Using Added Value to measure cricket performances - Part 1

The palpable drop in air pressure from 41000 people collectively inhaling is something that is hard to understand unless you've experienced it. Dale Steyn was bowling to Grant Elliott.

Eden Park in full World Cup mode.

Elliott had been a controversial selection. In the first 5 matches he averaged 19.25 at a strike rate just below 82. That's hardly justifying the selectors faith in you.  However, an important innings against Bangladesh, followed by a breathtaking 27 off 11 against West Indies gave him momentum going into this match. Often the concept of momentum is a case of us over-fitting. We see a couple of good performances back to back and assume a causative effect, where there really probably isn't one. However, regardless of the causes, Elliott was playing the sort of innings that quickly made the critics forget that they had been calling for the coach's head for selecting him before the tournament.

There was a significant obstacle in his road to glory. Dale Steyn. Quite possibly the best bowler to have ever strapped on a pair of boots. Throughout history there have been terrifying bowlers. Fred Spofforth, Jeff Thompson, Andy Roberts, Waqar Younis and Brett Lee are examples. There have also been bowlers who could work a batsman out and exploit weaknesses unmercifully. Alec Bedser, Richard Hadlee, Wasim Akram and Glenn McGrath all shared this trait. In Steyn, South Africa had someone who was in both camps. Possibly only Larwood, Truman, Lillee, Holding and Marshall have been there like Steyn.

But now there was 2 balls left, and 5 needed. Steyn with his tail up bowling to Elliott on 78 off 72. Elliott had previously hit a bouncer for 6, and Steyn's last yorker had gone for 4. Eden Park's short straight boundary meant that bowling full was risky, and bowling short could ask for a top edge carrying for 6. Better instead to try to get him to hit to the longest boundary so Steyn opted for a length ball....

The palpable increase in air pressure from 41000 people collectively screaming with exhilaration as the ball clears the boundary is something hard to understand unless you've experienced it.

Match preview 1st ODI NZ vs SA, Mount Maunganui,

The circular Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui

The countdown to the World Cup finally feels like it's started for real. South Africa are touring New Zealand for 3 ODI matches that are more a means to an end than an end in themselves.  Both teams say that they want to win these matches, and the players who get on the field definitely will.  But they are both aware that the real target is the World Cup.

Surprisingly this match is being played at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui. It's the 4th ground in the Northern Districts area to hold an international match, and is not going to be used in the World Cup.  However, it is in New Zealand's fastest growing region, and is likely to be a place where a lot of international cricket will be played in the future.  It is also on the east coast, so it is a lot less likely to be rained off in spring time than somewhere like Auckland or Wellington.

As there has never been an international at the ground, there are some aspects that are hard to predict. A par score for the ground really has not been established at this level, and almost all of the players will go in without too much baggage (positive or negative) at the ground.

There were a number of warm up matches played there, and we can tell some things from those.

Firstly, bowlers that tend to bang the ball in were punished.  It seems that the fuller the pace bowlers bowled, the better they did. Secondly the scores were all over the place. Some teams were scoring 300+ while others were struggling to pass 150.  Also, the spin bowlers took lots of wickets but (with two exceptions) went for lots of runs. The two exceptions were Daniel Vettori and local boy Jono Boult (brother of Trent)

The ground is an interesting shape, particularly given it's name of Bay Oval. It is a perfect circle. The boundary is 68m from the centre of the pitch in every direction. This means that it has a straight boundary of 79m and a square boundary of 67m. This obviously favours players who are good at playing the hook, cut and scoop shots (which probably explains why bowlers who bang the ball in get punished).

I've looked through the records of the players at similar shaped, coastal grounds in the past 3 years and there are three names that feature at the top of the list: de Villiers, McLaren and well ahead of all else, du Plessis. The top New Zealand name is Williamson (who is not playing) followed by Neesham.

If I was looking to make a couple of bets, I'd look at putting some money on both du Plessis and McLaren to be top scorer. While it's guaranteed that at least one of these bets will fail, I think it would be a sensible move to cover both.  At time of writing, du Plessis is paying $4.50 and McLaren is paying $26 to be top scorer at the NZ TAB. I think this is good money for both of them. du Plessis has gone past 90 in 5 of his last 9 ODI innings. That's compelling form. I'd look at McLaren for a different reason.

