An analysis of world cricket rankings has shown that no matter how performance is measured, Sir Donald Bradman remains the greatest of all time.
In a paper to be published in the Journal of Sports Economics Professor John Mangan from The University of Queensland’s School of Economics and Professor Vani Borooah from the University of Ulster expose the defects in ranking batsmen according to their batting average – calculated by the total number of runs a player has scored divided by the number of times they have been out.
The paper then suggests new ways to calculate the rankings based on consistency and value to the team.
In all measures, Australian cricketing legend Sir Donald Bradman, with a conventional batting average of 99.94 remained atop the list of Test batsmen (1877-2006); however, there was some significant movement among those that follow him.
Based purely on batting average, the swashbuckling West Indian, Brian Lara, ranked 24th but dropped to number 44 when consistency was taken into consideration, while former Australian captain, Alan Border, moved up 13 places from number 33 to 20.
When the contribution that individual batsmen make to their team’s total, or their “value”, was measured, Bradman again came out on top. In the Test Matches that he played, one quarter of the Australian team’s runs came from Bradman’s bat.
Lara fared better on the measure of value and climbed 21 places to rank third, while Englishman Eddie Paynter, who occupied fifth place on the basis of his average, slid to 42nd.
Professor Mangan said the reason behind the movement in rankings was that only using a batsman’s average to rank them missed some fundamental variables in Test Match cricket.
“First, it does not take into account the consistency of scores across innings,” he said.
“A batsman might have a high career average but with low scores interspersed with high scores. Another might have a lower average but with much less variation in his scores.
“Second, average does not take into account the value of the player’s runs to the team. If the team is 5 for 600 and you come out and make a hundred then it’s easy but if the team is 8 for 50 it is a much more important time for you to score.”
The new scores for consistency and value were calculated using a range of statistical measures that took into account consistency of scores; which innings, if any, a batsman was more consistent in; and the percentage of the team score the player made.
Professor Mangan said that while the new measures were an improvement on the traditional average, they were by no means perfect.
“In proposing these extensions, one of our aims was to eliminate any element of subjectivity from these measures,” he said.
“For example, a particular innings by a batsman may have had special value to his team because it was played under difficult conditions.
“Nor did we, in arriving at our assessment, make any attempt to allow for the quality of the opposition against which they played. Arguably, there has never been a fiercer bowling attack than DJ Jardine’s body-line team and, in this context, SM McCabe’s 187 at Sydney in December in 1932 – hailed by Bradman as the greatest innings he had ever seen – must mock his lowly position of 46 in the rankings.
“However, one thing remains constant; Don Bradman dominates, no matter how you measure it, he remains number one.”
Media: Professor Mangan, j.mangan@economics.uq.edu.au or (07) 3365 6312 or Sam Ferguson at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, telephone 07 3365 6662.
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