bigfluffylemon wrote:Interesting hypothesis. I think though it might be confounded by a couple of factors - the first is that while theoretically the number of runs you can make in a game is unbounded, there are only ever 10 wickets you can take. Adding more bowlers can therefore result in diminishing returns. When you have three bowling specialists, adding a bowling allrounder probably is the most efficient. When you're getting to a fifth bowler, the relative value of their bowling and batting is likely to change. When you get to bowler number 6, their bowling is unlikely to be useful for anything more than a few overs to take the load off the specialists - there just aren't enough overs or wickets for six bowlers to all be valuable in most innings
Indeed, BFL. I did qualify that a bowler would have to take more wickets per match than innings he bats for the rule to apply, otherwise the opposite would happen, and batting average flips to become more important. So you couldnt have a bowler averaging 20 with bat and ball who only occasionally bowls, because unless his wicket taking numbers outweigh his innings, that batting average is going to be more useful. So, yeah.... it wasnt really a comment about filling the order with bowling allrounders, more a case of how to assess to different players worth. Having a 6th bowler who cant bat very well, I would imagine, is almost useless for a team.
The equation is probably also affected by batting and bowling order. Stokes bats down the order most of the time, so doesn't necessarily bat every innings. A batting allrounder who opens, or comes in at 3-4 (Kallis, say, or Watson) is going to get closer to batting every innings, so the value of their runs, and overs batted to protect the lower order, both go up.
Youd be suprised actually, Stokes ratio of batting innings is very high, he has hardly played a test where he has missed batting in two innings (93-94%). But generally the batting order shouldnt matter, just the amount of innings played (but that is naturally linked, obviously). Someone like Kallis obviously blows the whole analysis into another stratosphere, because you dont need to crunch numbers to show he was, at the very least, in the top 5 most naturally gifted players ever to play the sport.
It would be interesting to see a full analysis.
I have a lovely long train journey to take today, so this might keep me occupied haha.
