Sachin Tendulkar and other legends

The Little Master WikipediaYet another research report was done recently by a set of researchers in Australia on the best batsman in the history of cricket - the result was a known one. The best batsman in the world was Sir Don Bradman.
There were changes in the remaining batsmen based on their averages. But, there is a fundamental flaw in this process, as per my thinking.

Why are we trying to include Bradman in the calculations and comparisons. Everyone who is living and dead, old and young, veterans and newcomers, have acknowledged the fact that Sir Don is the greatest of all batsmen in test cricket.



Why dont we then, compare the other batsmen against Don, rather than trying to measure all of them with arbitrary values?

I tried to do the same exercise pitting the best batsman in modern times, Sachin Tendulkar, against the Don.
To find out the matches or the opponents where Sachin failed against, I did a comparison of their %runs scored against %innings played. That is, if a player played against a specific country for 20% of his overall number of test innings, he should have scored 20% of his overall number of runs. If the difference is 0 or a positive value, it means that the player had a performance that was comparable to his overall numbers. If it was a negative difference, this showed that the player fared badly against the country or in that situation. Lesser the negatives will determine the greatness of a player. It takes the average out of the equation since I am not worried about the not-outs - just taking the innings played into consideration. I like to call this as the 'DoP' value (Difference of Percentages).

What were the results? It turned out to be quite interesting. There are some limitations in the approach taken, however - I will mention it as we go along the comparison process.

Sachin's consistency across the years has been a wonder to look - only 2 years (2003 and 2006) has his performance been not satisfactory, 2003 seeing him play only 5 matches. 7 of his other years has seen him dip slightly - a real marvel at his tendency to be consistent throughout his career. Bradman, on the other hand, showed interesting figures - 3 of his years having the dip (though to be fair, 2 years saw him playing only 2 and 3 test matches in the year) with 3 other years showing a smaller dip.

Bradman played only 4 countries during his life-time (India, South Africa, West Indies, England), scoring 72% of his runs against his traditional rivals England, while playing in 70% of the matches overall. Against West Indies, he scored 6% of his runs while playing in 10% of his tests - a difference of 4% on the negative side. The average also dips by more than 20%. Here, one has to say that the number of matches played against WI was only 5 - hardly a sample to compare.

Tendulkar, on the other hand, has negative differences against NewZealand, Pakistan and South Africa (more against the latter two countries) - he has a chance to make the numbers better later this year against NZ (at home) and SA. He has a positive difference against the other four countries (Australia, England, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh) & 0 difference against 2 others (Sri Lanka, West Indies). South Africa has been among the top-3 ranked teams during Sachin's playing lifetime. Even though NZ and Pakistan have not been consistent in their performances in test cricket but have managed to keep Sachin down.

Bradman has a negative difference at home, compared to his performances away - quite interesting really. He seemed to relish the English conditions more than the ones at hoome. Similarly, if one looks at Sachin's performances across the world, he has again shown a good difference in Australia and England, 2 places where the conditions are quite different than at home. South Africa, again, has resulted in Sachin's performance going down a bit - a reflection of the talented bowling attack that the Proteas have had over the years. Just like the Don, Sachin averages in the negative at home also!! His performance in Pakistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe have slightly dipped as well - one can argue that Sachin has played against Windies when they had better bowling attacks than now.

I have done similar charts with 3 other players who have scored the highest number of runs in the history of cricket - Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid. The countries where they have scored less against as well as the countries they have scored less in, are compared.

This chart shows the performances of the four current greats against all opponents.Dravid against Australia, South Africa seems to be on the -ve side while Lara has a greater negative against India and NewZealand. Ponting has a difference against India but not very high.

This chart shows the performances of the same batsmen in all countries. Ponting in India, Lara in Australia, Dravid in Sri Lanka are the major differences.

Verdict: Each have their weak points but overall, Sachin has a good score against all countries but Ponting seems to have the better score playing in all countries.

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Galle Test - India let Sri Lanka get away further

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India, thanks to the exploits of their pace bowlers, made a comeback in the first session of the 3rd days play. Ishant Sharma, in fact, gave Jayawardane the same treatment that he had given Ricky Ponting in Perth before taking his wicket. Mithun gave him good support at the other end, not only restricting the run scoring but also taking wickets.