The ball is likely to swing at Bay Oval. It's overcast, with showers likely. The tide will turn at about 11:00, an normally the ball swings around the turn of the tide (either just before or just after). Trent Boult grew up in Tauranga so this is his home ground. If he starts getting the ball to go round corners (as he can) he is almost unplayable. In the matches at the Champions League T20 when the ball swung, he was almost unplayable. To go with that, Kyle Mills has been a beast at similar grounds in recent times. He's averaged 11 at an economy rate of under 4. To back that up, in one of the warm up matches (for Auckland against Afghanistan) he took 2/14 off 7 overs. Mitchell McLenaghan is not in such form, but he has a good record against South Africa, and the ability to hurry up batsmen.  I think it's actually quite likely that New Zealand will take early wickets, and South Africa will need to rebuild. That will create a platform for someone like McLaren to succeed.

As far as New Zealand's batting goes, it is a bit difficult to make too many predictions.  Despite his game being suited to grounds like this, Brendon McCullum has never really been successful at this sort of ground. Neesham is opening for the first time, so that will test his technique more than coming in at 6 does, especially against Steyn, Morkel and Philander (Steyn has the second best figures at grounds like this, after Mills, with an average about 18 and an economy rate just under 5). The other interesting selection is Dean Brownlie. Brownlie is particularly good off the back foot, and has had some success against South Africa, but in every large innings that he has put together, he was dropped early (often more than once). If he gets started, he might be worth putting some money on for NZ top scorer, but I certainly wouldn't back him until he made it to 25.

The other thing to watch out for in this match will be the rain.  There may be some showers early on, but it's quite likely that there will be some serious rain in the evening. This means that there is a reasonable chance that the game will be called off early, and Duckworth-Lewis will need to be used.  I'm a big fan of the Duckworth-Lewis system, but it does hurt teams with good batting depth.  The two teams in world cricket that it works against the most are these two. As a result, the team that bats first is likely to have a slight advantage if it rains.

If I had $50 to bet on this match, I'd suggest these:

1. AB De Villiers to outscore Hashim Amla $10 at $1.92
2. Total match run outs over 1.5 $10 at $3.00
3. Faf du Plessis top South African scorer $15 at $4.50
4. Ryan McLaren top South African scorer $5 at $26.00
5. Whoever bats first to win the match $10 at what ever the odds are post toss.

(all odds from the NZ TAB at the time of writing)

Test team of the year 2012

For the test team of the year, I’ve given extra weight to performances away from home. Often the mark of great players is that they can master foreign conditions. For each player I’ve generated a weighted average, and I’ve used that to pick the team.

I’ve also looked at openers as a separate skill to batting in numbers 3-5. I also feel that numbers 6 and 7 need to be multi-skilled players: who can contribute with the bat and either the ball or the gloves. As a result I’ve picked the best batsman among the keepers. It is very difficult to quantify the ability of keepers, and while I feel that Prasanna Jayawardene is currently without peer as a keeper, his batting (while improving) is significantly weaker than some of the other keepers.

With the bowlers I decided on at least 2 quick bowlers and at least one spinner. After that I picked the next best bowler. There were a few times that a team went in with either 3 spinners or 4 pace bowlers, but every time the results were not good enough to demand it being replicated in this team.

There were a couple of bowlers who had a good year without playing any away matches. For these players I looked at the average difference between home matches and away matches, and adjusted their weighted averages accordingly.

Openers: Alastair Cook and Graeme Smith.

While these two may not have the crowd in raptures with scintillating stroke-play, they have scored a lot of runs this year, both home and away.

Name	Overall Average	Away Average	Weighted average
AN Cook (Eng)	48.03	71.9	54.67
GC Smith (SA)	48.52	50.56	49.52
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	45.9	52.5	48.24
AN Petersen (SA)	47	43.06	45.09
TM Dilshan (SL)	40.13	42	40.67
DA Warner (Aus)	43.77	28.5	39.96

Numbers 3-5: Marlon Samuels, Michael Clarke and Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Michael Clarke has been amazing in Australia, but his away form was so poor that he was almost pipped for the spot by Amla.

