Qualification Quest - WC 2019 and ICC ODI Rankings

In 11 editions of ICC Cricket World Cup, only 5 teams have managed to win that prestigious ICC event. World Cup 2019 will be the first time in the history where two full members of ICC will be forced to take part in a qualifying tournament. The possibility of one of the 5 former Champions ending up being one of those two full members has added a never-before thrill and curiosity in the Cricket world.

Published by Scoreline on April 19, 2017. Click here to continue reading on Scoreline Portal

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How ICC Rankings Annual Update Works

ICC operates a ranking system to rank men’s teams playing across Test, One-Day International and Twenty20 International formats and women’s teams playing One-Day International and Twenty20 International cricket.

ICC publishes up to date current ranking of teams according to that system on its official portal - ICC Team Rankings

ICC Rankings changes overnight once every year when ICC updates Ranking Points of each team to keep the Rankings current and accurate. The update takes place on 1^st May every year when the ICC ODI Rankings are adjusted according to these predefined rules:

• Any points earned earlier than the last 36 months (since 1 May of 3 years ago) are discarded
• Weightage of all points earned between the last 13 to 36 months (between the May of 3 years ago to April of previous year) is set to 50%
• All points earned during the last 12 months (from May of previous year to April of current year) continue to carry the weightage of 100%

Till 30 April of the next year, the above rules remain in effect. Till the next annual update, points earned by matches played during this period are simply added into the annually updated rankings as on 1^st May to give the current ICC Rankings. That means, on every 30 April of a year:

• Points earned during the previous 24 months (since the May of two years ago) are counted with 100% weightage.
• Points earned in between the previous 25^th and 48^th months (since the April of 2 years ago to May of 4 years ago) are counted with 50% weightage.

The idea of ICC ODI Rankings was to build a mechanism to quantify the success of different teams, benchmark their performance and identify the top, the average and the below par teams at certain point in time. The mechanism works on a combination of performance in a match and the current form of the competing teams.

The official ICC website describes the Rankings in these words: 

A team that, over the period being rated, wins as often as it loses while playing an average mix of strong and weak opponents will have a rating of close to 100. A rating of 100 could also correspond to a side that wins more often than it loses but who has generally played more matches against weak teams. Similarly, if the majority of its matches are against strong teams, then a rating of 100 could be achieved despite having more defeats than victories.

It is quite often the case that there are a number of teams in the 90-110 range. These teams are of broadly similar standard. A rating above 120 suggests consistently strong performances. Above 130 is rarely achieved and suggests a high degree of dominance over all other teams.
Source: icc-cricket.com

For the purposes of quick referencing, ranking of 100 can be considered as par, 120 as excellent and 130 above as exceptional. This piece of information helps a lot in seeing a team’s ranking in the context of its own ranking points instead of judging its performance only on the basis of where it stands in the list of twelve ODI Ranked teams at any point.

Theoretically, a team can come out as the number one ranked team in the world with 110 ranking points as well but in the context of strength of performance, that number one ranked team may fall way behind a number one ranked team with 130 ranking points or even a number two or number three team with 120 points.

The other aspect of ICC ODI Rankings is the recent form of the teams. The idea there is to gage the consistency in performance of a team over a period of time and reduce the impact of occasional spike in the performance of any team. The rankings are designed to judge the teams during a reasonable period rather than on the basis of few good or bad series or matches. For that reason, ICC ODI Rankings includes the performances of last 3 to 4 years as detailed earlier.

On that note, it is also worth having a look at how different teams have performed during recent ICC ODI seasons as it also gives a fair idea of why and how some teams will benefit from the annual update and some teams will lose some points (and ranking position). Having a look at the points earned during specific seasons also indicates the trend of improvement or decline in the recent performance of teams. It clearly answers why certain teams enjoy a high ranking position even after performing badly in recent times whereas some teams are struggling in the lower half of the table even after performing better. 

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Captain Azhar - The latest tale of (mis)management

Finally, the curtain has fallen on Captain Azhar and not only him but along with him, 'batsman Azhar' has also vanished from Pakistan's One Day International scene. Just about a month ago, he was seen on the global stage as the captain commanding his troops in a foreign territory and within no time, he has been ostracized completely from the limited overs affairs of Pakistan Cricket. First, being denied a single match in the PSL where he was a regular feature of the side in the last year's edition and then, being omitted from Pakistan ODI side that he proudly led for almost two years.