In fact, they were the only ones who looked like taking wickets from the Indian attack. They started the bowling in the morning, took a brief rest and then come back to take the second new ball, restricting to around 340 for 6.

Herath and Malinga then took the attack by its scruff, scoring their highest first-class scores. Prasanna Jayawardene was the one who started attacking the bowlers and strengthening India's position. This is where the Indian bowlers gave away the match - now, only a draw could be the favorable result for the Indians.

The Indians started their innings after the declaration at tea. Gambhir was dismissed cheaply by Malinga - his batting has been going downhill, even though slightly, for few matches now. Probably, his rich vein has gone the other direction now - whatever reason it may be, he needs to re-align his radar back to his high-scoring ways. Sehwag had no such problems - he was away, putting away the bad balls while controlling the ones that threatened his body and head.

Rahul Dravid - he must have now gone ahead of Inzamam-ul-Haq in the number of run-outs - lost his wicket after settling down. Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed by the magician, trying to attempt a sweep. Sehwag continued to prosper and it is very likely that he will add to his tally of centuries tomorrow. Laxman has been promising so far - hope he can go on to score a big one.

3 days gone and India still is not in dire straits. They can still make a match out of it, at least think they can. 320 is the first target that the Indian team has to scale (interesting rule for follow-on here). The Indian team needs to show their batting strength and combat the Lankans on the last 2 days. Will the rain-gods help India also?

Session Dashboard - The Lankans still lead the Indians by 4.5 - 1.5. The first session was all India's while the Lankans came back in the second. The third session was dominated by the Indians though the Lankans took 3 vital wickets. With 6 more sessions remaining, Sri Lanka needs to win more than 3 sessions in the next 2 days to win the match. What will India's response be?

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Cricinfo - what next?

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Cricinfo has been doing a great job in providing statistics, articles, blogs on the sport for quite some time now. They have established themselves as the leader in cricket web-sites all over the world. There is enormous amount of information available that can be used for various purposes. What next for the site now? What are the various initiatives that can be introduced? Quite a few:

• Unlock the data -  The data that is available within Cricinfo can be made available as xml, xls, csv formats so that bloggers, writers can do further analysis and publish information. Of course, it is available even now but one has to do a lot of data-massaging to get into a spreadsheet or program that can be used for analytics. 
• Video highlights - Since ESPN owns Cricinfo and they have tie-ups for various tournaments that happen within the cricketing world, it makes sense to have pages with video highlights. In fact, just like the wicket commentary is displayed on the score-card, the dismissal video can be shown in a similar way. With the success of Youtube in the recent IPL, video highlights (and especially dismissal highlights) will be a big hit if that is shown on the site as well.
• More Social Networking features - The site has interfaced Facebook on its site but it still has a lot way to go. There can be other features like trends, (virtual) gifts/currencies, etc that can be added.
• Yahoo has started a feature by name Yorker (thanks to Prem Panicker, Akash Chopra & other friends) which allows cricket supporters chat on areas of interest. This can be refined further to make it more interesting.
• Monetization - With the number of visitors on the site, it is high time the site made it to their use. Ads are not just enough. There needs to be other features that increase the revene - this is where they can innovate further.
• Fantasy Cricket - Considering the fact that Fantasy Leagues are all over the web-world, the one prevalent in Cricinfo can be further enhanced for increased adoption.

Of course, these are but a few of the features that can be enhanced. A lot more can be done once more inputs from the viewers are considered. What do you think?

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India leave for another tri-series

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India, led by new captain Suresh Raina, leave for another tri-series (for a change, it is a ODI tournament & of course, with a new-look side). This is a great opportunity for the Indian team to prove that their domestic (including IPL) performances were not a flash in the pan. Raina, of course, has given the right statements about being excited about his new role.

