Sunday 29 March 2015

New Zealand vs Australia: Head-to-Head

I've heard a number of commentators say that man-for-man, Australia have better players, but New Zealand is a better team. This strikes me as a peculiar thing to say, given that there's often no analysis included of individual head-to-head.

So I've decided to do it myself, in order to see if there actually is a clear difference, man-for-man.

I've tried to line up the players by role. Both teams have players that do similar roles generally, with only a couple of exceptions.

I'm looking at their world cup so far, as well as their numbers since 1 Jan 2013 in New Zealand and Australia.

Role 1 - Slower opener

PlayerGuptillFinch
WC Average76.0040.00
WC S/R108.7993.64
2 year Average43.0037.00
2 year S/R85.0887.13

Guptill is in better form, but the 2 year numbers are very close. These are two players of similar ability who are both playing good cricket. Both tend to be slow to start, but are capable of increasing their scoring rate once established.

Role 2 - Fast opener

PlayerMcCullumWarner
WC Average41.0050.00
WC S/R191.81124.48
2 year Average38.0040.75
2 year S/R135.02104.21

Again the numbers are very close. Warner has the higher average, but McCullum scores faster. Both are remarkably good at both scoring boundaries and finding singles, but both are prone to hitting bad balls straight to fielders. McCullum has shown a weakness against left-arm spin, so there's a chance that Clarke might bring himself on to bowl early on.

Role 3 - First drop

PlayerWilliamsonSmith
WC Average37.0057.66
WC S/R83.1494.02
2 year Average51.0860.92
2 year S/R85.6494.77

These two players are the best batsman for their team in recent times. Smith is ahead on these numbers, but it's wrong to say that Williamson is a weakness in the New Zealand side. Both manage to score at a good rate without looking like they're trying. Both also have a big impact on their team's chances of succeeding. New Zealand win 45% of the time when Williamson scores under 40 and 62% when he scores 40+. Australia have won 53% of the time when Smith's scored under 40 and 86% when he's scored 40+.

Role 4 - Innings builder

PlayerTaylorClarke
WC Average30.1629.00
WC S/R63.0692.94
2 year Average46.8223.66
2 year S/R79.3080.49

Clarke's had a slightly better world cup, but Taylor has produced more quality innings' over the past 2 years, averaging almost twice what Clarke has. These two are both great players, who often play roles that allow others to shine. As a result, their numbers don't truly tell the story of their contributions. Both players' numbers are also a reflection of their battle with injuries.

Role 5 - rebuild or launch

PlayerElliottWatson
WC Average37.8341.20
WC S/R107.07107.85
2 year Average44.7636.82
2 year S/R94.6394.70

A really interesting role in modern cricket is the number 5 batsman. Their role is sometimes to steady a rocking ship, and other times it's their role to attack, and build on the foundation of the players above them. It is difficult to separate the ability of Watson and Elliott to do this role.

They also both have a role to play with the ball as the extra bowler:

PlayerElliottWatson
WC Average34.0074.00
WC E/R8.5.06.72
2 year Average25.88101.50
2 year E/R6.566.37

Elliott has been more expensive, but has also broken partnerships quite regularly.

Overall, it's really difficult to separate these two with bat and ball. I'd probably back Elliott as a batsman, but Watson with the ball, despite his numbers not being as good.

Role 6 - Agressive batsman

PlayerAndersonMaxwell
WC Average38.5064.80
WC S/R109.47182.02
2 year Average41.7733.42
2 year S/R125.96125.13

One of the dangers of comparing players like Anderson and Maxwell based on statistics is that they are often asked to do different jobs. Against South Africa, Anderson's job was not to come in and score at a massive strike rate. His job was to play sensibly and carry the innings through. Over a longer term it's difficult to separate Anderson and Maxwell. Both are capable of being absolutely breathtaking with the bat.

Both play quite different roles with the ball, so I'll look at them later.

Role 7 - Wicket-keeper batsman.

PlayerRonchiHaddin
WC Average14.6042.00
WC S/R125.86157.50
2 year Average38.8841.11
2 year S/R128.84111.11

Haddin has had a much better world cup, but it would not be difficult to argue that Ronchi has been the most effective death batsman in the world in the past couple of years.

They're also difficult to separate with the gloves. Both are solid keepers who have made a couple of key mistakes, but in general, they've done the job required of them sufficiently.

