Often any kind of discussion or comparison in sport automatically devolves into the "you can't compare different eras!" conclusion, which in limited overs cricket is probably even more prominent than elsewhere - the climate for a batsman today post-IPL, post-white ball swing, with huge bats and ramp shots and general pandemonium, would be impossible for a batsman in the 70s, 80s, or even the early part of this century to imagine. And the area where these differences are most highlighted is in strike rates, which simply put have risen exponentially. A cursory look at the stats will make you think all batsmen of the past were glorified Boycotts, nudging and prodding without any real flair or power. But that would be stupid. A possible workaround is instead of looking at the raw strike rates, to look at a batsman's strike rate in the context of their contemporaries.
Doing that is easy - You take the batsman's strike rate, you take the overall strike rate over the course of this batsman's career, and you divide the first number by the second. A figure greater than 1 implies they scored more freely than "expected", while a figure less than 1 implies they scored more restrictively than expected. The further away from 1 the more remarkable the strike rate, either positively or negatively.
For convenience and to make things a bit cleaner and slightly less nitpicky, I define a batsman's career as follows:
1 January "first year batting" - 31 December "final year batting"
Furthermore, since the primary motivation of this is for comparisons in all time XIs and such, I've decided to break things up into 3 roles: Openers, 3-4, 5-7. The basis of these designations came from glancing at the overall strike rate trends per individual batting position, but I admit they're crude and maybe even arbitrary. I'll also only consider a batsman's stats in their primary role, eg Tendulkar played all over the place initially but played the best and most significant part of his career as an opener, so only those stats are counted when comparing openers. A batsman can still be considered in more than one role, but the numbers will be accurately divided. The strike rates are of course also calculated according to each role, which helpfully excludes useless tailender data and allows us to see how a batsman plays in relation to the general demands of their position. To filter more, only those who've scored at least 1000 runs in their role are looked at.
To get an intuitive feel for a batsman's overall "effectiveness", I've taken a geometric mean of their batting average (A) and their relative strike rate (RS), ie sqrt(A*RS). Essentially with this metric, below 6 represents a fairly ineffective batsman, 6-7 a good to great batsman, 7-8 a world class batsman, and 8+ a truly special batsman.
The batsmen I've done this for are a mix of the top run scorers, and people who for some reason I thought this would be interesting. Sorting is done in order of the relative strike rate, but not everyone is included so expect to see some big gaps. I've looked at more people in the openers category to show a broad range of numbers representing different eras, and because it's what I looked at first and I got lazier afterwards.
Openers
Player | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Era Strike Rate | Relative Strike Rate | Rating |
Virender Sehwag | 7518 | 36.49 | 104.72 | 77.42 | 1.3526 | 7.0255 |
Shahid Afridi | 3543 | 24.6 | 101.66 | 75.46 | 1.3472 | 5.7568 |
