Ordinary Players with High Batting and Bowling Averages
If you look at career averages of batsmen who have played 20 years back there were very few batsmen who averaged 50 or more in Test Matches. While good batsmen were rare during those days, these days it is even rare. Yet there are far more batsmen who average 50 plus these days than in any other era. The same thing applies with bowlers too. Bowlers who hardly come to close to great ones of the earlier eras average the same as their illustrious predecessors.
A common factor lies behind very high batting averages for batsmen and very low bowling averages for bowlers. If you look at statistics there are two clusters of averages. Batsmen belong to countries excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe average 50 plus, while batsmen belonging to Bangladesh and Zimbabwe average int he region of 20 to 30. In the past teams playing Test cricket were more evenly matched and that was the reason why double centuries were a rarity. This days doubles centuries have been very common. A batsman known for his technical brilliance Sunil Gavaskar could never score a triple century, while todays batsman with average skills do not have any problem scoring a triple century. The simple reason is that Sunil Gavaskar or batsman of his generation never got a opportunity to play a weak team.
When it comes to bowlers picking wickets at low averages one needs to look at their statistics broken country wise. Muthiah Muralidharan is a legend with 783 wickets against his name. Of those 783 wickets 176 of them have come against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Anil Kumble has 619 wickets to his name and only 53 of those wickets have come against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Therefore one very important thing which matters the most is as to how many matches a player gets on to play minnows. If you look at career tallies of Muralidharan and Kumble they have 783 and 619 wickets that is a huge difference of 164 wickets and if you take their net tallies excluding Bangaladesh and Zimbabve Muralidharan and Kumble have 607 and 566 wickets respectively i.e. a difference of just 41 wickets.
If you go a little further Irfan Pathan has 100 wickets at a decent average of 32.26. However 39 of his wickets have come against Zimbabve and Bangladesh which is almost 40% of his career tally. If you remove those wickets from his tally his career tally stands at 61 wickets at an average of 45.49.
The number of times a country gets to plays minnows matters a lot. Sri Lankans are very fortunate as the get the maximum chances to play Bangladesh and Zimbabve. The matter does not end there for all Sri Lankans do not get to play minnows. Somebody like Sanath Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas are left out of the squads to try out youngsters while Muralidharan and Jayawardene get a chance to boost their career tallies by getting some free wickets and runs against hapless minnows.
The above factors if taken into consideration do not reflect a players true greatness as it generates false figures. ICC should look into this aspect and correct the balance by following these suggestions:-
Suggestions to correct false batting and bowling averages.
1) Weaker teams should be put in one cluster and they would be playing teams equal to their standard and skills. This will make up for some exciting cricket as it is a contest between equals.
2) In the cluster the best weaker team which gives consistent performances should be given an opportunity to play couple of Test Matches against stronger teams to test their skills. If their performances are found to be of international standard, then they can be retained. However if they fail to give decent performances they should be relegated and put back to the cluster of weaker teams.
A player is always judged on the strength of his statistics and the above suggestions need to be implemented to get the statistics right.
Regards
Satish
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