taking wickets at regular intervals. They also have a third option in terms of Shakib Al Hasan who could walk into most teams as the front line spin bowler. The plethora of bowling options coupled with an intimidating batting line up makes this a team to be feared.

As mentioned earlier this choice is based on my personal choices – will draw up a XI based on statistics in a forthcoming post.

My last post , inspired by a Cricinfo series, selected a ODI XI from players between 1995 to 2017. The team was compiled basis my gut feel, intuition and personal bias – heart over head really. In this post the attempt is to arrive at a ODI XI basis career statistics. I understand that cricket statisticians today use a number of metrics apart from the traditional metrics. However for the sake of simplicity, I have considered batting average and strike rate for batsmen and bowling average and economy rate for bowlers. For all-rounders it’s a combination of the batting and bowling averages. One adjustment I have made is I have only considered performances against test playing countries and excluded the so-called “minnows”.  As you will see the team is fairly different from the previous team and does have a few surprises – not that surprised by this though. All stats have been taken for Cricinfo Statsguru.

1. Wicket Keepers: The shortlist has three players – Dhoni, Gilchrist and Sangakarra. I have assumed all three are good enough keepers and have selected purely on basis on batting ability. Following graph plots average on X-Axis and Strike Rate on Y-Axis:

MS Dhoni has a superior average over the others and a strike rate of ~90. While Gilchrist has a better strike rate, MS Dhoni’s superior average more than makes up for it.

2. Batsmen: Whole host of batsmen in the short list. The graph below is a revelation! Look at where the RCB batting unit of ABD and Kohli are at : 50+ avg and 90 + strike rate. While one may argue that this was due to better batting conditions, the fact remains that they along with Amla are the only contemporaries in that part of the chart. Selections: ABD, Virat Kohli, H Amla and Sachin Tendulkar. If i had to do a fifth choice – either Bevan or maybe Ponting. Any of the other 4 could happily open the innings.

3.

3. All Rounders: In my previous post i had separated spin and pace bowling all rounders. What I have done now is lump them together and see how it pans out. The markers in orange are spinners and the rest are pacers. Just a note of caution – top right is not the best quadrant here – its bottom right – higher batting and lower bowling average then the more valuable you are. I have created 4 quadrants with 30 as the cutoff for both batting and bowling averages. The bottom left are bowling allrounders, the top right are batting allrounders, the top left are players who should not be considered and the final quadrant are probably genuine all rounders. As you can see spinners just don’t make the cut!

Andrew Flintoff the only one who just about fits into the All Rounders category – batting average just over 30 and bowling average just around 27. I would then pick up the closest from the other two categories – Shaun Pollock by being the only one in the “bowlers who can bat” category gets in. He has a 25 bowling average which is good enough for a front line bowler. Lance Klusener is at the border of the two categories and is the third choice. If at all I had to choose a spinner it would still be Shakib.

4. Bowlers: Like all rounders I combined the spinners and the fast bowlers. I also ignored the distinction between left and right arm bowlers. Spinners are highlighted in orange.The data is quite conclusive – Allan Donald & McGrath are the fast bowlers who get in. Spinners surprisingly is a toss between Ajmal and Saqlain with slight edge for Ajmal.

So here’s the final team: Sachin Tendulkar, H Amla, Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, M Dhoni, Lance Klusener, A Flintoff, S Pollock, S Ajmal, Donald, McGrath. The team’s more diverse than the other team in terms of international representation. 3 Indians, 5 South Africans, 1 Pakistani, 1 Englishman and just 1 Australian. 12th Man – M Bevan / Ponting. The team has a slightly longer tail as compared to the previous team and lesser variety in bowling – I would still prefer the previous team 🙂

 

As mentioned in an earlier post, Cricinfo, as a part of its 25 year anniversary celebrations, is inviting readers to pick their dream team across formats from 1995 to 2017. The shortlist can be found here. With 46 players the shortlist is larger than the test shortlist and consists of 21 batsmen ( including 3 keepers ),  11 all-rounders and 14 bowlers including 4 spinners. Dale Steyn, Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag were surprising omissions in the list. Readers have to pick at least 5 from the 21 batsmen including atleast 1 keeper and a minimum of 5 from the bowlers and all-rounders. The one additional slot is up to our discretion. Here’s my pick from the list. This is again not basis any statistics but only from what i have watched.

Adam Gilchrist (WK ), Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, AB De Villiers, Michael Bevan, Shakib Al Hasan, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock, Wasim Akram, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath.

This team is slightly more concentrated as compared to the test XI – 5 Australians, 3 South Africans, 1 Indian, 1 Bangladeshi, 1 Pakistani.  4 of them also feature in the test XI ( Gilchrist, Tendulkar, Akram, Warne )

In terms of team mix I have gone for 4 specialist batsmen and 1 keeper. I have added 3 all-rounders to the team which includes one spinner, one medium pacer and one all-rounder who is good enough to open the bowling. In terms of specialist bowlers, I have opted for 1 left arm fast bowler who is also a decent bat, 1 leg spinner and 1 fast bowler. Theoretically the team bats all the way down to No. 9 and has six full-time bowlers in addition to a couple of batsmen who can roll their arms if required. The only missing link is an off spinner and like in the test XI, I would choose Murali as the 12th man.

