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You could forgive Australian fielding coach Greg Blewett if he is a little concerned for his job security considering the way the Aussies have fielded this summer.
It was so bad they’ve had to bring back legendary fielding coach – and good luck charm – Mike Young as a consultant to try and fix the mess.
Even Steve Smith dropped a couple he should have taken, but he would later make up for that by taking a spectacular catch. To be fair Smith has been taking super catches like that for years and it’s got me thinking about how much value a super fielder like Smith adds to the team compared to an average one.
We all know fielding’s important but it begs the question why there isn’t statistics to measure a players worth in the field. Sure we have stats on how many catches a player has taken but what about how many he’s dropped?
Cricket is still in the dark ages when it comes to statistics, as the rest of the sporting world can’t get enough of the new sports analytics. It’s time for cricket to catch up.
We’ve got basic batting and bowling averages but what cricket is really missing is a way to rate a player in the field. Wouldn’t it be nice to see stats on how many runs a player costs you in the field or saves you in the field and then attach a figure to it.
We could call it a fielding rating or fielding average and ultimately it would combine both catches and ground fielding as well. But for the sake of this exercise why don’t we keep it simple and just focus on the catches – because as we know catches win matches.
Below I’ve come up with a very basic formula to give us a guide on a player’s value as a catcher and fielder. Before we go any further I should point out that I’m no statistician nor am I a mathematic genius so I’m sure there’s somebody out there who can come up with a better formula to work all this out.
But for now I’m happy just to get the ball rolling on the topic.
As I stated above I want the ratings to show how much runs a player costs or saves the side per innings or per match.
To get this figure we have to penalise a player for dropping a catch he should have taken and reward them for catching a half chance – which is one where an average fielder wouldn’t be able to catch. In other words a catch with a high degree of difficulty.
But how much do we penalise for a dropped catch?
Well Cricinfo tells me that the average runs per wicket for all Test nations combined is 32, so to make it easy we’ll penalise 30 runs per dropped catch. Naturally for a half chance catch taken we’ll add 30 runs.
So using Steve Smith as an example, in the last Test he dropped two catches which he should have taken – that’s minus 30 for each catch dropped so minus 60 -but he caught a half chance as well. So he ends up on minus 30 for that Test. In essence he cost the side 30 runs.
So in nutshell players are penalised for dropping one they should have taken and rewarded for catching one they weren’t expected to.
I’m the first to admit it wouldn’t be entirely 100 per cent accurate as everyone has their own interpretations on what constitutes a half chance and what constitutes an easy catch but it’s still miles better than what we have now.
If something as simple as this were introduced I think we’d view each players’ performances a little differently.
Take George Bailey, for example. The last Ashes series was widely considered a disappointment for him as he only averaged 28 with the bat and he was dropped accordingly. But what about his performance in the field?
I recall him taking at least four really difficult catches and not dropping any easy ones. Using the above formula this would have given George a rating of 120 runs saved in the field for the series. Now if we were to add the fielding runs to the actual runs he scored with the bat that pushes his batting average for the series up from a modest 28 to a respectable 42.
Now compare that to Shaun Marsh. In the series just gone, he finished with an average of 42 and certainly no one is calling for him to be dropped, but if we use the same formula and include the two dropped catches he should have taken into account (minus 60) it lowers his average all the way down to a less than flattering 32 for the series.
So was George Bailey hard done by?
Judging by this formula he was but this is a very small sample size and I’m sure over a full season the difference wouldn’t be as significant. Still, Bailey would probably be worth at least another five runs an innings just from his catching ability alone.
What about Shaun Marsh? Would he be a plus or a minus in the field? I’m not sure but I’d love to be able to find out.
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