Role 8 - Bowler who bats

PlayerVettoriFaulkner
WC Average41.0014.66
WC S/R164.00176.00
2 year Average15.6644.25
2 year S/R123.68114.56

Faulkner and Vettori have very different styles, but can both be very effective. Vettori has rediscovered his batting form of 2008-2012 in this world cup, during which time he was one of New Zealand's best batsmen as well as being an outstanding bowler. Contrastingly, Faulkner hasn't found his rhythm since returning from injury.

Role 9 - Right arm opening bowler

PlayerSoutheeHazlewood
WC Average27.1320.85
WC E/R5.574.19
2 year Average28.9720.44
2 year E/R5.534.37

Hazlewood has the advantage here numerically, but some of that is due to Southee having a role bowling at the death. I don't think many selectors would pick Hazlewood over Southee, regardless of the difference in their stats.

Role 10 - left arm opening bowlers

PlayerBoultStarc
WC Average15.7610.20
WC E/R4.413.65
2 year Average22.0914.37
2 year E/R4.584.34

Starc and Boult probably been the two best bowlers in the tournament. They both offer different things. Starc bowls into the pitch with a high arm action that causes the ball to bounce higher, but it also gets less movement and arrives to the batsman later, despite the quicker speed through the air. Boult bowls over his front foot and tends to bowl more deliveries along the wicket than into the wicket. As a result, the ball swings more and arrives at the batsman faster. (Ed Cowan, after facing both, commented that Starc might bowl 5-10km/h faster but you have a lot more time to face the ball. Boult certainly feels faster.)

It's difficult to separate them, but not impossible. Starc has been the premier white ball bowler in the world recently.

Role 11 - 3rd seamer

PlayerHenryJohnson
WC Average-24.66
WC E/R5.005.43
2 year Average19.0025.15
2 year E/R4.265.04

Henry has only bowled 8 overs this world cup, as he wasn't even in New Zealand's original squad. His first 5 overs included 2 maidens and conceded only 9 runs against South Africa. He went the distance in his next 3 overs, but even then, a large proportion of his runs came through edges and mis-hits. Johnson is a master with the red ball, but hasn't had the success recently with the white ball that he had earlier in his career. It's still difficult to complain about an average of 25 and taking a wicket every 5 overs.

Role 12 - 4th seamer

PlayerAndersonFaulkner
WC Average16.2123.00
WC E/R6.454.90
2 year Average22.6926.57
2 year E/R6.425.45

This is a slightly more difficult comparison, as Anderson generally bowls at the death. His economy rate here is outstanding, and he's taken a lot of wickets. However, taking wickets with bad balls isn't necessarily a trait that is repeatable. Faulkner looks like a better bowler, despite his numbers not being quite as dramatic as Anderson's.

Role 13 - Spinner

PlayerVettoriMaxwell
WC Average18.8036.20
WC E/R3.985.83
2 year Average35.1232.91
2 year E/R4.105.24

Vettori is in a different class here. It's probably the only place where there's a clear difference in quality between players doing similar roles in the two teams.

Overall it's really difficult to separate the two teams. Both have a team full of good players in good form. They have players doing similar jobs, often in similar ways.

I don't think I can honestly say at this point which team has better players. The more you look at this match, the more mouth-watering it becomes.

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Updated QF prediction chart

In my previous post I ran a simulation to find out potential quarter-final places. I received some criticism for having England so low, and Bangladesh so high, but events over the past 48 hours have shown that the respective probabilities of the two teams qualifying may not have been so far off.

The program that I wrote to do the simulation was corrupted when my computer crashed and I foolishly hadn't saved it, so I've written a different one to re-calculate. This time I made a couple of modifications. I moved from an additive model for run rates to a multiplicative one, as that seemed to be more sensible (teams are realistically a % better than other teams, rather than a fixed number of runs better. We would expect the margins to blow out more in terms of runs on better batting pitches than on difficult tracks).

I also slightly reduced the standard deviation of the simulation by moving it to one quarter of the mean rather than one third. This again made the results seem more sensible. There were too many teams scoring over 400 or under 100 previously.

Here are the new results. This table shows the probability of each team qualifying in position 1, 2, 3 or 4 in their group, and then the total probability of qualifying. Again I have not factored rain into this, and with Cyclone Pam heading towards New Zealand that may be a little optimistic.