Name	Overall Average	Away Average	Weighted average
S Chanderpaul (WI)	109.55	196	131.17
MN Samuels (WI)	86.6	94.71	89.94
MJ Clarke (Aus)	106.33	31.33	84.9
HM Amla (SA)	70.93	74.85	72.83
JH Kallis (SA)	70	56	63.3
Azhar Ali (Pak)	55.1	60	56.73
MEK Hussey (Aus)	61.61	36.5	53.68
AB de Villiers (SA)	58.21	46.78	52.5
Asad Shafiq (Pak)	47.11	64.25	52.38

All Rounder: Jacques Kallis.

While Samuels came out as the best all-rounder for the year, he is already in the team for his batting (and there’s also a chance he won’t be allowed to bowl). Kallis has had a much improved year with the ball, his averages were similar to Dale Steyn for the year.

Name	Batting	Bowling	Difference
MN Samuels (WI)	89.94	42.8	47.14
JH Kallis (SA)	63.3	30.89	32.41
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	48.24	28.36	19.88
KS Williamson (NZ)	30.52	41.67	-11.15
MEK Hussey (Aus)	56.73	73	-16.27
SR Watson (Aus)	31.7	48	-16.3

Keeper: AB de Villiers

De Villiers almost made the team as a batsman alone. Ramdin recovered well from having calls for his head at the start of the year.

Name	Overall Average	Away Average	Weighted average
AB de Villiers (SA)	48.55	48.55	48.56
D Ramdin (WI)	42.87	54.16	47.71
MJ Prior (Eng)	38.85	39.62	39.07
MS Wade (Aus)	36.27	39.6	37.31
MS Dhoni (India)	40.63	24.33	37.14
Adnan Akmal (Pak)	25.25	37.66	28.64

Bowlers: Tino Best, Tim Southee, Narsingh Deonarine and Vernon Philander

This was the big surprise for me. Where is Dale Steyn? Where is James Anderson? Probably the best two bowlers in the world and they don’t even feature. Likewise Saeed Ajmal just gets pipped. These are not the bowlers that I would pick if I were selecting a team other than on stats.

bowler	overall average	away average	weighted average
TL Best (WI)	16.27	14.92	15.69
TG Southee (NZ)	22.64	17.3	20.08
N Deonarine (WI)	19	-	20.27
VD Philander (SA)	21.11	21.83	21.45
BW Hilfenhaus (Aus)	21.67	20.8	21.49
Junaid Khan (Pak)	24.14	21.78	22.96
Saeed Ajmal (Pak)	20.56	29.93	23.17
PM Siddle (Aus)	23.09	38.33	24.14
KAJ Roach (WI)	22.25	34.25	24.3
MA Starc (Aus)	25.05	27.5	25.27
Abdur Rehman (Pak)	22.64	41.33	26.26
HMRKB Herath (SL)	23.61	62.16	27.12
MS Panesar (Eng)	26.03	29.31	27.23
GP Swann (Eng)	29.93	23.61	27.54
PP Ojha (India)	25.96	-	27.7
JM Anderson (Eng)	29.5	26.61	28.62
TA Boult (NZ)	30.77	27.05	29.1
DW Steyn (SA)	29.71	29.08	29.41

2012 ODI Team of the year

Last year I came up with a system for picking a team of the year for ODI matches.

Last years team had an extra weighting for World Cup matches. This year there's an extra weighting for matches against top 9 opponents (Bangladesh have performed well enough this year that any results against them are certainly valid) and also for matches away from home.

Openers: Amla and Nasir Jamshed

This is only chosen based on what the players did as openers, and only from players who played at least 5 innings as an opener.

Name	Innings	Runs	Weighted Index
HM Amla (SA)	9	678	77.05
Nasir Jamshed (Pak)	8	462	58.69
G Gambhir (India)	13	570	39.44
DPMD Jayawardene (SL)	12	425	36.52
IR Bell (Eng)	11	549	36.31
AN Cook (Eng)	15	663	34.09
TM Dilshan (SL)	30	1119	33.61

Jamshed probably secured his spot in the team with his big innings against India in the last match of the year. A not out hundred against one of the top teams, away from home at close to a run a ball is certainly a good way to boost your ranking.