The rationale for the choices are as follows:

1. Openers – Sachin Tendulkar and Adam Gilchrist: Sachin Tendulkar is a straight shoo-in. No words are enough to describe his genius. Period. Adam Gilchrist is a personal favorite. He changed the way keepers were looked upon and his stint as an opener for Australia was characterized by multiple hard-hitting innings where he took the game away from the opposition in no time.

3. Ricky Ponting: Ricky Ponting at his peak was an unstoppable force. He virtually decimated bowling attacks across the world. He also had the uncanny knack of coming good on big occasions. Indians would well remember his century in the 2003 world cup finals. He also captained his team to multiple world cup victories and by the virtue of it would also be the captain of this team. Many also regarded him to the best fielder in his time – quite an achievement considering that his career overlapped with Jonty Rhodes. Lara was a close contender for this number 3 slot.

4. AB De Villiers: Another personal favorite. In my mind ( and in the minds of a lot of other cricket fans ), this man is the most complete batsman of all time. He is still not spoken about in the same breadth as a Tendulkar or a Richards but i believe cricket historians will judge him much better. His fielding is no less brilliant and he can genuinely claim to a successor of Jonty Rhodes. ABD along with Ponting would be the fielding lynchpins of the team.

5. Michael Bevan: This was a tough one and may surprise people especially when the shortlist consisted the likes of Virat Kohli. I was very tempted to go for Kohli but finally settled for Bevan. Bevan at one point of time had an atrociously high batting average – yes even better than Tendulkar. He used to bat at 5/6 relentlessly accumulating of runs in the middle over at a brisk pace and was the original king of finishes. He was also very good in batting with the tail and won many matches for Australia.

6. Shakib Al Hasan: I wanted to have atleast one all-rounder with spin bowling capabilities. The choices available were Afridi, Jayasurya, Shoaib Malik and Shakib. Shakib is a much better bowler than Jayasurya and Shoaib Malik and while he may not be as explosive a batsman as Jayasurya and Afridi, he certainly is a lot more consistent and reliable as compared to the other two. He also has played in the middle order most of his career as compared to Afridi and Jayasurya who has their best days as openers. With respect to Malik, while both Shakib & Malik bring similar value in terms of bat, Shakib’s ability to be both a  wicket taker and a containing bowler gives him an edge over Malik.

7. Lance Klusener: Lance Klusener was the man of the tournament in the 1999 World Cup held in England. He was an explosive hitter and had he played a generation later he would have been the toast of T20 leagues. He was also an effective bowler and could have walked into most teams for either of his skill sets. His presence in this team adds considerable balance by providing the team a genuine hard-hitting batsman at 7 and his bowling abilities give the team a valuable 6th option who could bowl 10 overs if needed. This too was a tough call considering that the shortlist had the likes of Shane Watson, Jacques Kallis and Chris Cairns. I just feel that Lance Klusener is suited more for a # 7 position rather than a Watson who would be better off opening or a Kallis at 3/4. While Cairns could be as entertaining as Klusener and was of similar bowling abilities, I believe that Klusener’s batting had that extra additionally explosiveness that gave him an edge over Cairns.

8. Shaun Pollock: Shaun Pollock opened the bowling for South Africa for a number of years and was known to be extremely measly with conceding runs while having the knack of taking wickets regularly. His bowling is good enough for him to walk into the team as the main bowler and hence having him in this team as a the first change bowler adds a lot of heft to the bowling. He can also come back in the death overs and keep things tight. In addition to this he was quite a handy bat and could wield the long handle to good effect when required. Flintoff was a close contender but i think Pollock is a much superior bowler and hence the right pick for number 8.

9. Wasim Akram: As stated in the earlier post on the test XI, Akram is probably the greatest left arm fast bowler of all time. He had a wide variety of deliveries including a deadly yorker and was virtually unplayable when he was at his best. He was instrumental in Pakistan lifting the 1992 World Cup and had a fairly successful stint as a captain. He was also a decent bat and more than accomplished to strike a few long blows at # 9. Mitchell Johnson and Chaminda Vaas were other contenders for the left armer slot but Akram is streets ahead.

10. Shane Warne: He along with Murali were by far the best spinners in the time period considered. I have a preference for leg spin and hence he gets the cut over Murali.

11. Glenn McGrath: By far the meanest of all bowlers who played in this area. At his best he regularly took the best batsman of the opposite team early. His record against both Lara and Tendulkar are exemplary.  His presence was an important element of the all-conquering Aussie team of the late 1990’s and 2000s.

Like the test XI, I will come up with a follow on post selecting a XI purely on basis of statistics.