Who should win the NZ cricket awards

I was asked by Tony Veitch to put together some stats for the different awards on offer for the New Zealand Cricket Awards tonight.

I could have just brought up a list of averages, but that's really not the CricketGeek style, so I decided to delve into things a little more closely.

One of the difficult things in cricket statistics is to compare bowling success with batting success. For example, which is better taking 5/84 or scoring 172? We need a device to compare the two disciplines.

I decided to compare each player's year with the historical averages for their position. For example, for batting I compared the batting average with year end batting averages throughout history. I had a cut off of 10 innings, as making a cut off much higher than that excludes too many players, as most teams play less than 10 tests per year. I then compared a player's average to the historical average of averages, and the standard deviation of averages to generate a z-score. (For more on Z-scores, see This NFL blog post)

I used batting average and bowling average for test cricket, as really what we care about is scoring runs and taking wickets. I wasn't totally happy with the results, as there was no advantage for the players who had maintained a high standard over a number of games, rather than just one. (James Neesham, for example, averaged 171 this season, but only over one match).  I first filtered out anyone who hadn't either batted in 10 matches or who had bowled less than 100 overs. Then I multiplied the z-score by the square root of the number of innings that they had applied their skill in, in order to get a fairer list. It only caused a couple of positional changes, but the new lists looked more appropriate.

Here's the test lists.

Player - Skill	Average	Ranking
LRPL Taylor - batting	81.60	12.3
BB McCullum - batting	52.73	5.0
TG Southee - bowling	20.07	3.8
TA Boult - bowling	22.36	3.6
KS Williamson - batting	47.21	3.4
BJ Watling - batting	42.27	2.0
N Wagner - bowling	30.42	1.1
CJ Anderson - bowling	30.54	1.0
CJ Anderson - batting	32.70	-0.3
TA Boult - batting	32.25	-0.4

I would give the award to Ross Taylor. He scored 816 runs at an average of 81.60. He past 50 in half of his innings. McCullum, Southee, Boult and Williamson all had great years, but Taylor's average really makes his numbers stand out.

Next I looked at the ODI lists.

Here I decided to use the batting and bowling index developed by S Rajesh from Cricinfo (and me separately). Again I compared the players index to the historical data.

Here's the list:

Player - Skill	Index	Ranking
CJ Anderson - batting	84.48	16.1
LRPL Taylor - batting	43.77	6.9
MJ Guptill - batting	44.22	6.4
KS Williamson - batting	39.04	4.7
MJ McClenaghan - bowling	23.87	1.1
NL McCullum - batting	26.23	0.9
JDS Neesham - bowling	23.69	0.8
CJ Anderson - bowling	24.85	0.7
KD Mills - bowling	25.97	0.7
L Ronchi - batting	22.93	-0.1

Again a batsman takes the title. This, however was not particularly surprising. Anderson was immense with the bat, and generally the games were played on high-scoring pitches, which don't really flatter bowling statistics.

For the T20 award I used batting index, but my own metric for bowling. In a previous post I showed how each wicket worked out to roughly 5 runs in a t20. Accordingly we can take 5 runs off a bowler's total for every wicket they have taken. They then get a modified run rate. I used this to compare the NZ players' years to the historical data. This is a little less relevant, as there is not a lot of historical data (about 1/10 the quantity of test and ODI information) and also New Zealand only played 6 matches, so the sample size is very small.

Here is the list:

Player - Skill	Index/Modified run rate	Ranking
L Ronchi - batting	221.11	14.7
BB McCullum - batting	101.08	4.1
AF Milne - bowling	2.75	2.9
AP Devcich - batting	73.34	1.7
C Munro - batting	60.04	1.5
JDS Neesham - bowling	5.00	0.5
JD Ryder - batting	44.02	0.0
NL McCullum - batting	42.25	-0.1
NL McCullum - bowling	5.64	-0.3
HD Rutherford - batting	40.02	-0.3

Luke Ronchi is a bit of a surprise here, but I remember looking up his stats and being surprised as to how effective he has been in t20s recently. During the course of the year he averaged 133 at a strike rate of 166. Those are quite ridiculous numbers.

The last major prize left is the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal, for the best overall. For me that goes to Brendon McCullum. He managed to attract the attention of the whole nation with his 300, and he also captained the side particularly well across all the formats. There would be a fair argument for Taylor and Anderson, but for me, McCullum needs to be acknowledged some how, and that award seems appropriate.

Who would you give the overall award to?

