The greatest ever wicket keeping batsman.

The first article that I wrote that garnered any attention was a look at Matt Prior's career as a wicket-keeper batsman, and to see how he stacked up against some of the greats: Gilchrist, Flower and Ames. It had about 200 reads, until Jarrod Kimber tweeted out a link to it, and then it had about 1000, doubling the total number of reads that my blog had had up until that point. Then there was a rain break in the England vs India test, and one of the Cricinfo commentators decided to link to the article with "here's something to look at while you wait for the rain to clear." I was swamped. About 24000 people read that article in the next 4 hours, and my little project blog became something that people started to read.

I also included a brief comparison with MS Dhoni, which got me a couple of death threats, for daring to suggest that Prior was better than Dhoni. (My favourite was "I'm going to come to England and burn your house down, you biased English." - not particularly concerning at the time, as I lived on the opposite side of the world from England).

I'm going to attempt to play with fire again, and re-look at the question.

Over the past 6 months, I've given up my job, and gone back to university to study statistics. This post is in part me attempting to use some of the tools that I've learned in that process.

One thing that comes up when discussing this, is how difficult it is to bat and keep, and if it's easier to bat with the tail, or with at the top of the order.

To try to answer those questions, I took some information for a few keepers, and had a go at running some models on them. The list of keepers that I've looked at is: Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara, Andy Flower, Matt Prior, Brendon McCullum, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mushfiqur Rahim, Alec Stewart and BJ Watling. Initially, I also looked at Clyde Walcott and Les Ames, but it was difficult to get some of the information to build the models for them, so I've left them out. I'm only looking at batting. This is comparing the batting of players who kept wickets.

The variables that I looked at were as follows:
1. Average of partnerships when they came to the wicket. For example if a player came to the crease at 20/4, this was 5, if they came to the wicket at 380/2 it was 190. For opening batsmen I used 21, as this is the median opening partnership, so it is a reasonable expectation of how difficult it is to bat.
2. How many balls have passed. If the player comes to the wicket in the 51st over, it's likely to be different conditions to coming to the wicket in the 3rd over.
3. Are they the designated keeper or not. For some players, being the designated keeper hurts their batting, but for others it has the opposite effect.

I then split the data into two randomly, created the most parsimonious model that I could with half of one particular batsman's data, and then tested it on the other half of the data. I repeated this 100 times, then took the average coefficients from the 10 models that tested the best.

There are possibly better options for how to do this, but it seemed to return reasonably sensible results.

The next thing that I did was to apply those models to a number of different scenarios, some as a keeper, and some as a batsman.

That resulted in the following graph:



The answer to the question, based on these models, is quite comprehensively Andy Flower. If you're wanting to select another one, as a pure batsman Sangakkara is your man. If you want someone to bat in a crisis, then Gilchrist is the second best option, but to grind the opposition into the dust, after, Flower, you would want BJ Watling.

I quite like the idea of thinking about players based on situations, rather than overall averages. There is certainly more options that I could look at to build the model, including controlling for opposition and location. But for now this is an interesting look at a difficult problem.

Mini-session Analysis First Test India vs Australia, Chepauk, 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between India and Australia at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	Australia 64/1 off 14.3	Australia
1-1b	Australia 62/1 off 19.3	Australia
1-2a	Australia 38/3 off 17	India
1-2b	Australia 51/0 off 15	Australia
1-3a	Australia 56/0 off 15	Australia
1-3b	Australia 45/2 off 14	India
2-1a	Australia 32/0 off 17	Australia
2-1b	Australia 32/3 off 21	India
2-2a	India 34/2 off 10	Australia
2-2b	India 50/0 off 12	India
2-3a	India 51/1 off 14	India
2-3b	India 47/0 off 16	India
3-1a	India 21/1 off 13	Australia
3-1b	India 60/0 off 14	India
3-2a	India 75/1 off 13	India
3-2b	India 33/1 off 13	Australia
3-3a	India 82/2 off 24	India
3-3b	India 62/0 off 12	India
4-1a	India 57/2 off 13.3	India
4-1b	Australia 34/1 off 16	India
4-2a	Australia 32/2 off 16	India
4-2b	Australia 62/2 off 17	India
4-3a	Australia 47/4 off 16.5	India
4-3b	Australia 57/0 off 18.1	Australia
5-1a	Australia 9/1 off 9	India
	India 50/2 off 11.2

