Songs in the new year: a follow up to Tendulkar in a losing cause

I got a question (Tendulkar’s performance against top teams) in response to my last post. Also the final test vs SA has unfolded nicely since so a quick short follow up. I filtered the stats in the previous post to reflect games against the top 4 teams segmented by wins and losses. Data is for games where Sehwag, Laxman, Dravid, Tendulkar & Dhoni have all played in (Ganguly & Gambhir show up where relevant). Small data set with under 15 tests but most fair to benchmark equally

Here’s a couple of takeaways.

1. I cant do it alone!!!

Does Tendu’s performance hold up against top teams? .

Batting Averages vs Eng/Aus/SL/SA
	Won	Lost
Tendulkar	53	60
Dravid	32	23
Laxman	55	34
Ganguly	43	13
Sehwag	64	35
Gambhir	64	22
Dhoni	43	40

The stats are fascinating. Actually Tendulkar plays better when India loses – its just that the rest of the players (except Dhoni) dont play well at all !!!! So No, its not that Tendulkar plays well only in a losing cause but that everybody else crumbles . (particularly our openers) and he cant make up for all of them.

 

 

2. The finish line belongs to VVS Laxman. Period!!!!

My last post ended with “let’s wait for the next test and the world cup to seal the debate” and here's Tendulkar doing his part to seal the debate today!!. But if he fails in the 2nd innings , i can see the critics rise again (never mind that he scored 40% of our first innings runs to guide us to a psychological lead against very hostile bowling).  Perhaps Sehwag will hit a flash 70 (high time) and maybe Laxman will guide us home (again) in the 2nd innings and then the Tendulkar bashing will start. So i compared performances across 1st innings the 2nd innings and again – very interesting insight. Its not that Tendulkar performs  poorly – he’s pretty consistent; just that Laxman OWNS the end game (and Dravid is a disaster).

Averages against Eng/Aus/SL/SA
Bat average	Ist Inn	2nd Inn
Gambhir	65	58
Sehwag	64	43
Tendulkar	58	57
Dravid	49	17
Laxman	38	72
Ganguly	37	25
Dhoni	37	34

 

So there you have it – there’s probably many other ways to slice the data (only away wins but the pool will be small) or get other conclusions (we win when the openers fire) but this is to answer the specific Tendulkar rants.  One interesting tidbit below from my slicing the data:

For matches won against the top 4 teams in away games when all these batsmen have played: Laxman averages 71 (and 117 if its only 2nd innings) which is 2X times the next best Indian batsman (and 4X for the 2nd innings only). Only 4 test but interesting nonetheless!!

ps: some of these stats show Dravid in a poor light which is worrying as he is also an old time favorite, so perhaps the topic of another post.

This one’s for Tendulkar’s misguided naysayers

So i have a long running argument (part fun, part real)  with an old friend. Does Tendulkar perform only in losing causes? And since he provoked me again after the Durban win – i felt compelled to respond long and  hard to that 'innocuous' question of how Tendulkar fared in the Durban test :-)

So my first non IPL post on this blog is for you Mr Bajaj!!!

Let me answer the question though. Yes he failed (13 and 6) in this test match. Arguably so did everyone across both teams except Laxman. At least he top scored in the previous game in a losing cause – but more  on that below. However the fact is he didn’t do well in Durban. And is not as good with the tail as  Laxman is . And perhaps is a better first innings player than 2nd Innings (like most people in the world).

 

That said, here are some facts.

1. Tendulkar scores only in losing causes: i looked at the averages of our top 7 batsmen across their career, only in matches India won and matches India won since Jan 2008. I think the story is clear (and if i add his losing cause scores then... , well never mind).

Averages	Career	All matches won	Matches won since 2008
sehwag	54	57	68
gambhir	50	49	66
dravid	52	65	44
tendu	56	67	76
laxman	47	54	57
ganguly	42	46	37
dhoni	40	47	58

 

2. Tendulkar has scored 17.5% of total runs scored by India since Jan 2008. Use whatever ratios you want but its very disproportionate.

 

3. Next argument – his  average is bolstered by centuries vs Bangladesh. First,  I'll remind you that all the batsmen had the same opportunity. But nevertheless , if i take out the Bangladesh wins from the above table then his average falls to 73 from 76. No big deal.

 

4. Finally – does he play a leading role in our wins – beyond the averages?: Some judgment here but in the 16 tests that he played in since 2008 where India won, he has played a leading role in at least 9 of those games. i defined leading role as (i) either been man of the (3 times) or (ii) scored a century (7 times) or (iii) scored 20% of India's runs (7 times). Again 9/16  so I wont do the math.

 

Lets wait for the next game and the world cup to seal the debate!!! 

I’ll stop here but you get the point as this picture is better than my  1810 words :-)