Published in SCORELINE on March 18, 2017. Click here to read the article on Scoreline Portal.

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Cricket and Technology

March 9, 2017: DRS, no DRS. Hawk Eye, no Hawk Eye, Snicko, no Snicko. Heat map, no Heat map. Review, not to Review.In recent times, all these questions have made cricket, the sports already perceived too complex to understand, even more confusing and complicated for not only super loyal fans but players as well. Now, as soon as a decision making event happens in Cricket, the first question that comes to mind is not of out or not out but which of the technology tools are available.... continue reading

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PSL Final in Lahore - An Emotional Blunder

Published in ScoreLine on February 27, 2017

The objective was to bring back International Cricket not the PSL (without International Players). PSL without its foreign players on the roster is as good as a domestic tournament that can neither have nor it has any influence of bringing International Cricket back to Pakistan.

 http://scoreline.asia/psl-final-in-lahore-an-emotional-blunder/

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Players Performance Benchmark View - Pakistan vs Australia ODI Series 2017

Here is a quick summary view of how players from both teams performed, during recently concluded Pakistan vs Australia ODI Series, with respect to common performance benchmark of an ideal performance.

The calculation is pretty simple. For all Batting Performances, the Series Batting Average of each batsman was divided by 40, the generally accepted benchmark batting average in ODIs. Similarly, Strike Rate of 100 was taken as a benchmark and each Batting Strike Rate was divided by 100. Then both of these factors to give a Quality Factor. To map quality with length of performance(s), this quality factor was then multiplied by the total runs scored by each batsman during the series.

Unlike bowling where each bowler is restricted to a maximum quota of balls he could bowl in a match regardless of how good he bowls in that particular match, a batsmen gets the chance to play out even all of 50 overs. This at times, means the batsmen coming later in the order rarely gets a chance to play as many overs as a top order batsman can. For this purpose, the product of quality factor and total number of runs was further divided by number of innings batted by that batsman to give the benchmark rating. To make it easier to relate and assess, these ratings were further scaled to a scale of 100 where rating of 100 means an ideal performance of 40 runs at a Strike Rate of 100. Anything above is considered an above par rating and anything below as below par rating.

Applying this method gives the following view of the series:

Similarly, for bowling performances, Bowling Average of 25, Economy of 6 Runs Per Over and Bowling Strike Rate of 30 balls per wicket (2 wickets in 10 overs) was used as a benchmark performance. The total quality points were then scaled to a scale of 100 to provide the performance rating where a rating of 100 means a par performance.

Since bowling performances in an ODI are already limited to a maximum quota, as explained earlier, no further calculations were done in that regard. Similarly, unlike batting where there is no maximum limit of runs to be scored or conceded by a batting or bowling team, the bowling performances of a bowling unit are already confined to maximizing of 10 wickets by the bowling team which means that in case of a good or exceptional performance by a bowling team, not all bowlers gets a chance to bowl their whole quota even when they would like to, so the factor of number of balls bowled by a bowler has been ignored.

Applying this method on bowling performances, gives the following view:

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Consolidated Rankings

as of January 24th

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Team 99 vs Team 2016 - A Statistical View

Published in ScoreLine on January 11, 2017

Pakistan’s team of 2016 did not lack experience overall. In fact, the weight of experience was tilted, ideally, towards the batting side that is generally considered the tougher trait for visiting Asian sides. In terms of experience, the batting side of 2016 was more superior to Australians than as much the Australians were in 1999.

Continue Reading: http://scoreline.asia/team-99-vs-team-2016/

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Misbah doing a Misbah

The role of Misbah in stabilizing the rocking boat of Pakistan Cricket needs neither an introduction nor any debate. The way he gradually steered the boat out of the troubled waters is an example for captains to follow in the future. 

But as they say, you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain, probably, the same is happening with Misbah as well. His reluctance to embrace the inevitable is making him damage himself whatever respect and persona he had earned for himself.

He is proving once again that he is not a good finisher. Like his batting, he can build the innings but lacks the ability to finish at the right time and in the right manner. From 2007 T20 WC to Mohali Semi Final, he had his chances to become a great batsman, even greater than Miandad but he failed to finish like him. 