Final update, click here
India win the match by 8 wickets and the mini-session count 16 - 9

First drinks, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 1-0

As there had not been a drinks break recorded, I decided the half way point in the session was after the fall of the wicket. Cowan and Warner were making an effort to keep the pressure on the bowlers. There's always a risk when you do that that you're going to either walk past one, or hit one straight to a fielder. Cowan did the former and as a result has looked like a bit of an idiot, but it was really a sensible risk to take. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 2-0

Australia lost a couple of wickets in succession, but they generally did well and stayed positive. If they had gone into their shells, and not looked to keep the scoreboard ticking over, the Indian bowlers may well have really tied them down. This match really rests on how well the Australian batsmen cope with the threat offered by India's trio of spinners. So far they have done quite well. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 2-1

It appears that Australia's batsmen haven't really handled India's spinners very well at all. Well, at least one of them. While Jadeja has been tight he hasn't threatened much. Harbhajan Singh has - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 3-1

Moises Henriques has managed to bat through more than an hour of difficult conditions with his captain on debut. He needs 34 more runs to have the highest ever score by a Portuguese-born test cricketer.

I've heard that the average first innings here is 285. Regardless of that, this feels like a very good partnership. At 164/5 Australia were looking very shaky, but they now are close to a score that keeps the game alive. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 4-1

This is turning out to be another epic middle order partnership for Australia. Apparently the loss of Michael Hussey hasn't stopped this trend continuing. Australia are in the lead, but the 4-1 mini-session count isn't really indicative of the balance of the match, it feels more like 3-2. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 4-2

What an innings from Clarke. He has managed to carry Australia from the brink of disaster through to a respectable score. If he can put on another 85 runs with the tail, then Australia will be in a very strong position. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 6-5

A much better day for India. They managed to knock off Australia's tail before lunch, and then have made steady progress with the bat. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 2: The mini-session count is tied up, 6-6

India are have shown a touch of the old and the new with these two partnerships. First it was Pujara and Tendulkar, then Tendulkar and Kohli. The three of them have restored the balance in the match. Australia are still probably slightly ahead, but this match could go either way tomorrow. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 7-6

A great period of pressure cricket from Australia. They managed to get rid of Tendulkar, and kept India to only about 2 an over. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 3: The mini-session count is tied up, 7-7

There's an old adage that batsmen should give the first hour to the bowlers, but they should make the most of the rest of the day. The Indian batsmen seem to have followed that advice. They were very defensive in the first hour, but then Dhoni and Kohli went mad and played like it was an ODI match. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 3: The mini-session count is tied up, 8-8

Very good aggressive batting from India. They are giving themselves a genuine opportunity in this match now. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 3: India lead the mini-session count 10-8

Australia came back good right after tea picking up two wickets before drinks but after that it was one way traffic as MS Dhoni switched gears and went into his T20 rampage mode to help put on 109* runs in just 25.4 overs with Bhuvneshwar Kumar who did his part and kept the ball out contributing 16 runs to the partnership. - poshin_david

First drinks, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 11-8

An outstanding tail-wag from India have got them into a completely dominant position. The match was quite close when the 8th wicket fell. 166 runs later the match had only 2 possible outcomes: an Indian victory or a draw.

