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One year, One day – The miniskirt view!!

by Bored Member

by Raja Baradwaj

When Navjot Sidhu said “Statistics are like miniskirts, they reveal more than what they hide”, he didn’t know that a lots of South Indians especially the Tamils were going to hate him for life. For, he revealed our best kept trade secret. We Tamils love statistics (Maths, in general) as much as we like miniskirts, the arousal factor is why.

I should thank Soulberry, Straight Point and Naked Cricket (arousal factor, remember!!) for making me look at the statistics. For one moment I thought I had my foot in mouth, having filed the story. But then Q was a bit reassuring, to say that I wasn’t wrong but absolutely off tangent!! I thought why not look into the miniskirt, err statistics? May be there was another interesting / revealing angle there?

So here I am with some interesting numbers.

Stats thanks to cricinfo

What do we see?

I have tried to look at each full member nations ODI record for an year, dating back from their latest ODI appearance

1. The matches each team played, the wins, losses, matches without any results

2. The runs scored by them in that period, the number of overs played and the run rate

3. Their Win – Loss ratio with respect to the total number of ODIs played, when they batted first and when they batted second

Takeouts

a) Number of games played:

England played the least number of games in one year, 17 games

Australia played the maximum, 28 games

Pakistan played 22, and they played the minnows (Bangladesh, Zimbabwe & Hongkong) 13 times and obviously they won each of those 13

b) Number of Wins

Overall Pakistan has the best of Win – Loss % - 81.82% wins. But 72% of the wins came from beating the minnows

Aussies have a 76% win record. Then come the Springboks, the black caps and the Indians

West Indies languish at the bottom of the table, this is in spite of the fact that they had the second maximum number of matches played against the minnows. Unfortunately the loss in the hands of Zimbabwe in Harare makes their records even sorer.

c) Number of loses

As expected it is West Indies & England who occupy the top of the table (for once they would be happy they are on top)

Surprisingly India come third (overall). If you ignore Pakistan's win against the minnows then they go to position 4 and Pakistan come 3

Pakistan are champs if you consider their overall record, with only 18% loses in the year. If their record against the minnows is ignored, even then they score a respectable 40%

d) Run rate

Pakistan top the list irrespective of minnows or monoliths

Aussies have the third lowest of run rates, but still have a better win – loss record. Do we remember the hare & the tortoise story?

e) Batting 1st (Vs) 2nd

Pakistan have a better record batting first (overall)

Australia are a better team as long as they bat first. They have a near dismal record batting second.

New Zealand & Pakistan (overall) are champs as long as they bat second. New Zealand seem to have a major problem setting targets.

It doesn’t matter if India bat first or second. What matters is whether they fired. This is great news for India, a team who traditionally have been relying on personalities to carry them home rather than the team.

The Pakistan conundrum

Coming back to the Pakistan story

1. Did they play as frequently as anybody else did?

The answer is yes, they played 22 ODIs. Minnows or no minnows, the ICC or MCC or any other recognized CC still count all these matches played as ODIs.

2. Did they actually play good cricket before?

The statistic says no. They did score some good wins against the Indian's and the Sri Lankan's (here & there) but those wins were just something to add up to their great records against the minnows. Something was definately lacking, Mo Yo, Ge La, Na As, Sa Ah not withstanding.

Intikhab Alam I think could prove to be the missing link the Pakistani team lacked. I am sure Q (and all the bored members) would agree when I say he is more a Javed Miandad type of coach – The hands on variety, but more savvy and noble (a Muhammad Ali as opposed to a street fighter). But he certainly is not the Chandu Borde of Pakistani cricket, before a Kristen is found. I am sure he would certainly change the complexion of Pakistani cricket if the establishment doesn’t change its.

A different tangent again

Do cricketers really bother about their cricketing careers?

That is another post by itself. I think they care a sweet fudge all, what matters for all of them is whether their cash register is ringing or not.

Do you think Mohd. Asif thinks cricket gives him a better kick than the other substances do for him to appeal again??

Do you honestly think Symonds thought of quitting cricket when he came back from fishing?