Same happened with his captaincy stints in T20 and ODI formats and now his Test captaincy is heading in the same direction as well. It looks like, he will 'get out', eventually, but at a point where he will be remembered more for his failure at the end of the 'innings', rather than for all his dedicated hard work to set up the game. Seems like Misbah's final act on the stage will be nothing but Misbah doing a Misbah.

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Experience mandatory for success?

Sneak peek from the next issue of Scoreline magazine that will be available in January. Compiled before the recent Brisbane Test between Pakistan and Australia, analysis covers all Test matches played by Pakistan till then. 

Every Cricketer retires one day but there have been very few Pakistani Cricketers whose time of retirement was influenced by readiness of the replacements. From Fazal Mahmood to Hanif Mohammad to Imran Khan to Javed Miandad to Wasim Akram to Waqar Younus to Saeed Anwar to even Inzimam and Yousuf, none of them experienced such discussions during their playing time. For almost all of them, their retirement was not dependent on availability of their replacement.

Misbah and Younis Khan are also approaching their inevitable retirement day but this is probably a rare period in Cricket, if not the first of its kind, when retirement of any player is getting linked, apparently, with the availability of his replacement. Sheharyar Khan, Chairman PCB has expressed his wish for Misbah to continue till at least 2018 and the pretext remains the same - the team is young and probably not ready to afford the departure of experienced Cricketers.

Such endorsement of a perceived threat by the top most official of Pakistan Cricket opens up a whole range of questions, such as a) Is experience the mandatory ingredient of success, at least, in Pakistan Cricket? b) Is the team without Misbah and Younis is that young that it is certain that the performance of Pakistan team will only go down if it’s two most experienced batsmen leave it for good?

The common answer to these questions is affirmative but naturally, it is based more on perceptions, built and driven by sentiments, rather than facts and figures. There is no harm in digging into stats to find answers to these questions as numbers don’t lie nor they carry an opinion of their own.

Looking into numbers and trends is always fun as at times they do produce some unexpected pictures and tell interesting stories. But before we take a deep dive into the impact of experience in overall success of Pakistan Test team, it will be worth keeping in mind that the scope of this analysis has been kept specifically to Pakistan Cricket. The different scenarios and groupings have been extracted from within the history of Pakistan Test Cricket only, so as to exclude any comparison or benchmarks with other teams that may not have had the same environment and requirements as that of Pakistan Cricket.

Let’s start with simple categorization of results into different groups based on variance in experience and see how Pakistan sides have performed over the years.

Most Experienced Test Sides of Pakistan:

If the results of Pakistan’s different Test sides are summarized in terms of combined Test caps:

Combined Tests	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
400+	31	11	11	9	35%	1.22	29%
300-399	153	54	61	38	35%	1.42	25%
200-299	133	50	39	44	38%	1.14	33%
100-199	72	13	38	21	18%	0.62	29%
0-99	15	2	9	4	13%	0.50	27%

and if, the results are compared on the basis of Combined Test Runs at the start of a Test Match:

Combined Runs	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
20,000+	37	15	9	13	41%	1.15	35%
15,000-19,999	141	42	60	39	30%	1.08	28%
10,000-14,999	120	50	38	32	42%	1.56	27%

However, combined experience of the whole team is only one part of the equation, the other is the kind of experience each of those experienced players had. So let’s split the experience in terms of batting and bowling experience of the players.

Most Experienced Batting lineups of Pakistan:

For the sake of this part of analysis, all those innings are excluded where a player batted at number 8 or lower. The analysis covers specifically the performances of all batsmen when they batted within top-7 of the batting order. It does also include the numbers of bowlers who were sent as night watchmen ahead of any of the top 7 batsmen but in such conditions specialist batsmen also bats one spot lower than their usual batting numbers. Considering a Test side usually includes 6 specialist batsmen with specialist wicket keeper slotted to bat at number 7, the impact of night watchmen is averaged out while considering top-7 batting spots for this analysis.