Dhoni has occasionally won man-of-the-match awards at home matches for seemingly spurious reasons. If he doesn't win it from here someone else would have had to have put in an absolutely magnificent performance. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 12-8

It was looking like a positive start from Australia, until the last ball before lunch, when Warner departed. The match is starting to head quickly India's way. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 13-8

The vultures are starting to circle the Australia team. While their bowlers are decent with the bat in home conditions, tail-enders are often significantly worse away than at home. Top order players from outside of Asia have averaged better in Asia than anywhere else in the past 5 years. However tail-enders in the last 5 years have averaged worse in Asia than anywhere else. Australia need to bat 3 of the 4 remaining sessions with their top 6. However they've already lost 3 of them. They need a very big partnership now. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 14-8

Australia's hopes are resting on the broad shoulders of Michael Clarke. They had a big partnership between these two batsmen in the first innings, and Australia will be hoping for a repeat dose. There is very little hope after Henriques. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 15-8

The taking of a drinks break seems a little optimistic about the length of match remaining. Henriques will be looking for another 3 runs to become the top scorer in the innings. Nathan Lyon is capable of batting on a green top, but I'm not sure that his technique is as suited to a crumbling wicket. Australia need 17 more runs to make India have to bat again. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 15-9

What a fantastic partnership. Another 40 or so runs tomorrow and this is game on. More realistically there will be a wicket fall early and the the Indian batsmen will probably knock off the runs for the loss of 2 wickets. - Mykuhl

End of match, Day 5: India take the mini-session count 16-9

See previous comment. :-)

This was a commanding victory for India, but there were still some positives for Australia. Clarke and Henriques looked good, as did Pattinson and Lyon. But Australia still have a big mountain to climb. - Mykuhl

Mini-session Analysis 1st Test Ind NZ Hyderabad 2012

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between India and New Zealand at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, India

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

MS Dhoni said before the match that their aim was to win the most mini-sessions, because the team that does that normally wins the match. His team certainly executed his plan.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	India 65/1 off 13	India
1-1b	India 32/1 off 12	New Zealand
1-2a	India 39/1 off 15	New Zealand
1-2b	India 46/0 off 14	India
1-3a	India 75/1 off 16	India
1-3b	India 50/1 off 17	draw
2-1a	India 26/0 off 12	India
2-1b	India 38/0 off 9	India
2-2a	India 41/2 off 15	New Zealand
2-2b	India 26/3 off 11.3	New Zealand
2-3a	New Zealand 39/3 off 14	India
2-3b	New Zealand 45/1 off 19	India
2-3c	New Zealand 22/1 off 9	India
3-1	New Zealand 53/5 off 19.3	India
3-2	New Zealand 41/1 off 18	India
4-1a	New Zealand 30/0 off 14	New Zealand
4-1b	New Zealand 21/0 off 11	draw
4-2a	New Zealand 30/2 off 14	India
4-2b	New Zealand 24/3 off 16	India
4-3a	New Zealand 18/4 off 6.5	India

Final update here. India win the match by an innings and 115 runs. The win the mini-session count 13-5

Lunch, Day 1: The mini-session count is level at 1-1

New Zealand really missed a trick in the morning session. They dropped Sehwag twice, and left a gap for him to score at 3rd man, allowing him to score 24 of his 47 runs to that spot.

However despite that, the first session was quite even. Boult again looked dangerous. He is turning into a very handy bowler.

Middle drinks, Day 1: NZ lead the mini-session count 2-1

Trent Bould bowled Tendulkar. In his 5 matches, his victims now include Gayle, Kallis, Gambhir, Tendulkar and Michael Hussey. It seems that the better the batsman, the more they struggle with Boult.

Tea, Day 1: The mini-session count is level at 2-2

Kohli and Pujara have put together a great partnership here. New Zealand will want at least one more wicket before the new ball.

Post tea drinks, Day 1: India lead the mini-session count 3-2

Two more dropped catches in that session. The Kohli-Pujara partnership was fantastic. New Zealand will be very frustrated with this match. They have played some good cricket, and yet are behind in the match.

Stumps, Day 1: India lead the mini-session count 3-2

It was a day of missed chances for New Zealand, and yet they are still well in this match. Boult bowled very well, as did Jeetan Patel, although with very little luck. The 4 bowlers who took wickets all had at least one catch dropped off their bowling, so all can feel a little unlucky.

The star of the day, however is Cheteshwar Pujara. His 119* so far has been head and shoulders ahead of any of the other Indian batsmen. It wasn't quite chanceless, but the one half chance that he did offer up was still after he'd scored more than anyone else managed.

