RH156RH
2018-08-28 15:55:52 UTC
Too mechanical.... RH
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2018/08/27/revealed-key-statistic-england-use-select-test-team-works/
Telegraph Sport Cricket
Revealed: the key statistic England use to select their Test team - and how it works
Using this revised metric, Jos Buttler's runs have been even more valuable this summer CREDIT: AP
Tim Wigmore
27 AUGUST 2018 • 5:00PM
Follow
Before the Trent Bridge Test, Jos Buttler had a Test average of 37 this summer. But, by the metric preferred by England, Buttler had an average of 60.
Welcome to weighted average: the statistic that England use to get a more accurate depiction of players' performances than traditional averages. These have always been impervious to context, so a player scoring a century at home to Bangladesh would get more numerical credit than one scoring 90 in India or Australia. The notion of weighted averages is taking into account when runs are made or wickets taken, and so provide a more complete understanding of a player’s performances - and, therefore, help inform selection.
Take Buttler before the Trent Bridge Test. He had endured a bleak start to the series against India, making 0, 1 and 24. Yet, based on weighted average, Buttler was still England’s leading Test batsman of the summer; the metric gave him credit for making runs in onerous circumstances in a summer in which Test runs have been sparse. Weighted average suggested that, even though Buttler’s run-making had been unexceptional by the normal standards of Test cricket, he had performed very well considering the quality of the bowlers and conditions. After his maiden Test century at Trent Bridge, Buttler’s weighted average this summer is now 68 - still the highest of any Englishman, and way clear of his batting average this season of 47.
Weighted averages were created by England's analysis team in 2011, as a way of revealing more than traditional averages. Initially, the weighted averages for players were just calculated by specific requests. From 2016, weighted averages - for both first-class and Test cricket - have appeared automatically in the England selectors’ app after each match. Since Ed Smith became England’s national selector this summer, weighted averages have become the default way by which players are filtered on the selection app, emblematic of their growing importance. ....
Weighted average is not a perfect metric - but nor does it need to be. To be of use, it simply needs to be better than old-fashioned numbers. England believe that weighted averages more fully capture what matters in a player’s performance, just as the Oakland Athletics recognised that on-base percentage was a better way of measuring a player’s performance than the traditional baseball batting average. Others are also trying to use averages in a more enlightening way: Dan Weston, a professional gambler and data analyst who has consulted for first-class sides, has developed a similar system.
The calculation of weighted average is actually fairly simple. The metric takes into account the quality of the batsmen or bowlers faced - and, for bowlers, the quality of the batsmen they dismiss - whether the match was high or low-scoring, and if the player was at home or away. So a batsman making 80 will get far more credit when it is top score in a match - as Buttler's unbeaten innings in the second Test against Pakistan was - than when it comes during a high-scoring draw. This summer, Keaton Jennings has a Test batting average of 20, yet a weighted average of 33, showing how the numbers adjust for a summer in which ball has dominated bat - and that, for all his uncertainty, all other openers have struggled too...
Weighted averages cannot spin straw into gold - but, England believe, they can help identify who is most likely to improve the side. Conventional County Championship records are notoriously unreliable as a predictor of how players will do in international cricket. England consider weighted averages of county players to be more revealing than traditional numbers of whether players might succeed at Test level.
In county cricket in recent years, first there is Ollie Pope. Then there is daylight. And then there are Joe Root and Alastair Cook. In the last year Pope’s weighted average in first-class cricket is 71, even higher than his overall record for Surrey; in the same period Joe Clarke, who is also highly-regarded, has a weighted average of 37. Pope’s weighted average aligned with England’s decision to give him a Test debut after only 15 first-class games.
Joe Denly is another county cricketer who performs well on this metric - he has a first-class average of 44 in the last year, but a weighted average of 52, showing how he has performed well in arduous batting conditions at Canterbury. With the ball, Lancashire’s seamer Tom Bailey is among the leading English county cricketers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2018/08/27/revealed-key-statistic-england-use-select-test-team-works/
Telegraph Sport Cricket
Revealed: the key statistic England use to select their Test team - and how it works
Using this revised metric, Jos Buttler's runs have been even more valuable this summer CREDIT: AP
Tim Wigmore
27 AUGUST 2018 • 5:00PM
Follow
Before the Trent Bridge Test, Jos Buttler had a Test average of 37 this summer. But, by the metric preferred by England, Buttler had an average of 60.
Welcome to weighted average: the statistic that England use to get a more accurate depiction of players' performances than traditional averages. These have always been impervious to context, so a player scoring a century at home to Bangladesh would get more numerical credit than one scoring 90 in India or Australia. The notion of weighted averages is taking into account when runs are made or wickets taken, and so provide a more complete understanding of a player’s performances - and, therefore, help inform selection.
Take Buttler before the Trent Bridge Test. He had endured a bleak start to the series against India, making 0, 1 and 24. Yet, based on weighted average, Buttler was still England’s leading Test batsman of the summer; the metric gave him credit for making runs in onerous circumstances in a summer in which Test runs have been sparse. Weighted average suggested that, even though Buttler’s run-making had been unexceptional by the normal standards of Test cricket, he had performed very well considering the quality of the bowlers and conditions. After his maiden Test century at Trent Bridge, Buttler’s weighted average this summer is now 68 - still the highest of any Englishman, and way clear of his batting average this season of 47.
Weighted averages were created by England's analysis team in 2011, as a way of revealing more than traditional averages. Initially, the weighted averages for players were just calculated by specific requests. From 2016, weighted averages - for both first-class and Test cricket - have appeared automatically in the England selectors’ app after each match. Since Ed Smith became England’s national selector this summer, weighted averages have become the default way by which players are filtered on the selection app, emblematic of their growing importance. ....
Weighted average is not a perfect metric - but nor does it need to be. To be of use, it simply needs to be better than old-fashioned numbers. England believe that weighted averages more fully capture what matters in a player’s performance, just as the Oakland Athletics recognised that on-base percentage was a better way of measuring a player’s performance than the traditional baseball batting average. Others are also trying to use averages in a more enlightening way: Dan Weston, a professional gambler and data analyst who has consulted for first-class sides, has developed a similar system.
The calculation of weighted average is actually fairly simple. The metric takes into account the quality of the batsmen or bowlers faced - and, for bowlers, the quality of the batsmen they dismiss - whether the match was high or low-scoring, and if the player was at home or away. So a batsman making 80 will get far more credit when it is top score in a match - as Buttler's unbeaten innings in the second Test against Pakistan was - than when it comes during a high-scoring draw. This summer, Keaton Jennings has a Test batting average of 20, yet a weighted average of 33, showing how the numbers adjust for a summer in which ball has dominated bat - and that, for all his uncertainty, all other openers have struggled too...
Weighted averages cannot spin straw into gold - but, England believe, they can help identify who is most likely to improve the side. Conventional County Championship records are notoriously unreliable as a predictor of how players will do in international cricket. England consider weighted averages of county players to be more revealing than traditional numbers of whether players might succeed at Test level.
In county cricket in recent years, first there is Ollie Pope. Then there is daylight. And then there are Joe Root and Alastair Cook. In the last year Pope’s weighted average in first-class cricket is 71, even higher than his overall record for Surrey; in the same period Joe Clarke, who is also highly-regarded, has a weighted average of 37. Pope’s weighted average aligned with England’s decision to give him a Test debut after only 15 first-class games.
Joe Denly is another county cricketer who performs well on this metric - he has a first-class average of 44 in the last year, but a weighted average of 52, showing how he has performed well in arduous batting conditions at Canterbury. With the ball, Lancashire’s seamer Tom Bailey is among the leading English county cricketers.