An analytical look at an all-time Indian XI at the World Cups

In a few days, India will begin their World Cup campaign against South Africa. On paper, India are one of the stronger sides coming into the big tournament and will look to add a third world title to their kitty. Barring a major debacle, India should finish in the top 4 and make it to the semifinals; and after that, it is a matter of two good knockout matches for any team looking to lift the title and make cricketing history.

Throughout India’s ODI world cup history, several illustrious players have served the Indian team well, bringing honour and distinction in the process. But who are the Indian players who have lit the world stage = at cricket’s biggest tournament? Are they the usual suspects such as Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Dhoni, Virat Kohli (who are sure-shot walk-ins for an all-time India ODI XI), or are there other unexpected players who have shone? In order to investigate this, we will undertake an analytical exercise to identify the players who have performed at a high level in the World Cup.

First up, some ground rules. Only world cup performances will be considered (with an 8 match and 2 tournament cutoff). This criterion ensures that players don’t just make it on the basis of a few good weeks, but rather that their good performances were spread out over multiple tournaments, thus rewarding long-term consistency.

What might be a good metric to measure ODI performance? Over the years, we have preferred to use (as have others) Batting and Bowling Index ratios (BaI ratio and BoI ratio respectively) to get a sense of the “level” at which a player operated in the period under consideration. Analysts have traditionally multiplied a player’s average and strike rate (economy rate for bowling) and divided it by a baseline to get a ratio that represents how valuable that player was. While this is a good start, it has some limitations. Hence, we have tweaked this to take into consideration run-inflation over the years and position in the batting/bowling order as different players have faced different conditions and circumstances throughout ODI history. So, the baseline of a player is derived based on weighting the number of matches played in a particular World cup edition and at a particular position—the rationale being, it is fairer to compare a player with his counterparts rather than everyone in the batting/bowling order. With this tweak in place, a player’s performances are largely compared to those of a hypothetical, composite player who faced similar opportunities.

Now that we have defined the criteria, let us have a look at how the players have performed with respect to their baselines.

At the top of the order, the peerless Sachin Tendulkar leads the pack having performed at a level that was ~2 times that of the hypothetical average player who got the same batting opportunities during his era. His partner-in-crime, Sourav Ganguly isn’t far off with a BaI ratio of 1.94. Considering that these players played in multiple world cups, this is an exceptional record. The Nawab of Najafgarh has performed at a high level as well, with Sidhu rounding up the top 4. The current openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan (who didn’t make the cut due to the 2 tournament cutoff) could break into this list with a decent showing in the upcoming world cup.

The middle order springs a few surprises. Virat Kohli may have game-leading ODI statistics at the moment, but he is yet to produce his best at the World Cup. His level is only at 1.16 times the average player—of course, the presence of other illustrious peers in the top order hasn’t helped his cause. Rahul Dravid is easily India’s most valuable batsman from the BaI ratio perspective due to his stellar showing at multiple world cups (and he kept wicket in many games as well). Middle-order stars from more than 20 years ago—Azhar and Jadeja—have also performed respectably for India. M S Dhoni, in his World cup matches, hasn’t hit the heights of his otherwise superlative career but still has played at a very good level; but to be honest, there was no other wicketkeeping contender apart from Dravid. Suresh Raina shows the opposite characteristic of Kohli—he may not have extraordinary stats in ODIs but his showing in the World cup has indeed been very good with respect to his peers.

Now come the multi-dimensional players with two strings to their bow—the all-rounders. If single-skill cricketers could only contribute in one way, an all-rounder’s contribution is effectively the sum of batting and bowling contributions, making them extremely valuable to the team.

Batting-wise, Kapil Dev has been class-leading but his bowling has been rather ordinary at the World Cups. On the back of his impressive showing at the victorious 2011 World Cup campaign, Yuvraj Singh has extremely high numbers both in the bowling and batting departments, and he easily makes the cut along with Kapil. The heroes of the 1983 World Cup, Mohinder Amarnath and Madan Lal have slightly contrasting stories to tell with respect to statistics. According to the methodology, Madan Lal has the highest sum and there is no doubting his bowling contributions; but truth be told, this is an anomaly resulting largely because of his batting numbers racked up from low batting positions. In Amarnath’s case, even though his contributions were very valuable in the latter stages of the 1983 campaign, in the overall World Cup picture, they weren’t path-breaking.

Among the pace battery of the 2003 World Cup team, left arm quicks Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan edge the senior partner and mentor Srinath in the BoI ratio stakes. Dovetailing with Kapil Dev, this should be a good pace attack on the whole. The man who was blessed with banana swing, Manoj Prabhakar, has also performed at an acceptable level for India. But apart from these 4 (and Kapil), it is slim pickings (Shami and Umesh Yadav did well in 2015 but didn’t qualify due to the criteria). But this might change very soon—one suspects that a couple of fast bowlers from this tournament will break into this list soon.

Rounding up the team are spinners from south India. Though they weren’t necessarily first-choice throughout their careers, Kumble and Ashwin are the top spin bowlers for India according to BoI ratio. Beyond these 2, there is daylight and then Venkatapathy Raju. What about long-serving Harbhajan Singh? Surprisingly, he has very ordinary numbers in the World Cup.

Now that the analysis has revealed the “value” of each player, who makes the final squad? 10 out of 11 places are automatic picks; the odd one out is the solitary middle order slot. Suresh Raina made his runs over 9 innings; now compare this to Sehwag’s (22) and Azhar’s (25) match tallies. Though all 3 satisfy the selection criteria, Suresh Raina has played far fewer matches for his returns and hence he has to unfortunately sit this one out. So do we ask Sehwag to bat at 3? Or do we go with Azhar’s experience at 4? We prefer the latter. Among all the amazing options, we pick Dhoni to captain this fantasy XI.

All-time India World Cup XI: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Azharuddin, Yuvraj Singh, M S Dhoni (c & wk), Kapil Dev, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra

Much ado about Mankading

Yesterday, the Rajasthan Royals were chasing 185 runs in the first group stage match of their IPL 2019 campaign when a (needless) controversy ensued. The match seemed to be firmly in the control of the Royals in the 13^th over when they were comfortably placed at 108/1, when Ravichandran Ashwin ran out the dangerous Jos Buttler, who was backing up too far. If it were to be a “normal” run out, it wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows; instead, what happened has produced plenty of chatter amongst fans and commentators alike.

Ashwin, just getting into his delivery stride, caught Jos Buttler short of the crease at the non-striker’s end and proceeded to run him out. Ardent cricketing fans would have made note of the “Mankading”; for the casual fans, one more word would have entered their cricketing vocabulary. While an incident like this has probably ruined many playing relationships in gully cricket itself, one can only imagine the uproar this incident has caused in the cricketing world, where the stakes are much higher.

It is worth noting that both parties involved yesterday were “repeat offenders” (with due apologies to Ashwin for using the same term even though what he did was legal according to cricketing rules). In 2014, Sri Lankan bowler Sachithra Senanayake ran out Buttler in similar fashion after giving him a proper warning (Ashwin didn’t). Then too, his decision was widely panned in the English media. Back in 2012, Ashwin ran out Lahiru Thirimanne but the stand-in captain, Sehwag, withdrew the appeal to “defuse” the situation. When he was asked to explain his decision, this is what he had to say: “…because if we appealed and umpire gave him out, then somebody will criticise that, you know, that was not spirit of the game”, while adding “It’s soft, but that’s the way we are.”

And yet, there was nothing wrong in Ashwin’s part (more on this later). But the cricketing world seems to be divided on the lines of “spirit of cricket”.

