The Sehwag and Watson show

This week has witnessed a quite remarkable innings. Sehwag has achieved a score of 214 in a One Day International. That's quite a lot of runs. And scored at a good clip too. So how does it compare to other scores this year?

Well obviously he scored more than everybody else, but the nature of ODI's is that just scoring runs is not the only thing. As well as wickets, deliveries are also a vital resource. One way that I like to check on the effective score is to square the runs scored and divide by the deliveries faced. This way someone that scores faster than a run a ball gets benefit, while someone that scores slower gets their score reduced. This allows us to compare innings like 114 off 121 vs 89 off 75. Which is the most effective. 114 x 114 / 121 = 107.40 while 89 x 89 / 75 = 105.61 so the 114 is better, but only a little bit. While this method is not perfect, I think it is quite easy to understand, and is an interesting metric for analysing scores.

So here are the top 20 scores this year, sorted by this method:

Name	Runs	Balls		Effective score
SR Watson (Aus)	185*	96	v Bangladesh at Dhaka	356.51
V Sehwag (India)	219	149	v West Indies at Indore	321.89
V Sehwag (India)	175	140	v Bangladesh at Dhaka	218.75
KJ O'Brien (Ire)	113	63	v England at Bangalore	202.68
AB de Villiers (SA)	134	98	v Netherlands at Mohali	183.22
SR Watson (Aus)	161*	150	v England at Melbourne	172.81
AJ Strauss (Eng)	158	145	v India at Bangalore	172.17
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	65	25	v New Zealand at Christchurch	169.00
KA Pollard (WI)	94	55	v Ireland at Mohali	160.65
TM Dilshan (SL)	144	131	v Zimbabwe at Pallekele	158.29
YK Pathan (India)	105	70	v South Africa at Centurion	157.50
IJL Trott (Eng)	137	126	v Australia at Sydney	148.96
KS Williamson (NZ)	100*	69	v Zimbabwe at Bulawayo	144.93
PR Stirling (Ire)	101	72	v Netherlands at Kolkata	141.68
LRPL Taylor (NZ)	131*	124	v Pakistan at Pallekele	138.40
DPMD Jayawardene (SL)	144	150	v England at Leeds	138.24
BRM Taylor (Zim)	128*	120	v New Zealand at Harare	136.53
RD Berrington (Scot)	56	23	v Ireland at Edinburgh	136.35
PR Stirling (Ire)	113	95	v Scotland at Edinburgh	134.41
KA Pollard (WI)	60	27	v Netherlands at Delhi	133.33

Watson, Sehwag, Pollard and Stirling all have two entries on the list. Interestingly Pollard's century is not there, but two fifties are. Unsurprisingly most of the scores are at grounds that have a history of being batsmen friendly, but Jayawardene's innings was at Heddingly, which has the opposite reputation, so it is to be singled out as being quite an extraordinary innings. The Williamson knock was one that probably passed most people by, but the fascinating thing about that one was the he was on 93 when he faced the final ball of the match. He managed to hit a no ball for 4 and then hit the bonus delivery for 3.