Team1st2nd3rd4thQuarters
New Zealand10001
Australia00.9760.02401
Sri Lanka00.0240.97250.00351
Bangladesh000.00350.99651
------
India10001
South Africa00.9760.02401
Pakistan00.0170.6640.11650.7975
Ireland00.0070.3120.14050.4595
West Indies0000.7430.743

The potential group results look like this:

Group A
NZ Aus SL Ban0.9725
NZ SL Aus Ban0.024
NZ Aus Ban SL0.0035

Group B
Ind SA Pak WI0.5295
Ind SA Ire WI0.1985
Ind SA Pak Ire0.1345
Ind SA Ire Pak0.1135
Ind Pak SA WI0.011
Ind Pak SA Ire0.006
Ind Ire SA WI0.004
Ind Ire SA Pak0.003

The three interesting potential quarter final match-ups to watch for here are

SA vs Aus4.7%
Ind vs SL0.35%
Ire vs Ban0.02%

In reality the probabilities of Ireland vs Bangladesh and Australia vs South Africa are higher, as they are both much more likely if rain starts to fall.

Sunday 8 March 2015

World-cup quarter finals simulation

After Pakistan's tremendous win over South Africa, and Ireland's remarkable victory over Zimbabwe, the make up of the quarter finals is not really much clearer.

They question as to who is likely to be going through, and who will play whom has been the subject of many, many twitter conversations.

I thought it might be helpful to run a simulation to look at some of the possibilities.

I used Microsoft Excel as it's quite convenient. I used the scores already made in this tournament to decide the probable scores. For each team I got their average rpo scored in relation to the overall group run rate, and their average conceded in relation to the overall. Hence if a team in group A averaged scoring 5.5 rpo and conceded 5.3 rpo, they got values of +0.4 for batting and +0.2 for bowling (as the average rpo in group A has been 5.1 so far). From that point I then used an inverse normal, with a random number between 0 and 1 for the area, the group run rate plus the batting run rate modifier and the other team's bowling run rate modifier as the mean. For the standard deviation, I used the smallest of one third of the mean and 1.6. This allowed me to make sure there was (almost) no chance of a team getting a negative score, but that the scores weren't going to blow out too much.  I used 1.6 as that's the standard deviation of all innings run rates this tournament..  This gave me a 50 over score for each team, and so which ever was ahead got the points for the win.

There are a few limitations with this method. I didn't take into account the quality of the teams that each side had faced. England has played Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, but has yet to play Bangladesh or Afghanistan. Their numbers are not going to necessarily show how well they will do against less fancied opponents. Likewise no adjustments were made for the pitch that the match is being played on. We know that South Africa have tended to favour playing on bouncier tracks, so an innings at the 'Gaba won't necessarily tell us much about how they would go in Dunedin. I also haven't taken into account player strengths. Bangladesh's batsmen tend to struggle against tall bowlers, such as Finn and Woakes. England can expect that those two bowlers will perform better than average against Bangladesh, and hence their team is likely to do better than the numbers would suggest.

Another major limitation is that I haven't made provision for rain. That would obviously throw off all calculations. However, given the limited information I felt that a more simple model was best.

I decided to do 2000 trials, so that I could feel that the major source of uncertainly was the assumptions rather than the natural sampling variability.

First I found the probability of the different teams making the quarter finals with my simulation:

TeamProbabiity
New Zealand100%
Australia100%
Sri Lanka99.95%
Bangladesh82.51%
England17.54%
--
India100%
South Africa100%
Pakistan74.71%
Ireland61.82%
West Indies63.47%

We can see that Pool A has one crucial match (England vs Bangladesh)
Pool B, however, is still wide open. Ireland vs Pakistan is the last game of the round robin, and it's shaping up to potentially be one that has 3 team's fortunes riding on the result.

If West Indies make the final 8, they will almost definitely face New Zealand. It's very unlikely that New Zealand will not end up on top of Pool A, and impossible that West Indies will end up 3rd or higher in pool B.

Here's the full results for all possible matchups
Pool APool BProbability
New ZealandPakistan14.99%
New ZealandSouth Africa0.35%
New ZealandIreland21.23%
New ZealandWest Indies63.44%
AustraliaIndia2.30%
AustraliaPakistan43.11%
AustraliaSouth Africa27.57%
AustraliaIreland27.02%
Sri LankaIndia18.18%
Sri LankaPakistan15.83%
Sri LankaSouth Africa53.75%
Sri LankaIreland12.19%
BangladeshIndia64.74%
BangladeshPakistan0.75%
BangladeshSouth Africa15.88%
BangladeshIreland1.15%
EnglandIndia14.79%
EnglandPakistan0.05%
EnglandSouth Africa2.45%
EnglandIreland0.25%

I'll redo this after tomorrow's results, and then again on Monday.

The most likely scenario at the moment is India to play Bangladesh, Australia to play Pakistan, South Africa to play Sri Lanka and New Zealand to play West Indies.

I've updated this here