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DanTheStatsMan

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Joined January 2022

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Yeah it’s a good point, almost all of the domestic matches were November-December.
If anything these games being played in March may mean the pitches are drier than normal, pushing them towards being flatter or more spin friendly.

De-mystifying the mysteries of Pakistan

Thanks!
Agree – Labuschagne and Head are the two most interesting to me. Both now quite experienced and ranked in the top 5 bats in the world without having played on the subcontinent (unless you count Head’s first two tests, which were in the UAE).

De-mystifying the mysteries of Pakistan

Agree that our bowling stocks are much deeper and of a higher quality than the batting. I suspect the stats from the end of the series will paint our batters in a fairly favourable light given the batting friendly conditions, particularly if Lahore plays how it usually does – a bunch of our batters may produce modest returns in the first two tests before piling on the runs in Lahore. Obviously these stats won’t reflect the context in which those runs were scored.

De-mystifying the mysteries of Pakistan

I think Alam’s very likely to star, both due to the friendly batting (and particularly middle order) conditions and his amazing domestic record across Pakistani grounds for almost 20 years

De-mystifying the mysteries of Pakistan

On the contrary, the analysis suggests there’s not much difference between the two groups, meaning if the likes of Hussey or Gilchrist had hypothetically had a stint in the team at a young age it wouldn’t have changed their later career too significantly.
Of course we can’t know this for sure – as I mentioned, you can’t apply population/group stats to individuals.

The stats that prove we should pick our best XI regardless of age

Perhaps the title was a bit misleading. The analysis was more about whether exposure at an early age changes the trajectory of a batter’s later career. it doesn’t so much go into the differences between those who are 30, 32, 34 etc. I’m not advocating for a whole team of 35 year olds, but carefully selecting individuals who may have a good few years left in them (e.g Voges, Rogers) may be preferable to younger players who are still a bit green, particularly as the analysis suggests it doesn’t provide a huge future benefit, on average

The stats that prove we should pick our best XI regardless of age

A good point. Perhaps Khawaja vs Head would be a better example, although their records are comparable and Head’s recent performances would put that example in the shade. Maybe there’s no great current example.

The stats that prove we should pick our best XI regardless of age

Basically my thinking is that the group of players who debuted early are going to be of a slightly higher quality, on average – great players like Ponting and Clarke were always going to have early test exposure, whereas the late starters have a greater proportion of players who weren’t world-beaters. There’s plenty of exceptions to this, but I think with such a big sample size this holds true on average.
Looking at first-class averages was an attempt at getting a measure for the overall quality of the group, from which a comparison of test records, particularly later career batting average, could be more meaningful. I thought this was important because the analysis was more about the trajectory of each group over their early and late career rather than looking at absolute numbers and averages.
I agree with all the limitations and counterarguments you mention, they’re all good points – as I said, there’s no perfect way to run such an analysis, using first-class average is just one (imperfect) attempt.

The stats that prove we should pick our best XI regardless of age

I think that’s very reasonable – as I mentioned, I think early exposure does confer a small benefit in terms of future run scoring, on average. My argument was that it shouldn’t be a significant deciding factor if you’re picking between two players who are clearly of a different standard.

The stats that prove we should pick our best XI regardless of age

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