Comparing between Eras, Part 1, Crowe, Sutcliffe, Turner and Williamson.

When you write a stats piece, it's not uncommon to get criticism. It's also not unwelcome. I think my statistics have become better, and my writing has improved through interaction that I've had with readers.

Some criticism is not so welcome or useful. The person that said that he was going to "come to England and burn my house down for being a bias English" for example. This gentleman was upset that I said that Matt Prior had a better batting average than MS Dhoni.

Then there's the type that makes me think. Just after the declaration in the second test in Wellington, I tweeted a comparison of a bunch of New Zealand batsmen after 71 test innings. I received an interesting reply from someone that knows a bit about batting.

Barry Richards, the great South African batsman tweeted me back saying that Williamson was a nice kid, but couldn't be compared with Crowe.

Over the next couple of days we sent tweets back and forth discussing the concept of comparing different players from different eras.

One of the points that he made is that statistics don't take into account the context of an innings. There are times that an innings of 30 can be a match winner, while other times an innings of 70 can be meaningless. This is true, and in part there is not a lot that can be done about this. The hope is that these sort of innings end up cancelling themselves out.

Another point that he made was that the pitches, outfields and bowling were all different. How do you compare a player who has played against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe to one that hasn't? Sabina Park in the 80's was a minefield. Sabina Park now is a featherbed. How can you compare someone who played on those different pitches. To hit a six used to require the ball to be hit over the fence. Now it just needs to hit the rope, that's placed 2 m inside the speakers that are 1 m inside the advertising hoardings that are 1 m inside the boundary.

Likewise it's easier to bat against some bowlers than others. You would expect a batsman playing against Garner, Holding, Marshall and Roberts to find things more difficult than one playing against Powell, Rampaul, Sammy and Bravo.

It's impossible to account for these factors perfectly. However, there are some ways that we can deal with these differences. In order to be able to answer some of Richards' issues I decided to look at the results for some of the New Zealand batsmen at each ground. Then I looked at the results of every top order batsman at that ground throughout each player's career. I decided to normalise to having an average of 40. So a ground where the batsman averaged 32, I would multiply any run scored at that ground by 1.25.

For example during Martin Crowe's career batsmen averaged 53.86 at Bulawayo Athletic Club. This means that any runs scored at that ground would only count for 0.743 of a run. Accordingly, Crowe's 48 runs there would count as 35.6 runs. There is an advantage here for any player who played for a team with a really good bowling attack, but it's hard to account for that completely.

I decided to look at Crowe, Turner, Sutcliffe and Williamson to see how Williamson compares to some of the greats. In the last post I showed that Williamson now has a higher test average than any of the greats of NZ cricket had, and had also scored more runs, at a higher average than they had after the same number of innings.

You can click on a players name to see their stats, or skip the individual grounds by clicking on table:
Crowe
Sutcliffe
Turner
Williamson
Table

Martin Crowe:

Ground	Actual Runs	Factor	Mod. Runs
Adelaide Oval - Australia	145	0.951	137.9
AMI Stadium, Christchurch - New Zealand	389	1.352	526
Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy - Sri Lanka	34	1.433	48.7
Barabati Stadium, Cuttack - India	15	1.506	22.6
Basin Reserve, Wellington - New Zealand	1123	0.908	1019.3
Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana - West Indies	188	0.875	164.5
Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane - Australia	278	1.088	302.4
Bulawayo Athletic Club - Zimbabwe	48	0.743	35.6
Carisbrook, Dunedin - New Zealand	141	1.114	157
Colombo Cricket Club Ground - Sri Lanka	72	1.202	86.5
Eden Park, Auckland - New Zealand	712	1.1	783.5
Edgbaston, Birmingham - England	36	1.126	40.5
Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore - Pakistan	216	1.065	230.1
Harare Sports Club - Zimbabwe	201	1.076	216.2
Headingley, Leeds - England	38	1.14	43.3
Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad - Pakistan	41	1.061	43.5
Kennington Oval, London - England	46	0.948	43.6
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados - West Indies	16	1.113	17.8
Kingsmead, Durban - South Africa	28	1.139	31.9
Lord's, London - England	327	1.006	329.1
M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore - India	35	1.311	45.9
Melbourne Cricket Ground - Australia	161	1.139	183.4
National Stadium, Karachi - Pakistan	120	1.126	135.1
Newlands, Cape Town - South Africa	23	1.236	28.4
Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad - Pakistan	40	0.873	34.9
Old Trafford, Manchester - England	185	0.996	184.2
Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad - West Indies	5	1.411	7.1
Sabina Park, Jamaica - West Indies	7	1.138	8
Seddon Park, Hamilton - New Zealand	36	1.164	41.9
Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo - Sri Lanka	126	1.094	137.8
Sydney Cricket Ground - Australia	8	0.95	7.6
The Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg - South Africa	83	1.319	109.5
Trent Bridge, Nottingham - England	213	1.003	213.6
Tyronne Fernando Stadium, Moratuwa - Sri Lanka	30	1.211	36.3
W.A.C.A. Ground, Perth - Australia	278	1.064	295.7

Crowe's actual average was 45.37. His modified average is 47.91

Bert Sutcliffe:

