The Bowling Equivalent of the Batting Average: Quantitative Evaluation of the Contribution of Bowlers in Cricket Using a
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The OR Society OR Insight Vol. 20 Issue 4 October - December 2007
The Bowling Equivalent of the Batting Average: Quantitative Evaluation of the Contribution of Bowlers in Cricket Using a Novel Statistic of 'Extra Runs Saved Per Match' (ERS/M) Bruce G Charlton School of Psychology, Newcastle University, UK, NEI 7RU [email protected] Abstract In cricket, the specialist batsman's ability may be evaluated by a single summary statistic: the batting average, but there is no equivalent measure for quantitative evaluation of the specialist bowler. I describe a method for calculating a novel bowling performance measure equivalent to the batting average: Extra Runs Saved per Match (ERS/M). The ERS/M is derived from the bowling average and the wickets per match statistic. It compares one bowler with another or with a standard 'norm' of bowling average 30 runs per wicket and 3 wickets per match. The value of ERS/M to selectors is that it measures differences in bowling ability between rival players, and combined with the batting average can calculate each player's runs contributed per match. The business value of the ERS/M relates to its potential as an objective and comparative measure of a player's productivity.
Cricket has recently also experienced a highlysuccessful intervention from the field of Operational Research in the form of the 'Duckworth-Lewis' method of adjusting target scores in one day matches (Duckworth & Lewis, 1995) which was subsequently adopted by the International Cricket Council (Duckworth & Lewis, 2004). There are 18 first class counties in England and Wales, each employing a squad of professional cricketers large enough to cover the needs of selection under different conditions and forms of the game (11 players allowed per game), plus inevitable injuries. For example, Lancashire Country Cricket Club (which is relatively large and successful) has an annual turnover (2006) of 11.7 million pounds Sterling with salaries accounting for 4.8 million pounds Sterling (Lancashire CCC, 2006). The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) presides over this system and manages the England national team - it has a turnover of 78.8 million pounds Sterling with a salary expenditure of 10.9 million pounds Sterling (ECB, 2006).
Introduction Cricket is the most 'statistical' of major UK sports due to its being based upon many repetitions of a basic unit of action - a bowler delivering a ball to a batsman in a highlyregulated manner. This makes cricket more amenable to an Operational Research approach than less stereotyped sports such as football in which only a few aspects (e.g. the kick-off corners, penalties) are sufficiently similar to enable statistical analysis.
Perfonrrrance rrreaaur-es in sport Sport is ultimately a form of entertainment and if a sport fails to engage attention and provide pleasure then the performance levels of players are irrelevant. Furthermore, sporting success is a zero-sum game, in the sense that winning is predicated on losing.
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Both these considerations mean that the importance
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