blogging it real

Yamis and dc_red undertook a detailed statistical analysis of the careers of the NZ Cricket team's regularly-selected test batsmen. We were particularly interested in evaluating their consistency, and the percentage of the time they actually contribute to the team. The key points and commentary are here: you can access the underlying numbers by clicking on "Comments" below.

Yamis developed two broad categories to assess each batsman: 'Not doing his job' (scores of 0-29 in an innings, excluding not outs) and 'Doing his job' (30+ runs in an innings, including not outs).

Craig McMillan
Doing His Job = 36 innings (45%)
Not Doing His Job = 44 innings (55%)

Nathan Astle
Doing His Job = 47 innings (47.5%)
Not Doing His Job = 52 innings (52.5%)

Stephen Fleming
Doing His Job = 66 innings (46.2%)
Not Doing His Job = 77 innings (53.8%)

Mark Richardson
Doing His Job = 32 innings (60.3%)
Not Doing His Job = 21 innings (39.7%)

To analyse it a bit further, Fleming has a career average of 37.79 compared to McMillan's 40.75. Fleming gets a few more starts (because he's a better player than McMillan technically). But he gifts his wicket away by pulling out his classic fall over on-drive which sees his stumps removed or else he's plumb in front, or his other favourite, the slashing aerial cover drive at a lifting ball a metre outside off stump as soon as he thinks he's set. It is worth adding though that The Mullet (as dc_red affectionately calls Fleming) has got himself out for 30-34 on a total of eleven occasions as well.

McMillan either tries to get to 20 in the space of a dozen balls or he pokes around for bloody ages to see if that works. He really has never had a consistent temperament at the start of his innings. It should be something that he works on for the last half of his career. The feeling of dc_red and Yamis is that he does not contribute to the team regularly enough and has probably contributed to as many losses if not more as he has done to wins. The first test against England being a good example where we came up about 30-40 runs short in both innings where he made 6 and 0.

Astle has been a mixture of the two but he has had too many scores between 30 and 70. You could accuse him of getting a start like Fleming and then trying to 'light it up' with not too much success. He's only been past 70 a total of 14 times in 99 digs (1/7 innings). That's pretty piss poor from one of the more talented cricketers in NZ history. Fleming is even worse though with a woeful 18 times past 70 in 143 innings (1/8 innings) but McMillan has done well in this respect with 17 from 80 innings (1/4.7 innings). Already Richardson has past 70 on a total of 16 occasions from a mere 53 knocks (1/3.3 innings). Note that those innings only included dismissals below 30 and all other innings above it.

Richardson's just a bloody legend and he'll be going up on our sidebar as soon as he gets near the end of his career. He bats the same way right through his innings and shows tremendous patience. Obviously we would be no good if we had five guys who batted like Richardson because it would take two days to get 400 team runs but if a few of the other guys just pulled their heads in a little bit and they batted in partnerships a bit better they could probably all scrape their averages up a few runs.

DC_Red thought another interesting criteria would be how frequently do they have abject failures, being dissmissed for single figures?

Here are the totals (with the innings total representing all scores of ten or more, and all dismissals under 10):

Fleming: 40 failures from 143 innings = 28%
McMillan: 21 failures from 82 innings = 26%
Astle: 24 failures from 101 innings = 24%
Richardson: 9 failures from 54 innings = 17%

The really amazing thing about Richardson is that he always opens the innings, and it's very much expected that in test cricket openers are occasionally going to get an unplayable ball early on, and be dismissed cheaply. He's the guy who has to go out there to face the new ball being slung at him at 150kph on the green seaming wicket under overcast skies by a fresh and enthusiastic quick bowler --- conditions Craig McMillan almost never sees.

Meanwhile, our esteemed captain, darling on the local press, contributes essentially nothing to the team every third innings. Nice one, mullet.

And one final thing. We were really just looking at their batting which is what they are primarily selected for but all the same...

Astle has taken 36 test wickets at 47.52 he strikes every 129 deliveries and his economy rate is 2.2.

McMillan has taken 28 test wickets at 43.89. He strikes every 88 deliveries and his economy rate is 3.

Both useful efforts. Hell, Vettori only strikes every 85 deliveries so McMillan is about as effective in that regard and Vettori goes for close to 2.7 an over as well. Whoops now Yamis is bashing Vettori again. Time to call it quits.