The Batsmen's Decade

Possibly better pitches mean edges carry to the keeper more reliably. Not to mention bowled and lbw are more likely on pitches with variable/low bounce.

Leo wrote:Possibly better pitches mean edges carry to the keeper more reliably. Not to mention bowled and lbw are more likely on pitches with variable/low bounce.

That doesn't make sense . . .

its hard to argue that fast bowling stocks havent gone down over the last few years. out of the 12 bowlers averaging less than 25 this decade

Code:

Player Span Mat Overs Mdns Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Econ SR 5 10
CEL Ambrose (WI) 2000-2000 10 376.4 141 636 36 4/30 7/50 17.66 1.68 62.7 0 0
M Muralitharan (ICC/SL) 2000-2007 70 4053.2 1053 9602 496 9/51 13/115 19.35 2.36 49.0 45 18
CA Walsh (WI) 2000-2001 20 887.1 280 1835 93 6/61 10/117 19.73 2.06 57.2 5 1
SR Clark (Aus) 2006-2007 11 419.4 109 1093 54 5/55 9/89 20.24 2.60 46.6 1 0
GD McGrath (Aus) 2000-2007 66 2548.4 828 6100 297 8/24 10/27 20.53 2.39 51.4 14 2
Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) 2000-2007 33 952.2 175 3199 144 6/11 11/78 22.21 3.35 39.6 11 2
SE Bond (NZ) 2001-2007 17 513.1 104 1769 79 6/51 10/99 22.39 3.44 38.9 4 1
Shabbir Ahmed (Pak) 2003-2005 10 429.2 97 1175 51 5/48 8/109 23.03 2.73 50.5 2 0
Mohammad Asif (Pak) 2005-2007 11 389.0 91 1180 51 6/44 11/71 23.13 3.03 45.7 4 1
DW Steyn (SA) 2004-2007 15 451.3 79 1731 71 6/49 10/91 24.38 3.83 38.1 6 2
AA Donald (SA) 2000-2002 13 420.3 117 1144 46 5/47 6/82 24.86 2.72 54.8 1 0
SM Pollock (SA) 2000-2007 69 2619.1 809 6354 255 6/30 10/147 24.91 2.42 61.6 6 1

3 were on their last legs (and proper greats), 3 were already greats or close to greats before they entered this decade and the rest are players who have played a handful of matches (and mr. akthar of course)

the current 'spearheads' of most teams wouldnt make the second xi of teams like aus, sa, pak and the windies of the last decade

oh that came out perfectly

I think a combination of minnow-bashing (Zim, Bang and sadly latter day WI) as well as an over-crowded schedule leading to many fast bowlers reducing their pace or getting injured and a depressing number of slow pitches around the world are the main reasons for this. For example, the India / Pakistan series recently with some huge scores being ammassed or the general trend in the West Indies and Australia this last decade for pitches to lose their pace. It has been a testament to the quality of Warne / McGrath and company that Australia have constantly been able to take 20 wickets regularly on these pitches.



Historically I think a parallel can be drawn with the 20s & 30s where many of the Tests were played on complete roads, some were even timeless tests. e.g. England once made 654 for 5 (chasing 696 to win) in the 4th innings of a Test! England also scored 854 all out and 903 for 7 declared in other Tests in the 30s. As well as the incomparable Bradman there was also Hutton, Headley, Hammond and Sutcliffe who averaged over 60 in these decades. And quite a few more above 55:


1920's / 30's Batting Averages:

97.94 Don Bradman
67.25 Len Hutton
66.71 George Headley
61.45 Wally Hammond
60.73 Herbert Sutcliffe
59.23 Eddie Paynter
58.50 Phil Mead
56.63 Jack Hobbs
55.00 Ernest Tyldesley

The only thing against this run accumulation in the 20s / 30s were that uncovered wickets could change very quickly from a road to a minefield if it rained as the wicket dried out. The dreaded 'sticky' wicket.

