Thursday 25 April 2013

How good was Gayle's demolition of Pune

Chris Gayle, picture from RCB's Flickr stream
Chris Gayle played one of the most incredible innings on Tuesday night. His 175* (66) broke all sorts of records, both for the IPL and for t20 and cricket in general.

He is without question an incredible player, and is an absolute phenomenon in the IPL.

But how good was that innings in the context of the rest of the IPL? I heard some people say that it was meaningless, because the pitches and grounds in India are so easy to score runs on, and the bowlers in the IPL aren't up to much. I heartily disagree with both of these statements, but the only real way to look at the innings is to look at how others have gone in similar conditions.

To do this I'm using my modified batting index for each innings. This system rewards scoring runs, and being not out, but adjusts it for the number of deliveries faced. To put these scores in context an index of 100 would be 70*(49) or 60(33). It doesn't take into account the context of the match, so there can be some high scores that cost a team, and low ones that win a match, but I think it's better than just looking at the runs scored or the strike rate by themselves.

Here's the top 20 innings in the IPL so far this year:

NameScoreForAgainstAtIndex
CH Gayle 175* (66)RCB Warriors Bangalore 464.02
V Kohli 93* (47)RCB Sunrisers Bangalore 184.02
SR Watson 101 (61)Royals Super Kings Chennai 158.95
V Sehwag 95* (57)Daredevils Mum Indians Delhi 158.33
DA Miller 80* (41)Kings XI Warriors Mohali 156.1
CH Gayle 92* (58)RCB Mum Indians Bangalore 145.93
KD Karthik 86 (48)Mum Indians Daredevils Mumbai 145.13
CH Gayle 85* (50)RCB KKR Bangalore 144.5
MEK Hussey 88 (51)Super Kings Royals Chennai 143.22
MEK Hussey 86* (54)Super Kings Kings XI Mohali 136.96
RG Sharma 62* (32)Mum Indians Warriors Mumbai 120.13
AB de Villiers 64 (32)RCB Super Kings Chennai 118
RG Sharma 73 (43)Mum Indians Daredevils Delhi 115.44
RG Sharma 74* (50)Mum Indians Daredevils Mumbai 109.52
Mandeep Singh 77* (58)Kings XI Warriors Mohali 102.22
AB de Villiers 31 (8)RCB Warriors Bangalore 100.75
DA Warner 77 (56)Daredevils Royals Delhi 99
LJ Wright 34 (10)Warriors Kings XI Mohali 98.6
SPD Smith 39* (16)Warriors Super Kings Chennai 95.06
EJG Morgan 47 (21)KKR Sunrisers Kolkata 94

There's a significant distance between Gayle and the next best innings.

Another way to look at it is to look at what percentage of Gayle's index each innings got. Here's the top 10:

NameScoreGayle points
CH Gayle 175* (66)100
V Kohli 93* (47)40
SR Watson 101 (61)34
V Sehwag 95* (57)34
DA Miller 80* (41)34
CH Gayle 92* (58)31
KD Karthik 86 (48)31
CH Gayle 85* (50)31
MEK Hussey 88 (51)31
MEK Hussey 86* (54)30

How about how it stacks up against all T20 innings anywhere:

NameScoreForAgainstAtIndex
CH Gayle 175* (66)RCB Warriors Bangalore 464.02
LP van der Westhuizen 145 (50)Namibia Kenya Windhoek 406
GR Napier 152* (58)Essex Sussex Chelmsford 398.34
BB McCullum 158* (73)KKR RCB Bangalore 341.97
CL White 141* (70)Somerset Worcs Worcester 284.01
A Symonds 112 (43)Kent Middlesex Maidstone 278.7
M Vijay 127 (56)Super Kings Royals Chennai 276.68
ST Jayasuriya 114* (48)Mum Indians Super Kings Mumbai 270.75
SB Styris 100* (37)Sussex Gloucs Hove 270.27
RE Levi 117* (51)South Africa New Zealand Hamilton 268.41
CG Williams 116 (48)Namibia Scotland Windhoek 268.25
CH Gayle 128* (62)RCB Daredevils Delhi 264.26
DA Warner 135* (69)NSW Super Kings Chennai 264.13
H Davids 112* (48)Cape Cobras Warriors Cape Town 261.33
KJ O'Brien 119 (52)Gloucs Middlesex Uxbridge 260.88
Ahmed Shehzad 113* (49)Barisal Rajshahi Dhaka 260.59
A Symonds 117* (53)Chargers Royals Hyderabad (Deccan) 258.28
YK Pathan 100 (37)Royals Mum Indians Mumbai (BS) 256.76
CL White 116* (53)Somerset Gloucs Taunton 253.89
AC Gilchrist 109* (47)Chargers Mum Indians Mumbai 252.79

And then the "Gayle Points" for the top 20 innings of all time:

NameScoreGayle points
CH Gayle 175* (66)100
LP van der Westhuizen 145 (50)87
GR Napier 152* (58)86
BB McCullum 158* (73)74
CL White 141* (70)61
A Symonds 112 (43)60
M Vijay 127 (56)60
ST Jayasuriya 114* (48)58
SB Styris 100* (37)58
RE Levi 117* (51)58
CG Williams 116 (48)58
CH Gayle 128* (62)57
DA Warner 135* (69)57
H Davids 112* (48)56
KJ O'Brien 119 (52)56
Ahmed Shehzad 113* (49)56
A Symonds 117* (53)56
YK Pathan 100 (37)55
CL White 116* (53)55
AC Gilchrist 109* (47)54

How good was Gayle's innings? It was about 14% better than the next best innings ever. That's how good it was.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

24 IPL moneyball players, and one other

The IPL is almost here, and a lot of people will be playing the fantasy competitions.

I've been working on developing a "Moneyball" type system of analyzing cricket statistics to make sensible predictions about how well players will go at the next level. My system is not nearly finished, but I've used some of the things that I've learned to have a look at some of the players who I didn't know much about in the IPL.

As the system isn't completed yet, I can't give too much justification, other than to say here are the players:

NameTeam
Imtiaz AhmedCSK
Ankit RajpootCSK
Manprit JunejaDD
Kedar JadhavDD
Sidarth KaulDD
Shahbaz NadeemDD
Pawan NegiDD
Siddharth ChitnisKXIP
Debabrata DasKKR
Iqbal AbdullaKKR
Laxmi ShuklaKKR
Amitoze SinghMI
Yuzvendra ChahalMI
Sushant MaratheMI
Stuart BinnyRR
Ajit ChandilaRR
Mayank AgarawalRCB
Arun KarthikRCB
Karun NairRCB
Vijay ZolRCB
Anand RajanSH
Sachin RanaSH
Eklavya DwivediPWI
Ali MurtazaPWI


There is one other player that I would add into the list as players who I think might succeed, and that's Harmeet Singh from Rajastan Royals. I add him in, because I saw him play, and thought he was phenomenal, despite his numbers not being particularly impressive.

A number of these players my never play a game, but those that do are probably going to be worth watching. They have all shown (to me) that they are likely to be able to step up and succeed at the next level.