Tomorrow there is likely to be some good cloud cover, which, when combined with a two paced pitch, should make for tricky batting conditions.

Tea, Day 2: India lead the mini-session count 5-4

Due to my TV dying, I've been unable to watch much of this day, but Kruger van Wyk seems to have pulled off one of the stumpings that he made his name with. The partnership between Dhoni and Pujara threatened to take the game away from New Zealand, but in the end 438 is a fair score, but not much more. In the last 6 first class matches at this ground, at least one of the first innings have scored more than 400, so it's about what would be expected.

How the New Zealand batsmen go about building their innings now that Hesson is in charge will be interesting.

Stumps, Day 3: India lead the mini-session count 10-4

New Zealand are in a lot of trouble.

While India are dominating the match, I don't think that the difference between the teams has been quite as great as the scorecard would indicate. There have been number of 50-50 decisions by the umpires, and only one of them has gone to New Zealand's favour. India have also had the luxury of having a lot of men round the bat. It's a luxury that their batsmen purchased for them.

Ashwin and Ojha really made the most of the advantage that their batsmen gave them, and looked more dangerous than I've seen either of them before. Ashwin bowled one of the best deliveries I've seen to Chirs Martin. That was really a waste, as he could have probably gotten out Martin without needing such a good delivery. He should really have saved his best for when he's bowling to someone who is good against spin, like Misbah-ul-Haq or Darren Bravo.

First drinks, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 10-5

Good work from McCullum and Williamson. McCullum has really gone into his shell here. He has quite a poor record when he defends. In innings where he has a strike rate of less than 45 he's never scored a 50. In his career he's only batted more than 150 balls 8 times, so to face 92 balls for only 31 runs is certainly not batting according to his normal script. If these two put together a very large partnership it could be the start of a very good period in McCullum's career.

Lunch, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 10-6

McCullum and Williamson are still there, and have batted through the entire session. Realistically they need to bat for another session before New Zealand start to look even marginally likely to draw the match.

Second session drinks, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 11-5

The umpire strikes back. Brendan McCullum was out bat before wicket, then Ross Taylor left one that bowled him. Still, the Indian bowlers put a lot of pressure on the batsmen, and created the situation where the umpire had to make a decision.

Williamson is still looking solid. This is the 7th time he has faced more than 100 deliveries, in only his 27th innings.

Tea, Day 4: India lead the mini-session count 12-5.

Ashwin and Ohja have continued to weave a web of mystery over the New Zealand lower order. Dhoni made a fantastic change bringing in Raina for an over to Williamson. The lack of overspin seemed to unsettle him. The next over Ojha came back in and got out Williamson immediately.

End of match: India win the mini-session count 13-5

A complete thrashing. New Zealand went from 98/1 to 164 all out. 9 wickets for 66 runs. The innings was typified by the dismissal of Doug Bracewell. He was beaten by a good ball, edged it. The catch was grounded by Kohli, but Bracewell didn't notice, and walked off in a hurry. If he had stayed around, he might have been given not out, but he had given up. Ashwin and Ojha were too good, and New Zealand were awful, despite good, fighting knocks from Guptill, McCullum and Williamson.

New Zealand will need to make an enormous improvement in order to level up the series in the second match.

Has Andre Russell replaced MS Dhoni as the best closer in ODI's

I watched Andre Russell's batting in the third ODI in St Kitts with some interest. The person sitting next to me in the press box had mentioned that he rated Russell, and so naturally I looked up his numbers. They were impressive; so I wanted to see what he could do. On a pitch where none of his team mates scored over 20, he got 42* off 24 balls. The next match he got 29 off 16, followed by the latest 59* off 40. He has now scored over 20 at better than a run a ball in eight of his last 11 innings.

To put this in context, there have been 5148 innings by batsmen batting at number 6 or lower in the last 3 years, and 407 of them have been over 20 at a strike rate of 100 or more. This is slightly under 8%, so a batsman doing this in 73% of his recent innings is remarkable. To put it in further context Dhoni's managed it only 3 times in his last 11, and two of those were not batting at 6 or lower.

