Posting an article by Aloke Gupte - part time investment banker at JP Morgan, full time cricket enthusiast and statistician :-) Aloke will publish , among other things the weekly round up on this topic. Here goes…
This is more a comment on GT's piece on sunday, but has gotten too long and so here we are. This series serve as a performance review if you will - and while the idea is to predict who will be on top it is perhaps more satisfying (and useful to get predictions right) to who has moved and of course, those that have moved down.
A snapshot of the top 10 batsmen and bowlers also allows us to do some reflective analysis on how their teams are doing, so we will go ahead and attempt a few observations as well.
First, (as is this game's wont) the batting. Last week's order in terms of RUNS was: Kallis, Sehwag, Sachin, Bopara, S Tiwary, Gilly, Mongoose, Symonds, Yusuf and Karthik. A couple of surprises but largely an entirely believable cast of characters. Kallis had 78 run lead and the debate was about whether someone will catch him at all, let alone in 1 week.
Runs
#1 Kallis 310
#2 Sachin 303
#3 Yusuf 250 (easily leads the MVP list right now)
#4 Hayden 215
#5 Sehwag 198
#6 Bopara 197
#7 Raina 194
#8 N Ojha 186
#9 Pandey 179
#10 Uthappa 177
Kallis retains his lead, I think for the last time (not saying this because I am an ardent Mr. T fan, which of course I am). There is something else happening which will impact the teams in a major way - some good, some bad. That’s a long discussion and I'll have to get into that later.
A couple of other things to mention about the names above:
1. 7 Openers! The funny thing isnt that there are so many of them (you would expect that) but that they are there despite not really lighting up the tournament! Kallis & Sachin have been outstanding and you may argue that Bopara, Ojha and Pandey are punching above their weight. Hayden (up from 7th to 4th!) and Sehwag (2nd last week, down 3 spots now) have not exactly been their domineering selves but are perched in the top 5!
2. Yusuf. The man is currently in a league of his own. Went from 9th to 3rd last week, opens the bowling (and does pretty darn well there too). Is the only non-opener in the top 5, which is also a fantastic testament to how well he has done. Not hard to see why the Royals have gathered so much momentum!
3. The Churn. There are 4 new men in the list. Raina, Ojha, Pandey and Uthappa have replaced Tiwary, Gilly, Symonds and Karthik. They currently occupy #7-10 meaning that 6 of last weeks run scorers have done enough to stay ahead. Does any of these 4 have enough steam and opportunity to make a further dent in this list? Will be an interesting to follow their fortunes this week.
4. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. GT hits the nail on the head with his piece on the importance of the bowling in this format. Consider this - the top 10 consists of 3 Royal Challengers, 2 Royals & 1 (the one) Mumbai Maestro (this is the 'Good'), 1 Kings XI, 0 KKR (the 'Bad') and 2 Super Kings (now that’s just Ugly). No co-relation to where the teams are placed, you might say.
For those that want a peek at strike rates, here you go (min of 125 runs): #1 Gilly (retains his spot), #2 Yusuf, #3 Sehwag, #4 Uthappa, #5 Dhoni (same guys in the top 5, middle 3 moving amongst themselves), #6 Irfan, #7 M Tiwary, #8 Hayden, #9 Rohit, #10 Sachin. Kallis is 16th! Remarkable that the man who has 1 six to his name should be in this mix.
Batsman of the IPL (so far): Sachin Tendulkar (runs, speed, leading the team, max impact…its all there). Watch this space to see if he remains there next week.
Bowling now.