The youngsters in the team are raring to go and prove their wares in the international arena. The new bowlers included in the team are Pankaj Singh, Ashok Dinda and offspinner R Ashwin. Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar are the others who form the pace quartet - both also young guns, who will be making their debut. The captain expects that the seamers will play a leading role in the series - hope to see the prediction coming true. Wicketkeeper Naman Ojha plays the role of reserve, one that the main keeper Dinesh Karthik plays regularly.

Sri Lanka has taken a cue from the Indian team and announced a new-look side. Hence, the tournament itself  takes a B-team look. The expectations from the Indian team are not great but of course, any result other than a tournament win will result in heads rolling. So, it is a good situation for Suresh Raina to go with an open mind.

The fielding can be expected to be better than the recent performances we have seen. The bowling will be a completely inexperienced team while the batsmen have a good sense of international cricket.

Here is wishing the team all the best for the series and hope that there are few young turks (for a long-term perspective) identified from this series.

After IPL and KPL, here comes MPL

Yes, Maharashtra Premier League. Wonder if the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and Rohit Sharma will be forced to play in this. What will BCCI's approach to this be? The players are being rested for international cricket in Zimbabwe but will they participate in the Local IPL?

No wonder, Aakash Chopra reacts this way !!!

Maharashtra Premier League...hmmm!!!!less than a minute ago via webAakash Chopra
cricketaakash

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T20 World Cup - Australia give India a good hiding

India was shown where their technique stands in international cricket. More than their competence of handling the short ball, it was more a mental issue. Batsmen had seen the bounce the pitch was helping, while India bowled and had made up their mind that the Oz pacers will get good purchase. The quiet period put pressure on the batsmen in such a way that the shot-selection was getting confusing. This is not to belittle the performance of the Aussies either on the field or with the ball.

More than 50 dot-balls tell the story - if at least half the dot-balls were scored off, the deficit would have been much shorter. Add to this, the 14 balls that were not utilized by the batsmen at the end of the innings. The competition got hotter when Rohit Sharma started playing his shots - the Oz bowlers started worrying once the partnerships started going.

This was just half the story. The eleven that was selected for the match was packed with batsmen to compensate for the bowlers. MS Dhoni and the team management probably thought that the part-timers could manage the quota required. Ravindra Jadeja would be the fall guy of this match but that may not be his fault. Six sixes of 6 balls (even though of different overs) made a huge difference in the match. Not only him, the other bowlers were also guilty of bowling short. Maybe MSD had to bowl Rohit or Raina in Jadeja's place.

The tournament is still not over for the Indians - the Windies slumped to a similar defeat against the Lankans. If the Indians can put their act together and defeat the other 2 teams, they can still make it to the next round. Australia dont look like losing any match. Hence, it would be a tie-up between the other 3 teams for the other slot - Sri Lanka has taken a lead over the others in the race. Will India catch up? If they can get their heads sorted out in the next 2 days, they can.

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T20 World Cup - India cross the Afghan hurdle

The Indians came up with a clinical performance to defeat the Afghanistan team, though the newcomers did not disappoint the viewers with their performance. The typical dismal shows put up by the Qualifiers in earlier World Cups was not on view with the Afghan putting up a good fight given their constraints.

The World Cup is different from the IPL in many ways more than the obvious ones. The larger grounds, slower out-fields and pitches make the scoring more difficult. Boundaries are no longer assumed to be the case when the ball crosses the inner ring. Batsmen are expected to run twos and threes, which they might have forgotten during the IPL. The target scores will be also less than the average of 180 seen in the IPL. Spin bowlers have made a comeback in this years IPL and this World Cup is also no different. Off the field, the commentary is much better than what we have noticed - no longer the Maximums or the Kamals - we are back to sixes and catches!!

MS Dhoni opted to bowl first because of the early start (catering to the Asian audience for a larger advertising pie) and the fact that he was not aware of what to expect from his opponents. Very soon in the match, Nehra and Zaheer realized that the Afghans were not so comfortable with the short-pitched ball. This led to early wickets but a good partnership in the middle prevented a complete wash-out. All the Indian bowlers had a decent bowl with economic returns, except Yusuf Pathan probably. This match must have given the bowlers a good practice for the next big match.