Have Australia's selectors selected the New Zealand squad

Earlier this year the Australian selectors picked Ashton Agar as their 13th player picked as a spin bowler in 5 years. Some of the names included in that list are the likes of Michael Beer, Xavier Doherty and Glenn Maxwell. The Australian selectors picked some of them despite a fairly ordinary domestic record.

During that same time New Zealand have picked 4 players as spin bowlers in test matches. Part of that is the presence of Daniel Vettori, probably the best New Zealand's ever spinner to have played for New Zealand. A couple of other players have been named in squads, or played short-form cricket, but Vettori, Patel, Martin and Todd Astle (one match) have been the only spinners used in the last 5 years.

Now in the squad for Bangladesh is the name Ish Sodhi. There's a chance that he's not going to get picked, and that New Zealand will continue to just use Williamson and Martin for the actual tests, but the decision to go with Sodhi is a strange one.

Sodhi looks like he could become a very good bowler. He's got a lot of people who know a thing or two about cricket talking, and genuinely turns the ball. However there's a difference between being able to turn a cricket ball and being a good spin bowler. The two are related, but they are not the same thing.

Sodhi has played 12 first class matches for 22 wickets at an average of 48.40. That's not a very encouraging record.

To be fair to the selectors, there are not many New Zealand spin bowlers with a great record recently, but Sodhi is the player with the worst record of the current crop.

Here are the records of all the potential rivals for the back-up role to Bruce Martin since 2012: (assuming Vettori is unfit)

Name	Wickets	Average
Sodhi	22	48.40
Nethula	37	45.32
Singh	13	39.15
Boult	9	23.44
Astle	41	44.68
McCullum	15	24.60
Patel	142	32.90

Jono Boult, Bhupinder Singh and Nathan McCullum have probably not played enough first class cricket in that time to really be able to read much into their records, but there is a name that stands out as a glaring omission: Jeetan Patel.

While I was one of the people who said things like "he should never play for New Zealand again" based on his somewhat insipid performance with the bat in South Africa, the selectors job is not to pick someone to face Steyn and Morkel, rather they should be picking the player who is the best equipped to take over if Bruce Martin gets injured. For me that's Jeetan Patel.

Bruce Edgar said that he picked Sodhi based on his good tour of India with New Zealand A. A tour where he took 2 wickets at 84.5. Astle ended with better figures in each innings that both bowled in. If Sodhi was being taken as a third spinner, then that would be a little more understandable. He's there to get experience, to get exposed to some quality coaching etc. But the risk of Martin getting sick or injured and having to thrust a player who has not yet earned his spot into a test match (against a team that is good against spin) is too great.

Cricket is littered with stories of young players who are picked too early, and either never recover, or take much too long to do so. It is one thing to pick a young player who (like was the case with Vettori) has put sufficient performances on the board to suggest that they deserve their spot. It is another thing to pick a young player who has yet to do that. It sometimes works (Doug Bracewell is a good example) but often doesn't. Martin Crowe has said repeatedly that he should not have been picked so young, as he hadn't yet convinced himself that he was ready to step up. Spin bowling (and legspin bowling in particular) takes a certain psychological strength. You have to be prepared to be hit, relying on your own ability to beat the batsman in the end. If a player doesn't believe in themselves, then the best laid plans are often irrelevant.

I believe this is a bad decision by New Zealand cricket. It is a big gamble with a promising young player's career, and also a gamble with a potential banana-skin test series.

Slow and steady?

There is a famous fable about a tortoise and a hare. They decide to have a race. The Hare runs off at great pace, gets close to the finish line and decides he is so far ahead he can afford to have a sleep. While he is sleeping, the tortoise catches up, over takes him, and finishes the race just as the hare is waking up. The moral of the story is supposed to be "slow and steady always wins the race."

Of course that moral is ridiculous. Slow and steady gets beaten by moderately fast and steady. Which in turn gets beaten by fast and steady. If slow and steady won the race I'd back myself to beat Ussain Bolt in the 100m. I reckon I can do it much slower than him.

However the true moral is that reliability is a very important virtue. And yet it is a very difficult one for us to take account of. There is inherently more interest in the unusual than the usual. Occasional exceptional performances are given more prominence in our memories than consistently good ones.

For example I can clearly remember Chris Pringle bowling a maiden in the last over of a match when Australia needed 2 runs to win. It was exceptional. Something that I'm never likely to see again. However I also watched a game where Gavin Larsen bowled 10 overs for 12 runs, including 5 maidens. I can't remember a single second of Larsen's performance. We tune out consistency, because it isn't memorable.