The term Mankading comes from the legendary Indian all-rounder Vinoo Mankad who famously ran out Bill Brown in the 1947 test at Sydney. In fact, it was the second time that the batsman had been caught short in this fashion by the same bowler; in an earlier tour match, Mankad had dismissed him similarly after multiple warnings. Since then, the name “Mankaded” has become a cricketing verb. As it has happened now, back then too, there was heavy controversy. However, the Australian captain Don Bradman himself had defended Mankad’s actions. I’m firmly in Sunil Gavaskar’s camp—that the term “Mankad”, which has negative connotations, has to be removed from the cricketing vocabulary as it is not referring to the person who committed the mistake in the first place (or alternatively, has to be rid of its negative connotations).

Ashwin received plenty of bouquets and brickbats for his actions (with no fingers being pointed at Jos Buttler). The Indian offspinner received support from many players, including the former India spinner turned commentator Murali Kartik, who commended him for the act. Interestingly, Murali Kartik himself was in the eye of similar storms many years ago (with Surrey throwing him under the bus in the first occasion). A similar action by the West Indies U19 team in 2016 was decried by the cricketing moral police; whereas in the 1987 World Cup, Courtney Walsh refused to run out the last man Saleem Jaffar and the West Indies ended up on the losing side—Walsh was lauded for his “sportsmanship.”

What do the laws of the game have to say about this?

41.16 Non-striker leaving his/her ground early

• If the non-striker is out of his/her ground from the moment the ball comes into play to the instant when the bowler would normally have been expected to release the ball, the bowler is permitted to attempt to run him/her out. Whether the attempt is successful or not, the ball shall not count as one in the over.
• If the bowler fails in an attempt to run out the non-striker, the umpire shall call and signal Dead ball as soon as possible.

Earlier, this was part of law 42.15. In 2017, it was changed to the present-day version where the onus is on the batsman to stay within the crease. Under the previous rule, bowlers could only run out the non-striker only before entering their bowling stride; now, this can be affected at any instant until the bowler bowls the ball. Additionally, followers of the game can intuitively understand that the batsman is trying to gain an unfair advantage by backing up too far; a batsman six inches ahead of the crease has six inches lesser to cover while completing a run.

Earlier, a “gentleman’s warning” was usually expected before any action was taken, but the latest amendment puts the responsibility of staying in the crease on the batsman. Besides, no warning has to be given before a stumping, isn’t it? A bowler overstepping even by a millimetre is a no ball as well. Then why should the batsman get away with gaining unfair advantage without repercussions? Therefore, what Ashwin did is absolutely legal in terms of the letter and spirit of the law. The laws of the game make it clear that it was unfair play on the part of the batsman. Hence, Jos Buttler should have been fined for showing dissent after the third umpire correctly ruled him out.

Yet, it is revealing that the name of the dismissal is unfairly referred to by the name of the bowler and not by the batsman who committed the mistake in the first place, therein showing cricket’s double standards and holier-than-thou attitude. For some reason, the action itself is controversial and is perceived as being unsportsmanlike. The game of cricket especially prides itself on the concept of fair play. In fact, English has an idiom “It’s not cricket”, which denotes that something is unsportsmanlike.

But it is also true that the game treats the batsman, the more privileged role, with kid gloves. The batsman moves far lesser than the bowler or the fielder; the benefit of the doubt goes to the batman (rightly so in test cricket, not so much in the limited formats); the captains are usually batsmen; batsmen can get runners as well. What is more, an umpire can rule a batsman out only after an appeal by the bowling side (unless the dismissal is obvious such as a bowled which may prompt the batsman to walk). Meaning, if a fielding side fails to appeal, the umpire cannot technically rule a batsman out. Therefore, it is no surprise that the batsmen are the protected species; one would be hard pressed to find many examples of aristocrats and gentry being bowlers—they were usually batsmen. The blue collar job of fast bowling was reserved for people from more modest backgrounds (or as the saying in England went, someone who worked in a coal mine).

Therefore, the needless controversy of this run out stems from the hypocritical and nebulous concept of “spirit of the game” while it is crystal clear where the fault lies—with the batman trying to gain an unfair advantage. It is great that the ICC changed the law in 2017 to remove the grey areas and put the spotlight on the batsmen, as it should be. If anything, the amendment and the incident will serve as a warning to erring batsmen.

 

Setting expectations for Ashwin and Jadeja in South Africa

A new turn awaits the spin twins. Image source: 1.

The cricketing world and its citizens will be watching with great anticipation when the Indian team takes on the mighty Proteas in the upcoming series in the Southern Hemisphere. An Indian team—with personnel who have experience of playing in South Africa—which has won its last nine series, will be facing off against a South African team which polished off Zimbabwe in two days. This contest that will be played over three test matches has all the makings of a marquee series if one were to look at the ICC rankings. The top two test teams taking on each other. Seven of the world’s best 14 batsmen.  Six of the world’s best 14 bowlers. Two returning stalwarts in A B de Villiers and Dale Steyn, who will no doubt remember the drubbing they received in India, and will be motivated to return the favour.

When the Indian team takes the field in the first test in Cape Town, the spin bowling department will be under intense scrutiny with multiple sub-plots. Is there space for both Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, ranked 3 and 4 on the ICC rankings (the top ranked spinners)? Unlikely, considering the traditional conditions in South Africa, and given that Rahane’s recent form has been patchy, the team management may not play the fifth bowler. Then which one will get to play in this cricketing version of Sophie’s choice? Would it be the higher ranked Jadeja who had a six-for in the previous series, or would it be Ashwin, who went wicketless in his 42 overs of the solitary test he played the last time around? How will they hold up against Keshav Maharaj, the opposition spinner?

Regardless of the difficult decisions that the team management undoubtedly have to make, one reckons if this is an acid test for both these men with regard to their test cricketing stature. Both these tweakers started off as limited overs specialists; however, their limited overs stock has plummeted in recent times just as they have made their names in the test arena. Both spinners have bowled extremely well and at home, and also at West Indies and Sri Lanka recently. But unless they muster eye-catching performances overseas, starting from this South Africa tour, it looks like they will unfairly labelled as home-track bullies.

So what do these bowlers have to do to excel in South Africa? Are there any clues that can be obtained from spin performances of the past? Can we expect them to rip out the South African lineup or do we have to temper our expectations?

Since their readmission to the cricketing fold, South Africa have been a formidable team, even more so at home. They have a Win-Loss ratio of 2.8, and have triumphed in nearly 60% of their home matches. Barring the champion Australia team, only England have found success in South Africa. Spinners have struggled, taking 448 wickets at a bowling average of 39. In 125 matches, a haul of five wickets or more has been snared by spinners only 17 times. Keeping all this in mind, it is fair to say that only a handful of spin bowlers have flowered and bloomed in this desert.

Bowlers like Shakib Al Hasan, Mushtaq Ahmed, Danish Kaneria, Rangana Herath, Harbhajan Singh and Graeme Swann have had the one good tour in South Africa. But since this is the second tour for Ashwin and Jadeja, they need to aim higher.

Bowler	Matches	Bowling average (away, SA)	Wickets
Shane Warne	12	24.31	61
Muttiah Muralitharan	6	26.02	35
Anil Kumble	12	32.02	45

 

Of the spin bowlers who’ve visited South Africa at least twice since readmission, three names have performed on more than one tour: Shane Warne, Muralitharan and Anil Kumble—all legends in their own right. Overall, only Warne and Murali have had great returns in South Africa over their entire career. However, even they nabbed a five wicket haul at a much lesser rate compared to their 1 in 5 combined career tallies. Hence, a lesser tally can be expected in Ashwin’s and/or Jadeja’s cases as well. What about the other variables? Upon careful examination of their records, several trends become clear.