Adam Gilchrist | 9200 | 36.5 | 98.02 | 74.91 | 1.3085 | 6.9109 |
Brendon McCullum | 3363 | 32.97 | 102.74 | 79.13 | 1.2984 | 6.5427 |
Jonny Bairstow | 2214 | 51.48 | 109.06 | 85.94 | 1.269 | 8.0827 |
Sanath Jayasuriya | 12740 | 34.61 | 92.48 | 74.62 | 1.2393 | 6.5493 |
Jason Roy | 3381 | 42.79 | 107.4 | 86.73 | 1.2383 | 7.2793 |
Sachin Tendulkar | 15310 | 48.29 | 88.05 | 75.41 | 1.1676 | 7.5089 |
Shane Watson | 3882 | 45.13 | 91.68 | 78.78 | 1.1637 | 7.2471 |
Saeed Anwar | 8156 | 39.98 | 79.93 | 69.74 | 1.1461 | 6.7692 |
Marcus Trescothick | 4335 | 37.37 | 85.21 | 74.47 | 1.1442 | 6.5391 |
David Warner | 4969 | 45.58 | 95.26 | 83.3 | 1.1436 | 7.2197 |
Quinton de Kock | 4823 | 45.5 | 95.61 | 84.59 | 1.1303 | 7.1713 |
Shikhar Dhawan | 5518 | 44.5 | 94.01 | 83.4 | 1.1272 | 7.0825 |
Romesh Kaluwitharana | 2798 | 26.14 | 78.72 | 70.66 | 1.1141 | 5.3965 |
Chris Gayle | 10179 | 39.45 | 88.02 | 79.58 | 1.1061 | 6.6056 |
Rohit Sharma | 6977 | 58.14 | 92.28 | 83.68 | 1.1028 | 8.0072 |
Gordon Greenidge | 4993 | 45.39 | 64.65 | 58.8 | 1.0995 | 7.0644 |
Herschelle Gibbs | 6103 | 35.69 | 82.86 | 75.82 | 1.0929 | 6.2453 |
Tillakaratne Dilshan | 7367 | 46.04 | 89.08 | 82.1 | 1.085 | 7.0678 |
Matthew Hayden | 5892 | 44.3 | 78.7 | 73.22 | 1.0748 | 6.9004 |
Mark Waugh | 5729 | 44.06 | 76.74 | 71.8 | 1.0688 | 6.8623 |
Hashim Amla | 8083 | 49.89 | 88.65 | 83.12 | 1.0665 | 7.2945 |
Sunil Gavaskar | 2651 | 35.34 | 61.5 | 58 | 1.0603 | 6.1215 |
Martin Guptill | 6001 | 43.8 | 88.25 | 83.3 | 1.0594 | 6.812 |
Desmond Haynes | 8648 | 41.37 | 63.09 | 59.61 | 1.0584 | 6.617 |
Aaron Finch | 4539 | 40.89 | 89.52 | 84.59 | 1.0583 | 6.5782 |
Graeme Smith | 6974 | 38.1 | 80.94 | 77.73 | 1.0413 | 6.2987 |
Gary Kirsten | 6647 | 41.8 | 72.25 | 71.88 | 1.0051 | 6.4819 |
Sourav Ganguly | 9146 | 41.57 | 73.59 | 74.45 | 0.9884 | 6.4101 |
Alastair Cook | 3204 | 36.4 | 77.13 | 78.94 | 0.9771 | 5.9637 |
Shai Hope | 1349 | 96.35 | 82.3 | 85.75 | 0.9598 | 9.6163 |
Tamim Iqbal | 6892 | 35.52 | 77.74 | 82.42 | 0.9432 | 5.7882 |
Michael Atherton | 1572 | 38.34 | 59.68 | 67.28 | 0.887 | 5.8317 |
Roshan Mahanama | 3283 | 30.97 | 57.47 | 66.14 | 0.8689 | 5.1875 |
Conclusions:
- To no real surprise, players 'ahead of their time' are Sehwag, Afridi, Gilchrist, McCullum, Jayasuriya.
- Aaron Finch is far, far less impressive than I thought he was. Both in terms of scoring rate and size, so many of his peers totally eclipse him: Bairstow, Roy, Watson, Warner, de Kock, Amla, Rohit, Dhawan, Guptill, Dilshan... And the same goes for players before his time, Desmond Haynes for instance.
- Bairstow may have sacrificed his test technique, but he didn't just do it to become a good or even a great white ball player, he did to become possibly the best one day opener we've ever seen. And no you're not clever for saying Trescothick would actually walk into this England team.
- Tendulkar stands out as the model of longevity, consistent scoring, and fluent scoring.
- Shane Watson probably doesn't get enough credit, and is arguably the best one day opener Australia have had.
- Swashbuckling Ganguly is somewhat of a myth, he actually scores at a slower rate than his peers. Similarly stodgy Gavaskar is also somewhat of a myth, he actually scores at a faster rate than his peers, by a decent distance too.
- Gary Kirsten was the player most in line with the scoring trends of his era.
- Among 'older' players, Gordon Greenidge is certainly the standout.
- Mahanama worst ODI opener to have played this much?