It made me wonder if he had actually overtaken Dhoni as the most effective lower order batsman in the world. So I looked at all batsmen in the last 3 years who had batted at 6 or lower at least 15 times. The results were surprising.

I have sorted them by batting index, which I believe is the best way to compare batsmen in limited overs cricket. For more info on batting index click here.

Name	Innings	Runs	Average	Strike rate	Index
JEC Franklin (NZ)	15	447	55.87	88.33	49.36
AD Russell (WI)	21	586	36.62	123.62	45.28
DJ Hussey (Aus)	22	747	43.94	98.03	43.08
MS Dhoni (India)	30	903	50.16	78.72	39.49
MEK Hussey (Aus)	28	894	40.63	94.80	38.52
YK Pathan (India)	18	470	31.33	119.89	37.57
Umar Akmal (Pak)	31	992	41.33	84.93	35.11
SK Raina (India)	37	1034	35.65	97.73	34.85
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	56	1357	26.09	130.10	33.95
MG Johnson (Aus)	32	484	25.47	112.29	28.61
KA Pollard (WI)	36	1019	29.97	92.72	27.79

The surprise was first that Franklin was at the top. I knew that Franklin had performed well at the lower levels. I knew that he had improved a lot as a batsman. But I did not expect him to have a batting index of 49.36 or an average of 55.87. Secondly I genuinely expected that Dhoni would be well clear of the pack, with only potentially Angelo Mathews and Andre Russell near him. To see Dhoni in 4th and Mathews all the way down in 14th place was a surprise.

Russell is right near the top. To average 36.62 while striking at over 120 is really very impressive.

Russell has been particularly good in the first innings in matches, taking his team to big scores after they had been in some trouble. A lot of lower order players do much better when chasing a score than setting a target, but not Andre. Here are his numbers sorted by innings:

	Innings	Runs	Average	Strike Rate	Batting Index
1st Innings	12	327	40.87	135.68	55.46
2nd Innings	9	259	32.38	111.16	35.99

There is a significant difference, but his batting index in the 2nd innings is still better than Jacques Kallis' career figure.

I had to modify my normal criteria of 15 innings when comparing his first innings stats, as he has only played 12, so these numbers are less significant, but here is how he stacks up against all lower order batsmen (6-11) in ODI's: (minimum 12 innings)

Name	Runs	Average	S/R	Index
AD Russell (WI)	327	40.87	135.68	55.46
MEK Hussey (Aus)	2128	50.66	96.28	48.79
MG Bevan (Aus)	2207	55.17	81.02	44.7
M Azharuddin (India)	352	44	96.17	42.32
DJ Hussey (Aus)	589	39.26	106.31	41.75
L Klusener (SA)	1204	46.3	88.07	40.79
OA Shah (Eng)	546	42	95.62	40.16
DS Lehmann (Aus)	401	40.1	98.28	39.41
YK Pathan (India)	325	32.5	119.48	38.83
MS Dhoni (Asia/India)	1412	41.52	88.91	36.93

Here again Russell shines. It is important to note that he has not played many innings yet, and so bowlers have not got much information yet on what causes him to struggle. Inevitably there is a fluctuation in most players figures. First they are unstoppable, then they get figured out (known as second season syndrome). Then, if they are good enough, they learn how to adapt their game and come back better than before. Their opponents then figure out a new weakness, and the cycle continues. Often fluctuations in "form" are as much down to the ball being bowled in a different place as they are about the batsman not being on his game.

But regardless of how small the sample size is, the numbers are still very impressive. Averaging over 40 at a strike rate over 130 is quite frankly ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as him batting at number 9 for the West Indies. However I see Gibson's dilemma there: if Russell is winning games at 9, why move him?

It is still early days in his career, but they are promising signs. Andre Russell is certainly a man to watch in when he has the bat in his hands.

ODI team of the year

Well, it wouldn't be the end of the year, without people naming a team of the year.

