ahmedwaqas92
ODI Debutant
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2013
- Runs
- 10,582
- Post of the Week
- 4
Considering emotions have cooled down post the 3rd ODI vs Zimbabwe, I believe this is the best time to reflect (in a realistic & logical manner) on what the current lot offers comparatively, to the batting resources Pakistan have had earlier i.e. in the last 20 odd years.
The loss in the 3rd ODI, in the recently concluded Zimbabwe series, saw many mainstream critics having a go at the team, especially our top 3 with Babar being criticized, as a significant factor in our LOI pitfall. This thread, is not by any means a defense to that narrative however, it puts into perspective on where were were historically, the resources we have right now as our mainstays, and what realistically should we be looking towards in the future.
When analyzing or putting forth any narrative, or to test a given hypothesis the building blocks must almost always be tangible data sets that reflect that given argument. To that end I deep dived into historical data on all Pakistani batsmen who have debuted in the last 20 years in ODIs (Starting from the year 2000 up until 2020) and have played a minimum of 20 innings. I also put an upper bound (i.e. upper limit) on every batsmen and capped each individual at the 75 innings mark. This was done so as to standardize the datasets and give us a reflective snapshot on the trend Pakistani batsmen follow when they are a significantly a mainstay in the national team.
So What historical data did I exactly capture? Now comes the fun bit
- Right off the bat I disregarded the usual suspects (Career Average, Career SR) since they have severe limitations in capturing the true essence of how a batsmen might be performing in the current modern era so for every batsmen I calculated the following five metrics (on each innings they played):
[table="width: 500, class: grid, align: center"]
[tr]
[td]Variable[/td]
[td]Inference[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]M-RPI[/td]
[td]I recorded this variable as the Moving RPI (runs per innings) for each batsmen. The logic behind going with RPI (Runs per Innings) rather than lets say averages was to remove the disparity of not outs from the datasets, which skew the results in either direction. The 'Moving' bit, which implies how RPI changed with each game the batsman played, was done so as to record bad patches and the sustainability of a batsman's form[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Z-RPI[/td]
[td]This is the Z score of each M-RPI data point in the study. A Z score is essentially calculated to give us the fluctuations in the entirety of the dataset. In technical terms it records how many standard deviations is a data point away from its aggregate mean. A positive Z score means that the data point is higher than the aggregate mean of the population while a negative instance provides a declining trend. In terms of batsmen RPI, we can say that Z scores that are positively skewed on the right of a distribution table will highlight consistency for the individual while those that are negative will imply lack of consistency[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]M-SR[/td]
[td]Similar to the moving RPI that we calculated above, M-SR represents the Moving Strike Rate. The fundamental concept behind this variable is the same as the RPI but instead of Runs per Innings it showcases, strike rate for each batsmen after every innings they played[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Z-SR[/td]
[td]Z-SR is the Z score of the Moving SR mentioned above. Again, the conceptual framework of this variable is identical to the one explained in Z-RPI. The only difference being that instead of Runs per Innings, this variable would show the fluctuations in the Strike Rate of a given batsman.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]D-Ratio[/td]
[td]I have seen a lot of critics and 'Analysts' throw the word 'Dynamic Batsman' around here & as well as on our mainstream media, however NEVER have I seen anyone mathematically try & correlate the term to any given framework. For this particular analysis, I have generated a D-ratio (Dynamic Ratio) which basically is the total number of runs scored by a batsmen (for each innings) via boundaries & then dividing that by total runs scored by the batsmen in rotation (1s/2s/3s). If the ratio comes to more than 1.00, the batsmen can be said to be "Dynamic" (for that particular innings) while if the ratio is less than 1.00 but greater than 0.00 the batsmen will be termed as "least Dynamic". If in any given innings the batsmen does not score via (boundaries or rotation) and there is a 0 on either side of the equation then we will label that innings as "Undynamic"[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
With the variables sorted lets take the Moving RPI, & see for ourselves the trend batsmen have followed for a maximum of 75 innings in the last 20 years. To record how every batsmen performed in the aforementioned qualification criteria, I animated the results as an RPI race for ease of viewing.
Babar is a class act but in the first 15-20 odd innings of his career (which started in 2016) he wasn't as impactful as he is TODAY. Off the blocks, Fakhar & Imam have a considerable lead in terms of RPIs compared to the rest of the batsmen (24 in total) however by innings number 30, Babar starts to hit his stride and by innings 50 he is so far ahead of the curve - its not even funny. This implies two qualities in Babar's game
(i) The guy has a knack of improving (with each game) & this stat can be clearly depicted for the last 75 innings.