Afghanistan tried their best which was, as mentioned earlier, much better than what other teams have done previously. In the bowling department, apart from the first over, the Afghans pegged the Indians with their line and length. Some obvious deficiencies were visible in their effort but that will be overcome with more exposure.

The chase was very easy for the Indians thanks to the required run-rate. Gambhir and Raina got out early but Vijay took this opportunity to make a good start in his T20 career - of course, who would not mind a free-hit as the first ball? Yuvraj scratched around and does not seem to be in any form of substance - hopefully, the time spent at the crease will help him against the Proteans. Of course, the Indians will be happy getting into the next round (unless a spectacular turn of events happen. They need to win the match tomorrow against SA to get into a good confident mould as a team.

Well played against your heroes though, Afghanistan. Good job.

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India's chances at the 2010 T20 World Cup

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The Indian team won the inaugural tournament but could not do well in the next version. How they will do this year seems to be seen. Whether they will be able to recover from their hectic IPL experience, will determine more than anything else.

The pitches will help the spinners and batsmen will feel more at home than in any other T20 World Cups so far.

Without playing any warm-up matches, the Indians are practicing the first few days in the islands. This might be a good tactic to go, after the IPL journey.

Openers

India are missing Sehwag here but never mind, Vijay comes into the squad thanks to his wonderful run in IPL3. Gambhir and Vijay are going to be key to provide starts to the Indian team.

Middle order

What can you say about a middle-order that has Suresh Raina (MoM of IPL3 finals), MS Dhoni among a host of other all-rounders. Dinesh Karthick will play if MSD has injury problems.

All-rounders

There are a number of batsmen who can be classified as all-rounders because of their ability to bowl spin - Yuvraj Singh (remember six sixes), Ravinder Jadeja (best Indian bowler in last T20 World Cup), Yusuf Pathan (the Baroda Marauder), Rohit Sharma (the best technical batsmen from the Gen-X). 3 of them will play and it might be mostly the first three.

Spinners

Harbhajan Singh will play a lead role in the team in the spinning department while Piyush Chawla will get a chance only if Bhajji gets injured. Because of his inconsistency, Bhajji is still considered as a spinner, not an all-rounder.

Fast bowlers

Zaheer Khan can be easily named as the most canny bowler in international cricket, if not the fastest. He will lead the pack with Ashish Nehra. The Kumars, Praveen and Vinay, will provide variety with their right-arm medium-pace - only one of them will play in the eleven. All the bowlers can pack a punch with their bat (which even if it is for a few balls, will matter in this version of the game).

Looking at the composition, the Indian team looks quite strong (on paper at least). Bowlers who can bat and batsmen who can bowl give the team a good look. Of course, if it goes to the Super Eights, that itself is a step up after the last year's performance.

Let us raise our hopes and hope that MSD brings back the T20 World Cup this year, to go with his IPL trophy. All the best, India.

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IPL3 Performances - Post-mortem

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The IPL finished yesterday with Chennai SuperKings winning this version but the news today was overshadowed by the Modi-factor. Newspapers feel that readers are more interested to know more about LKM than the final match itself.


Over the course of the tournament, there were a large number of performers who shone. Let us try to decide the best player in each category (I am not including players who are obvious - ones like Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, etc) 


The promising bowler from my perspective was Pragyan Ojha. Others who put in performances that were interesting in a couple of matches included Harmeet Singh (slower ball specialist), RP Singh, R Ashwin (opened the bowling in the latter part of the matches which revived CSK fortunes), Shadab Jakati (probably the best spinner in a squad consisting of Muralitharan - doesn't it say something?). Jaskaran Singh, A Uniyal, Umesh Yadav, Sumit Narwal, Abu Ahmed, KP Appanna, Jaidev U were some of the younger bowlers from different teams to notice going forward.


The promising batsmen was Saurabh Tiwary. The ones who shone as well included Robin Uthappa (amazing performance by the RCB batsmen in the end overs), M Vijay(came into the Indian team based on his performances at the top of the order), T Suman (One of the consistent performers of the Deccan Chargers team), Ambati Rayudu(must have gone up the pecking order for a backup wicket-keeper). Lone performances came from Manoj Tiwari, Manvinder Bisla, Manish Pandey, Abhishek Jhunjunwala, KM Jadhav, Kedar Jadhav.

