Cricket Statistics and Trivia

[prasen9]

The overall average in tests in the last 5 years is 30.75. India's is 28.38 and opposition to India is 24.32. Now is this due to our bowling attack being very good or is this because we have played on bowling-oriented pitches? I don't have time to think or how to query Statsguru efficiently but is there a stat which can separate the impact of the pitches vs the impact of the Indian bowling attack? Do teams prepare bowling pitches when they face India? Is this because in SENA countries our batting is weak and cannot handle lively pitches? Or is our batting fine? Thoughts?

[Atithee]

A qualitative assessment I can offer is that our fortunes changed once we had fast bowlers of our own—more so abroad than at home. It leveled the playing field. Also, mental state improved in that we started believing we can win, but I think it was again attributable to our better fast bowling options. We always had good batting but they almost always started in a hole due to bowlers leaking runs in oodles.

[prasen9]

I fully agree.

Qualitatively, I think we have played on very bad wickets at home and abroad in the last few trips to SEN. Australia gave us batting wickets (or at least not doctored to the extent they used to - this may be because they have respect for our pacers now) and we obliged. RSA and England gave us bad to passable wickets and we drew in both places. Which are creditable results.

Qualitatively, I think that our batters numbers are subdued due to getting some very tough pitches and thus we are very harsh on the Gills, Kohlis, Rohits, etc. and so they deserve a slight adjustment and rope. Rohit, our best batsman in the last five years has an average of about 48. If the pitches are responsible for about a 3 run adjustment, then that goes up to 51, which is pretty good.

So, I am trying to figure out how many runs adjustment one must make to consider the pitch factor in the list that I drew above that shows no Indian in the top 12. The question is really whether we are devoid of star batters and the other countries are that much better? I think maybe but the difference is not as much as the raw numbers show. How can I verify that using pitch adjustments?

[Atithee]

You can use rest of the world combined to calculate the difference and apply the same to Indian batting.

[Kumar]

The overall average in tests in the last 5 years is 30.75. India's is 28.38 and opposition to India is 24.32. Now is this due to our bowling attack being very good or is this because we have played on bowling-oriented pitches? I don't have time to think or how to query Statsguru efficiently but is there a stat which can separate the impact of the pitches vs the impact of the Indian bowling attack? Do teams prepare bowling pitches when they face India? Is this because in SENA countries our batting is weak and cannot handle lively pitches? Or is our batting fine? Thoughts?

We don’t have the ERA+ that baseball uses. The problem in cricket is that a ground that was low scoring one time can be high scoring (ranchi produced a dead rubber when Australia visited few years back).

Did u look at england average pre 2022 summer. None of the batsman except Joe Root had average greater than 40 for five years pre 2022 june. Joe Root had average of 48. English have started preparing flattish pitches where ball comes on nicely and they want to overwhelm opponents by outscoring them. Brook and Duckett pretty much have played only post bazball and benefitted. English average jumped from 27 (2019 to 2022) to 35 (last two years). Their bowling average went up only from 29 to 31. The bazball has made their bowling effective becoz of the additional runs. In all bazball has been very effective for England as they have scored lot more runs than they normally would.

Also, all three teams Nz (55), Aus(50) and England(40) feasted on flat pakistan pitches. Except for England (2020), none of the top teams played in RSA in last 5 years.

[prasen9]

All of this is true. England was stupid to not realize earlier that the way to deal with a shaky batting lineup is to have flatter pitches. Now, they have.