Bowler	Bowling average (1st innings)	Wickets (1st innings)	Bowling average (2nd innings)	Wickets (2nd innings)
Shane Warne	30.41	24	20.35	37
Muttiah Muralitharan	31.75	20	18.40	15
Anil Kumble	38.87	24	24.19	21

 

Barring a few outlier performances, South African pitches have been unfriendly (even for these spin-masters) in the first innings; their strike rates (balls per wicket) hover at values greater than 12 overs, a clear marker of the uphill task awaiting the Indian spinners. On unhelpful pitches, they must be ready to embrace a support role. In complete contrast, bowling in the second innings has been far more rewarding. Of course, one mustn’t forget that the second innings only comes into play once parity has been achieved in the first—a traditional Achilles heel for the Asian batsmen.

Bowler	SA batting average (1st innings)	Away team batting average	Bowling average (2nd innings)	Away team batting average
Shane Warne	27.24	36.93	27.52	36.20
Muttiah Muralitharan	41.68	23.91	26.92	20.21
Anil Kumble	34.57	28.10	34.68	22.21

 

Of the three spinners, only Shane Warne bowled with the relative comfort of a first innings lead. The all-weather, all-conquering Australian team were able to compete on both the batting and bowling fronts against South Africa. On the other hand, the Asian champions suffered from a lack of batting support. For perspective, consider the first innings batting average differential. Shane Warne bowled in the second innings with nearly a 100 run lead. Whereas, Kumble and Murali bowled magnificently in spite of a ~60-120 average run deficit; meaning, they were always chasing the game.

Bowler	Fast bowling support (10 wickets, bowling average<30)	Spread of bowler wickets across the batting order
		Top order (1-3)	Middle order (4-7)	Tail (8-11)
Shane Warne	5*	23.0%	42.6%	34.4%
Muttiah Muralitharan	0	22.9%	48.6%	28.5%
Anil Kumble	3	31.1%	35.5%	33.3%

 

Share Warne was also blessed with other wicket-taking bowlers like McGrath, Gillespie, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark. Why, even Steve Waugh (denoted by *) took wickets at an impressive rate. Anil Kumble bowled alongside Srinath, Prasad and Sreesanth—three Indian bowlers who did well in the Rainbow Nation. Bowling support is also a recurrent theme in the tales of the spinners doing well in a solitary series– Mohammed Asif, Waqar Younis, Lahiru Kumara and others set the stage for their spinners to do well. But one must doff his/her hat to the Sri Lankan champion Muralitharan—who bowled with virtually no batting or bowling support. All things considered, it is easily the best bowling performance by a visiting spinner on these shores since their readmission. Also, Warne and Muralitharan had a similar distribution of wickets across the batting order; whereas, Anil Kumble made more inroads in the top order.

What about the upcoming test series then?

The first two tests are at Newlands and Centurion, where spin bowling has traditionally suffered. The third test is at Jo’burg, where spinners have had it easier; with no Kingsmead on the list, the one venue where spinners have feasted is missing. Looking at all this, the Indian spinners have to play a supporting role in the first innings, and only come into play in the second for most of the series. Batting and bowling support is very much a necessity to influence the outcome of the match. The traditional second innings advantage will surely come to naught if the batting collapses. All eyes will be on the batsmen and the fast bowlers to stand up to the challenge.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with the respective owners.

 

 

Are the ODI days of Ashwin and Jadeja numbered?

ODI fates of Ashwin and Jadeja hang in the balance. Image source: 1.

What a difference a few years can make.

Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja did not feature in the ODI squad for the home series against Australia. When Ashwin and Jadeja were rested for the series against Sri Lanka, there were a few murmurs about that decision. Sri Lanka are a young team in transition; perhaps a case can be made for “resting” players in the “easier” tours. Why, many a times, India caps have been given to newcomers on tour to West Indies and Zimbabwe before. Perhaps it was one of those times.

Therefore, one couldn’t blame the fans for expecting that it would be business as usual soon, and that the two experienced campaigners would be making a return to the ODI squad. After all, a strong Aussie squad awaits the Indian team in Chennai—barring Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood who have missed the flight to India due to injury. Now, there is no Ashwin to spook David Warner, and the Man of the Test series, sword wielding Jadeja can’t be called to turn the game on its head this time around.

A few years ago, such a scenario would have been unfathomable. Both Ashwin and Jadeja began their India careers as specialists in the limited overs formats (ODIs and T20s). Both were stellar performers in the Indian Premier League for their respective franchises and were given their ODI debuts fairly early (June 2010 and February 2009). In fact, they were made to wait for a while for their test debuts (November 2011 and December 2012) and this shows how they were perceived by the selectors.

Ardent followers of the Indian cricket team might recall some of the criticism levelled at these two cricketers back then.  Ashwin was often labelled as “guilty” of trying out too many variations during this phase of his career. And what about Jadeja? What about his two triple hundreds? Cue scoffs and guffaws. An aberration of the Indian domestic system. He was largely seen as a limited bowler who was somehow lucky to have made it to the test team.  And Michael Clarke—he of the twinkle toes and fabled player of spin—was his bunny. What luck! Meme makers and the “Sir Jadeja” were having many busy days. Now? No one’s laughing. At him, that is. They’re all (me included) laughing at the opponent looking foolish, having being bamboozled by his cunning utilization of left arm bowling angles. And Ashwin? Let’s just say that everyone’s looking forward to the South Africa tour in anticipation rather than trepidation.

But it is true that their stock has fallen in ODIs as they have climbed the ladder of test match bowling competence. India have played 42 matches since 1^st April 2015 (basically after the 2015 World Cup). They have been largely successful, winning 26 matches with a team bowling average of 30.95 and given away runs at 5.33 runs per over (bowling economy rate). During this time period, Ashwin and Jadeja have played only intermittently, and have featured in less than 50% of the matches—15 and 17 respectively. On the bowling average stakes, they both feature last on the list of Indian bowlers since the last World cup (minimum 10 wickets); in terms of economy rate, not much better. Looking at these numbers, it is no surprise that they don’t find themselves in the team.

	Bowling average (since 1/04/15)	Economy Rate (since 1/04/15)	Career Bowling average	Career Economy Rate
Ravichandran Ashwin	40.58	5.36	32.91	4.91
Ravindra Jadeja	67.83	5.25	25.87	4.90

 

Truth be told, it has been a tough time for finger spinners for a while now. Since the last world cup, the average run-rate has been 5.41 runs per over. Generally, pitches have been flat in the ODI format across the world with big scores being the norm. Fielding restrictions have added to the problem with only four men patrolling the boundary in the middle overs. When pitches have little or no assistance for spin, a wrist spinner is considered a more potent weapon against rampaging batsmen. Wrist spin (in the mould of Shane Warne) involves spinning the ball using a full flick of the wrist and the fingers, releasing the ball from the back of the hand, so that it passes over the little finger first. This imparts a lot more spin and bounce and therefore comes into play on flat pitches as well. But it is known to be notoriously difficult to control, and even more difficult to master.

Since the 2015 World cup, spinners have generally had it bad but wrist spinners have ruled the roost. The three most prolific bowlers have been wrist spinners—Adil Rashid, Rashid Khan and Imran Tahir. If Nabi’s figures are asterisked for mostly playing against the associate nations, the most successful finger spinner has been New Zealand’s Mitchell Santner—that too at nearly 34 runs per wicket. With these trends, it is no wonder that India have turned to the wrist spin of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal; Axar Patel’s finger-spinning returns have been an improvement on Jadeja’s.

What now for Ashwin and Jadeja? Will they be limited to test matches only?