Ground	Runs	Factor	Mod. Runs
AMI Stadium, Christchurch - New Zealand	303	1.25	378.6
Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore - Pakistan	29	1.194	34.6
Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka - Pakistan	20	1.532	30.6
Basin Reserve, Wellington - New Zealand	126	1.508	190
Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai - India	115	0.972	111.8
Carisbrook, Dunedin - New Zealand	166	2.014	334.3
Eden Gardens, Kolkata - India	187	1.119	209.2
Eden Park, Auckland - New Zealand	198	1.329	263.1
Edgbaston, Birmingham - England	57	1.085	61.9
Ellis Park, Johannesburg - South Africa	113	1.074	121.3
Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi - India	286	0.805	230.1
Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore - Pakistan	23	0.965	22.2
Headingley, Leeds - England	120	1.09	130.8
Kennington Oval, London - England	171	1.177	201.3
Kingsmead, Durban - South Africa	36	1.279	46
Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad - India	154	0.533	82
Lord's, London - England	75	1.217	91.2
National Stadium, Karachi - Pakistan	63	1.186	74.7
Nehru Stadium, Madras - India	143	1.058	151.3
Newlands, Cape Town - South Africa	66	0.931	61.5
Old Trafford, Manchester - England	179	1.097	196.4
Pindi Club Ground, Rawalpindi - Pakistan	7	2.519	17.6
St George's Park, Port Elizabeth - South Africa	90	1.316	118.5

Sutcliffe's actual average was 40.10. His modified average is 46.46

Glenn Turner:

Ground	Runs	Factor	Mod. Runs
Adelaide Oval - Australia	54	1.03	55.6
AMI Stadium, Christchurch - New Zealand	664	1.094	726.3
Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka - Pakistan	136	1.197	162.7
Basin Reserve, Wellington - New Zealand	349	1.241	433.1
Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana - West Indies	259	0.768	198.9
Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai - India	29	1.106	32.1
Carisbrook, Dunedin - New Zealand	61	1.414	86.2
Eden Park, Auckland - New Zealand	381	1.137	433.1
Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore - Pakistan	9	0.939	8.5
Green Park, Kanpur - India	148	0.91	134.7
Headingley, Leeds - England	92	1.403	129.1
Kennington Oval, London - England	78	0.996	77.7
Kensington Oval, Barbados - West Indies	21	1.03	21.6
Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad - India	17	2.928	49.8
Lord's, London - England	52	1.11	57.7
MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai - India	42	1.309	55
Melbourne Cricket Ground - Australia	6	1.083	6.5
Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad - Pakistan	51	0.832	42.4
Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad - West Indies	148	1.116	165.2
Sabina Park, Jamaica - West Indies	244	0.864	210.8
Trent Bridge, Nottingham - England	20	1.115	22.3
Vidarbha C.A. Ground, Nagpur - India	59	1.579	93.2
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai - India	71	1.161	82.5

Turner's actual average was 44.64. His modified average is 49.03

Kane Williamson:

Ground	runs	modifier	modified runs
Basin Reserve, Wellington - New Zealand	684	0.973	665.5
Bellerive Oval, Hobart - Australia	53	1.179	62.5
Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane - Australia	19	0.907	17.2
Dubai International Cricket Stadium - U.A.E.	43	0.999	42.9
Eden Park, Auckland - New Zealand	208	1.085	225.7
Galle International Stadium - Sri Lanka	10	0.968	9.7
Hagley Oval, Christchurch - New Zealand	85	0.941	80
Headingley, Leeds - England	16	1.064	17
Kensington Oval, Barbados - West Indies	204	1.353	276
Lord's, London - England	66	1.092	72.1
M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore - India	30	1.149	34.5
McLean Park, Napier - New Zealand	4	1.859	7.4
Newlands, Cape Town - South Africa	28	0.984	27.6
P Sara Oval, Colombo - Sri Lanka	153	1.024	156.7
Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad - West Indies	94	0.997	93.7
Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo - Zimbabwe	117	0.885	103.6
Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad - India	157	0.892	140.1
Sabina Park, Jamaica - West Indies	145	1.503	217.9
Sardar Patel (Gujarat) Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad - India	131	0.852	111.6
Seddon Park, Hamilton - New Zealand	242	1.362	329.6
Sharjah Cricket Stadium - U.A.E.	192	0.859	165
Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi - U.A.E.	26	0.818	21.3
Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka - Bangladesh	62	0.933	57.8
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua - West Indies	19	0.77	14.6
St George's Park, Port Elizabeth - South Africa	15	1.051	15.8
University Oval, Dunedin - New Zealand	35	0.821	28.7
Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Jamtha, Nagpur - India	8	0.974	7.8
Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong - Bangladesh	188	0.788	148.2

Williamson's average is currently 45.97. His modified average is 47.73.

Final table

Name	Average	Modified average
Sutcliffe	40.10	46.46
Turner	44.64	49.03
Crowe	45.37	47.91
Williamson	45.97	47.73

After doing this analysis it seems that Crowe and Turner are still ahead of Williamson. However, he's catching them quickly.

Once I started doing this for these batsmen, I started to wonder what would happen if we did this for all the greats. To help with that I did a quick crowd-source on twitter by asking people who they thought the 5 greatest batsmen ever were. In my next post on this topic, I'll look at how the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sir Donald Bradman, WG Grace, Bruce Mitchell and Sir Vivian Richards stack up, once this modification is made. Check back here to see the results of the survey and also the batsmen's numbers.