From the all-rounders, it was clear that Angelo Matthews started well but did not sustain the level till the end. R Sathish, Yusuf Pathan, Juan Theron were the others who did well in both departments but not consistent enough. India definitely needs a bowling all-rounder who bowls medium-pace and if Sathish can play this role, it will be a great step forward for the team.


Naman Ojha is the keeper who has played well in the matches throughout the tournament other than the make-shift keepers like Uthappa or Rayudu. The duo of A Tare and Dinesh Karthick did well in matches but again, nothing startling.

Finally, the IPL Dream Team XV of the entire tournament who should be invited to play the World T20 winners - Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, MS Dhoni(c), Suresh Raina, Andrew Symonds, Robin Uthappa (wk), Angelo Matthews, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Pragyan Ojha, Lasith Malinga

Best Catches - Watch here for the ones I feel are great in the tournament.

R-B Charts of all IPL3 matches are available here. What is R-B? Check here if you dont know.

Men of the Matches, their home-towns and home-grounds can be seen here.

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RCB needs to get its batting order right

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RCB failed against Deccan Charges on 10th April - 4 losses in the last 5 matches.

This is mostly due to the fact that the bowlers did not defend the score but more importantly, the strip was so good that Deccan batsmen could chase the score easily.

The top-order of RCB seems to be very heavy - especially if you have Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid in the Top3. Manish Pandey and Kallis seem to be the right opening pair for the team but Rahul is not the right No.3.

The Team Management would do good to give a chance to Srivats Goswami - he can do the role of a wicket-keeper (though Uthappa is doing a fairly good job in his role). He scored heavily in the recent ODI matches and hence would give a better balance to the team than Dravid. Though I hold Dravid in high esteem, he seems to be out of sorts in this format - it is better that he is rested for the remaining matches.

Of the four foreign players in the playing eleven, Kallis, Steyn, Ross Taylor and Cameron White would be the ideal players in the Top seven. Manish, Uthappa and Goswami will finish the remaining slots in batting. The bowling will be taken care by the captain Kumble, Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Appanna. This will be a good balanced squad for RCB - containing the dashers as well as the steady batsmen. Of course, Virat Kohli is missing - maybe he might be swapped for Appanna.

This eleven will give a better chance to win the match against Kolkata and in the future games.

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IPL3 - Nuggets

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Noticed some points in the ongoing IPL3 - I am sure you will have observed this, as well.

• Commentators - The commentators are typically known to be honest, non-biased, frank and brutal in their insights on the cricket match. In this tournament, the set of commentators at all the venues (including reputed ones like Gavaskar, Shastri, etc), the descriptions are more around the sponsors of the tournament - DLF (Six), Maxx Timeout, Karbonn (Catch), etc. In fact, one commentator even forgot to mention six - he just said 'It is a DLF'!!! Is the terminology being changed here, by Lalit Modi? If someone pays him a bonanza, he will gladly agree.
• Sledging - the international players seem to be a bit less reluctant to voice their intentions on the field in international cricket. It is probably the fact that they are playing in IPL together with players from other countries. But, the attitude of the Indians is not getting better - Harbhajan and Sreesanth are prime culprits - even Zaheer seems to give his opponents a solid hearing (check the video against RCB when he gave a mouthful to Uthappa who was his team-mate till last year).
• Faster Ball - The slower ball in the T20 matches are being over-used so much to the extent that bowlers ball almost all the balls lesser than their normal speed. It is time that the 'faster ball' makes a (re)appearance in cricket now.

What do you think about this?

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More potential revenue for IPL

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All of us cricket-followers must have come across the offering from EA Sports - Cricket 07 at some point of time, if not played it. I am not sure if Lalit Modi has seen this. If he has, he will get a lot more ideas from this game.

Obviously, one would be to get into a partnership with a gaming company to create a Gaming eco-system around IPL. But, that is not my main suggestion for IPL (and LKM).

If you notice the commentary in the matches played in the game, the wonderful voices of Richie Benaud and other prominent commentators can be heard. Of course, the key sentences like 'A great over' or 'Wonderful shot to get a boundary' are recorded in the voices which are played whenever required.

