One Year, One day – The micro-miniskirt view

by Raja Baradwaj

Post the miniskirt view appeared, there have been a flurry of comments. Wasim & Q tried dissecting the miniskirt for a better view, here I am with some more statistics to support what I posted yesterday.

To start with let us see what our experts said…

1. Your post shows only the % of matches Pakistan played against the minnows…

2. 2008 was an unusual year for Pakistan because not many countries came in to play cricket here…

3. If a team can lose to Bangladesh / Zimbabwe they sure would lose to Pakistan…

4. You say Pakistan top the % wins table but conclude they didn’t play good cricket…

5. If you take the minnows match off the Pakistan list, why don’t you do the same for the other countries also…

6. Pakistan beat India in a tournament final some while ago, does it count here?

So gentlemen the numbers again…

Before we get in there, I apologise for having left Sri Lanka out of the analysis yesterday. And for having termed the sheet a comprehensive list of full member nations. I am sure the Sri Lankan supporters (if any) would be more peeved now, for showing these figures than they were yesterday.

What do we see?

a) ODI record for a year, dating back from their latest ODI appearance (3rd ODI in Abu Dhabi has not been taken into consideration)

b) The results against the minnows, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, Scotland, Kenya, Ireland, Bermuda have not been considered as long as the stronger team won it. In some cases where the minnows won (New Zealand – Bangladesh) the results have been included

c) Another addition to the sheet is the % matches played at home

The numbers say…

1. Even after discounting the minnows record, we can see that Pakistan have played cricket, 9 matches to be precise. As opposed to 13 by South Africa. Not bad at all if you asked me

2. When the minnows go out, Pakistan have a 56% win record, again not bad if you saw this in isolation but if you look at it in conjunction with what we call the top teams have, then the story is different.

3. If you look at the % of matches lost, then Pakistan are near the top. Only West Indies and Sri Lanka beat Pakistan here.

4. If you look at the % of matches each team played at home, you can see that more teams have toured Pakistan for a ODI series than they came to India, Sri Lanka & New Zealand.

My take…

The table above has the list of matches all the other teams played in their last one year, with the exception of the matches against the minnows.

Pakistan beating India in the Asia cup finals have definitely been taken into consideration.

Many countries didn’t tour Pakistan, therefore they didn’t play enough cricket: This according to me would be the biggest farce the Pakistani cricket establishment has been propagating in the last year or so. Their good friends at ICC – India & Sri Lanka also have not got many teams coming in to play cricket in their soil. But the difference why they played more is because they toured more. I am not sure why Pakistan didn’t tour enough.

If a team can lose to Bangladesh / Zimbabwe I am sure Pakistan could beat them: One look at the % of non minnow matches lost makes me think otherwise. As Sidhu would say “If ifs and ands are like pots and pans, there would be no tinkers”

With this, I am sure the debate would get bigger & better, keep it coming folks. Interesting times ahead for statistics & Pakistani cricket (let’s hope).

PS: The data used came in from the great guys, cricinfo. Apologies for not having credited them yesterday, I should have.

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One year, One day – The miniskirt view!!

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 1^st (Vs) 2^nd

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?

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FLASHBACK 1: This month, those days…

By Raja Baradwaj

Rewinding back to 1995, October 25, 26, 27, 28, 29

The place was still Madras. A fantastic & historic ground, close to the Marina Beaches. 

M A Chidambaram stadium, that was were the pitch was laid out. The Lords of cricket in India were too ignorant of the seasons in India those days, not that they have improved any degree these days while scheduling. I S Bindra and his crack team decided to defy Varuna, the rain god who normally is a frequent flier along the Madras skies during that season.

Even before the cricketers could set foot on the MCC club grass, the MET office and Doordarshan, Madras had declared the match a draw, rather abandoned due to incessant rains. The lucky Md. Azharuddin was, he went out for the toss with the newest captain of New Zealand cricket Lee Germon. It was another fact that Mr Germon was new to test cricket itself.

The toss master he was, Azza won and the Indians were batting under overcast conditions. In charge of handing the man who was purportedly the reverse swing expert of NZ cricket, Danny Morrison and another second generation maverick Cairns, in Chris were Manoj Prabhakar and Ajay Jadeja for India.

Jadeja played 41 balls before he finally got out bowled to Dion Nash for 3. Prabhakar was then joined by Sidhu who by then was fondly called “Sixer” Sidhu by his fans in Madras, the place were his crickteting career blossomed to maturity. When rain gods intervened and had the players scurrying to the pavilion, Prabhakar was on 19 and Sidhu was on 18. The play could never resume before it was the fourth day of the match. Sidhu eventually went for 33 caught by Twose off the bowling of Cairns and India were 73 for 2.

By the time the match had reached its 72^nd over on the fourth day, Manoj Prabhakar the opener had briskly & very attackingly reached his 41^st of runs (in 220 balls), he had with him a certain young man who already had made his mark in the cricket annals as a budding superstar. Prabhakar must definitely have seen him as a very rash youngster that day, someone who didn’t take his test cricket seriously. The man was a one certain Sachin Tendulkar who was, at that time on 52 and this was just after the 88^th ball he had faced.

By which time it was rain again and it seemed Madras would never get to normalcy in the next 72 hours. It was a Poonai – Naai Maazhai (Tamil – English: pouring cats and dogs). So the match was called off and a presentation ceremony was called for, with that one old MCC member overlooking the Silver Duck sipping his RC Whisky reading The Hindu. Sachin Tendulkar was declared the man of the match for his 52 No.

And India were sitting pretty at, 1 – 0 in the 3 test series.

Another interesting fact in the series was that one Mr Roger Twose, who made his debut in the Madras Test built a reputation for himself. He went on to call Sanjay Manjrekar, one of the most dignified of cricketers, names. This happened in an ODI in the Vidharbha Cricket Grounds at Nagpur. This was post an athletic effort from Manjrekar to get Mr Twose runout for 9 runs, as NZ were setting a target up. NZ eventually went on to win the match by 99 runs, while India won the next match in Bombay to take the series 3 – 2.

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