When asked who the best bowers in t20 cricket are, it is natural to tend towards the spectacular. We remember Mendis introducing the carrom ball and bamboozling everyone. We remember Malinga sending the stumps flying. We remember Narine, reviving the tradition of the West Indian mystery spinner like in the days of Sonny Ramadhin. We remember Warne saying how he was going to get McCullum out, and then doing it.

However we don't remember Samuel Badree, Daniel Vettori, Mohammed Hafeez, Nathan McCullum, Angelo Matthews or Darren Sammy. These names are ones that we remember, and can at times recall them doing something with the bat, or in the field, but their bowling tends to be unspectacular.

I was chatting with a top football coach recently, and he said to me "that Vettori chap, what he does must be harder than it looks." This guy has coached football at international level, and has been hugely successful at many different levels. His comment indicated the workings of a great sporting mind. He knows that often the things that look easy on a field take a lot more work than the things that look spectacular.

If we can't remember reliability, we need a metric to measure it. The standard cricket averages are not particularly helpful for this, as they can be skewed by occasional particularly good or particularly bad performances. Instead I decided to look at how often a bowler produces a good performance.

That in itself causes some problems. What is a good performance? In a t20 game, the aim of the bowlers is really to defend runs. Taking wickets is part of that, but often the real job is to not concede too may runs. So I'm going to define a good performance as being one where the bowler bowls at least 2 overs and conceded no more than a run a ball.

If every bowlers in the team did this, the maximium their opposition could score would be 120 plus any byes or leg byes. This is almost a guaranteed losing score, so there is some justification for defining 6 an over as a good target.

Here is a list of the number of good performances the top few bowlers have had. The innings column is innings where they have bowled at least 2 overs.

Name	Innings	Innings at 6rpo or less
Saeed Ajmal (Pak)	47	28
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	55	27
DL Vettori (NZ)	33	24
NL McCullum (NZ)	35	20
J Botha (SA)	36	18
Umar Gul (Pak)	49	18
BAW Mendis (SL)	27	17
GP Swann (Eng)	38	17
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	31	16
DT Johnston (Ire)	25	15
DW Steyn (SA)	28	15
M Morkel (SA)	30	13
DJG Sammy (WI)	31	13
SCJ Broad (Eng)	41	13
AD Mathews (SL)	25	12
Harbhajan Singh (India)	24	11
SL Malinga (SL)	38	11

The two names at the top of the list have both bowled in a lot of matches, which is what we would expect. Matthew Hayden scored more centuries, fifties and overall more runs than Don Bradman, but it took him a lot more matches to do it. There won't be many people claiming that Hayden was better than Bradman. It's because the number of good performances themselves are not so important as how often you did them.

So I sorted the table by percentages. The numbers were quite interesting really:

Name	Innings	Innings at 6rpo or less	Reliability
DL Vettori (NZ)	33	24	72.73%
BAW Mendis (SL)	27	17	62.96%
DT Johnston (Ire)	25	15	60.00%
Saeed Ajmal (Pak)	47	28	59.57%
NL McCullum (NZ)	35	20	57.14%
GH Dockrell (Ire)	18	10	55.56%
DW Steyn (SA)	28	15	53.57%
DJ Hussey (Aus)	19	10	52.63%
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	31	16	51.61%
J Botha (SA)	36	18	50.00%
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	55	27	49.09%
AD Mathews (SL)	25	12	48.00%
Harbhajan Singh (India)	24	11	45.83%
GP Swann (Eng)	38	17	44.74%
M Morkel (SA)	30	13	43.33%
DJG Sammy (WI)	31	13	41.94%
KMDN Kulasekara (SL)	24	10	41.67%

Some of the names at the top of the list are spectacular players: Ajantha Mendis, Saeed Ajmal and Dale Steyn. But there are more of the other sort. Well ahead of the pack is Daniel Vettori, but also Trent Johnston, Nathan McCullum, George Dockrell, Dave Hussey and Mohammad Hafeez.

It's players in this second group that often get forgotten when great teams are picked. One of my favourite cricket analysts, Gary Naylor, wrote an interesting piece about greatness. His definition of greatness is one that relies on the aesthetics of the player. Gavin Larsen could never be a great under that criteria.

And yet perhaps better than being great is being consistently good. Glenn McGrath was consistently good. Shaun Pollock was consistently good. Whereas Brett Lee and Alan Donald were spectacular. We remember Donald, and forget Pollock, despite Pollock having had a much better record.

