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Home > Cricket > Columns > Ananth Narayanan
August 17, 2000
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Test players' performances - an analytical review

Ananth Narayanan

Now let us look at some different ways of evaluating batsmen performances.

3. Top 20 Batsmen - By Runs/Test (Criteria 2000 runs)
Batsman Mat Runs R/T
Bradman D.G 52 6996 134.5
Headley G.A 22 2190 99.5
Pollock R.G 23 2256 98.1
EdeC Weekes 48 4455 92.8
Hobbs J.B 61 5410 88.7
Hutton L 79 6971 88.2
Nourse A.D 34 2960 87.1
Nurse S.M 29 2523 87.0
Sobers G.St.A 93 8032 86.4
Walcott C.L 44 3798 86.3
Hammond W.R 85 7249 85.3
Lara B.C 68 5759 84.7**
Sutcliffe H 54 4555 84.4
Barlow E.J 30 2516 83.9
Barrington K.F 82 6806 83.0
Mitchell B 42 3471 82.6
Chappell G.S 87 7110 81.7
Gavaskar S.M 125 10122 81.0
Tendulkar S.R 76 6036 79.4**
Kanhai R.B 79 6227 78.8

This negates the not out factor and is a true indication of the batsman's contribution. Again, Bradman leads the pack by 35 runs. The surprising factor is that the next two batsmen have scored nearly 100 runs per test. Lara leads the current batsmen with 84.7 runs per test followed by Tendulkar, with 79.4 runs per test. 80 seems to be an acceptable figure for evaluating a batsman's greatness.

4. Top 20 Big Innings Batsmen (Criteria 10 100s)
Batsman Mat 100s BII
Bradman D.G 52 29 186.0
Zaheer Abbas 78 12 179.8
Amiss D.L 50 11 170.8
Lara B.C 68 14 169.33**
Hammond W.R 85 22 167.5
Simpson R.B 62 10 164.6
Hutton L 79 19 156.1
Javed Miandad 124 23 155.8
Gooch G.A 118 20 152.1
Sobers G.St.A 93 26 150.7
EdeC Weekes 48 15 150.4
Headley G.A 22 10 148.4
Graveney T.W 79 11 147.5
Richards I.V.A 121 24 147.3
Hanif Mohammad 55 12 146.2
Edrich J.H 77 12 145.2
Jones D.M 52 11 145.1
Saeed Anwar 49 10 144.9**
Kanhai R.B 79 15 144.6
Chappell G.S 87 24 144.4

A very rarely done analysis is the ability of batsmen to play "big innings". Not content to stop at pre-conceived landmarks, but go ahead and play on for longer innings. The value to the teams will be enormous since this allows building of multiple big partnerships and big scores. In this case, I have taken the 100+ innings (just a cut-off point, could as well be 99) of batsmen who have scored at least 10 100s and averaged the same.

No surprise that Bradman is still the top batsman (Surprise comes in the next para). Zaheer Abbas was great and comparable to Bradman, in converting 100s to 200s. Of the modern players Lara is leading with a high Index of 169.3. Tendulkar is out of the top 20 with 142.9.

The surprise is Jayasuriya, who is out of the list because of the selection criteria. In the seven 100s he has scored, he has a BII of 187.7, ahead of Bradman.

Ananth Narayanan

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