Top order: de Villiers, Kohli, Morgan

Name	Innings	Runs	Weighted Index
AB de Villiers (SA)	10	597	105.21
V Kohli (India)	17	1026	59.54
EJG Morgan (Eng)	12	364	53.57
KC Sangakkara (SL)	29	1184	33.92
MJ Clarke (Aus)	13	619	33.66
SK Raina (India)	13	326	31.61
BB McCullum (NZ)	10	416	31.58
LD Chandimal (SL)	26	800	29.31
JP Duminy (SA)	8	273	27.75

When I looked at the batting of players while they were keeping there wasn't much comparison. AB de Villiers was 1st on 116.7, then BJ Wattling on 70.2 and MS Dhoni on 57.4. Given the massive disparity, the next thing that the team needs is an all-rounder who can close out the batting. We already have a keeper, so we need someone who can make a contribution with the ball occasionally.

Closer: Sammy

Name	Matches	Batting	Bowling	Difference
DJG Sammy (WI)	17	33.06	25.75	7.31
AD Mathews (SL)	21	33.56	34.13	-0.57
DJ Hussey (Aus)	15	42.89	53.91	-11.02
AD Russell (WI)	14	26.75	40.29	-13.54

I was expecting Andre Russell to come out on top here, but he actually came out last of the players who had batted and bowled enough to count.

Bowlers: Narine, Abdur Razzak, Morne Morkel, Finn, Roach

Name	Matches	Average	E/r	Weighted Index
SP Narine (WI)	17	17.64	3.66	13.01
Abdur Razzak (Ban)	9	20.75	3.95	16.40
M Morkel (SA)	11	21.15	4.89	16.71
ST Finn (Eng)	14	20	4.2	16.81
KAJ Roach (WI)	8	19.88	5.07	16.98
RS Bopara (Eng)	14	25	3.43	17.16
Saeed Ajmal (Pak)	17	21.12	4.31	17.39
SR Watson (Aus)	14	23.05	4.27	17.46
CJ McKay (Aus)	17	23.88	4.52	18.80

I had to make some decisions on the formula, as neither England or Bangladesh had played away from home, so I used a different formula for these teams. It seems a fairly balanced bowling line up, with Roach, Finn and Morkel bringing the heat up front, and then Narine, Razzak and Sammy to take the pace off the ball later on.

So the full team:

Hashim Amla
Nasir Jamshed
AB de Villiers (w)
Virat Kohli
Eion Morgan
Darren Sammy (c)
Abdur Razzak
Morne Morkel
Steven Finn
Kemar Roach
Sunil Narine

I made Sammy the captain, because I think he is fantastic at getting the best out of his players.

Mini-session Analysis, 3rd test, Australia vs South Africa, WACA, 2012/13

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the third test between Australia and South Africa at WACA, Perth, Australia

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	South Africa 38/1 off 11.3	draw
1-1b	South Africa 25/2 off 13.3	Australia
1-2a	South Africa 34/3 off 13	Australia
1-2b	South Africa 44/1 off 14	South Africa
1-3a	South Africa 65/2 off 18.2	Australia
1-3b	South Africa 19/1 off 3.4	South Africa
	Australia 33/2 off 11
2-1a	Australia 40/4 off 12	South Africa
2-1b	Australia 45/1 off 13	Australia
2-2a	Australia 31/1 off 13	South Africa
2-2b	Australia 15/2 off 4.1	South Africa
	South Africa 24/0 off 6
2-3a	South Africa 125/1 off 17	South Africa
2-3b	South Africa 81/1 off 15	South Africa
3-1a	South Africa 56/0 off 13	South Africa
3-1b	South Africa 34/1 off 15	Australia
3-2a	South Africa 85/0 off 17	South Africa
3-2b	South Africa 62/2 off 13	South Africa
3-3a	South Africa 96/3 off 13	South Africa
3-3b	South Africa 6/2 off 2.5	Australia
	Australia 40/0 off 13
4-1a	Australia 33/1 off 13	South Africa
4-1b	Australia 37/2 off 12	South Africa
4-2a	Australia 42/1 off 13	draw
4-2b	Australia 52/3 off 13	South Africa
4-3a	Australia 118/3 off 18.5	Australia

Final update, click here

First drinks, Day 1: The mini-session count is tied up, 0-0

South Africa won the toss, and went on the attack early against the inexperienced Australian bowlers. However a good ball from Watson levelled up the first mini-session.