So I challenge you to look at a different type of greatness. The greatness of being consistently good. Next time you see Nathan McCullum or Mohammad Hafeez bowling, stop to admire how they manage to get fantastic results, without ever looking like fantastic bowlers. That is a form of greatness in itself.

Match report 3rd ODI WI v NZ Warner Park, Bassterre, St Kitts

If you had not seen any other matches this series and arrived to watch this one, you would think that New Zealand were such a superior side that there was little chance of West Indies being able to take a game off them.

This was a dominant performance. New Zealand batted better, bowled better and fielded better.

It started with a great innings from Rob Nicol. Daniel Flynn looked like a world class batsman before chopping one on. However West Indies managed to pick up wickets at regular intervals throughout the innings, but most of them were from short balls that the New Zealand batsmen mistimed. Sammy, Narine and Sammy managed to create some pressure on the New Zealand batsmen. Sammy in particular looked outstanding.

He gave some clues as to how he thought the pitch was playing by moving Chris Gayle into a short straight mid on during the powerplay, banking on New Zealand struggling to time the ball. After the game Williamson noted that the pitch was slower than they had expected, but he felt that it was a good cricket wicket, that gave a chance for both batsmen and bowlers.

New Zealand's innings stalled after the 22nd over, and it took until the 33rd before they managed to get some momentum, but they rode the tempo change well and recovered from 141/5 off 34 to get to what looked like a modest total of 249/9. However sometimes it is difficult to know how good a score is until both teams have batted.

The first over from Kyle Mills went for two boundaries, but the big story was the next over. Trent Boult was given the ball ahead of Tim Southee, with the wind coming over his left shoulder. Normally this end would be given to the senior bowler in the team, but Williamson got the decision completely correct in this match. Southee generally bowls outswing, and while having the wind at his back would help his pace, Boult looked quicker in practice in Jamaica. Mills is the ideal bowler to bowl into that sort of wind. It assists his shape away from the right-hander and also helps the ball sit up a bit more.

Boult's first over got Gayle to defend 4 balls, avoid a quick bouncer and then edge one just between first slip (who was probably too wide) and the keeper. It was a promising start. More was to come in his next over as he picked up the dangerous Johnson Charles; lbw to a perfect inswinging yorker.

Gayle seemed to be struggling with the pace of Boult, so Williamson brought on Southee to give him some quick bowling at the body from both ends. The plan worked. Gayle edged Southee to Nicol, and all of a sudden 250 looked a long way away for the West Indies.

4 overs later it was 52/4 and the game was firmly in New Zealand's favour. 2 more overs and Guptill produced some brilliance to run out Samuels, and West Indies were staggering at 62/5. New Zealand immediately took the bowling powerplay. The 5 overs with the field up cost a total of 9 runs. New Zealand had rediscovered their fielding prowess.

Darren Sammy showed that it was a good pitch to be a tall medium pacer on. Jacob Oram is also a tall medium pacer and it was equally good for him, taking 2/22.

Some rearguard tail-end hitting from Andre Russell almost provided some respectability for the West Indies, but they still lost by 88 runs. Russell's 43* off 24 balls was the only score over 20.

The man of the match was a difficult decision for this match. Nicol top-scored with 59, Nathan McCullum lead the recovery with 50 as well as taking 2 wickets, 2 catches and being involved in a run out, and Andre Russell took 4 wickets to go with his runs. The award went to Nicol, but it was a game with at least 3 outstanding performances. (Southee and Boult both bowled sensationally, without getting the same reward)

West Indies have now lost 4 of the 5 matches they have played at this ground. They will need a significant improvement to improve that record in matches 4 or 5.

Preview West Indies v New Zealand in Lauderhill

I feels odd to be talking about a match in USA. Despite the fact that USA is actually a much bigger cricket audience than people realise, it still is not known for cricket. But for the second time in the last 2 years, New Zealand are heading to Lauderhill to play a couple of T20 matches. This time the opponent is the West Indies.

The last series was played in particularly benign conditions. There was nothing in the pitch for either the bowlers or the batsmen, and as a result the scoring was at or under 6 an over for every innings in the series.

There has been a lot of work at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium, and it looks amazing on Google maps, but preparing cricket pitches is a dark art, and not one that is particularly easy. If they manage to get a good pitch in only the 3rd and 4th real match there it will be quite an accomplishment.