Bowling in test matches and the limited overs are two different forms of the game. In a test match, a match can only be won by capturing 20 wickets (unless there is a declaration). On the other hand, in the limited overs forms, run containment is another route to victory. Bowling in test matches is a game of patience as it involves coaxing a batsman to make a mistake when he has to compulsion to score; setting up a batsman and forcing an error is of paramount importance. In the limited overs? The spells are often not as long, and conceding a limited amount of runs is often seen as positive returns for a bowler as matches can be won on the basis of run containment as well. Therefore, the skill needed to bowl in the different formats vary widely. It is not a surprise to see them falter in the limited formats having seen them become better bowlers in tests.

Given their age and their experience, it is hard to see the door being firmly shut on them. Perhaps they will be in contention should one of the wrist spinners fail—more so Jadeja. Ashwin’s fielding makes him a bit of a liability, and with the focus firmly on fitness he may find the going a lot more difficult. It is also good that the BCCI have a vision for them keeping in mind the challenges that the Indian team are going to face shortly. Ashwin has been sharpening his skills on the county circuit, and with Jadeja rumoured to be looking for a county team, it is nice to see a plan in place for the overseas tours. In any case, the official word is that these two have been “rested” rather than “dropped” for the ODI tours.

It would be great if they could focus only on test matches and aid the team’s quest in history when they tour abroad, but such a wish is inherently unfair. They deserve the right to compete on fair terms in all formats. Besides, the match fees for limited overs matches are a significant chunk of revenue as a cricketer, and no cricketer in their right mind would want to throw it away given their short shelf life. The desire for a spot in the Indian team has made cricketers do strange things—Cheteshwar Pujara tried his hand at bowling in order to bolster his chances of an ODI recall. Ashwin and Jadeja may not find it difficult to find IPL contracts, but will a sportsperson’s self-belief allow them to accept defeat in the shorter formats and focus only on the longer one? How will their test match form change as a consequence? What remains to be seen is how this will transform them as bowlers.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with the respective owners.

The overseas bowling puzzle for India

The recently concluded, enthralling test series between India and Australia represented a watershed moment for the Indian cricket team. In the process of defeating Australia in the final test in Dharamshala, it became the third country (after Australia and South Africa) to hold all bilateral trophies in test cricket (concerning its own team, of course) at the same point of time. From Steven Smith’s quip of being one or two sessions away from the Australian team retaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy after the Pune reverse to winning the series at Dharamshala, this was a stunning reaction from the Virat Kohli led team. Of course, India having played most of its recent tests at home has contributed to some part of this achievement; greater challenges lie abroad.

The spin twins: Who will make the cut in an overseas test? Image source: 1.

The bedrock of this match-winning juggernaut has been built on the foundation of a well-oiled bowling unit. Leading from the front are India’s two match winning spinners, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. Ranked 1 and 3 (Ashwin was ranked at 2 when the series concluded) on the ICC player rankings, they have been at the forefront of dismantling opposition teams at home—emulating the illustrious Bishan Singh Bedi and Bhagwath Chandrashekhar, who occupied the top two slots way back in 1974. Ashwin even managed to breach the elite 900 ranking points level, hitherto unscaled by Indian bowlers.

However, the two spinners took contrasting paths during the extended home season.  Ashwin took off from where he left, becoming the third player (after Malcolm Marshall and Imran Khan, no less) to snare four consecutive Man-of-the-series awards with his showing against the New Zealand team. However, he ran into a wall (relatively speaking) in the form of the English team. He wasn’t able to run amok against Bangladesh or Australia either; his batting form tailed off as well.

Of course, injury might have played some part in his less-than-stellar showing; during the home season, Ashwin bowled over 700 overs and picked up 82 wickets (a record). He was first picked for the Ranji trophy quarterfinal match against Karnataka, and subsequently withdrew due to a sports hernia to recuperate. The same injury reared its ugly head after the India-Australia series, and the bowler rightly gave the IPL a skip.

On the other hand, Ravindra Jadeja went from strength to strength as the home season progressed. He maintained a high level for the first three series, and was the standout performer in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, usurping his teammate Ashwin from the top of the ICC rankings. He too missed the initial matches of the IPL, but his improved test match prowess hasn’t exactly boosted his IPL showings. Both of these bowlers were ineffectual during the Champions trophy.

Versus team (number of tests)	Ravichandran Ashwin		Ravindra Jadeja
	Wickets	Bowling avg.	Wickets	Bowling avg.
New Zealand (3)	27	17.77	14	24.07
England (5)	28	30.25	26	25.84
Bangladesh (1)	6	28.50	6	24.66
Australia (4)	21	27.38	25	18.56
Recent ODIs
Champions trophy	1	167	4	62.25

This raises an interesting conundrum with tours to Sri Lanka in July-August and away to South Africa in December-January: what will India’s bowling combination be when it tours different countries?

When India last toured many overseas countries in 2014, Ashwin had been left out of the eleven seven times in nine test matches. He was dropped after he bowled 42 overs at the Wanderers with nothing to show in the wickets column. The man who replaced him in the next test was Ravindra Jadeja—who toiled for 58.2 overs in the first innings, but got 6 wickets. Even the unheralded Karn Sharma leapfrogged him in Adelaide.

Ashwin didn’t impress when he got the chance in England or Australia either. After a period of introspection, he turned a corner and has been a different bowler since. But the question remains—who will be the primary spinner when India tours? What would be done with Kuldeep Yadav, another interesting prospect?

Fortunately, there exists a period in India’s recent cricketing past when the team faced a similar conundrum—the spinners being the previous Indian coach Anil Kumble, and the man who Ashwin replaced, Harbhajan Singh.

Between Harbhajan Singh’s debut test (25^th March 1998) and Anil Kumble’s final test (2^nd November 2008), India played toured many a country abroad. In 20 of these matches, both Kumble and Harbhajan featured.  Sometimes, one player was favoured over the other—Kumble made the cut 26 times, whereas Harbhajan was picked 12 times.  Is there any evidence that playing one or two spinners led to the other bowling better?

	Alone	Together
Kumble	34.35	35.38
Harbhajan	38.60	40.27

The effect, if any, is quite marginal. In fact, the statistics show that both spinners bowled marginally better alone (overall bowling figures are woeful, nonetheless). The choice of bowling combination is revealing in terms of the opposition strength; they featured in tandem mostly for tests against “weaker” nations like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and West Indies, and against stronger opposition at well-known spin friendly venues like Galle, The Oval, Sydney and their ilk.

Keeping this in mind, it will be interesting to see the Indian team’s approach when it lines up against teams abroad. Would it pick one over the other? Will the team management play both in a five bowler combination, and hope for the lower order to click? Which two spinners will they play? Will there be a third spinner in this equation on overseas rank turners? Here is the flexible approach that Anil Kumble had advocated before his time as the Indian coach:

“We have gone into this theory of three seamers and one spinner the moment we sit on an aircraft which travels more than seven hours – that’s the mindset… If your 20 wickets are going to come with two spinners and two fast bowlers, so be it. If it comes with three spinners and one fast bowler so be it.”

To his credit, Kumble stuck to his philosophy during his tenure. Now if India worked out a bowler management program to go along with an approach like this, it would have a great chance of competing with the best sides overseas. But with Kumble being no more associated with the Indian team and Ravi Shastri yet to air his views regarding this in public, the Indian team’s strategy remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with the respective owners.

 

Can Ashwin become India’s all-rounder?

In late 2003, the Indian U19 team won the Asia under-19 final versus Sri Lanka in Lahore. A certain bowler grabbed three wickets in the final, thus skittling the Lankans for a low score. In fact, this wasn’t his most eye-catching performance during the tournament; he had nabbed nine wickets against Bangladesh.

No, the earlier sentence wasn’t a typo. He outwitted nine batsmen in seven overs and change. That too, in an ODI. In the entire tournament, his wicket tally was nearly three times compared to the second guy. He was a handy batsman too; he had scored 94 runs over 3 dismissed innings. One more decent performance in a Ranji match, and he was on the plane to Australia to play in the 2003-04 tour.