8 comments:

straight point said...

oh RB...these stats...they make my head spin...no i was very good at match but for some reasons never liked stats... :)

though must say good attempt at them...stats or no stats one thing which is very clear is that pak is good team which has potential...and inconsistency as his old time nemesis...(though india suffers from it too...bt of late we are fairly inconsistent at being 'inconsistent' if that make sense :)

i think IA is not a coach bt a stron leader and man manager and thats what pak needs at the moment to bring them all together...to keep them focused and motivated for the job in hand and two in bush :)

Anonymous said...

RB

Your study only portrays Pakistan's % of matches played against minnows and not of the other teams hence it is flawed, 2008 has been an unusual year for Pakistan because of different countries not touring Pakistan. So you cannot judge Pak team on the basis of this years results.

If you do last 2 years analysis.

vs Bangladesh

India played 5 lost 1 win 4
Kiwis played 7 lost 1 won 6
SA played 6 lost 1 won 5
Aus played 4 won 4
Eng Played 1 lost 1
Pak Played 7 won 7
WI Played 1 lost 1
SL played 6 won 6
With the exception of WI and England every major team played atleast 5 to 7 matches against Bangladesh only Pakistan, Srilanka and Australia haven't lost to them.

Western teams haven't played against Zimbabwe and India havn't played against them either in the last two years.

Vs Zimbabwe

WI played 5 lost 1 won 4
SA played 3 won 3
Pak played 6 won 6

Fine Pakistan has played a few more matches against Zimbabwe than other teams but then again Pakistan hasn't played against England and NewZealand either.Our chance to win against these teams would have been much higher, if these teams can loose to Bangladesh they sure can loose against Pakistan so I don't see Pakistan getting much of an advantage. The matches Pakistan played against top teams Q already posted the results of those matches it was not like Pakistan was white washed in any of those series so whats the point.

In 2007 Pakistan were ranked #3 in ICC test rankings now its #6 why because we haven't played any test while other teams are playing in 2008.ICC's ranking system is also quite complicated teams do not earn as much points if they win against minnows as compared to the heavyweights so I don't think by playing a few extra matches against minnows as compared to other teams Pakistan earned any points in the ranking system, Pakistan was # 3 in 2007 in Odi rankings also even though it has won 81% of its Odi matches its ranking has still gone down.


I don't understand what you wanted to prove through your study Can you please explain.

Q said...

RB, I fail to understand. U yourself mention that Pakistan tops the win % table, and they fall to 3rd on the same table when matches against minnows are taken out. They top the run rate table as well, with or without matches against minnows.

And yet u conclude that they did not play good cricket?

Thats kind of confusing...

Plus if uve taken the minnow matches out of Pakistan's wins then u should do the same for other countries as well.

Moving on, arguably India is the best team in the world. Pakistan beat India 5 months ago in the final of a tri nation tournament. Does that count for nothing?

I fail to understand my friend.

On Intikhab Alam - he is more of a man manager than a coach. He will not use a laptop, nor will he come up with innovative drills for practicing.. he will be there to motivate, instill discipline, and unite the players. Thats his forte.

He has Aqib as an assistant coach to help him out, which is a good move but I feel the PCB need to have Intikhab managing the troops as head coach or something and under him they should have a batting (Inzi / Zaheer Abbas), bowling (Waqar / Aqib), and fielding coach (Ijaz).

Q said...

A note on Wasim's point on ICC Rankings..

If pakistan beats the Windies today they will jump from 6th to 4th in the table.. above India..

How wierd is that?

Hence, I'm sorry but these rankings and stats are all BS...

India is the stronger team today, we all know that, its obvious.

Pakistan have beaten them twice this year, hence it pretty obvious that the team is playing good cricket.

Som said...

To be honest, I'm sort of stats-challenged. Since my school days, they make me sick and no wonder I fail to read so many interesting trivia. And though I realise that, I'm too lazy to make amends.

Regarding that Sidhuism, I would say it was a moderate version of Aaron Levenstein's observation -- "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital."

straight point said...

'statistically-challenged' now thats the term...SOM...

i find myself sailing on same boat as you...and agree 100% that its too late to change now... :)

straight point said...

Q...

so...we agree on IA part...that he is more of man manager than coach...
see some times we agree too... ;-O

Anonymous said...

I barely passed maths but I understand mini-skirts... the problem with statistics is what they hide is bloody important to peep into.

Interesting analysis.

Cheers