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Joined October 2021
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“The disagreement is over the methodology and assumptions.”
That’s it in a nutshell. Until something more concrete and easily repeatable is come up with these types of articles are interesting curiosities. They are good for posing questions and inspiring debate yet won’t provide anything to really hang the hat off.
Comparing Mark and Steve Waugh against Pakistan
He has a go at explaining it here.
https://www.theroar.com.au/2021/09/14/how-much-is-a-run-really-worth-a-tale-of-two-test-matches/
While I don’t disagree that some runs will have more influence on a game, eg. 30 odd from Neil Wagner swinging to pad a score before declaration against Williamson scoring a double to put them in that position, there is a personal take on it which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
The final paragraph declares the hope of the author:
“If only we had a statistical barometer for all batsmen that counted only meaningful runs in different levels of pressure situations, rather than hinging everything on a superficial mean number of runs per dismissal, all too easily padded by the multitudes of low-value to downright meaningless runs that get scored in Test cricket.”
As I mentioned above, Anantha Narayanan does a lot of this type of stuff and has attempted to refine averages with the creation of his weighted batting average. I also recall him having something called Loose Runs, which are runs he believes to be runs a team can, or could have, played with. Though I can’t find the post where he might have put them up.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/the-weighted-batting-average-wba-in-tests-updated-1272303
Comparing Mark and Steve Waugh against Pakistan
That criteria only provides a glimpse of any player and hardly provide grounds to state that they are better or worse than any other player outside of that circumstance. In fact, if you are doing that to try to impress that someone is better than they are generally held to be you risk providing grounds for dismissal in most other circumstances. In this case it would be “Mark Waugh was a good player who happened to play great innings in these circumstances.” It doesn’t lift Mark Waugh up to being a great player it just highlights that he wasn’t most of the time. (Great and good being relative to test level. Eg. Merv Hughes being a good bowler and Curtley Ambrose being a great bowler.)
Comparing Mark and Steve Waugh against Pakistan
Shouldn’t the fact that so many have commented that the manner that you choose which innings go into you analysis is bias give you pause to reflect that perhaps it is?
The pruning of innings and matches while not appearing arbitrary to you has not been defined clearly enough and I don’t think could be applied by others. That is why so much of your time is spent on justification. However, a clear a method that can be followed by others may lead to discussion about the initial parameters but not what has been left out.
I’m sure you are already aware of his work but Anantha Narayanan does the above very well. And he will even repeat the same inquiries taking into account the suggestions of others. Here are his Home and Away Test 11s. Steve Waugh is captain of the Windies test 11.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/anantha-narayanan-compares-all-time-home-and-visiting-xis-in-australia-england-india-and-wi-1097301
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/anantha-narayanan-compares-all-time-home-and-visiting-xis-in-sa-pakistan-nz-and-sl-1099475
If you are serious about excluding particular innings with rigour you need an algorithm to identify which are to be excluded. That’s the only way accusations of bias shall be removed. I’d also recommend trying it against different players from different series/eras. Just top shore it up before debuting it.
Comparing Mark and Steve Waugh against Pakistan
Don’t be silly. Only select innings from non-dead-rubbers where the Aussie dollar happened to be trading above .7 USD and the sitting Australian prime minister parted their hair on the left are to be accepted. If you can’t organise your work by those simple rules then you are wasting everyone’s time.
Why Mark Waugh was the world's best against the West Indies
I think a better analogy is music careers. Some bands are great singles bands, other might have one or two good albums, others have a body of work that is truly great. I wouldn’t disagree that Waugh released a few good singles. And sometimes enough good tracks were were put together to say an album was strong. Would his whole back catalogue have you declaring him to be an all time great? Definitely not. Could it do with some reappraisal? Perhaps. It’s always worth a look.
Sticking with the above analogy, what’s wrong with being a band that occasionally writes pop perfection yet also has lots of filler? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Mark Waugh is what he is. A brilliant slips fielder, a handy extra bowler, and pure eye-candy with the bat in his hand. Some days we were lucky to get more eye-candy than others.
Comparing Mark and Steve Waugh against Pakistan