Last week's men (Wickets): Vaas, Murli, Symonds, Praveen, Ishant, Balaji, Maharoof, Nannes, Matthews, Mishra (quite an odd lot)
Last week's men (Eco rates): Murli, Kumble, Kartik, Vaas, Yuvraj, Symonds, Nannes, Zaheer, Langeveldt, Rohit Sharma (a somewhat better lot)
GT is right - you would rather have a Zaheer in your team than Balaji or Ishant…the difference is palpable. Here are both lists for this week:
Bowling
Wickets Eco rate
#1 Murli 11 (6.28) #1 Kumble 5.49 (5)
#2 Tait 9 (7.20) #2 Kartik 5.57 (4)
#3 Vaas 8 (6.66) #3 Murali 6.28 (11)
#4 Bhajji 8 (7.08) #4 Yusuf 6.57 (5)
#5 Vinay 8 (7.66) #5 Vaas 6.66 (8)
#6 Mishra 7 (7.31) #6 Yuvraj 6.66 (3)
#7 Ojha 7 (7.73) #7 Nannes 6.75 (5)
#8 Praveen 7 (7.50) #8 Malinga 6.92 (6)
#9 Balaji 7 (8.95) #9 Trivedi 6.93 (3)
#10 Symonds 6 (7.00) #10 Symonds 7.00 (6)
Murli has over taken his buddy Vaas (who, poor chap got dropped for the headline signing Kemar Roach!?). My conclusions:
1. The Unfortunates. Bowlers do have it tough and not just because of flat decks, short boundaries and the Mongoose. Take 2 cases this week : First, Vaas (#3 in wickets, #5 in eco rate) dropped last night for $700,000 signing, fast Kemar Roach! All this while, Herschelle Gibbs plays on after being ranked #14 amongst batsmen. Now, Murli Kartik - is #2 on eco rates and plays for a team (KKR) that you think needs him. However, register this - he drops Sachin, gets stick from Dada and mysteriously disappears for the game against Kings XI. Strange? No, just the lot of a bowler.
2. The 2nd Spinner. Continuing the trend of unhappy bowlers, am sure both Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha are thinking they deserved to be on the flight to the Carribean more than Chawla (4 @ 7.63). They are both in the top 10 wicket takers - 7 apiece and Mishra has a better average then Chawla. Even Murli Kartik might agonize a bit about this - he has the same number of wickets, lot more experience and is one of 2 bowlers conceding <6 runs per over!
3. Yusuf. I know. I know. But what can you do, the man is in 3 of the 4 sets above! He hasn’t made it to the top 10 wicket takers (yet) but it would take a brave soul to bet against him!
Bowler of the IPL (so far): Murli. Very difficult to look beyond a man in the top 3 on both parameters and bowling with gusto. His sheer joy at dismissing Sri Lankan team mates Sanga and Mahela (within minutes of each other) was great to watch!
Happy watching and I'll be back with the next edition of BEST, next Monday
3 comments:
here is one that i back to get into the top 10 - David Warner, he's played less games but will get there (i write this when he is 28* against KKR
Also, who would have bet that Dilshan & AB would both sit out of Delhi's team?? strange game, wonderful game
Buddy- first of all, great piece ! insightful !:)..Just seeing the list of bowlers, seems like new ball bowlers are not there at all (other than tortoise vaas & amphibian pathan). The list is full of middle over chappies. May make sense to look at the effective new ball bowlers- in the sense, those who pick up early wickets maybe tho their economy rates will be perpetually screwed relative to those who bowl the calmer overs from 6-14
Thanks Naira. Yes, thats worth doing some investigation - a Zaheer Khan bowls from overs 1-4 and then most probably from 16-20 (sometimes gets an over in between, but that is also when things are going pear shaped!). Clearly his 6 wickets at 7.52 have very important to t he MI cause.
That said, the top 10 eco rate bowlers does have Vaas, Yusuf and Nannes who open the bowling regularly, Malinga who definitely bowls at the death if not upfront, and Trivedi. On the wickets side again, there is Vaas, Tait, Praveen and Balaji (latter has been more a liability than an asset though, going at 8.95!)
And of course, now our dear own Bhajan may also lay claim to being an opening bowler (not to mention middle order bat!)
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