3-4
Player | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Era Strike Rate | Relative Strike Rate | Rating |
Viv Richards | 5791 | 52.17 | 91.19 | 68.94 | 1.3227 | 8.3071 |
AB de Villiers | 6457 | 53.8 | 100.98 | 78.19 | 1.2915 | 8.3355 |
Eoin Morgan | 3780 | 45.54 | 94.42 | 78.9 | 1.1967 | 7.3823 |
Virat Kohli | 11260 | 62.2 | 93.8 | 80 | 1.1725 | 8.5399 |
Aravinda de Silva | 7801 | 36.45 | 81.62 | 70.12 | 1.164 | 6.5137 |
Brian Lara | 6962 | 40.47 | 81.69 | 71.54 | 1.1419 | 6.7979 |
Kevin Pietersen | 3131 | 35.57 | 83.78 | 75.92 | 1.1035 | 6.2652 |
Ricky Ponting | 13308 | 42.51 | 80.49 | 73.29 | 1.0982 | 6.8327 |
Faf du Plessis | 4761 | 52.9 | 88.44 | 81.67 | 1.0829 | 7.5687 |
Steve Smith | 3384 | 47.66 | 85.88 | 80.91 | 1.0614 | 7.1125 |
Kumar Sangakkara | 12234 | 44 | 79.97 | 75.86 | 1.0542 | 6.8106 |
Joe Root | 5633 | 50.29 | 86.52 | 82.16 | 1.0531 | 7.2773 |
Ross Taylor | 8213 | 48.59 | 82.79 | 78.9 | 1.0493 | 7.1404 |
Babar Azam | 3271 | 54.51 | 87.01 | 83.07 | 1.0474 | 7.5562 |
Mahela Jayawardene | 8325 | 34.97 | 77.98 | 74.88 | 1.0414 | 6.0347 |
Kane Williamson | 5601 | 48.7 | 81.5 | 80.21 | 1.0161 | 7.0344 |
Jonathan Trott | 2611 | 49.26 | 77.77 | 76.64 | 1.0147 | 7.0701 |
Allan Border | 3781 | 31.77 | 69.5 | 68.67 | 1.0121 | 5.6704 |
Jacques Kallis | 10484 | 45.78 | 73.35 | 73.97 | 0.9916 | 6.7377 |
Michael Clarke | 5073 | 45.29 | 75.42 | 76.84 | 0.9815 | 6.6673 |
Younis Khan | 4871 | 31.22 | 73.34 | 75.43 | 0.9723 | 5.5095 |
Rahul Dravid | 7301 | 37.63 | 70.18 | 73.18 | 0.959 | 6.0073 |
Sanjay Manjrekar | 1165 | 34.26 | 61.25 | 69.55 | 0.8807 | 5.4929 |
Conclusions:
- Before doing this, I expected AB, Viv, and Kohli to come out most impressively, and that's pretty much exactly what's happened. Viv's numbers are just astounding, the way he scored so much more prolifically and so much more freely than his peers borders on incomprehensible.
- I'm realising I've really romanticised Jayawardene as a one day player in my head, despite his numbers being really unremarkable. Might not even qualify for an all time Sri Lanka ODI team.
- Kallis looks like the most 'of his time' player as far as scoring rate is concerned.
- I've got my issues with Faf as a test player, but we shouldn't forget just how incredible he is in white ball cricket, the numbers make him one of the absolute best ODI batsman of all time. Eoin Morgan similarly seems to get pigeonholed as some kind of specialist captain recently, but his batting is up there amongst the greats.
