You Don't Necessarily Need 20 Wickets to Win a Test

It irritates me no end when experts talk about a side needing 20 wickets to win a test. At the risk of sounding pedantic, I'm going to point out that there have been 131 tests in which a team lost despite losing less than 20 wickets. Ofcourse most of the teams that lost in such a manner did so because one or more of their batsmen were either retired hurt or absent hurt.

However, there have been numerous instances in which a team has declared either or both its innings and gone on to lose. South Africa lost at the SCG in 2006 because Graeme Smith was ready to risk losing the series 2-0 if it gave him a chance to level it at 1-1. He declared both innings and Australia chased down the target on the back of a second hundred in the game from captain Ricky Ponting. Less than a year later Shane Warne masterminded the collapse that broke England's spirit for the remainder of the series. Warne and his mates had looked insipid in the first innings when England piled on a score of 551/6 before declaring their innings. India's historic win at Chennai came after Kevin Pietersen had declared England's second innings with one wicket remaining.

Sure these occurrences are rare (Statsguru doesn't allow me to sort the declared innings from the others), but they do happen. More often than a team winning despite scoring less runs than the opposition. How many times has a team done that? Never. Why? Because in test cricket, just like in any other sport, you cannot win if you don't score more than the opposition. And yet experts keep talking about how bowlers win you matches, how you're not a world class side if you don't have a strong bowling attack, how you can't win if your bowlers don't have the ability to take 20 wickets.

Saying you need 20 wickets to win a test is the biggest cliche in cricket. You can say it because it's not like you can take more than 20 wickets. But can anyone predict the number of runs to win a test before the start of the match? Obviously not, because in order to win you need atleast one more run than the opposition although you could win by scoring a lot more as well. On the other hand, you could score a lot more runs than the opposition and yet not win! So while scoring more than the opposition is a necessary condition to win a test, it may not be sufficient. But taking 20 wickets is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to win.

If you took a snap poll among cricketers on who has the better bowling attack between India and Pakistan the verdict would be overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. A similar poll on the batting strength of the two sides would result in India getting the vote over their neighbours. And yet it's the Indian team that hasn't lost a series in two years (They have won 5 during this period, 4 if you exclude Bangladesh), while Pakistan have lost two series and not won any during the same period.

The only two teams both have faced during this period are Sri Lanka (Home and Away) and New Zealand (Away). India beat Sri Lanka at home while Pakistan drew against Sri Lanka (The first test was drawn and the second one was cut short after the attack on the Sri Lankan team bus). Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka 2-0 away from home, failing to chase a sub-200 target in one of the tests while India drew their series in Sri Lanka 1-1, chasing down a 200-plus target in the final test. Coming to New Zealand, India beat the Kiwis 1-0 and it might well have been 2-0 had it not rained on Day 5 with India needing just two more wickets. Pakistan, on the other hand, drew their series 1-1. You can say Bond didn't play against India and New Zealand won the only test he played against Pakistan, but Pakistan would have lost had it not rained on Day 5 of the final test at Napier.

This isn't an exercise in proving India is better than Pakistan when it comes to test cricket. I've used these two teams because they have forever played contrasting styles of cricket. A few years ago Pakistan were clearly the better test side because they had batsmen like Saeed Anwar, Javed Miandad, Salim Malik, Inzamam-ul-Haq to go along with bowlers like Wasim, Waqar, Imran, Shoaib, Saqlain. Compare that lineup to the current lineup that has only one batsman averaging over 40 and you know why Pakistan aren't among the top sides in the world. In contrast, India have figured out ways to win in all conditions with Zaheer Khan being the only consistent performer. Each of their top 4 averages over 50 and the number 5 batsman averages almost 60 over the last 4 years, while the captain averages over 60 when he's leading the side.

The two greatest test sides were so good because they were extremely strong in both disciplines. It's not like Marshall, Holding, Garner and Roberts had a bunch of bunnies batting in their side. Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lloyd is as strong a top four as you'll get. The Australian juggernaut had Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Waughs, and Gilchrist. They have combined for over 150 test hundreds!

The point I'm making is there are different ways to be a quality test side. While being a strong batting side doesn't guarantee it, being a great bowling side doesn't either. Remember, you can't win unless you score more than the opposition but you can win even if you take less wickets than them.

Edit: David Barry just showed me how to filter out finished innings so that we only have innings which were declared.

Why Captaincy is Redundant

It's scandalous to suggest that captaincy doesn't count for much but it's getting increasingly difficult for me to believe otherwise. I'm tired of seeing captains set template fields and make a cosmetic change every now and then. Commentators cry themselves hoarse every time batsmen edge one down to third man for a boundary. Captains try to plug the gap by taking a fielder out from the covers and putting him in the slip cordon. When was the last time you saw a captain leaving mid on open in a test to encourage the batsman to drive?

The next time you watch a test just compare the number of balls hit to mid on to those hit through the covers or edged behind square. It's amazing that captains continue to ignore this disparity. I've talked to a few cricket followers about this and the standard excuse is the bowler can't afford to drift even slightly as the batsman can easily punch it straight. In that case, why have a fine leg or a square leg? Why not put a deep square leg and a very straight midwicket? The fielder at deep square leg would also be useful as a catcher for the surprise bouncer. The bowler would have to drift way down leg in order to concede a boundary in this case. I think it's worth taking out a fielder from the on side and putting him on third man. Batsmen edge a lot more balls down there than they glance to fine leg.