Sultan of swing: Irfan Pathan had an impressive beginning with the Indian team. Image source:1.

In case you hadn’t guessed the protagonist, it was Irfan Pathan. Yes, the same banana-swing-hattrick-hero-pinch-hitter-WorldT20 final MoM-I’ve-regained-my-swing-jhalak-dikhla-jaa-contestant Irfan Pathan. Just when India seemed to get a bowler who could also bat, he seamed and swung no more. A nation which had held its breath in anticipation suddenly exhaled, expressing a collective sigh of yearning.

India had been there before. Agarkar had scored a hundred at Lord’s, India’s fastest ODI fifty, and had gotten to 50 ODI wickets faster than anyone else (stop rolling your eyes). But one tour to Australia had answered the primordial question of which had come first—both the duck and the egg came together when Agarkar was at the crease.

Similarly, an over-enthusiastic commentator had just about invoked a comparision when Laxmi Ratan Shukla bowled his first ever delivery at the international stage. It was a no-ball.

Kapil Dev had spoilt the nation.

The man for all seasons: Kapil Dev was India’s greatest fast bowler, and a more than handy batsman. Image source: 2.

Kapil Dev was a man who could bowl faster than his run-up; he was a man who could score 175, coming in at 9 for 4; few steps for the man (to catch Richards) was a giant leap for India’s 1983 World cup fluke victorious campaign; he could out-swing England in England; and, smash four sixes in four balls to avert the follow on. In short, Kapil Dev da jawab nahin.

Where the hell was India’s next all-rounder?

Around the same time period that Irfan Pathan was confounding batsmen in Australia, a middle-order batsman took guard at the Chinnaswamy stadium in an under-17 Asia cricket council match in the January of 2004. He would score only four runs, and get dropped in the next match in favour of a young Mumbai batsman—Rohit Sharma.

Fast-forward to 2011, this middle order batsman would make his debut against the West Indies, with Rohit Sharma having to wait on the fringes. He would go on to score his first hundred in only his third match, providing a consolation to the Wankhede crowd who had turned up anticipating Tendulkar’s 100^th century (he was out for 94). Oh, he also snared 22 wickets during the series under trying circumstances, by the way—India having conceded the lead twice—en route to being awarded the Man of the Series.

Given how things had turned out in the past, it was perfectly understandable that Indian fans were cautious before making the big proclamation. Me? I was just happy that our off-spinner had grabbed us some wickets.

All round mastery: Ashwin has been India’s go-to allrounder over the last 20 months. Image sources: 3 & 4.

Perched firmly at the top of the ICC bowler and all-rounder rankings, it is fair to say that Ashwin has gone from strength to strength over the last 20 months. Is it time to label him as an all-rounder? But what does it mean to be an all-rounder in test cricket? How does Ashwin compare to his illustrious predecessors? Do all all-rounders fulfil the same role? What do the stats say? All stats in this article are from before the first India-Australia test.

In the game of test cricket, the possession of the all-rounder is a highly coveted, yet elusive one. There are only a handful of individuals who have claimed significant levels of mastery over two skill sets, namely batting and bowling. Loosely, an all-rounder is defined as someone who can bat in the top six, and can contribute as a match-winning bowler.

The often quoted gold standard demonstration of all-round skills is the 1981 Ashes (famously dubbed Botham’s Ashes), where Ian Botham topped both the batting and bowling charts for England with 399 runs and 34 wickets. In terms of long term excellence, there isn’t a finer example than Imran Khan averaging over 50 with the bat and under 20 with the ball over the course of 52 matches spanning a decade. Normally, either one of the statistical measures would be sufficient for world-class pedigree, leave alone two. For what it’s worth, Ashwin had measures of >43 and <24 respectively in 2016. Baby steps, still.

Table 1: List of all rounders with their career batting and bowling statistics.

Over the history of test cricket, only a handful of players have been bracketed as all-rounders. The above list contains some of the most famous names of the sport. All the above players have crossed a certain minimum threshold: 45 test matches, 2500 runs, 150 wickets and a positive average difference. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I had to leave out some illustrious names such as Aubrey Faulkner, Tony Greig, Richie Benaud, Chris Cairns, Vinoo Mankad and others. Over the course of this article, we will be taking a close look at Ashwin’s career progression and team role, vis-à-vis his counterparts.

A good way to capture the career progression would be to look at the real time advancement of various cricketing metrics. A note of caution, though: since these are real-time, cumulative figures, the perturbations later in the career would be much smaller due to the benefit of a larger cushion. A simplistic example to illustrate this point would be to state that 1 month is 8.33% of a 1-year old’s lifetime, but is only ~0.5% of a 16-year old. Hence, due to the “streaky” nature of early career statistics, the values from the first 10 innings/tests have not been represented (but have been included) in some graphs (these have been clearly mentioned under each figure caption).

In most graphs, for the sake of easier visualization, the data has been represented in a split-window approach of two graphs side by side, each containing the data of five players; the data points of each player have been colour coded as per traditional national team jersey colours of the shorter formats.

First up, would be various measures of batting ability. In the test format, batsmen are measured by their run-making contribution.

Figure 1: Real-time progression of batting average with each test. To minimize appearance of streaky data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

The traditional favourite metric of batting ability is the batting average (runs scored per dismissal). Historically, a batting average of 50 is opined to be a measure of all-time greatness. Only two players from the all-rounder list have breached this benchmark, following contrasting paths: Sobers reaching it quite early, and Kallis achieving it only by his ~70^th test. Imran’s late career showing is captured by his ever increasing trajectory. The others hover between the 27 to 40 marks.

However, is it fair to compare a lower order batsman with a top order one? Wouldn’t a top order batsman have a greater chance of making more runs since he can call upon greater batting support? Valid question.

Table 2: Average batting position of each all-rounder

The first deviation between the definition of the all-rounder and career statistics appear in the average batting position (ABP). Sobers, Kallis, Miller and Shakib batted in the top 6; the rest batted mainly at 6 and below. Ashwin’s average batting position belies his recent stint at number 6—his career-to-date ABP is closer to Hadlee’s and Pollock’s.

It must also be noted that the ABP only represents an average. One could mischievously conjure an ABP of 5 with an equal number of innings at numbers 4 and 6 (and none at 5). Hence, in order to take these values in context, the batting position spread has to be investigated as well.

Figure 2: Percentage breakup of innings played at each batting position

If the percentage spread of innings at every position is examined for each player, more trends emerge: Kallis predominantly batted at 3 & 4, Miller at 4 & 5, and Shakib at 5 & 6; Sobers batted all around the batting order, favouring the number 6 position the most. Perhaps, some of Hadlee’s lower batting average can be attributed to his stints at 8 & 9. In Sobers’ case, the ABP does not correlate with his most frequent batting position.

Figure 3: Real-time progression of average batting position (ABP) with each innings

The real-time progression of ABP also gives great insight about the batting roles played by these all-rounders at different points of time in their careers. Kallis and Miller quickly transformed to middle order batsmen; Imran, Shakib and Hadlee gradually batted one position up the order; Kapil, Pollock and Botham were steady presences in the eleven. Sobers is the one genuine outlier amongst this bunch: he started much lower down the order, worked his way up, and then approached an ABP of 5 towards the end of his career.

From the various batting metrics garnered from the scorecards, it can be confidently said that Sobers, Kallis, Miller and Shakib neatly fit into the definition of top 6 batsmen. The rest batted lower down the order. On the basis of the above data, it can be said that Kapil, Pollock, Ashwin and Hadlee were bowlers who could bat a bit.

