Live, and all that

13 comments

1. Analysis of cricketers using statistics – When did this take over the earlier convention of analysing players for technique and temperament? I guess it coincided with the rise of Sehwag. The analysts who insisted on sound technique did not have an explanation for sehwag’s success. This put people who keep harping about technique in the backfoot. Suddenly the statistics became more important for people than looking good technically. Your take on this?

   1. Thought stats were important right from Bradman’s days.

      1. Maybe even earlier.

         1. As far as I remember, in early days (1990s) commentators used to talk a lot about technique for judging players worth (especially before and after team selection meetings). Sadagopan Ramesh was criticised more for his footwork than the results (which were decent anyway). Not much was spoken about the decent results he had. In 2000s, nobody talks about technique if results are decent enough. Rarely we hear about technique for player selection now. In that sense, I believe statistics have gained more importance now than before.

   2. What’s wrong with that? Do you want Sehwag or Manjerkar on your side? And by the way Kalki is right, STATs have been the most important factor to judge a player right from the beginning.

      1. Raj, I dont think muthu is saying there is anything wrong with that. He is trying to merely point out some trend. (Btw, which, according to me, is not fully correct. Muthu has a point in bringing in Sadagopan Ramesh, but attributing that to Sehwag would be too far-fetched, IMO. In the end, Ramesh was left out of the team because of the lack of results only I think).

         1. Not really. Ramesh scored a fifty in his last test innings and helped India draw the test against Sri Lanka.

            He was dropped for probably two reasons:
            1. Feigning injury before a big series in South Africa
            2. Not being in the good books of John Wright after he openly dismissed Wright’s training methods.
            3. Poor work ethics – lazy, laid back – leading to poor feedback from team management.

            1. That should read for “three reasons” 🙂

2. Muthu I am reminded of Collingwood’s technical conversation with Sehwag that I read somewhere that goes something like this!

   CW: How do you approach a delivery, you have predetermined mindset to hit or to block or do you read it from bowler’s hand and judge the length before hitting it?

   Viru: See ball & Hit ball

   CW: I mean, er…

3. question for Dr. Bhogle… When will cricket statistics mature to include fielding as a discipline? By that I dont mean number of just the catches by a player. But also number of direct hit run outs, number of assists in run outs, number of misfields, number of runs saved. I think this parameter will define the future complete cricket player.

4. read this article the other day and i personally think cricket (especially T20) would be a fertile ground for sabermetrics. UZR and VORP cricket equivalents would be most welcome. would be nice of the some of the IPL teams used some of these to value (and bid on) players rather than just potential or history in other formats.

   http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100402

5. The IPL3 has thrown up a number of interesting facts – check my observations – http://myhistoryisinteresting.blogspot.com/2010/04/ipl3-nuggets.html

6. One of the original plans of IPL was to take all franchise team to Public & list them in the major stock exchanges. That’s how they were able to get the bankers to Finance the deal. These Stats, MVP that DR.Boghle provides will have a great value when that happens. We are half way through IPL3 and most of the players bought in this year’s auction do not even figure in any of the teams except for Pollard ( able to keep his place by bowling).. That says something?

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