So if the pitches are so slow, why are so many more catches carrying to the keeper? I know this is a diversion, but Boucher and Gilchrist are taking catches at a noticeably greater rate than any of their more fancied predecessors. Evryone accepts they're not taking the same proportion of catches as (say) Healy or Knott, so they must be receiving even more chances. Why?

They are taking more catches because the drainage at the grounds are much better so there is typically much more play over 5 days and more chance of a result and all 20 wickets falling. Despite all these vast batting averages there are less drawn matches than in the 80s when world cricket had strength in fast bowling.

I think despite the wickets being slower the bounce tends to be consistent, with good carry. E.g the WACA - plenty of carry but nowhere near as quick as it was in the 70s / 80s.

Gilchrist has also been lucky enough to play nearly every match with 2 of the greatest bowlers to have lived, e.g. McGrath's trademark dismissal was the seaming delivery and thin edge to the keeper / slips. Boucher has also played in teams with very strong pace bowling attacks - Donald, Pollock, Ntini, etc.

I've considered all those important factors you've mentioned, Gary, and I'm not sure if they're enough to account for the differences. For instance, Healy also played with Warne and McGrath during a successful period for Australia, arguably when they were better bowlers, and I'd be surprised if he played in MANY more games (than Gilchrist) that were drawn or that resulted in fewer wickets being lost by the opposing side. I'm not a stats geek, though, so I'd be interested to see if this impression is correct.

Over about the last ten years, and certainly since the turn of the century, highly attacking batting has become the Test norm. Scoring rates are much faster than in just about all other times, perhaps excepting the so called golden Age before WWI. Even when many more overs were bowled in the day in the 50's and 60's, a daily total of 300 runs was seldom achieved, and a run rate of 3 per over was considered quite fast.

It would seem to follow that batting errors will be correspondingly higher.
Since catches behind are high on the list of batting errors, this might help explain the high rate at which keepers nowadays reap so many dismissals.

It also explains why many bowlers have highly penetrative strike rates without appearing to be as good as many past performers whose SR's were considerably higher.

Ian Healy: 119 Tests : 395 Dismissals
(366 catches / 29 stumpings)
3.32 dismissals per match

Matches won: 55 (46%)
Matches drawn: 35 (29%)
Matches lost: 29 (24%)

Healy played from 1988-99, so of his 11 years about 7 would have been with Warne in the team and the last 5 with McGrath as the world class bowler he became (after a shaky start). This (starting from the WI tour) would also be the time from which Aus were the No. 1 team in the world - so for most of his career Healy was playing in a team that was good but not the best.

Adam Gilchrist: 92 Tests : 391 dismissals
(354 catches / 37 stumpings)
4.25 dismissals per match

Matches won: 71 (77%)
Matches drawn: 11 (12%)
Matches lost: 10 (11%)

Whereas Gilchrist has always been in the team when Aus were undisputed No. 1 - as you can see by his incredible win ratio. Also a lot less draws and losses here. And McGrath and Warne playing the vast majority of these games. And even when Warne has been injured / suspended MacGill has a fine strike rate / wickets per match ratio.

I guess if you wanted to look into it even more you could see how many wickets Australia took in Gilchrists 92 matches compared to Healy's 119. I've got a hunch that they would be roughly similar numbers.

Although going slightly against what I said in regards to quality of team / bowlers dictating catches per match up to that WI series when McGrath came of age and Aus became the No. 1 team Healy had played 69 matches averaging 3.45 dismissals per match. However after that (95-99) he played a further 50 matches with only 3.15 dismissals per match.

Okay - was feeling geeky so i've worked out how many wickets fell in Healy / Gilchrist's matches, it partly backs up what i'm saying but not totally.

On average when Healy played Australia took 16.6 wickets,
whereas for Gilchrist it was 18.9 wickets per game.

So Gilchrists higher wicket per match ratio can partly be explained by being in a better team, but...

Overall Healy was involved in 395 of 1975 dismissals (20%)
Whereas Gilchrist was involved in 391 of 1736 dismissals (22.5%)

So Gilchrist has still been more prolific than Healy.

Any explanations for this?