However, a complete picture of their all-round credentials can only be obtained after examining bowling statistics as well. The most important statistic for a bowler is the number of wickets. Compared to the runs, wickets are comparably finite (20 in a test match). Hence, auxiliary support needs to be drawn from other information contained in scorecards—such as balls bowled, runs conceded, and bowling position.

Similar to the batting average, the bowling average is a measure of the bowling ability (runs conceded/wicket taken). It must be noted that this is a good measure as it is the product of the economy rate (runs conceded/balls) and the strike rate (balls/wicket taken). An all-time great bowler typically boasts of a bowling average in the sub-30 mark (with the top pace bowlers hovering around 20).

Figure 4: Real-time progression of bowling average with each test. To minimize appearance of streaky data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

The career progress of bowling average charts a totally different journey for many players. Kapil, Kallis, Miller and Pollock have relatively consistent late careers; Botham had a spectacular debut and his performance kept deteriorating with time; Imran and Hadlee went the other way, almost following the same path of improvement. Sobers had an ordinary start, struggled, and then found his footing after his ~40^th test. The recent improvement in Ashwin’s statistics is quite visible with a reduction in his bowling average. From a standpoint of bowling average alone, Hadlee, Imran, Ashwin, Pollock and Miller have shown great bowling credentials to date.

Table 3: Average bowling position of each all-rounder

Like the batting counterpart, the Average bowling position (ABoP) of each all-rounder reveals some details about their role within the team. Typically, a team has 4-5 designated bowlers (usually 4). The bowling attack is mostly led by a fast-bowling pair, followed by a first change bowler and a spinner. The first change bowler could be another fast bowler or spinner based on the conditions (3-1 or 2-2 combination). Often, spinners are ploughing a lone furrow from one end while the fast bowlers are rotated from another. Generally, spinners tend to bowl longer spells, and are less effective at taking wickets (on a runs conceded/wicket or balls/wicket basis), but typically grab more wickets per test.

From the ABoP, it can be seen that Imran, Kapil, Pollock and Hadlee were the ones who were given the first use of the cherry; Miller’s and Botham’s numbers resemble first-change bowlers; Ashwin has been the lead spinner and Shakib is the second spinner. Kallis was the 4^th seamer—a rough indication of his role in the team. It may seem that Sobers was not as important as some of the others from a bowling perspective, but there is a minor wrinkle in his ABoP value of ~3.5.

Figure 5: Percentage breakup of innings bowled at a particular bowling position. Note that percentage of innings not bowled in (DNB) has also been shown.

The percentage spread of bowling position resolves the issue of Sobers. It must be remembered that Gary Sobers was capable of bowling in a variety of styles (pace and spin), and hence his appearance in the bowling order is quite spread out. He has bowled at the top 2 slots for ~20% of his career.

The above plots confirm the places of Kapil, Hadlee, Imran and Pollock as new ball bowlers; Miller too, has operated with the new-ball ~70% of the time, unlike the ABoP stat, which showed his position to be ~2.3; Botham bowled mainly between 2 and 4. Shakib and Ashwin feature much later due to the fact of them being spinners. Kallis didn’t bowl in ~15% of innings, and bowled behind 3 seamers for more than 60% of his bowling career (with negligible innings at 1 or 2).

Figure 6: Real-time progression of average bowling position with each innings

The plots of real-time ABoP separate the bowling claims played by the various all-rounders. In the 1980s, everyone except Botham were the top gun bowler for their respective teams. Sobers’ bowling chops are reflected in his continually improving ABoP. At best, Kallis was the fourth seamer for his team. As it has been discussed elsewhere, he was primarily a batsman who bowled really well. Ashwin and Shakib have been important spinners for their sides.

Figure 7: Real-time progression of Wickets per test. To minimize streaky appearance of data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

The time-lapse data of wickets per test (WPT) further strengthens the earlier findings: Botham regressed in his wicket-taking ability from his initial high, and Hadlee and Sobers improved to a great degree. Kapil and Pollock had productive, stable careers. In spite of Imran bettering his career average, his wickets per test declined—probably indicating that he bowled much lesser later on in his career. Kallis’ secondary role is confirmed with his WPT value being the lowest amongst the lot.  Ashwin, in his short career, has seen many ups and downs.

Figure 8: Real-time progression of balls bowled per test. To minimize the appearance of streaky data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

The real-time balls per test (BPT), too, follow earlier trends. Kallis had a far lesser BPT (~50%) compared to the bowling load of the other players. On this basis, he could be labelled as a batsman who could bowl well rather than an all-rounder in the truest sense. Even though his statistics are quite similar to Sobers, his bowling workload was never in the same league. Every other all-rounder averaged at least ~180 balls per test. In spite of Shakib being a spinner, his BPT is close compared to the other pace bowling all-rounders—this points to Bangladesh not burdening him with heavy bowling responsibilities. Ashwin’s recent BPT values have improved due to his wicket-taking feats.

Figure 9: Representation of interruption in bowling duties for each all-rounder

The temporal spread of innings bowled in for each player can be visualized in the above plot. Each solid line indicates the length of bowling career for each player; the line above the solid line contains many gaps, each indicating an interruption in bowling duties. From the above plot, the extent of Sobers’ bowling load is clear; as is the case with almost all the others. Kallis did not bowl for significantly long periods of time, and Imran did not bowl near the end of his career.

How about putting both the skills sets together?

The currency of a test match is runs/wicket. Given than a team has to necessarily capture 20 wickets to win the match, it follows that a winning team will end up with a positive runs/wicket differential w.r.t to the losing team (a declaration would still count as forfeiting the remaining wickets). In a sense, this number plays a similar role to Goal Difference in football.

Therefore, both the batting and bowling contributions are represented by the respective averages—which are essentially runs/wicket. For an all-rounder, the difference between the batting and bowling contributions gives an indication of his net value to the team. This can either be expressed either as a difference or as a ratio.

Figure 10: Real-time progression of (Batting average-Bowling average) with each test. To minimize streaky appearance of data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

Test match all-rounders are often measured on the differences between their batting and bowling averages. In a way, they indicate their net contribution to the team. A lot of all-rounders took their time to come to the positive end of the plot. Botham started off as an all-round statistical wonder before finishing with decent numbers overall. Only Kallis and Sobers boasted of a 20+ average difference, but as we’ve seen earlier, the differences in their team roles couldn’t be starker.

Figure 11: Real-time progression of (Batting average/Bowling average) with each test. To minimize streaky appearance of data, points from the first 10 tests have not been shown.

Another (uncommon) way of expressing their contribution is to take a ratio of the two averages. A ratio would yield a dimensionless number, and would favour the better bowlers more due to the lesser denominator. A plot of this reveals that only 4 players—Imran, Miller, Sobers and Kallis finished with a ratio of 1.5.

So, who fits the bill as the all-rounder in the most traditional sense?

Table 4: Values of ABP, ABoP and the adjusted sum for the given all-rounders. The Adjusted sum is the sum of the ABP and ABoP. *Note that corrections have been applied in the cases of Ashwin, Shakib (-2) and Sobers (-1) for better representation.

 

It must be noted that while there are all-rounders in ODIs who have opened both the batting and bowling consistently (Zimbabwe’s Neil Johnson comes to mind), the fast-bowling workload is quite immense in tests, and hence examples of all-rounders who batted up the order are hard to come by. One way of checking their importance to the team would be to sum up their average batting and bowling positions. Since spinners bowl later, a correction of -2 has been applied (-1 for Sobers, considering his bowling variety) to get an adjusted sum.

Figure 12: Representation of ABP versus ABoP for various all-rounders. Note that the correction has not been applied in the spinners’ cases.