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

When a left-armer manages to swing the ball he becomes deadly. Mitchell Starc just proved exactly why that is. He bowled Petersen and Kallis through the gate by pitching it up and letting it swing. Advantage Australia.

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

South Africa chose to bat and are probably regretting it now. 6 wickets down for less than 100 runs, and Australia have 4 quicks, so they are all fresh. South Africa are going to require a big effort from Faf and the bowlers if they are going to stay in this match.

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

A good recovery here from South Africa. They were looking a lot better before Peterson was dismissed, but it was still their hour.

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

It was all looking so good for South Africa, but Australia are playing like the wily veteran boxer who lands a flurry just before the bell to take the round. Two quick wickets and the hour goes to Australia. Mitchell Johnson is great to have as a fourth seamer. He is erratic, bowls some filth, but he does take wickets.

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

Some quick runs from Morkel followed by some beautiful bowling by Steyn and Philander have meant that this game is back in the balance. I think Australia are in the lead, but it could potentially be a real cracking test.

First drinks, Day 2: The mini-session count is tied up, 3-3

It's not often after a team lose 4 for 40 in a mini-session that you can say that they finished well. However Australia got 12/4 off the first 5.2 overs. Hussey and Wade are looking reasonably confident, but Australia are going to require a similar rearguard effort to what South Africa had yesterday.

Lunch, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 4-3

A very good hour of cricket for Australia. Mathew Wade has looked like he is batting on a different pitch to everyone else. He has a chance at going past Kapil Dev's record for the largest proportion of a team's score by a lower order batsman.

Middle drinks, Day 2: The mini-session count is tied up, 4-4

South Africa get the big breakthrough and dismiss Wade. They put some pressure on to dry up the runs, and eventually Peterson came in and the pressure was converted to a wicket.

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

Robin Peterson was prepared to roll the dice and he picked up a couple of wickets for his trouble. The South African openers then had to face a tricky spell. Petersen looked jumpy, and edged a few, but scored quite well. Smith looked reasonably solid, but has struggled to score.

Final drinks, Day 2: South Africa lead the mini-session count 6-4

This was possibly the most decisive mini-session since Welegedara and Herath picked up 5 top/middle order wickets for next to no runs against South Africa in December last year. Amla and Smith were scoring almost off every ball. They looked like they were batting on a belter in an ODI.

Stumps, Day 2: South Africa lead the mini-session count 7-4

Hashim Amla is poetry to watch. They used to say about Frank Worrell that he played grammatically correct shots. I never got to see Worrell,but watching Amla must be similar. It was clever captaincy from Clarke to keep him stranded on 99, because at the moment it seems the only way to get Amla out is to have him get himself out. South Africa are now very hot favourites.

First drinks, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 8-4

After the past 2 mini-sessions, 56 runs in 13 overs seems almost pedestrian. In reality it is anything but. Amla hasn't looked quite as composed as he did yesterday, but he has still looked good. Kallis, however, has looked impenetrable.

Lunch, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 8-5

Australia broke the partnership, and then kept the new batsman quiet. It was a good hour for them. Shane Watson looks like the best bowler in the Australian team. Batting looks so much more difficult when he has the ball in his hands. Clarke has to make the difficult decision about how much to bowl him. The good news for South Africa is that AB de Villiers seems to be finding going difficult. This indicates that there is still life in the test, so Australia batting out a draw won't be particularly easy.

Middle drinks, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 9-5

South Africa have continued to take the game away from Australia. de Villiers has found his timing, and is scoring runs quickly. It's now de Villiers biggest innings as a keeper, but it possibly shows why it might be an idea for him to move lower in the order. Often it takes a while for a keeper to get into batting mode after keeping. Batting at 6 might be more suitable than 5.

Tea, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 10-5

Amla fell just short of his double century, and Elgar completed his pair on debut, but despite losing the two wickets, South Africa scored a lot of runs quickly. AB de Villiers has completed his hundred, and looks like he is just wanting to push on further. Faf du Plessis has been solid in defense, without really looking to dominate.