5-7
Player | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Era Strike Rate | Relative Strike Rate | Rating |
Shahid Afridi | 3141 | 23.26 | 129.63 | 78.23 | 1.657 | 6.2083 |
Glenn Maxwell | 2443 | 33.01 | 118.07 | 87.05 | 1.3563 | 6.6913 |
Jos Buttler | 3396 | 39.95 | 116.26 | 87.05 | 1.3356 | 7.3045 |
AB de Villiers | 2075 | 79.8 | 109.15 | 82.6 | 1.3214 | 10.2689 |
Lance Klusener | 1068 | 35.6 | 94.42 | 73.43 | 1.2859 | 6.7658 |
Andrew Symonds | 4315 | 40.7 | 92.83 | 76.47 | 1.2139 | 7.029 |
Jonty Rhodes | 4744 | 35.66 | 82.26 | 72.94 | 1.1278 | 6.3416 |
Michael Hussey | 4211 | 47.31 | 88.95 | 79.43 | 1.1199 | 7.2788 |
Suresh Raina | 4355 | 34.56 | 92.43 | 82.57 | 1.1194 | 6.2199 |
Ben Stokes | 2400 | 43.63 | 95.16 | 86.35 | 1.102 | 6.934 |
Yuvraj Singh | 4870 | 38.34 | 86.73 | 80.31 | 1.0799 | 6.4347 |
Steve Waugh | 5797 | 34.3 | 77.39 | 73.37 | 1.0548 | 6.0149 |
Michael Bevan | 4510 | 51.25 | 77.3 | 73.4 | 1.0531 | 7.3466 |
Arjuna Ranatunga | 6041 | 35.12 | 76.88 | 73.02 | 1.0529 | 6.0808 |
MS Dhoni | 8273 | 48.09 | 85.73 | 82.75 | 1.036 | 7.0585 |
Angelo Mathews | 5367 | 42.25 | 83.33 | 84.2 | 0.9897 | 6.4663 |
Shivnarine Chanderpaul | 2845 | 40.64 | 73.4 | 76.08 | 0.9648 | 6.2617 |
Conclusions:
- Afridi stands out here with by far the highest relative strike rate of any player in any role. Maybe if he were a few years younger, and subsequently his pretend age also a few years younger, while also not being as much of a prick, he could have been a more appreciated cricketer.
- For current players, no surprise to see Buttler and Maxwell so high.
- Not a huge sample size, but AB's numbers here are insane.
- Andrew Symonds was too good a cricketer in all formats to have faded out the way he did.
So with that in mind, and also using some personal judgement, here's my rough attempt at an all time ODI top 7, not considering bowling and the balance of the side:
Jonny Bairstow (Tendulkar if you have a sample size issue)
Rohit Sharma
Virat Kohli
Viv Richards
AB de Villiers
Jos Buttler (wk)
Michael Bevan (Ben Stokes/Andrew Symonds if you want a more enthusiastic allrounder)
Problems:
- The central assumption of relative strike rate is that scoring faster is desirable for all batsmen of all eras, which is a simplistic way of looking at things. With ODI sides for a long time just being copies of test sides, there wasn't necessarily that onus to play more aggressively, it's an issue of capability but also an issue of intention. So even with this adjustment older players are disadvantaged.
- I've also not made any adjustments to averages over time, I've assumed that any batsman goes out with the intention of scoring as much as possible. However as we all know team scores have risen and so obviously individual scores have risen, batsmen now score more than their predecessors. So perhaps an adjustment is needed there.
- The geometric mean method is very basic, unsophisticated. It's good for basic intuition, but still I think it's heavily biased towards bigger averages, so it depends in part on how each of us value one day batsmen. Would you rather have a Shai Hope or a Virender Sehwag? A Chanderpaul or a Maxwell?
- My system also disadvantages players who are systematically promoted up the order in certain match situations, which is quite a frequent occurrence these days. Jos Buttler for instance has some of his best, most destructive numbers when playing in the top 4, yet those aren't counted.
- The usual "big game" issue - none of this tells us about performances in world cup knockouts, home and away, against the biggest rivals, in front of the biggest crowds...
- The ODI landscape has changed a lot through time, does the emergence of associate and other weaker nations distort things? Or is a hungry Afghanistan side in 2019 a bigger challenge than a bored test leftover England side in 1980? And not necessarily just when these weaker teams are opponents, more in how their results against each other would impact the era strike rates.
- As I said before the 1-2/3-4/5-7 designations are far from perfect. In fact looking at the numbers, I found that while openers, 3-4, and 6-7 can be pretty much grouped together at least in the modern era, 5 stands out. But talking about a specialist number 5 still feels very odd to me, and I thought grouping it made more sense.
- Another unaccounted for issue is the strength of a batsman's team. For instance it's easy to look at Tamim Iqbal's numbers and call him a poor opener, but he's required to put a higher price on his wicket than say Jason Roy is.
- Players with stop-start career paths are given an unfair advantage. For instance someone who plays a random one off ODI in 2005 as a teenager, but then returns to play consistently from 2015-2020 will have their career calculated as 2005-2020 instead of 2015-2020, which will artificially inflate their relative strike rate.
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