(ii) Babar has an increasing M-RPI which means his consistency is almost unmatched in the way that he makes those runs - Day in Day out.
To further display this notion, I did a rank based, race animation (for the same Moving RPI) and the results themselves show how Babar post the 30 innings mark just leaves everyone behind. By the completion of each race he is almost 8-10 runs ahead of his nearest competition which is an unreal variance in terms of how a batsmen might perform among his immediate peers. Fair play to Imam as well since his RPI (he lacks Babar's SR by quite a lot) matches that off Babar until his most recent international innings but whether he can maintain that same level of consistency which Babar has done for 75 innings now remains to be seen.
Link - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7xgb11 (You can also refer to the next Post)
Whatever a person's opinion might be on our current lot (everyone's entitled to it) no factual data can back the simple fact that the batsmen Pakistan are introducing (or have introduced in the last 2 odd years) are NOT cut from the same cloth as those that debuted prior to them - going back as far as the year 2000. The top 3 we have right now simply have numbers that Pakistani fans have never seen from their Top 3 in LOIs in the entirety of their cricketing history. That said, there is still room for massive improvement and players like Haider, Khushdil, Abdullah Shafique provide an additional X-factor from the likes of Imam / Fakhar who along with Babar (statistically) make the best 1/2/3 Pakistan have ever put to field in LOIs in the last 20 years.
Moving on to Strike Rate and the criticism Babar cops every now and then/B]
There's this philosophy (and I use the term loosely here) that somehow or rather Babar doesn't have the power game as compared to either his predecessors or to those that might be his competitive peers. I have no idea where did this notion come from because he averages 56@87 but to put things into perspective I again did a short animation on Moving Strike Rate (M-SR) Babar has displayed in the last 75 innings and then compared that with 23 other individuals that have played a minimum of 20 ODI innings in the last 2 decades - here are the results:
Even here Babar remains in the upper quartile for the batsmen with a high SR. This list included the likes of Sharjeel/Fakhar/Kamran who historically had a better claimed power game than Babar however, even here Babar somehow pushes himself into the top tier & while considering he does manage to score an average of 56 runs per game, a batsmen with 87 M-SR (#6 in the list for the most explosive batsmen in the last 20 years) makes for some unreal reading when we put the numbers into some valid context. These metricized numbers not only put Babar as the best batsman we have had in the last 20 years, but also the best LOI player we have produced in our own cricketing history (STATISTICALLY there is no one ahead of him right now).
To hammer home on how Babar leads the charts yet still maintains his supreme form, here are the Z-RPI and Z-SR for the same dataset per innings and mapped on to the Z-RPI and Z-SR for the remaining 23 batsmen as well.
If you follow the dotted lines in both above tabulations (these represents Babar's data points) we can clearly see how he hardly deviates in either direction making him a hallmark of consistency & someone that we have pillared our batting strategy around. In both his ability to make runs, and his relative SR he is ahead of everyone we have ever produced in our LOI cricketing history while those that are 2nd and 3rd best to the cause, are also part of the setup right now.
This now begs the question on whether when people bring up past laurels, either are misinformed about their own opinions or is there a selected narrative push that might be geared towards the national team, to ensure that certain representation is provided without merit. Whatever the case maybe, the top 3 numbers for Pakistan ODI team has never seen 3 people M-RPI in the mid to late 40s along with the level of consistency that Babar brings. That said, is there room for improvement? ABSOLUTELY YES, Babar can and should take his game to the next level even now, by developing a stronger base which might assist him in capitalizing on bowlers via brute strength (if needed).
Conclusively if we look at the D-Ratio (which is basically how dynamic a batsmen is, based on the aforementioned definition provided above), Babar still has a high probability to scoring well in boundaries as well as via rotation. His probability of scoring dynamically is once in every 3rd game which is a very good return for someone who anchors the innings. Fakhar has more dynamic probability than Babar but his consistency via Z-RPI and Z-SR are rather lacking. Imam (even though has a good Z-RPI) lacks quite a bit when it comes to M-SR so even among the three top tier bats of the last 20 years Babar still makes out as the best one by a considerable margin. The D-ratio metrics are as follows - The numbers in the donut pie chart represents how many innings (out of the total they played) were either Dynamic, Least Dynamic or Undynamic.