Here is my attempt at ODI team of the year:

Method:
For batsmen I broke down the players into openers, top order and lower/middle order players.
I then looked at all batsmen's results batting in these positions throughout the year, giving a bonus for world cup matches and for games against harder opposition. I created a points system that took in account their runs scored, their wickets lost and their deliveries faced. The higher the score the better.

Openers:

Sehwag & Watson

Name	Matches	Runs	Average	Strike rate	Points
V Sehwag	12	645	53.75	122.58	133.432
SR Watson	22	1124	59.15	92.35	108.154
SR Tendulkar	11	513	46.63	91.98	99.282
HM Amla	15	632	45.14	87.67	73.667
MJ Guptill	16	650	54.16	68.58	73.338

Somewhat unsurprising, given that they have both dominated this year. Tendulkar was a close 3rd.

Top Order

de Villiers, Clark & Taylor

Name	Matches	Runs	Average	Strike rate	Points
AB de Villiers	10	467	51.88	108.28	113.889
LRPL Taylor	17	561	51.00	87.09	86.13
MJ Clarke	24	900	56.25	91.01	81.247
Yuvraj Singh	11	381	42.33	89.78	80.421
IJL Trott	28	1246	51.91	80.84	77.224
V Kohli	31	1349	49.96	81.49	76.953
KC Sangakkara	26	1127	51.22	83.78	75.762
G Gambhir	15	562	40.14	85.09	74.575
JP Duminy	13	523	47.54	87.61	70.696

This was a little more interesting. I was quite surprised bu Clarke's numbers, as I hadn't remembered him having such a good season. By the same token Kohli had an amazing season, but missed out.

Lower/Middle order

Dhoni & Duminy

Name	Matches	Runs	Average	Strike rate	Points
MS Dhoni	23	759	63.25	81.69	100.227
JP Duminy	11	451	50.11	100.00	79.152
KJ O'Brien	12	324	29.45	125.31	77.566
Umar Akmal	28	785	41.31	86.95	62.378
Misbah-ul-Haq	20	545	45.41	73.80	61.635
DJ Hussey	16	342	38.00	152.94	61.583
KA Pollard	20	528	31.05	151.26	57.963
YK Pathan	12	271	27.10	121.15	53.221
MEK Hussey	14	347	38.55	93.24	51.55
EJG Morgan	15	384	29.53	85.71	51.297
F du Plessis	13	288	28.80	84.12	50.829

Initally I was going to have this and wicket-keeper as separate sections, but given that Dhoni came first as a batsman and there is not a lot of point in having two wicket keepers, it's better to take an extra batsman. JP Duminy just edges out Kevin O'Brien, but O'Brien is an obvious choice for 12th man, as he can contribute with the bat or the ball. And because I like his style of play.

Bowlers.

Quantifying the records for bowlers is not as easy as batsmen. I again created a measure that valued dot balls and wickets, and put a higher value on performances in the World Cup and in matches against good teams. The lower the points the better.

Name	Matches	Wickets	Average	Economy	Points
DW Steyn	14	25	18.50	4.41	19.78
RJ Peterson	9	18	21.15	4.74	20.51
M Morkel	14	26	17.73	4.41	21.26
Shahid Afridi	27	45	25.65	4.35	21.76
Wahab Riaz	13	23	20.77	5.32	22.51
TG Southee	13	25	22.85	5.00	22.56
JDP Oram	12	23	23.88	4.71	23.13
SL Malinga	24	48	23.13	4.89	23.46
B Lee	19	33	23.03	4.62	23.47
Z Khan	14	30	23.75	5.08	23.64
M Muralitharan	11	17	22.35	4.22	23.81
BAW Mendis	14	17	24.13	4.46	25.15
HK Bennett	10	17	26.61	5.73	26.09
Mohammad Hafeez	32	32	24.06	3.43	26.64

There are a couple of interesting names here. Mohammad Hafeez misses out due to not taking many wickets in the World Cup. Perhaps this is a weakness in my system, as he was really one of the outstanding bowlers of the year. Peterson likewise only played 2 games outside the world cup, and went at about 6 an over in those matches. But he had a fantastic World Cup and it is fair that a player gets a bonus for performing at the highest stage.

