IPL 2009 - Glory to the oldies ...

As i posted earlier (closer to the midway mark), i made a quick framework to measure batting & bowling success in the IPL. 

• For batting, i considered: Runs, Average, Strike rate 
• For bowling, i considered: Wickets, Average, Run per over, Strike rate

I worked around the formulas and finally came across a measure that i felt gave equal weightage to batting & bowling and applied it across IPL 2008 & 2009. I didn't take fielding stats into consideration. Also, i didn't give weightages to 50s, 100s, 4Ws, 5Ws. I shall try and work something out later.

But as it stands today, IPL 2009's best batsmen & bowlers don't play any cricket outside IPL & probably backyard cricket - M Hayden & Anil Kumble. The contrast with which they reached the pinnacle is huge: Hayden, post match 4/5 dominated batting in IPL 2009. Kumble had a great first match and then lagged in the ratings (never dropping out of Top 10 though) and his final performance enabled him to pip RP Singh (who was Top 2 from the time i started tracking)

Some notes:

• To me, 40 is the score of a good performer. There were 24 in 2008 & 21 in 2009 with scores above 40. There are six players who scored 40+ in both IPLs: Rohit Sharma, Gilly, Irfan Pathan (that surprised me!), Symonds, Raina, Amit Mishra (another supriser). MS Dhoni just missed it for this year (38.8 compared to 59.4 last year) and Hayden played too few matches (4, i think) last year to get to 40 (he finished with 36 still!)
• Last year's top 10 included 5 batsmen, 2 all-rounders (Watson & Yusuf) and 3 bowlers. This year, the tide shifted to the bowlers - 7 bowlers, 1 all-rounder (Rohit Sharma) and 2 batsmen (Hayden & de Villiers)

2009 Top performers:

2008 Top performers:

SRK - Enough fooling around ...

Hi SRK.,

I know it is your money that you plonked on the table for the Kolkata team. However, what is happening with KKR is of concern to the entire cricketing fraternity. While you have the choice of appointing a candidate of your choice for coach, your current coach has no excuses for his excesses or his behavior. If i said that he has turned your team into Page 2 material, it is charitable at best.

And now, allegations of racism. Will you constitute an enquiry? How can someone say that against your fellow countryman and you remain silent in word and action? Have you forgotten that our independence is less than 62 years old? 

Tell me something, why does this team need more coaches that Indian national team. Since you claim that you don't know a lot about Cricket, let me tell you something. Ganguly was not only the best captain India ever had, he is also renowned for his eye for talent & grooming youngsters. Evidence include Zaheer, Yuvraj, Bhajji, Dhoni and M Vijay. In short, he is someone you aspire to have as coach - not Buchanan. Have you heard anything controversial from Gary Kirsten? Have you heard off-the-record comments from him ever? That's the sign of a good coach. Buchanan is repulsed by media as fish is repulsed from water.

Do us a favor and fire Buchanan & his team of 9 coaches. For crying out loud, there are just 11 Indians filling the 7 spots in the team. Don't you think 9 coaches is overkill. You would have heard of this - Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Make the changes today.

Amazing Blogger

Trishani Doshi, you are an amazing writer.

Cricinfo - If i were you, i would give Trishani Doshi a multi-year contract after tearing the IPL-only contract. 

Sample of what readers get to enjoy:

What we're lacking is a bit of drama. KKR (the top source of drama so far) have sort of slunk into oblivion. Nothing new except the possible sacking of John Buchanan. Yawn. Preits and Shilps haven't got into a catfight, there have been no wardrobe malfunctions, and all that chaddi-buddy camaraderie with the players (very charming at first) now makes me want to vomit. How about a sledge now and then, a slap, something. We need a bit of masala to up the momentum, and a few injured fingers and thunderclouds (albeit dramatically beautiful ones), aren't going to cut it. Mr Modi, please could you orchestrate something? The battle of the cheerleaders, perhaps, or round two of the Bhajji-Sreesanth battle. Maybe even a stream of a thousand Bollywood dancers pouring onto the pitch during a strategic time-out to do an unexpected jhatak to "Jai Ho"? Make it as mad as you possibly can.

Piling on Buchanan

Let me the 178,453rd critic of John Buchanan.

While i had a lot of respect for him before the IPL started, it has quickly eroded. He was lucky to be where he was, as Aussie national coach lording over immense talent - Waugh twins, Ponting, Gillie, McGrath, Hayden, Martyn, Langer, Gillespie and Clark. Now that he doesn't have a billion-dollar roster, his true colors are out in the open for everyone to see.

Buchanan now wants to increase foreign players from 4 to god-knows how many more! Already, Lalit Modi has shot it down & Dileep Premachandran's (of Cricinfo) criticism has been even more direct - calling Buchanan a "whiner" and right fully so.