What I can think of is that maybe the style of bowlers also affects how many chances the keeper gets - maybe a tall bowler who hits the seam like McGrath (27%) or Stuart Clark (33.3%) get more caught behind dismissals than a stockier bowler like Merv Hughes (24.5%) or someone who simply isn't as good - e.g. less likely to get wickets by skill (snick behind) and more likely to have batsman making a mistake (e.g. smacking it straight to mid off). E.g. only 18.3% of Paul Reiffel's wickets were caught behind.

But that isn't necessarily true as Brett Lee has more caught behinds than McGrath (27.9%) - extra pace maybe? And it definitely didn't seem to be true for spinners as only 15.4% of Warne's wickets invoved the keeper and 14.8% of MacGill's compared to 16% for Tim May and 22.2% for Peter Taylor (admittedly from a smaller sample).

I think peterg is onto one major factor behind it, with batsmen being more aggressive, especially early on, and perhaps more likely to nick behind as a result. If this is the case then we should also be seeing slips fieldsmen (especially first slip fieldsmen) taking or at least attempting more catches.

I also wonder if tailenders placing more value on their wickets has had an impact. When I started watching cricket in the 70's, tailenders were commonly 'caught at cover' and 'caught in the ring field' generally, going for a hoik. Now they seem less inclined to do this, so that perhaps they are more inclined to be dismissed by a better ball and hence either bowled or caught behind. Maybe.

Thanks for your geeky contribution, Gary, I think it shows that Gilchrist and Boucher's prolific catching exploits are not easily explained entirely in terms of more frequent results and better bowlers ...

Perhaps an extra factor for Boucher is that he has mainly kept to quick bowlers. As I showed in the last post a fast bowler is much more likely to get a caught behind than a spinner is to get a caught behind / stumping : McGrath (27%), Lee (27.9%) & Clark (33.3%) than a spinner Warne (15.4%) and MacGill (14.8%).

South African teams typically rely on pace - a typical attack for Boucher would perhaps be Donald, Pollock, Ntini, Kallis & Klusener. Sometimes they play a spinner, but I don't think Nicky Boje, Pat Symcox and Paul Adams would bowl as often as a classier spinner like Warne or Kumble, and even when they did play most of the wickets would still fall to the pace men.

Surely the number of catches taken by a keeper kis about the most meaningless of the oft-quoted records. You can only catch what comes your way. The relevant stat is the number of dropped catches which, unfortunately, is not reliably recorded.

Taibu is probably the best keeper of the last ten years and he only took just over 2 catches per test.

The relevant question is not "why do keepers take more catches these days?" but "why do bowlers induce more fine edges?"

peterg probably gives as good an explanation as any. Poor defensive technique, possibly as a consequence of the 'one-day' mentality overflowing into 1st class cricket, seems a good suspect. I think as a result of this bowlers are targetting batting impatience - the edge of the bat rather than middle and off.

Also, Gary111's analysis is important. More playing hours means more wickets per match means exagerated bowling figures and more catches by the keeper.

One thing I noticed from doing the Gilchrist / Healy comparison is that they have been the keeper for 211 out of Aus last 212 games - that's an incredible run without getting injured or dropped, apart from one game in the middle of Healy's career.

The best way to compare keepers would be catches / chances ratio - but in practice this is nearly impossible. No-one keeps records of dropped catches, and then there is different degree's of drops, dropping a regulation chance standing back to a seamer is much less forgivable than a thick edge standing up to the stumps when it just doesn't stick. And who's to say that a brilliant keeper getting fingertips to a ball deflected down the legside is a missed chance when a less able keeper might get nowhere near it and it wouldn't even be classed as a chance.

I tried to do a comparison for Read & G Jones once - judging by what I read / saw Read only missed 2 chances in the 6 games he was recalled to the team after Alec Stewart retired - and one of these was a mere half chance. While Geraint Jones was averaging 2 drops per match during the 2005 Ashes. Though he did manage to mainly drop tail enders and held all the most important ones.