Final drinks, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 11-5

More runs. Graeme Smith seems to be enjoying watching the Australians struggle in the field. The TV commentators are talking about a declaration, but I can't see Smith declaring unless he decided to give his bowlers 5 or 6 overs at the end of the night.

Stumps, Day 3: South Africa lead the mini-session count 11-6

Despite a couple of scares, Australia have survived the tricky evening period. They actually got a relatively significant benefit from cleaning up South Africa's tail so quickly, namely that they had 14 overs, and so the South African bowlers don't really get a second bite of the new cherry in the morning. This pitch is a lot easier to bat on once the ball loses its shine. The South Africans will be looking to get the ball to reverse, because if it doesn't then they will have to do a lot of bowling with significantly less assistance.

South Africa are still clearly leading this match, and it feels like a question of when and not if they will win, but there is a glimmer of hope for Australia.

First drinks, Day 4: South Africa lead the mini-session count 12-6

One down. South Africa are about 15% of the way there. After the early loss of Warner; Cowan and Watson have survived a testing hour of quality bowling. If anything Ed Cowan looks like the sort of batsman who is going to really thrive with this challenge. He may not win a battle of skills, but he is likely to win a battle of wills.

Tea, Day 4: South Africa lead the mini-session count 14-6

I went away to take a practice with my team and returned to find Australia in disarray. I checked the score progressively and every time there had been another wicket fall. I can't see Australia surviving the night tonight. If Australia are still going when the new ball arrives they are certainly unlikely to be after that.

End of match: South Africa win the match and the mini-session count 14-7

It was always going to be a bridge too far for Australia. They probably had one of the best chances of any team who have faced such an enormous challenge, but that's like saying that they were the lamb that was most likely to survive a week in the tiger enclosure at the local zoo. A fantastic post-script partnership by Lyon and Starc, but it was like trying to put out a building fire with a water pistol, and fell significantly short.

Preview - SA SL 1st ODI Paarl 11/12

This is a bit of the battle of the unknowns here.

There have only been a handful of matches at Paarl. There have only been two matches between South Africa and Sri Lanka in the last 5 years. Both teams are somewhat unpredictable, and Sri Lanka are likely to have a vastly different line up to the test matches.

So it is hard to make too many predictions really.

However there are a couple of things to look for.

1. Dilshan hit 58 and 106 in his last two innings against South Africa. He is under some scrutiny as captain and needs a score. Will this be his time?

2. De Villiers is likely to bat at 4, keep wickets and captain his team. Dhoni and Sangakkara both proved that it is possible to succeed while keeping, captaining and batting in the top 5, but Gilchrist, Germon, Taibu and Flower all struggled with the excessive workload. De Villiers is certainly a talented batsman, but so were Gilchrist and Flower. It will be interesting to see if he can hold it all together.

3. Ajantha Mendis is likely to make a return. He's only bowled 7 overs against South Africa in any form of cricket, but he took 3 for 30 in those 7 overs, picking up Smith, Kallis and Duminy. If he can repeat this then Sri Lanka are in with a big show.

4. Lasith Malinga is playing his 100th ODI match. He has played 4 ODI matches against South Africa and taken 10 wickets, roughly one wicket every 3 overs. He is always an interesting bowler to watch, and it will be good to see how he goes in this match.

5. JP Duminy looking to get on the board. Duminy's last 4 ODI innings against Sri Lanka have been 3(3), 0(2), 0(1) & 0(1). He has faced 7 deliveries scored 3 runs and been out 4 times. However his last outing at Paarl was him guiding the Cape Cobras to a win with 52* at the end of a match, so he may be in a good space to turn that round.

Some betting tips.

In the three matches that have been played at Paarl between big teams, there have been 2 century opening partnerships and one 50 opening partnership. The 2nd wicket has been even more productive. If you are looking to be over on any batsman, make sure they are in the top three. Likewise don't think the game is over just because one team has a good start. Most teams get off to a good start at this ground.

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?

Partnerships that made big contributions

In an earlier post, A different kind of hundred partnership I looked at a number of partnerships ranked by how much they increased the Duckworth-Lewis expected score.

I have come up with a new method. If you want to skip the geekery of me explaining how it works, click here to go straight to the table.