They are defending champions you know …

Well , i got almost all my predictions wrong yesterday (and i say almost only ‘cos the KKR v MI match is not yet done and i could end up being fully wrong).
Chennai beat Punjab in a masterclass by Dhoni – but it really could have gone either way. Guess that ends Irfan’s comeback hopes as the India skipper will not have much faith. Perhaps he and Yusuf (who is now on thin ice i think if he flops a couple more times) can practice in their backyard to get back into form. In any case it was close and Punjab batted well so i don’t feel so bad about the prediction.
However, i was very sure that DD will come together to beat Deccan easily – with the top order firing hard. Well that wasn’t to be as they all crumbled. In fact, Nehra played the scoop shot (of sorts) better than Dilshan (who is the leading contender for the worst performer of IPL 3) has in the whole tournament. And as i mentioned to Aloke earlier in the day, perhaps Gambhir should have given Sehwag this advice – “pretend it’s a Test match”
Well in any case Deccan it is. Despite Gilchrist not performing (maybe a singled handed win in one of the next 2 games is on the cards ?) the team really brought it home. The low total was something that Delhi should really have got but then as Symonds said in the break  - ‘ well its not a high score but we have the runs on the board and they still need to get them”. The unfathomable decision to not play Vaas in the last few games was brought to the fore with his super performance today (he still has the best economy rate in the team) and Rohit Sharma took some stunning catches. But really the three musketeers of Symonds , Suman and Sharma with a more than able D’Artagnan in Ojha have been key to their revival. With Vaas back, Harmeet delivering in crunch moments and the skipper due for a score they might just go all the way. Its a reasonable mix of experience and youth as Aneesh Vijaykar pointed out and boast the best bowler of the tournament (and 3 others with a average of less than 7.5) and a batting line up that is sharing the load equally. Somehow i just didn’t believe the old legs had it in them (and perhaps still dont) – then again, maybe i shouldn’t have been so skeptical.

They are after all the defending champs.

ps: Interesting data.
KKR vs Mumbai. A bit of a ‘who cares’ . A rudimentary excel table revealed that KKR breaks even at about 150 runs. ie i think if they score 150 runs they need needs to win by about 150 runs. If they score less than 150 it doesn’t matter. If they are chasing a score of about 150 they need to win by about 17 overs. I may be off by a few overs or runs but you get the idea – should be a fun match.

May the best team win IPL 2010 - really?

So a quick post to check whether the best team will win the IPL 2010.
If you look at the points table it's very likely that the 4 semi finalists will have the following score.
1. Mumbai Indians - 20 or 22 points
2. Royal Challengers - 14 points
3. Delhi (or Deccan) - 16 points

4. Delhi, Chennai, Deccan or KKR - 14 points.

So given this , even if MI doesn't win a single game hereonin they will end the tournament with 20/22 points. Which means that if some other team wins the IPL 2010 , they will be at best having '20 points' or possibly even 18. If Deccan or Delhi win, they would have less overall points and would have lost  to the Mumbai Indians twice in the league . (at least Chennai and Blore have beaten them once each).

So if Mumbai beat KKR in the last league, reach the semis where they face say Deccan or Delhi - its possible they will lose to a team that will have a total of  18 points vs 24 for Mumbai and a team that they have beaten 2/3 times in the tournament.

So does the best team really win or is it just about all on that day. Now you could argue that this is an age old debate on format and is the same for example in the ODI world cup etc . However the extensiveness of this tournament with 14 games in the league stage and each team playing every other team twice may mean that the IPL look at it differently from the ODI tournament (like some of the football leagues). However that is less exciting so maybe at least a best of 3 final instead of the sudden death. Kill the 3rd place match if needed and have the 3rd place be decided on points if time is a constraint.

I know we discussed this last year as well wrt whether the IPL format needs change  but i do feel it will be a shame when Mumbai loses while having the best tournament by far. This will become even harder next year with 10 teams . Then again , maybe its like life - timing is everything and peaking too soon doesn't work (always do your best work in the quarter when your appraisal is due).

Any change in views now that we have 3 years of history?

KKR - semi finals or done?

So a lot of debate around the scoring rate today after KKR perhaps took a little longer than they should have to win and ended at a NRR of

-0.456. The commentators also alluded to BRC’s losing by a big margin and how that may have been beneficial for KKR. So what’s going on and

what do KKR (and the rest) need  to do? Did slow scoring really matter? Here’s a few facts and scenarios

1. First, the result of the Mumbai Bangalore match has no bearing whatsoever on KKR. Simply put, KKR cannot hope to make up the NRR gap vs BRC (they’d need to win against Mumbai by something like 90+ runs). They need to focus on results of Chennai , Delhi & Deccan. So lets take them one by one

2. Chennai: Will be through to the semi finals if they beat Punjab & will be out if they lose as they do need to get 14 points minimum. So a simple equation and totally in their hands. If they win , they will get to 14 points and have a NRR > current .27 which is enough and I’ll explain why.

3. Deccan vs Delhi: Whoever wins is through on points (16). The loser will only worsen their current run rate and it is below Chennai already so it doesn’t matter. So now consider the two outcomes in this clash

3(a) Deccan loses: In this case their NRR will range from –0.4 to –0.52 (ran scenarios with scores of 140-180 runs & losing by 10-40 runs. These assumptions should cover it but are not all inclusive) . This is the best news for KKR - they can win by about 10-20 runs against Mumbai & make it.

3(b) Deccan wins:  Practically curtains for KKR because Delhi’s NRR will be in the range of +0.01 to –0.1 (assuming Deccan win by 10-40 runs on scores of 140-180). My best case scenario for KKR wherein they score 180 runs & beat Mumbai by about 50 runs gives them a NRR is about –0.23.

What if KKR had scored much faster today vs Rajasthan? Well if they had done it in 13 overs (cant imagine faster) & beat Mumbai Indians next by 50 runs their NRR would still be about –0.15 (lower than the Delhi Daredevils). Of course scoring faster wouldn’t hurt (and some of my calculations are simplistic and it may get close) but i don’t think it would have made a difference. So what then of the semi-final line up and KKR chances?

For KKR to go through

1. Delhi needs to beat Deccan & Punjab needs to beat Chennai. 2. KKR needs to beat Mumbai by about 20+ runs

 

For the rest : (a) Chennai beats Punjab and they are through else out (b) Winner of Delhi vs Deccan is through (c) If Chennai lose then Delhi and Deccan can both make it through if Deccan beats Delhi or if KKR lose to Mumbai.

 

So what do i think? Delhi will beat Deccan, KKR will beat Mumbai and Chennai will lose to Punjab.