Cricket stats vs Baseball stats
May 8, 2008 by A P Webster
Andy Bull, writing for the Guardian, has picked up on the sterling work of David Barry (and many others) in the field of ‘cricket sabermetrics‘.
As noted by pretty much everyone who’s ever written on this subject, baseball is way ahead in terms of using stats to improve the way the game is played, and even football, normally resistant to change, has been influenced by the rise of ProZone, as well as the likes of Billy Beane. Whilst there is no shortage of cricketing statisticians, they tend not to be overly interested in influencing traditional cricketing behaviour (however irrational it may be).
Australia, as Bull and Barry both note, have used a bit of this statistical science to good effect. John Buchanan in particular is apparently a fan.
I think that there’s a lot of scope for using stats, but there’s a danger in getting carried away. Stats in general are flawed, cricket stats even more so.
Cricket stats vs Baseball stats you have wirtten with a nice analysis.
Just on the linked article on Knotted Paths, I agree with everything that author says until he gets to the bit about standard deviations. He is completely wrong when he says that “The number of innings increases your index by the square root of that number. Hence a player with the same score distribution, but quadruple the number of knocks will have double the index.”
I have to admit, my GSCE Maths is stretched a bit by a lot of these articles. The ‘Moneyball’ book was a great read, though.