There were a number of problems with the method I used in the hundred partnership post, some of which I outlined at the time. I spent some time thinking about it, and what could be done to give a more accurate description of the contribution a partnership made to a teams cause. Part of the idea of statistics is to find a way to make the numbers tell the story, and I didn't feel that these told the story accurately enough. There were a few glaring anomalies.

The first thing that I wanted to fix up was that shorter partnerships added more than longer ones. For example Amla and Duminy's partnership of 102 off 16.2 was worth much less than Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan's partnership of 89 off 13.3. These partnerships seem like they are of a similar value to their respective teams. Also there was too much of an advantage for a partnership that came in after the fall of a couple of early wickets. It didn't seem correct that Sarwan and Bravo's epic 125 runs off 22.3 overs was worth 250 more than N McCullum and Styris's 120 off 14. It was a great recovery from 0/2 to 125/3, but it still felt a little off.

I came up with a couple of options to deal with this. Firstly I divided the DL prediction at the start and end by 50, then divided by the number of overs faced. This gave me a very interesting result. The numbers suddenly looked a lot more intuitive. It also eliminated the problems with a team getting off to a bad start, or a particularly good start. Clarke and Watson's 110 run partnership that came in at a ridiculous -75 with the old method was now a more sensible 94. They were still penalised for being a lot slower than the team had been going, but not nearly as much.

I also made a slight modification to the predicted score for anything less than 10 overs, by making it a little more moderate. Again I used the Duckworth Lewis g-score of 250, and multiplied the predicted score by the number of overs used, and then 250 by 10 minus the number of overs used, and then divided by 10. Under the old method if a team was on 34/1 off 2 overs, the predicted score would be 410, now it would be 282. This seems a more realistic platform to start with. Once the over calculation in the paragraph above was added in, the start went from 16 to 11. Not a big difference, but probably more fair. This can however cause a problem in the case of a long unbeaten partnership. If a 2nd wicket partnership went from 33/1 off 2 to 333/1 off 50, they would have added 300 runs, but this method would give them 322. However given that this situation is incredibly unlikely, I am happy to live with that issue for now.

Here are the top 15 partnerships under the new method.

Batsmen Names	Score	Start	End	DL Adjusted
RR Sarwan, AB Barath	165	42/2, 12.4 Overs	207/3, 43.2 Overs	185
AB de Villiers, JP Duminy	131	82/3, 13.3 Overs	213/4, 35.2 Overs	171
MJ Guptill, JD Ryder	123	18/1, 3.4 Overs	141/2, 24.5 Overs	161
BJ Haddin, SR Watson	110	-	110/1, 19.4 Overs	156
MJ Prior, IJL Trott	113	23/1, 2.5 Overs	136/2, 22.1 Overs	156
RR Sarwan, DM Bravo	125	0/2, 1.6 Overs	125/3, 24.3 Overs	132
HM Amla, MN van Wyk	97	16/1, 2.3 Overs	113/2, 22.2 Overs	130
JP Duminy, F du Plessis	110	90/4, 23.2 Overs	200/5, 44.5 Overs	126
Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohd. Hafeez	94	56/3, 13.3 Overs	150/4, 36.1 Overs	123
SM Davies, AJ Strauss	90	-	90/1, 12.1 Overs	120
SE Marsh, CL White	100	33/4, 12.3 Overs	133/5, 32.6 Overs	117
DE Bollinger, SE Marsh	88	142/8, 36.5 Overs	230/9, 48.1 Overs	110
DJ Hussey, AC Voges	95	103/4, 25.2 Overs	198/5, 39.1 Overs	110
NL McCullum, SB Styris	120	190/5, 35.5 Overs	310/6, 49.5 Overs	110
SB Styris, KS Williamson	81	80/3, 14.5 Overs	161/4, 33.1 Overs	109

One interesting thing here is that there are three quite different partnerships all with DL adjusted results of 110. Each had a very different role in their game, but have all come out the same under this analysis. This feels good intuitively, as it is hard to separate them when the context of each game is taken into account.

Looking at this list, does this seem like a good method for ranking partnerships and their value. There aren't many that seem out of place to me here, and it seems to tell a better story than sorting them just by total runs scored.