Going by the average batting and bowling positions, and the adjusted sum values, Keith Miller fits the definition the most, followed by Sobers. Over years to come, Shakib has a great chance to join this clan due to his middle order batting position (and provided he can be effective as a bowler). What about Ashwin then?

The above plot also shows Ashwin’s value to the team—being the team’s leading bowler (like Kapil, Imran, Hadlee and Pollock). Ashwin might have been the only fifth man to score 300 runs and take 25 wickets in a series, and one of four men to tally the 600 runs-60 wickets calendar year double (with Botham being the other common factor in these two lists); Ashwin might have had a recent fantastic stint at number 6, but he wouldn’t figure any higher up in the batting order even if he were to score 5 more hundreds in 2017. However, he would probably be dropped to make way for another spinner should he continuously perform poorly with the ball for a series or two.

Figure 13: A snapshot of the various all-rounders’ career statistics after 45 tests.

In his relatively short career, Ashwin has shown great all-round credentials and is well placed ahead of many legends around the 45 test mark on many metrics. He has the highest wickets, WPT, five fors, and has the best batting stats when compared to others who batted primarily at number 7 or lower (Kapil, Imran, Hadlee, and Pollock). However, whether he follows the path of Ian Botham or Imran Khan remains to be seen.

Ashwin, being a spinner, has a great chance of a longer career compared to pace-bowling all-rounders. With a longer stint at number 6, he may even get to post higher scores as a batsman. With a little bit of help from the Indian pacers, he should be able to perform better abroad. He has a genuine shot at becoming the premier spin-bowling all-rounder of all time; but, his all-time status and legacy will heavily hinge on what he does with the ball.

Disclaimer: Some of the images used in this article are not property of this blog. They have been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.

 

 

The spin doctor

In the lead up to India’s 500^th test match in Kanpur, various print and online media outlets ran their own all-time India XI compilation articles: Espncricinfo to India Today, Wisden to The Hindu. Most of the squad members selected themselves, except for a couple of surprises. While there was general consensus that it was too early to consider Virat Kohli for an all-time XI (which is totally understandable), there were no murmurs that Ravichandran Ashwin made it to a few teams. Granted, India has always been a batting obsessed country but the spin cupboard was not barren either; India’s had a proud tradition from the days of Subhash Gupte, but that didn’t prevent Ashwin from being selected ahead of legends of days past. This is a testament to some of his achievements and current standing in world cricket.

Ahead of the pack: Ashwin has rapidly vaulted himself into all-time Indian XI slot contention with his recent showings. Image source: 1.

Ashwin has been the talk of the town ever since he remodelled his action; he has taken wickets by the bucket loads and his accomplishments over the last two years have been astonishing, by any yardstick (snide remarks by ex-India players aside). His appetite for wickets has been all too well documented. He is the first Indian bowler to breach the hallowed 900 level in the ICC rankings (similarly, only Gavaskar has crossed the mark amongst Indian batsmen). No other Indian bowler in history is in his vicinity with respect to the ICC ranking points. Hence, the aim of this article is to delve deeper into Ashwin’s standing amongst his peers and cast a critical eye on overseas records of spinners. Does Ashwin have a shot at all-time greatness à la Warne or Muralitharan?

First, we have to set the stage to understand the statistical perspective of a spinner’s canvas. For the purposes of this article, only test matches from 1 Jan 1946 to 20 Dec 2016 will be considered. Let us now proceed to see some popular measures used in cricket to quantify a bowler’s performance.

Strike rate (SR): Deliveries bowled/dismissal

Economy rate (ER): Runs conceded/six deliveries bowled

Bowling average (BA): Runs conceded/dismissal

Wickets per test (WPT): Wickets taken/number of tests played in.

Hence, it can be see that the Bowling average contains information about the Economy rate and Strike rate. Since it is a product of the two, a good (low) bowling average implies low values of the ER and SR. Therefore, we will primarily be using the BA as the first level filter; additional details will be obtained from SR and WPT wherever necessary. All the tables containing the statistics in this article can be downloaded from this link.

Fig. 1: Statistics of subcontinental spinners, ordered by total wickets for country. The leader in each column has been marked in bold.

We can now proceed to examine Ashwin’s record amongst his peers from the countries which boast of a spin-bowling tradition. He tops the table in SR, comes second in BA and bowls 45 balls/test lesser than Ajmal and Murali. That Muralitharan towers over the rest is quite evident from his statistics; he ranks first or second in every parameter. Amongst these spin legends, it is safe to say that his trajectory is moving towards Muralitharan.

Fig. 2: Comparision of Ashwin’s record against selected spinners’, after the 44 test mark

The extent of Ashwin’s records to date have to be assimilated by understanding the kind of start he has had. No other spinner since World War 2 has grabbed so many wickets in his first 44 matches. Ashwin is in a class of his own with respect to WPT, SR, 5 wickets per innings and 10 Wickets per match. From the above table, it is also easy to see how Murali tipped Harbhajan to break his records. Unfortunately for India, Harbhajan could not kick on from the start he got. At the 44 test stage, Warne and Muralitharan were in a class of their own. Hence, it is imperative to look at the Ashwin’s career trajectory with respect to these two legends.

Figs. 3: Variation of Career to date values of (a) Overs per test and (b) Wickets per test for the three bowlers.

The above plots of (a) Overs per test and (b) Wickets per test (WPT) are a progression of the cumulative real-time values. Meaning, the tallies at the end of every match are divided by the number of tests played to get an idea of how the player’s career performance statistics moved with time. To put it another way, these are career to date figures at the end of each test.

At the start, the perturbations to the values are quite large as the number of tests played is quite small. For these plots, the data for the first 10 tests have been taken into account but not shown to avoid the large spikes at the start of everyone’s career. Over time, the plots smoothen and all the values finish at the end of career values (for Murali and Warne). It also follows that creating a larger perturbation is relatively difficult at the end of the career due to the weight of the statistics to date.

From the graphs, it can be noticed that the two legends’ careers moved a bit differently. Both legends needed about 30 tests to get a grip of international cricket. Murali bowled significantly more overs after the 30 test mark, and got more wickets as well. Warne, on the other hand, bowled fewer overs (presumably, as he had to share them with a better set of teammates) but this did not impact his ability to take wickets majorly; his resurgence after the 100 test mark is an achievement in itself. Ashwin’s fortunes have taken an upswing after 25 tests and has bowled lesser overs per test. Perhaps it is more to do with his strike rate, as he has cleaned up sides faster than any spinner since World War 2.

Fig. 4: Comparision of Ashwin’s current wicket taking streak with Muralitharan’s peak

Can Ashwin overhaul Muralitharan’s tally? It will go down to how long Ashwin can keep his current wicket-taking streak going. In 20 test matches since 1^st Feb 2015, Ashwin has captured 129 wickets at 19.69 runs/wicket, which is an unbelievable streak. Not considering Muralitharan, that is. The Sri Lankan had a streak four times as long, stretching a scarcely believable 79 test matches: 7.15 WPT, 565 wickets at less than 19 runs/wicket.

Fig. 5: Hypothetical progression of Ashwin’s career wicket tally with respect to Warne and Murali’s careers, at different wicket taking rates.

If Ashwin continues at 6 WPT, he can reach Murali’s mark of 800 around the 136^th test mark (provided he plays for so long). India has typically played 8-10 test matches per year and he would be needing a decade of performing at this level in order to overcome that barrier. He will still reach respectable tallies if he can only muster 4-5 WPT instead.

Figs. 6: Variation of Career to date values of (a) Bowling average and (b) Strike rate for the three bowlers.