The headlines of this tour will all be about the likes of Narine, Gayle, Pollard, Guptil, Taylor and Southee. However given that it is quite likely to be low and slow, the match is likely to be decided by the skiddy spin bowlers and crafty medium pacers. The players who I'm going to be expecting to play a big role are Marlon Samuels, Nathan McCullum, Jacob Oram and Darren Sammy.

Making the ball arrive at a different time to what the batsman expects is the key to this sort of pitch, and these 4 bowlers are all very good at that. All have a good recent record with the ball too.

Bowling over the last 2 years in T20I:

Bowler	Matches	Wickets	Average	Economy
MN Samuels	7	6	8.66	5.37
NL McCullum	10	13	13.69	6.59
DJG Sammy	8	6	26.00	7.03
JDP Oram	2	2	26.00	7.42

The other bowler that I look forward to watching is Roneel Hira. Probably my favourite player who is currently playing, Hira is a heady bowler, dynamite fielder and effective batsman. He had a great HRV Cup in the New Zealand domestic season, and he will need to really step up in this series as Daniel Vettori has made himself available for T20's again, and he needs to show that he offers enough for the selectors to be prepared to run two left arm orthodox bowlers.

The other one that I am interested to see is Samuel Badree. I watched him bowl for Trinidad and Tobago, and he looked like he was quite tricky. On a slow pitch he could be a difficult prospect also.

So those are a couple of things for those of you watching this match to look out for. Hopefully it will be a pitch that provides plenty for both bat and ball. If it does this could be a fantastic series, but either way both teams are an interesting mix of crafty cricketers and outstanding athletes that could make this an absorbing match even on a bad pitch.

The great choke

I've just gotten home from watching New Zealand lose an unlosable match to South Africa at Eden Park.

It was a terrible match to watch as a New Zealand fan, but a fascinating game as a cricket purist. Here were 5 things I noticed:

1. Jesse Ryder found then lost his mojo.

Ryder came out and started off well. He was scoring quite quickly, but he was (generally) doing it in sensible ways, and (finally) was moving his feet like he did in 2010, rather than standing and swishing like he did against Australia earlier this year.

Then the rain came. And he lost his foot work and his batting sense. With 5 overs to go, Ryder was on 44 off 25. He had been scoring well with boundaries, but off the 20 balls that he didn't hit to the fence he had scored 16. From his next 16 balls he scored 8 runs. He was pre-determining, not moving his feet and was generally like a possum in headlights, or Sachin Tendulkar right before a break.

2. Kane Williamson suddenly stopped being Kane Williamson.

If Williamson was a superhero his name would be Placement Boy. He has the ability to find the gaps and put the ball where he wants it to be. And that ability completely evaded him. Instead he hit 6 of 8 before going for a mad heave across the line rather than trying to hit a single.

3. Franklin and McCullum not swapping ends.

New Zealand needed 6 off 4, and nMac tried a paddle scoop shot. While it's a bit unorthodox, there's nothing particularly wrong with that. What was disappointing was the batsmen not crossing while the ball went half way to the moon before getting into de Villiers' gloves.

Franklin jogged through, rather than running through. McCullum stood and watched in horror as the ball headed to the keeper, and hardly moved at all. It was a play that a second division business house team would have been distraught at. It mean that the new man needed to face the next ball, and was somehow expected to score immediately, rather than leaving it up to the batsman who was in. Poor, poor cricket.

4. Sending out Southee rather than Hira to bat for the last ball.

Southee is a good bowler. He can hit a big ball. But it is a stretch to accuse him of having a track record of heady cricket. Hira is known precisely for playing smart cricket.

While it was likely that the batsman who was sent out would not need to face a ball, there was always the chance that there would be a no ball, and having someone who was quick to make a good decision would be a good idea. Someone who could get back for a second would be hugely valuable.

But instead New Zealand sent out Southee instead of the Worlds Fastest Indian. Having someone who could get (even halfway) back would have left Franklin in strike needing 3 or 4 to win, and potentially 2 to tie, and Hira there to run like only Hira or Guptill can.

5. Four bouncers in an over.

Marchant de Lange managed to find the zone just between where a batsman finds it comfortable to play a short ball and where an umpire will start to warn him for it.

His final over contained 4 bouncers, and he was still allowed his 1 per over, as none of them were high enough in the opinion of the square leg umpire to be his 1 for the over.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the best option at the death is full and straight, but at Eden Park, with the new layout of short straight boundaries and longish square ones full and straight is asking for trouble. Instead he bowled a fantastic final over and put all the pressure back on the New Zealand batsmen.

It seems in the age of darting left arm spinners, that there is still a place for aggressive fast bowling.