In terms of highest number of combined Test Caps of top-7 batsmen of a playing side:

Combined Tests	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
300+	27	10	8	9	37%	1.11	33%
200-299	177	60	69	48	34%	1.25	27%
100-199	152	51	56	45	34%	1.13	30%
0-99	48	9	25	14	19%	0.64	29%

In terms of highest combined Test Runs by top-7 batsmen:

Combined Test Runs	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
20,000+	24	11	3	10	46%	1.10	42%
10,000-19,999	199	71	73	55	36%	1.29	28%
0-9,999	181	48	82	51	27%	0.94	28%

Moving on, if the different sides are compared on the basis of combined batting average (combined Test runs / combined Test dismissals), the summary looks like this:

Combined Batting Average	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
45+	35	14	7	14	40%	1.00	40%
40-44.9	125	43	47	35	34%	1.23	28%
35-39.9	156	52	64	40	33%	1.30	26%
0-29.9	87	21	40	26	24%	0.81	30%

In terms of combined Test hundreds:

Combined 100s	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
60+	16	7	2	7	44%	1.00	44%
50-59	16	6	6	4	38%	1.50	25%
30-49	153	52	55	46	34%	1.13	30%
0-29	219	65	95	59	30%	1.10	27%

and then, the comparison on the basis of total number of 50+ scores (including 100s and 50s) looks like:

Combined 50+	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
150	26	12	5	9	46%	1.33	35%
100-149	142	45	55	42	32%	1.07	30%
50-99	158	58	58	42	37%	1.38	27%
0-49	78	15	40	23	19%	0.65	29%

Most Experienced Bowling lineups of Pakistan:

For this part of analysis, only those matches of all Test players are considered where they bowled at least 1 ball in either innings of a Test. For example, out of 112 Tests Younis Khan has played, he has bowled in only 31 Tests. Therefore, his bowling figures are considered in only those 31 Tests where he bowled instead of all Tests he has played but not bowled a single ball.

In terms of most experienced bowling line ups:

Combined Tests	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
200+	17	3	10	4	18%	0.75	24%
150-199	46	18	20	8	39%	2.25	17%
100-149	144	50	52	42	35%	1.19	29%
0-99	197	59	76	62	30%	0.95	31%

If the grouping is applied on the basis of Combined Test Wickets:

Combined Wickets	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
700+	11	4	3	4	36%	1.00	36%
500-699	55	19	26	10	35%	1.90	18%
250-499	172	63	54	55	37%	1.15	32%
0-249	166	44	75	47	27%	0.94	28%

Then, if similar grouping is applied on combined 10 wickets in a match hauls, then:

Combined 10-ers	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
10+	22	5	11	6	23%	0.83	27%
5-9	92	42	30	20	46%	2.10	22%
0-4	290	83	117	90	29%	0.92	31%

Similarly, if the experience is summarized on the basis of 5 wickets in an innings then the performance summary looks like this:

Combined 5-ers	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
40+	31	13	11	7	42%	1.86	23%
25-39	82	31	31	20	38%	1.55	24%
10-24	158	52	52	54	33%	0.96	34%
0-9	133	34	64	35	26%	0.97	26%

A holistic view of these comparisons highlights some interesting observations:

• The win percentage of most experienced groups is higher than lesser experienced groups in all comparisons except for in cases of Combined Test caps of bowlers and combined 10-ers.

•  Intriguingly, the loss percentage of most experienced groups is also the highest in each comparison except for Combined Test caps of bowlers and combined 5-ers and 10-ers by the bowlers. The loss percentage for most experienced group of Combined Test caps by all players is also lower than the other groups. On the other hand, the loss percentage of most experienced group in each of batting comparisons is significantly higher than others.

•  The highest Win/Loss ratio in each of the comparisons is not the most experienced group but either second or third most experience group in that particular comparison except for Combined 5-ers.

•  From batting perspective, Pakistan has lost 2 Tests out of every 5 Tests when the combined Test runs of top-7 batsmen were more than 20,000 or had combined average of 45 plus or had more than 60 Test hundreds between them and lost 1 out of every 3 Tests when combined Tests were higher than 300 or combined 50+ scores were higher than 150.

•  From bowling perspective, Pakistan has won twice as many matches as lost when the bowling unit had 150-199 Tests, 500-699 Test Wickets, 5-9 10-ers or 40+ 5-ers between them.  On the other hand, Pakistan has lost only 1 in 5 Tests when the bowling unit was experienced enough but not one of the most experienced ones.

QUICK REVIEW OF RECENT PAST – LAST 6 YEARS:

The overall stats do highlight a few significant points but since the span of that data-set is spread across 64 years where Cricket has evolved quite significantly, it can be argued that any reading from the data of long ago may not be relevant to modern Cricket.