The following are the errors in the way of Buchanan. There is an endless list, but this is just a start

• Ganguly! The list starts with Ganguly. Ganguly was & is India's best captain, master tactician & has one of the best eye for talent. His latest talent-spot is M Vijay, who stood-in for Gambhir during the Indo-Aus series and has shown top-tier talent in the one match he got. Ganguly is getting up there in age but there is a better way of using him than discarding him like that. He could have been the operational face of the team for a long time (and will still be!) and mentor for Indian players. Instead, by antagonizing him, Buchanan has shown his immaturity.
• Ishant Sharma is one of the best bowlers in the business. If Gary Kirsten & Dhoni can get the best out of him, why not you?
• Support staff - Remember just one law. Support staff is named so, because they don't get onto the field and face the opposition. There is only so much they can do. They can never supersede players. Never ever!
• Shah Rukh Khan: Seriously, how can this team spend $600k on Mortaza. His base price was $50k and would have been available for $150k max. The remaining $450k could have been used on local talent. Remember, 7 players must be Indian; Only 4 foreigners. Spend more on Indian talent
• Ajit Agarkar: The biggest underperformer that Indian cricket has ever produced. He always dishes one if not two 'four-balls' every over. His current stat line shows that - 3 wickets @40 average, 10 RPO and 24 SR. Nearly the worst of any specialist bowler

Buchanan, i wouldn't be sorry to see you go. The best thing with your term in IPL is that your halo is burst & ruined.  And that's the way it should be ...

IPL - Best Players in 2009 are ...

Raina, Hayden & Malinga ... the best-player, batsman & bowler of IPL 2008 till date.

I created a Value Index for batting & bowling. Batting VI = Product of (No. of runs, Strike Rate, Average)/20000 & Bowling VI = Product of (Wickets, (40-Average), (12-RPO), (30-SR)). Get in touch with me if you want to debate the formula. LVI indicates the VI for the previous year.

The following is the list of best performing bowlers & batsmen in IPL 2009:

Criteria: Min. of 100 runs. Missing this mark are Sehwag, Gambhir, Pieterson, Flintoff & McCullam.

Malinga has amazing stat line - 11 wickets at average shade below 10, RPO of 4.83 and SR of less than 12. Thus, he takes a wicket once every 2 overs giving less than 10 runs in those overs. Brilliant. If he continues his performance, he will most likely even overshadow the spectacular performance from Sohail Tanveer last year.

Spinners have done well too - Jakati, Ojha, Kumble, Hodge & Raina have done well. Overall, bowler's performance this year is likely to upstage last year. Isn't that expected - South African pitches aren't the featherbeds of the subcontinent.

To compare, find the tables for last year's performance - Shane Watson, Stuart Marsh and Sohail Tanveer were the best player, batsman & bowler from last year's edition.

PS: I edited the formula and hence re-wrote the entire article.

PS II: I changed the formula for batting - increased denominator from 20k to 30k. That bought the batting scores of last year to about par on bowling. Thus, last year's best performer was Sohail Tanveer & not Stuart Marsh, and that's the way it should be.

There is no point in re-doing all the graphs. I shall do another blog once the tournament is over. Will show the revised charts then.

Fake Disappointment - Rediff & IPL Indian Coaches

Rediff asks this provocative article - Why do all IPL teams have foreign coaches? Why not even one Indian coach. Let's see. I examined the list of most prominent Cricketers who played between 1980 & 2000 (at least 10 Test matches or 40 ODIs) and have retired. This is the classification of their status.

• Coaching (6): Venkatesh Prasad, Robin Singh, Pravin Amre, WV Raman, Syed Kirmani, Kharsan Ghavri
• TV Career (10): Nikhil Chopra, Saba Karim, Vinod Kambli, Sanjay  Manjrekar, Maninder Singh, Arun Lal, Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Ajay Jadeja
• Administration (11): Javagal Srinath (match referee), V Raju (selector), Kiran More (ex-selector), K Srikkanth (selector), Shivlal Yadav (Hyd Team Admin), Yashpal Sharma (selector), Dilip Vengsarkar (ex-selector), Brijesh Patel (ex-selector), G Viswanath (match referee), Chetan Chauhan (Team manager), Narendra Hirwani (selector)
• ICL (5): Nayan Mongia, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Kapil Dev
• Politics (2): Mohammad Azharuddin, Chetan Sharma, Kirti Azad
• Not Known (4): Narendra Hirwani, Manoj Prabhakar, Surinder Amarnath, Mohinder Amarnath
• Business (1): Dilip Doshi.

So, you see that most of the former players don't think Coaching is a great career option. Of these 7, i think at least the following are employed by current IPL coaches in various capacities - Prasad (Bowling Coach - CSK); Robin Singh (fielding coach - HDC); Pravin Amre (co-coach, MI). So, i don't see a reason for too much complaint here. India has a dearth of ex-cricketers who have turned to umpiring & coaching as their focus is mostly on administration.