From what we have seen in this year's IPL3, the commentators are more focused on giving the details of the sponsors rather than the happenings of the game - 'DLF Maximum', 'Karbonn Kamaal Catch', 'Max Mobile Timeout', 'Citi Moment of Success' are phrases more heard than the actual commentary. This will get worse next year if LKM is successful in getting the sponsors of the Orange Cap and Purple Cap (this year the deal did not fall through apparently).

These statements can be recorded in the voices of Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and others. They can be played by the TV producers whenever required in the game. What happens between balls? They can be used to show more ads (further potential to make more money) - every ball can be preceded and succeeded by 1-2 ads. Optimal utilization of time at the best. All the travel/hotel costs of the commentators can be reduced this way. The match can be actually covered by the low-cost television anchors who cost way less than the ex-cricketers.

What do you say Mr. Modi? Will you follow this route next year?

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Lalit Modi - the next Ecclestone

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Lalit Modi - the name is worth millions, no billions in the cricketing world. Not just for him, but for the rich BCCI. Today's outcome of the selection of additional 2 teams was no different - $703 million for 2 teams - could anyone have predicted this? Especially after the way the previous auction was terminated.

The IPL has become a brand that was evaluated at more than $4 Billion last year - this year, the number is set to grow exponentially.All this has been the brain-child of Lalit Modi who holds an iron hand in all decisions regarding the IPL as well as the Champions League. Who would have predicted that the game would prosper in such a way that it will become every marketing guys' envy.

Of course, there have been various turns and twists in the story so far but this man cannot be out of action - as the saying goes, you like him or hate him, you cannot ignore him at any cost. Just have a look at his introductions to the IPL brand this year:

• Tie-up with Youtube to broadcast the IPL on internet
• Partnership with ITV for UK broadcasting rights
• Broadcasting of the matches in HDTV

Whatever one can say of the man, he has shown that he is one innovative person in terms of branding and marketing his product. I am not sure whether he considers Bernie (F1 Supremo) as his guru but he sure looks like he is on the same highway as Mr. Ecclestone.

What will he do next year remains to be seen - re-auctions will happen and the stalwarts who are playing (Tendulkar, Kumble, Gilchrist and others) after their retirement from this format may not continue. From what I can see, the IPL will continue to expand and be played in many more venues than today - more countries will be covered. There will be more countries where cricket will be beamed, 2 IPLs in the same year was one thinking last year. He might be one reason why West Indies and New Zealand teams will see a revival, thanks to the financial backing.

What next, Mr. Modi?

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IPL - what to look forward to

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Harsha Bhogle has come out with his thoughts on what he is looking forward to, in IPL3. There were quite a few innovations in IPL2, if you remember.

While he talks about most of the innovations (slower/faster ball, scoops/paddles, wicket-keepers, captains), one point that he has probably missed out is the time-outs and how it will impact the concentration of the batting team.The teams are allowed to choose when to have the time-out (just like the NBA matches). This will become as critical as the PowerPlay in ODI matches. Teams will struggle to find the right time to take the time-out.

Another point to notice is the presence of dew in night-matches - how is Lalit Modi going to ensure that it does not play such a major impact?

The presence of Windies players will be an added attraction in this season of IPL - the performances of players like Pollard, Roach, Tonge will determine how the remaining players of the Caribbean will be awarded contracts in future versions of IPL.

The other innovation that I would like to see in IPL3 is the use of a Super-Sub - remember this not too long time ago?

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The casualties of IPL

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Today, the main news-item of the day was about Mutthiah Muralithara - he plans to bid adieu to test matches after the West Indies tour.

Few days back, it was Brett Lee.

Andrew Flintoff fears that he may not play again.

Earlier, Matthew Hayden spent a season in IPL and jeopardized his chances to play for his country - finally, tendering his resignation.

The common thread between all of them - IPL. Is Mr. Lalit Modi bothered? Not at all.

Only when an Indian player follows the players above, the BCCI will wake up. Till then, the Modi-dom will rule and he is allowed to talk about 'test cricket'...

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