I think the point made re the tail trying to bat and not slog esp in the better teams is an important one...personally i used to really enjoy the numbers 10 and 11 trying to score a couple of fours or even a six over cow corner...now most, unless quick runs are the order of the day, try and imitate batsmen (btw Wes Hall was my all time favourite tailender - he'd try and smack every ball for six, laughing all the while)...

it makes sense that more of the current day tailenders are likely to give chances to the slips and the keeper

Gary 111 wrote:One thing I noticed from doing the Gilchrist / Healy comparison is that they have been the keeper for 211 out of Aus last 212 games - that's an incredible run without getting injured or dropped, apart from one game in the middle of Healy's career.

The best way to compare keepers would be catches / chances ratio - but in practice this is nearly impossible. No-one keeps records of dropped catches, and then there is different degree's of drops, dropping a regulation chance standing back to a seamer is much less forgivable than a thick edge standing up to the stumps when it just doesn't stick. And who's to say that a brilliant keeper getting fingertips to a ball deflected down the legside is a missed chance when a less able keeper might get nowhere near it and it wouldn't even be classed as a chance.

I tried to do a comparison for Read & G Jones once - judging by what I read / saw Read only missed 2 chances in the 6 games he was recalled to the team after Alec Stewart retired - and one of these was a mere half chance. While Geraint Jones was averaging 2 drops per match during the 2005 Ashes. Though he did manage to mainly drop tail enders and held all the most important ones.

Yes, i think it would be an impossible stat to make sense of. For instance, i remember a chance Gilchrist missed off Warne (I think) where the ball hit him on the thigh and flew to Hayden who dropped it. In reports this was described as a drop by Hayden who really had absolutely no chance of catching it after it had hit Gilchrist. It was not reported as a drop by Gilchrist, however.

I have noticed that Gilchrist has dropped at least one chance in almost every test i have watched him play. This is also not a fair basis for comparison on the grounds that my annoyance at him being described as the best keeper ever means that i notice his mistakes more than i would otherwise have done.

There are different degrees of culpability in dropped chances, of course.
Some keepers might drop what others might not have attempted or reached.
I thought Gilchrist, judged purely as keeper, was very good in his debut season, and quite tolerably good most of the time since, but with serious lapses since, especially in 2005.

When did keeper's gloves become significantly more capacious?

peterg wrote:There are different degrees of culpability in dropped chances, of course.
Some keepers might drop what others might not have attempted or reached.
I thought Gilchrist, judged purely as keeper, was very good in his debut season, and quite tolerably good most of the time since, but with serious lapses since, especially in 2005.

When did keeper's gloves become significantly more capacious?

Keepers gloves are certainly vastly superior now to those that even Knott and Taylor had. The ones i had to use at school were a joke, they might as well as been made of wood and pads that were like lead weights (tell that to the kids today and they won't believe you!!!)

It needs to be remembered that the likes of Oldfield, Duckworth and Ames had to keep with gloves that would be considered totally unacceptable today. The story about keepers inserting lumps of meat into their gloves to protect their hands from fast bowlers is actuall true.

The three keepers i've named, themselves had superior equipment to that available to Blackham and Dick Lilley.

Also, as with batsmen, the lot of the keeper has become far easier with the covering and generally better preparation of pitches.

However we discount the run inflation of the new century, one thing stands out.

McGrath's record is all the greater for having bowled through this particular era.

McGrath deserves a giant statue in Sydney Harbour.

To rephrase my point above: pitches with variable bounce are more likely to produce bowled/lbw dismissals (this is surely not in dispute?), and edges are less likely to carry. Ergo the true bounce offered by pitches in recent years helps keepers. When you add a point someone else made about batsmen being less patient, therefore chasing the wide one more often, and more wickets falling overall, other things being equal less variation in bounce means a higher proportion of dismissals caught behind, means a higher per-match number of catches for keepers.

Leo wrote:McGrath deserves a giant statue in Sydney Harbour.

Something else for the ferries to crash into.

Why not, could be fun.

peterg wrote:
McGrath's record is all the greater for having bowled through this particular era.

Yeah, it's pretty inarguable.

Happy X-mas, Peter and Leo!