P.S. I was not expecting but Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed's metrics have surprised me the most. Both these batsmen were the best competition to the Babar/Fakhar/Imam historically and in the last 20 years. I was not expecting that at all. The rest of the batsmen through their careers have been rather underwhelming especially in LOIs.
The loss in the 3rd ODI, in the recently concluded Zimbabwe series, saw many mainstream critics having a go at the team, especially our top 3 with Babar being criticized, as a significant factor in our LOI pitfall. This thread, is not by any means a defense to that narrative however, it puts into perspective on where were were historically, the resources we have right now as our mainstays, and what realistically should we be looking towards in the future.
When analyzing or putting forth any narrative, or to test a given hypothesis the building blocks must almost always be tangible data sets that reflect that given argument. To that end I deep dived into historical data on all Pakistani batsmen who have debuted in the last 20 years in ODIs (Starting from the year 2000 up until 2020) and have played a minimum of 20 innings. I also put an upper bound (i.e. upper limit) on every batsmen and capped each individual at the 75 innings mark. This was done so as to standardize the datasets and give us a reflective snapshot on the trend Pakistani batsmen follow when they are a significantly a mainstay in the national team.
So What historical data did I exactly capture? Now comes the fun bit
- Right off the bat I disregarded the usual suspects (Career Average, Career SR) since they have severe limitations in capturing the true essence of how a batsmen might be performing in the current modern era so for every batsmen I calculated the following five metrics (on each innings they played):[table="width: 500, class: grid, align: center"]
[tr]
[td]Variable[/td]
[td]Inference[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]M-RPI[/td]
[td]I recorded this variable as the Moving RPI (runs per innings) for each batsmen. The logic behind going with RPI (Runs per Innings) rather than lets say averages was to remove the disparity of not outs from the datasets, which skew the results in either direction. The 'Moving' bit, which implies how RPI changed with each game the batsman played, was done so as to record bad patches and the sustainability of a batsman's form[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Z-RPI[/td]
[td]This is the Z score of each M-RPI data point in the study. A Z score is essentially calculated to give us the fluctuations in the entirety of the dataset. In technical terms it records how many standard deviations is a data point away from its aggregate mean. A positive Z score means that the data point is higher than the aggregate mean of the population while a negative instance provides a declining trend. In terms of batsmen RPI, we can say that Z scores that are positively skewed on the right of a distribution table will highlight consistency for the individual while those that are negative will imply lack of consistency[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]M-SR[/td]
[td]Similar to the moving RPI that we calculated above, M-SR represents the Moving Strike Rate. The fundamental concept behind this variable is the same as the RPI but instead of Runs per Innings it showcases, strike rate for each batsmen after every innings they played[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Z-SR[/td]
[td]Z-SR is the Z score of the Moving SR mentioned above. Again, the conceptual framework of this variable is identical to the one explained in Z-RPI. The only difference being that instead of Runs per Innings, this variable would show the fluctuations in the Strike Rate of a given batsman.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]D-Ratio[/td]
[td]I have seen a lot of critics and 'Analysts' throw the word 'Dynamic Batsman' around here & as well as on our mainstream media, however NEVER have I seen anyone mathematically try & correlate the term to any given framework. For this particular analysis, I have generated a D-ratio (Dynamic Ratio) which basically is the total number of runs scored by a batsmen (for each innings) via boundaries & then dividing that by total runs scored by the batsmen in rotation (1s/2s/3s). If the ratio comes to more than 1.00, the batsmen can be said to be "Dynamic" (for that particular innings) while if the ratio is less than 1.00 but greater than 0.00 the batsmen will be termed as "least Dynamic". If in any given innings the batsmen does not score via (boundaries or rotation) and there is a 0 on either side of the equation then we will label that innings as "Undynamic"[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
With the variables sorted lets take the Moving RPI, & see for ourselves the trend batsmen have followed for a maximum of 75 innings in the last 20 years. To record how every batsmen performed in the aforementioned qualification criteria, I animated the results as an RPI race for ease of viewing.
Babar is a class act but in the first 15-20 odd innings of his career (which started in 2016) he wasn't as impactful as he is TODAY. Off the blocks, Fakhar & Imam have a considerable lead in terms of RPIs compared to the rest of the batsmen (24 in total) however by innings number 30, Babar starts to hit his stride and by innings 50 he is so far ahead of the curve - its not even funny. This implies two qualities in Babar's game
(i) The guy has a knack of improving (with each game) & this stat can be clearly depicted for the last 75 innings.
(ii) Babar has an increasing M-RPI which means his consistency is almost unmatched in the way that he makes those runs - Day in Day out.