To address that point, let’s have a quick look at Pakistan’s Test Cricket in the last 6 years – starting from the time when Misbah took over this side after Pakistan’s infamous 2010 tour to England. Since taking over the side, Misbah has missed only 2 Tests as a result of suspension due to slow over rate on both occasions. Hafeez and Azhar stepped in as stand-in captains only for those 2 Tests. So it is safe to say that it has been Misbah’s squad all along, even when he missed those Tests.

The comparisons below covers the most and least experienced Test sides in that period based on same guidelines as explained for earlier comparisons.

Combined Tests	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
350 or more	8	3	0	5	38%	0.60	63%
less than 200	7	3	3	1	43%	3.00	14%

Combined Tests (Batsmen 1-7)	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
300+ Tests	7	3	0	4	43%	0.75	57%
less than 150  Tests	6	2	3	1	33%	2.00	17%

Combined Tests Runs (Batsmen 1-7)	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
more than 21,000	10	5	0	5	50%	1.00	50%
less than 13,000	11	5	5	1	45%	5.00	9%

Combined Test 100s	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
61 and above	7	2	0	5	29%	0.40	71%
25 and below	6	2	3	1	33%	2.00	17%

Combined Test 50+ Scores	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
165 and above	8	3	0	5	38%	0.60	63%
90 and below	7	2	4	1	29%	2.00	14%

Combined Tests (Bowlers who bowled at least 1 ball in the match)	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
100+ Tests	8	3	1	4	38%	0.75	50%
less than 50  Tests	6	5	1	0	83%	-	0%

Combined Test Wickets	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
325+ Wickets	8	2	1	5	25%	0.40	63%
less than 100	6	5	1	0	83%	-	0%

Combined 5-ers	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
More than 10	18	4	1	13	22%	0.31	72%
Less than 7	14	7	3	4	50%	1.75	29%

Combined 10-ers	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
4	20	2	1	17	10%	0.12	85%
0	20	10	6	4	50%	2.50	20%

Combined Bowling Average	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %	W/L Ratio	Lost %
less than 30	12	4	2	6	33%	0.67	50%
35+	11	5	5	1	45%	5.00	9%

If only Win/Loss Ratio is considered in the above comparisons, the difference between experienced and rookie sides can not be any clearer than this. Specifically in batting comparisons (the area that will be most affected by the absence of Misbah and Younis), the inexperienced group of batsmen have produced, at least, twice as much better results than the most experienced sides during the same period.  In terms of Combined Test Runs (of batsmen) and combined Test hundreds, the inexperienced units have performed 5 times better than the most experienced ones.

In bowling department, the performance of rookie bowling units have been simply amazing. It seems like, being a batting captain, Misbah has seriously struggled managing the senior bowlers while the junior bowlers have executed his plans with precision that resulted in almost invincible results from the rookie lineups.

CONCLUSION:

So, it can be concluded that it has not been the highly experienced Test teams of Pakistan that have performed the best but the best results have come when the Test team had a mix of experienced and rookie players. Highly experienced batting lineups have brought more wins but have also failed to avoid defeats more times as compared to lesser experienced batting units when they had comparatively higher 50+ scorers rather than higher number of Test caps, Test runs, batting average or hundreds. Bowling units have been the best when they either had a blend of one or two highly experienced bowlers along with a couple of rookie bowlers or a bunch of moderately experienced bowlers not when either it was dominated by highly experienced bowlers or completely lacked any experience in bowling.

Let’s assume if Misbah and Younis quit at this point, there will be no impact on bowling composition. But the Pakistan Test side that will take the field will have Combined Test caps tally of around 200 (the most successful grouping with W/L ratio of 1.42), Combined Test Runs total around 11,000 (the most successful grouping with W/L ratio of 1.56), Combined Tests for top-7 batsmen around 150 (the second most successful grouping with W/L ratio of 1.13), Combined Test runs of batsmen around 10,000 (the most successful grouping with W/L ratio of 1.29) and Combined 50+ scores of around 75 (the most successful grouping with W/L ratio of 1.38).

Hence, from stats perspective, it will be the transition of the side without Misbah and Younis that will put Pakistan Test squad in their most successful zone, not the inclination to prolong their careers in search of better results for the team. 

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