The career to date (a) Bowling Average and (b) Strike Rate graphs also throw up similar trends to WPT. Muralitharan continuously improved his stats from the 30^th test matches till almost the end of his career. Warne had a relatively steady career in terms of his statistics after the initial 30 matches. Ashwin’s strike rate was hovering around 60 balls/ dismissal but his showing in the last 20 test matches has got it to all-time great fast bowler territory. These plots only confirm Ashwin’s progress in the last 2 years or so, but much of his legacy will be dependent on how he is able to perform at this level, and how he bowls overseas (Aus, NZ, SA and Eng).

Ashwin has been rightly criticized for his showing outside the subcontinent before 2015. But what about his recent performances in Sri Lanka and West Indies? Are overseas performances in temperate conditions the Holy Grail for spinners? Is it easier to bowl as an away spinner in the subcontinent? To answer some of these questions, the next step would be to understand the nuances of bowling statistics across host countries. This can be done by examining the differences in bowling averages of home and away spinners. A high BA for an away spinner would indicate that either the home batsmen are competent against spin, or that the conditions are not favourable for spinners (or both). The corresponding BA values of home spinners can also be used to make a judgement; negative values of BA differences (Home spinners BA-Away spinners BA) imply that the home spinners have out-bowled the away ones. In the case of Pakistan, UAE has been designated as a home venue.

Fig. 7: Overall bowling average of home and away spin bowlers across different countries. UAE has been treated as a home venue for Pakistan.

It can be observed from the table that India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been great home venues for spinners – a no brainer; on the other hand, away spinners have traditionally prospered in countries where batting has been weak. There also seems to be some truth to sub-continental batsmen being comfortable against away spinners; though, we don’t have the true picture of this “dominance” as they don’t get to face home spinners. One more thing to be noted here is that these values of BA are not fixed, but move with time based on a team’s strength. As we’ll take note shortly, the home BA values are great even in a non-subcontinental country when a good spinner plays for the home team.

Fig. 8: Variation in home spinner bowling averages at host country over each decade. UAE has been treated as a home venue for Pakistan.

A good way to check this out would be to examine the evolution of BA in different host countries across each decade. A decade is a good unit of time as it would include data from a lot of matches. Of course, there could be an odd case of data missing from a team in transition around the turn of the decade, but a 10 year span is a convenient time span to measure the progress of a team.

Since the overall bowling average of a spin bowler during the time of consideration is ~35, we can use this as a benchmark. From the table, it can be observed that Australia, England or West Indies were not always a barren place for spinners. Low overall values of home spinner BAs can be observed in those locations during the time of Richie Benaud, Jim Laker, Lance Gibbs, Shane Warne, Derek Underwood, Graeme Swann etc. India and Sri Lanka took some time to figure out that spin was their strength. On the other hand, New Zealand and South Africa are yet to see a champion spinner. Of particular interest are class-leading home spinner BA of ~24 for Sri Lanka during the 2000s and ~25.8 for India during 2010s.

How have away spinners fared on tours to different countries during these times?

Fig. 9: Variation in away spinner bowling averages at host country over each decade. UAE has been treated as a home venue for Pakistan.

The above table reveals many insights: Australia has been the toughest place to visit for an overseas spinner; Bangladesh have improved their record against spinners recently; pitches in England assisted spin in Laker’s time (batsmen were perhaps average in the 1990s); once India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka found their batting giants, touring spinners never had it easy; New Zealand have not been pushovers against spin since the 1980s; South Africa took their time to adjust against spinners; and, the decline of Zimbabwe and West Indies are apparent. In the decade of the 1990s, all teams boasted good records against spinners.

So, which were the best places to tour as a spinner at different points of time?

Fig. 10: Variation in bowling averages differences (home spin BA- away spin BA) at host country over each decade. UAE has been treated as a home venue for Pakistan.

Using the same difference in bowling average measure, we can find periods in cricketing history when away spinners dominated over the home team. Here too, several patterns emerge: The 3 older subcontinental teams have rarely been outdone by their counterparts; England’s spinners underperformed for 3 decades; New Zealand has been a happy hunting ground until recently, the opposite holds true for the Windies; Australian spinners did not do well at home in the ‘70s; South Africa has never had a spin bowling champion; Bangladesh are fast closing the gap and Zimbabwe have slipped to oblivion. With all this information in hand, we can come to the following conclusions:

• Fledgling teams take some time to get comfortable against spin, even in home conditions.
• By the time batting strength is developed at home, away spinners are not as effective.
• In general, home spinners do better than away spinners when teams are of similar strengths.

Using this, we can now prepare a list of selected host countries (discarding records where away spinner BA<30) to separate the wheat from the chaff. Why? We mustn’t forget that many aspersions have been cast on Warne’s and Murali’s records due to their tallies against England, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe at various points of time during their career. Hence, we need to address this issue of opposition quality adequately using exclusions.

Fig. 11: List of host countries in each decade where the home team has had a poor record against away spinners (BA<30). These host countries were excluded from the away spinner BA analysis for each decade.

We can now proceed to examine spinner performances away from home across different time periods, keeping in mind these exclusions; we wouldn’t want to set the bar low, would we?

Fig. 12: List of spin bowlers with (minimum number of away wicket cutoff applied) BA

For the eight decades in question, we need to come up with an objective selection criteria. The number of minimum wickets captured by a bowler is a function of the length of the decade and the number of matches played away against opposition with “good” credentials of playing spin. In the first decade under consideration, no spinner averaged less than 30 away (all countries except NZ). The top spinner was Jim Laker, who averaged a shade over 30 in this war-truncated decade (minimum 15 wickets). Moving on to the 1950s, the bar can be set at 25 away wickets, which would translate to tallies over at least 2 series. There are four spinners who have excellent away figures, led by the illustrious Richie Benaud. During the decade, his wicket taking feats were ably supported by Davidson, Lindwall and Miller. The pattern repeats for Tayfield, Valentine and Laker, the other spinners in this list; every one of these bowlers had the support of fast bowlers who similarly averaged less than 30 in these conditions.

The same motif repeats itself in all the other decades; spinners from teams having a good set of fast bowlers have much better returns against the “good” teams in away conditions. Tweakers like Hedley Howarth (NZ), Geoff Miller (England), Roger Harper (WI) and Paul Adams (SA) boast a better record when compared to noteworthy names such as Prasanna, Chandrashekhar, Bedi, Qadir, Kumble and Harbhajan. The only spinner to buck this trend of having fast-bowling support is peak level Muralitharan in the ‘00s – snaring his victims at nearly 29 runs/dismissal, a far cry from the sub-20 levels he hit during in his pomp. For the last 3 decades, the bar has been set at 40 wickets since the number of host countries has increased. In the 2010s, no bowler has been able to average at less than 30 runs/dismissal. The top bowler is Saeed Ajmal, who was slightly over the benchmark. Unsurprisingly, he had Mohammad Amir’s support during this current decade.

These trends shouldn’t come as a complete surprise to the cricket fans who’ve followed the game for a while. On an average, fast bowlers have better bowling returns compared to spinners; the most successful test teams of all-time boasted of some fearsome quicks in their pack; the bowling is opened by the pacers, who set the agenda for the spinners to follow; bowlers tend to bowl better with a better peer-group. Thereby, spinners profiting from the inroads made by fast-bowling colleagues follows as a natural consequence.

On this note, the odds are very much against Ashwin bowling really well abroad against the better teams, given the lack of Indian fast bowling pedigree. Then again, Ashwin has achieved more than any spinner during the start of his career (except perhaps Clarrie Grimmett). Like his predecessors, he needs to maximize his returns against the “weaker” away teams such as Bangladesh, West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand and hope for an odd good series against the rest. India would certainly hope for Mohammed Shami and co. to develop as all-weather fast bowlers to aid him in his quest. All said and done, a fascinating sub-plot lies in front of us this time next year, when India tour South Africa.

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