To further display this notion, I did a rank based, race animation (for the same Moving RPI) and the results themselves show how Babar post the 30 innings mark just leaves everyone behind. By the completion of each race he is almost 8-10 runs ahead of his nearest competition which is an unreal variance in terms of how a batsmen might perform among his immediate peers. Fair play to Imam as well since his RPI (he lacks Babar's SR by quite a lot) matches that off Babar until his most recent international innings but whether he can maintain that same level of consistency which Babar has done for 75 innings now remains to be seen.
Link - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7xgb11 (You can also refer to the next Post)
Whatever a person's opinion might be on our current lot (everyone's entitled to it) no factual data can back the simple fact that the batsmen Pakistan are introducing (or have introduced in the last 2 odd years) are NOT cut from the same cloth as those that debuted prior to them - going back as far as the year 2000. The top 3 we have right now simply have numbers that Pakistani fans have never seen from their Top 3 in LOIs in the entirety of their cricketing history. That said, there is still room for massive improvement and players like Haider, Khushdil, Abdullah Shafique provide an additional X-factor from the likes of Imam / Fakhar who along with Babar (statistically) make the best 1/2/3 Pakistan have ever put to field in LOIs in the last 20 years.
Moving on to Strike Rate and the criticism Babar cops every now and then/B]
There's this philosophy (and I use the term loosely here) that somehow or rather Babar doesn't have the power game as compared to either his predecessors or to those that might be his competitive peers. I have no idea where did this notion come from because he averages 56@87 but to put things into perspective I again did a short animation on Moving Strike Rate (M-SR) Babar has displayed in the last 75 innings and then compared that with 23 other individuals that have played a minimum of 20 ODI innings in the last 2 decades - here are the results:
Even here Babar remains in the upper quartile for the batsmen with a high SR. This list included the likes of Sharjeel/Fakhar/Kamran who historically had a better claimed power game than Babar however, even here Babar somehow pushes himself into the top tier & while considering he does manage to score an average of 56 runs per game, a batsmen with 87 M-SR (#6 in the list for the most explosive batsmen in the last 20 years) makes for some unreal reading when we put the numbers into some valid context. These metricized numbers not only put Babar as the best batsman we have had in the last 20 years, but also the best LOI player we have produced in our own cricketing history (STATISTICALLY there is no one ahead of him right now).
To hammer home on how Babar leads the charts yet still maintains his supreme form, here are the Z-RPI and Z-SR for the same dataset per innings and mapped on to the Z-RPI and Z-SR for the remaining 23 batsmen as well.
If you follow the dotted lines in both above tabulations (these represents Babar's data points) we can clearly see how he hardly deviates in either direction making him a hallmark of consistency & someone that we have pillared our batting strategy around. In both his ability to make runs, and his relative SR he is ahead of everyone we have ever produced in our LOI cricketing history while those that are 2nd and 3rd best to the cause, are also part of the setup right now.
This now begs the question on whether when people bring up past laurels, either are misinformed about their own opinions or is there a selected narrative push that might be geared towards the national team, to ensure that certain representation is provided without merit. Whatever the case maybe, the top 3 numbers for Pakistan ODI team has never seen 3 people M-RPI in the mid to late 40s along with the level of consistency that Babar brings. That said, is there room for improvement? ABSOLUTELY YES, Babar can and should take his game to the next level even now, by developing a stronger base which might assist him in capitalizing on bowlers via brute strength (if needed).
Conclusively if we look at the D-Ratio (which is basically how dynamic a batsmen is, based on the aforementioned definition provided above), Babar still has a high probability to scoring well in boundaries as well as via rotation. His probability of scoring dynamically is once in every 3rd game which is a very good return for someone who anchors the innings. Fakhar has more dynamic probability than Babar but his consistency via Z-RPI and Z-SR are rather lacking. Imam (even though has a good Z-RPI) lacks quite a bit when it comes to M-SR so even among the three top tier bats of the last 20 years Babar still makes out as the best one by a considerable margin. The D-ratio metrics are as follows - The numbers in the donut pie chart represents how many innings (out of the total they played) were either Dynamic, Least Dynamic or Undynamic.
P.S. I was not expecting but Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed's metrics have surprised me the most. Both these batsmen were the best competition to the Babar/Fakhar/Imam historically and in the last 20 years. I was not expecting that at all. The rest of the batsmen through their careers have been rather underwhelming especially in LOIs.
Last edited:
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