The final team:

Sehwag
Watson
de Villiers
Taylor
Clarke
Duminy
Dhoni
Shahid Afridi
Peterson
Morkel
Steyn

12th man O'Brien

How does your team look?

Quick preview 2nd Test Eng vs Ind

Just a couple of things that I notices, and a bit of quick tips for the gamblers out there.

Trent Bridge has been cruel on openers over the last few years, but it has produced lots of runs for batsmen batting at number 7.

Dhoni also has a great record in the second test of a series.

I'd look at Dhoni to score more than 40 here. I'd also look at Pietersen to do badly here, as he normally follows up a big score with a number of low ones.

I'd look closely at Prior to be the top scorer for England, and also for Dravid to be the top scorer for India, as he has good technique, and tends to shine on difficult pitches.

Does keeping influence batting?

My post a month and a bit ago about Matt Prior has generated a significant amount of interest, including one specific comment that I would like to address.

Unfortunately the poster was anonymous, but they recommended Sangakkara as the greatest wicket-keeper batsman, pointing out that he batted at number 3 and often had to come into bat in the first 5 overs. It made me wonder just how hard batting after keeping was. So I had a look at some stats...

I found 5 players who have played at least 10 innings as keeper and non-keeper: Here are their averages:

Name	Inngs keeping	Avg keeping	Inngs not keeping	Avg not keeping
AJ Stewart	145	34.92	90	46.70
KC Sangakkara	81	40.48	81	72.75
AC Parore	109	26.94	19	22.70
A Flower	100	53.70	12	35.45
BB McCullum	85	34.77	12	55.18

The last three in the list probably don't give us enough information to be able to say too much, although both Flower and Parore are curious in that they averaged better when keeping than not keeping. In Parore's case it might have been because he usually batted at 7 or 8 when keeping, and at 3 when not keeping. It also might have been that he was less confident of his place in the side when Lee Germon was the captain, and so did not bat with the same confidence. Another possible explanation was that the matches he didn't keep in were the ones where Glenn Turner was in charge of the team, and his style of coaching might not have suited Parore.

Likewise most of the matches where Flower didn't keep were at the end of his career where there was increasing political tension in Zimbabwe. This was obviously impacting him - and led to the famous black armband incident. (As an aside - Henry Olonga's autobiography, which mentions this incident "Blood Sweat and Treason" is well worth reading.) But he also might have batted better when he got a chance to have a look at a pitch after keeping.

But the overall theme of the statistics is that batsmen bat better when they are not keeping. Sangakkara is particularly astounding. His average of over 70 is impressive, especially as he is such a fluid batsman that all 72.75 of them will have probably flowed in an aesthetically pleasing manner off his bat.

It also goes to underline how fortunate we are to be living in a time with so many great wicket-keeper batsmen. All of Prior, Dhoni, Gilchrist, Flower, McCullum, Sangakkara... have been producing such remarkable numbers that they have transformed the entire position.

Greatest wicketkeeper-batsman?

I noticed that Matt Prior was unbeaten on 73 off 83 overnight in the test match. That leaves him with an average this year of 191.

I've commented in previous posts about how good his activity rate is, and also how good he is at converting a start. But now I wonder how he compares among the greatest wicket-keeper batsmen.

The stats are quite interesting. First here is the overall averages for the last 5 years:

Name	matches	innings	runs	average	strike rate	100's	50's
MJ Prior (Eng)	42	62	2221	44.42	64.58	4	17
MS Dhoni (India)	44	67	2403	40.72	57.37	3	17
BJ Haddin (Aus)	32	54	1905	39.68	58.74	3	8
BB McCullum (NZ)	28	50	1699	36.14	61.64	3	9
HAPW Jayawardene (SL)	33	44	1278	33.63	50.71	3	3
MV Boucher (SA)	45	64	1916	33.03	50.24	1	13
Kamran Akmal (Pak)	30	53	1496	30.53	63.17	2	10
TR Ambrose (Eng)	11	16	447	29.80	46.41	1	3
Mushfiqur Rahim (Ban)	21	41	1116	29.36	44.39	1	6
D Ramdin (WI)	33	57	1136	22.72	49.62	1	6