Another aspect of captaincy I am sick of is the use of the nightwatchman.  As a batsman, I've always wanted to bat as much as I could. I understand some batsmen are more jittery than others and don't want to go out to bat with a handful of overs left, but IT IS THEIR JOB. Bowlers should simply refuse to be sacrificial lambs when asked to go out as nightwatchmen. They're not as well-equipped as their batsmen to see off the last few overs and also run the risk of copping a blow that might prevent them from bowling. But more importantly, the opposition bowlers see a great chance of picking up a wicket. If that happens, the batsman coming in next would be under even greater pressure.

I've seen it happen way too many times, more often than nightwatchmen adding nuisance value to the opposition. Yesterday was a case in point. Bangladesh had done really well to surpass England's total after following on. They lost their fourth wicket with a lead of 98 and just 4 overs left in the day. The captain was slated to come in next but instead sent in Shahadat Hossain. Hossain is a slogger at the best of times and the last person you'd expect to hold up an end. Sure enough, he was back in the pavilion after facing just 4 deliveries and not getting off the mark. Shakib walked in at 5 down with just one more run added to the total and 3.3 overs to negotiate. In sending Hossain before him, not only did Bangladesh lose a wicket. They also lost a batsman who could have added 15-20 runs at the back of the innings.

This isn't just the case with Bangladesh. Just about every team is guilty of such passive cricket. Strauss lost the Wisden Trophy in the Caribbean last year after two late declarations. Dhoni drew a test against New Zealand he had no business not winning after his side had dominated all five days. Ponting has been averse to enforcing the follow on ever since the Eden Gardens test, although it has to be said that he was more aggressive during the Australian summer.

I don't know how aggressive captains were before I started watching cricket about 20 years ago. One could argue they've been more adventurous by pointing to the number of successful run chases in recent times, but it could very well be a result of flatter pitches and decline in the quality of bowlers. To me, captains are robbing us of a more cerebral aspect of the game by not having the will to redefine the way cricket is played.

The (Out) Law of Averages

A couple of years ago, as part of my statistics course, we were given an article on statistical fallacies in sports. We were then asked to come up with a different statistical fallacy we had found in a sport. It wasn't too difficult to find one. Here's what I wrote and the statistical evidence to back it up.

One of the biggest clichés in the sporting world is the Law of Averages. While there is a real theorem that a random variable will reflect its underlying probability over a large sample (The Law of Large Numbers), the law of averages typically assumes that unnatural short-term "balance" will occur. Television commentators, including former cricketers often claim a batsman is “due” as he hasn’t scored a “big one” for a while.

In order to test this “Law of Averages”, the stats of the 15 batsmen with the most number of innings were studied (Consider it roughly equivalent to the number of plate appearances in baseball). The reason for choosing these 15 was that they provided the largest samples for study. I calculated the number of innings each of them took to score a hundred and used it as a benchmark to test the law of average, rounding it up to N. For example, Allan Border scored 27 100’s in 267 innings, which roughly came out to be a hundred every 9.9 innings. Hence, according to the law of averages, if Border hasn’t scored a 100 in 9 consecutive innings, his tenth (Nth) inning should be a 100. I then calculated the probability of this event using the formula:

P’ = N₂/(N₁+ N₂), where

P’ = Probability of scoring a 100 in n^th inning after (N-1) consecutive scores of less than 100

N₁=No. of instances when batsman didn’t score a 100 in ‘N’ consecutive innings.

N₂=No. of instances when batsman scored a 100 after ‘N-1’ consecutive scores of less than 100.

The P-Factor is a measure of how frequently a batsman scored when he was “due”. A P-Factor of more than 1 indicates a batsman delivered more frequently when he was “due” as compared to his career record. Table 1 shows the analysis of the sample. Of the 15 batsmen sampled, 12 have a P-Factor of less than 1.1, 7 of which have a P-Factor less than 1! Seems to me that even some of the best batsmen don’t fare any better when they were “due”, isn’t it?

Player	Innings	100's	Innings/100's	N	N1	N2	P	P'	P-Factor
Allan Border	267	27	9.889	10	87	9	0.101	0.094	0.931
Steve Waugh	260	32	8.125	9	92	8	0.123	0.08	0.65
Sachin Tendulkar	237	39	6.077	7	65	13	0.165	0.167	1.012
Alec Stewart	235	15	15.667	16	86	6	0.064	0.065	1.016
Brian Lara	232	34	6.824	7	69	14	0.147	0.169	1.15
Graham Gooch	219	20	10.95	11	63	7	0.091	0.1	1.099
Sunil Gavaskar	214	34	6.294	7	58	11	0.159	0.159	1
Michael Atherton	212	16	13.25	14	62	4	0.075	0.061	0.813
Mark Waugh	209	20	10.45	11	46	8	0.096	0.148	1.542
Rahul Dravid	205	24	8.542	9	64	9	0.117	0.123	1.051
David Gower	204	18	11.333	12	69	6	0.088	0.08	0.909
Desmond Haynes	202	18	11.222	12	62	6	0.089	0.088	0.989
Inzamam-ul-Haq	200	24	8.333	9	49	6	0.12	0.109	0.908
Jacques Kallis	194	29	6.69	7	68	9	0.149	0.117	0.785
Geoffrey Boycott	193	22	8.773	9	55	8	0.114	0.127	1.114