He sits at the top of this table, with a better average, strike rate and 50-100 conversion rate than Dhoni. (note this is every player who played 15 or more innings as keeper - hence the exclusion of Sangakkara and AB de Villiers as they played mostly as batsmen, and the low numbers for McCullum, who has scored most of his runs as a batsman also)

So how does he compare overall:

Name	years	matches	innings	runs	average	100's	50's
A Flower (Zim)	1992-2002	55	100	4404	53.70	12	23
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	1999-2008	96	137	5570	47.60	17	26
MJ Prior (Eng)	2007-2011	42	62	2221	44.42	4	17
LEG Ames (Eng)	1929-1939	44	67	2387	43.40	8	7
KC Sangakkara (SL)	2000-2008	48	81	3117	40.48	7	11
CL Walcott (WI)	1948-1951	15	24	888	40.36	3	3
MS Dhoni (India)	2005-2011	54	82	2925	40.06	4	20
DT Lindsay (SA)	1964-1970	15	26	1000	40.00	3	4
BJ Haddin (Aus)	2008-2011	32	54	1905	39.68	3	8
AJ Stewart (Eng)	1991-2003	82	145	4540	34.92	6	23
BB McCullum (NZ)	2004-2010	51	85	2782	34.77	5	15

He is a long way behind Flower, who really was in a class of his own, but is fairly close to Gilchrist's average. But sometimes it is a mistake to assume that where somebody is in their career is where they will end up. One thing that is remarkable about Prior is his consistency. Every single year he has played test cricket he has managed to average 40 or higher. This is quite an achievement. To take in account the development of players, I looked at the averages of a number of the great wicket-keeper batsmen to see how well they were going at the point in their careers that Prior is at now.

Here is a list of the great wicket keeper batsmen after 62 innings:

Name	matches	innings	runs	average	strikerate	100's	50's
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	44	62	2940	58.80	82.65	8	16
MJ Prior (Eng)	42	62	2221	44.42	64.58	4	17
A Flower (Zim)	33	62	2145	41.25	41.78	5	12
KC Sangakkara (SL)	38	62	2365	40.77	52.34	6	7
MS Dhoni (Ind)	40	62	2176	40.29	62.24	3	17
LEG Ames (Eng)	41	62	2006	37.84		7	5

*note Les Ames did not have the number of deliveries recorded, but he scored at about 50 runs per hour, during a time when they bowled about 20 overs per hour, so rough strike rate of 85 - similar to Gilchrist.

Two things stand out from this list. One is how high Gilchrist's average is, and the second is how low Flower's average is. It shows quite clearly the difference between them in the end of their careers. Prior sits quite neatly between them, suggesting that he has the potential to join those two players that totally redefined the role of a wicket-keeper batsman.

The bottom name on that list is an interesting one. Les Ames played in a different era, when keepers often came in at number 11, and were not expected to bat well. Wisden wrote at the time of his death that he "was without a doubt the greatest wicketkeeper-batsman the game has so far produced..." He scored runs with an incredible consistency, seventeen times scoring more than 1000 runs in a first class season. If Prior can have anything like Ames' consistency and durability (he played 593 first class matches over 25 years) then his final career record could be something to behold.

How he goes in comparison to Dhoni will also be interesting to watch. Since Dhoni took over the captaincy his average has been constantly rising. Most players don't find captaincy to be helpful with their figures, but here are the averages for players who were both captain and keeper in the match:

Name	matches	innings	runs	average	100's	50's
MS Dhoni (India)	24	34	1503	50.10	3	11
A Flower (Zim)	16	30	1232	49.28	3	7
T Taibu (Zim)	10	20	674	37.44	1	5
AJ Stewart (Eng)	12	24	781	37.19	1	3

To be ahead of Andy Flower in any list is quite an achievement, and it will be interesting to see if Dhoni manages to hold his spot there.