Top bowling and batting performances in the World Cup

High Score Index (HSI) is a measure to determine the top batting performances. An article on this was published a few months back. That article covered all ODIs. Now I will look at the World Cup batting performances from the HSI point of view. I have also strengthened the HSI with strike-rate values, which are very relevant in ODI innings. In addition I will introduce a new concept to measure the top bowling performances, called ISV (InnSpell Value).

Let me first explain ISV since it's is a new measure.

What are the main objectives of an ODI bowler? He has to take wickets. If the wickets are those of top-order batsmen, that's great. If he can dismiss top-order batsmen for low scores, that's wonderful. Finally, he has to bowl economically, both in an absolute manner and in the context of the innings. The ISV is a composite of these sub-measures. Without using context, these sub-measures define, almost completely, how well he has bowled. Let us see how it is determined.

I credit the bowler with the RpI of the batsman he dismissed. This is the base value, irrespective of when the batsman was dismissed. Whether AB de Villiers is dismissed in the fifth over or the 47th, the bowler has done his team a huge favour. Now I come to the second and variable part of the wicket. If de Villiers is dismissed for 5, the bowler has done a great favour to his team. If he dismisses him at 145, nothing.

So this variable component is applicable only when the batsman is dismissed at a score below his RpI and is the difference between the batsman's score and RpI. If a bowler dismisses de Villiers for 9, he gets 78.72 points (43.36+34.36) where 34.36 is arrived at by subtracting 9 from 43.36 (43.36-9 = 34.36). If a bowler dismisses de Villiers for 37, he gets 49.72 points [43.36+6.36 (43.36-37)]. If a bowler dismisses de Villiers for 87, he only gets 43.36 points. The second part of this calculation is applicable only if the RpI of the batsman is greater than 20. Logical, since I do not want to give the bowler a credit of 1.45 when he dismisses James Anderson for 2 or 2.06 for dismissing Ashish Nehra at 1!

Now we come to the bowling accuracy. This is done in two stages. Let us say that a bowler has an innspell of 10-1-43-2. The RpO, 4.3, is an absolute value and the bowler is credited with certain number of points. However, if this bowling spell is part of an innings in which the rest of the team bowled at 5.43 then he gets substantial additional credit. On the other hand, if this bowling spell is part of an innings in which the rest of the team bowled at 2.72, he gets very little additional credit. In other words, some context, whatever can be derived from the scorecard, is used.

These points are normalised to reflect the actual performance. The ISV values are pegged at a slightly higher level than HSI and an ISV value greater than 2.0 reflects a good bowling spell. The average ISV is higher than the average HSI value since there are far fewer bowling spells. This does not matter since these are derived from two totally different processes. These are apples and burgers and cannot really be compared.

Let us now look at the top World Cup innings by ISV.

Top bowling performances in World Cups: by ISV

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ODI#	Year	Inns	Result	Bowler	For	Vs	Analysis	ISV
.
0031	1975	1	W	GJ Gilmour	Australia	Eng	12.0 - 6 - 14 - 6	5.177
1976	2003	1	W	AJ Bichel	Australia	Eng	10.0 - 0 - 20 - 7	4.909
1986	2003	1		SE Bond	New Zealand	Aus	10.0 - 2 - 23 - 6	4.831
0748	1992	2	W	EA Brandes	Zimbabwe	Eng	10.0 - 4 - 21 - 4	4.739
0730	1992	2	W	MW Pringle	South Africa	Win	8.0 - 4 - 11 - 4	4.646
1976	2003	2		AR Caddick	England	Aus	9.0 - 2 - 35 - 4	4.324
3147	2011	1		Wahab Riaz	Pakistan	Ind	10.0 - 0 - 46 - 5	4.168
3120	2011	1		RJ Peterson	South Africa	Eng	8.0 - 2 - 22 - 3	4.157
1969	2003	2	W	A Nehra	India	Eng	10.0 - 2 - 23 - 6	4.149
1962	2003	2	W	JM Anderson	England	Pak	10.0 - 2 - 29 - 4	4.143
1970	2003	2	W	GD McGrath	Australia	Nam	7.0 - 4 - 15 - 7	4.129
1473	1999	2	W	GD McGrath	Australia	Ind	10.0 - 1 - 34 - 3	4.100
1951	2003	1	W	JN Gillespie	Australia	Ind	10.0 - 2 - 13 - 3	4.100
1965	2003	2	W	CO Obuya	Kenya	Slk	10.0 - 0 - 24 - 5	4.099
1483	1999	2		SK Warne	Australia	Saf	10.0 - 4 - 29 - 4	4.097
1468	1999	2	W	NC Johnson	Zimbabwe	Saf	8.0 - 1 - 27 - 3	4.082
1973	2003	2	W	WPUJC Vaas	Sri Lanka	Win	10.0 - 3 - 22 - 4	4.050
0202	1983	2	W	RJ Hadlee	New Zealand	Pak	9.0 - 2 - 20 - 3	4.014
3105	2011	2	W	Shahid Afridi	Pakistan	Ken	8.0 - 3 - 16 - 5	4.007
1470	1999	1	W	GD McGrath	Australia	Win	8.4 - 3 - 14 - 5	3.968

Gary Gilmour dismissed the top six batsmen for 2, 6, 8, 7, 4 and 0. He had an economy rate of 1.167. What more do we want? His ISV is 5.177, the only bowling performance above 5.0, which is almost the maximum any bowling performance could reach.

Andy Bichel removed five top-order batsmen for 30, 2, 1, 46, 10 and 45. So he did not score too heavily on the wicket-quality front. But where he scored was that the rest of the team bowled at an RpO of 4.5 while his RpO was 2.0. Hence he comes quite close to Gilmour. And the additional seventh wicket also helps.

Shane Bond dismissed the top four Australian batsmen for 18, 1, 6 and 31. He bowled at 2.3 as compared to his team's 5.0. So his ISV is an excellent 4.831. It is another thing that New Zealand lost the match. That result, however, does not affect Bond's high ISV.

Now we come to an outstanding performance by a bowler from a team of so-called minnows. Eddo Brandes dismissed Graham Gooch for 0, Allan Lamb for 17, Robin Smith for 2 and Graeme Hick for 0. So his ISV is a very high 4.739 even though he captured only four wickets. This also highlights the true value of the ISV measure.

To round off the top five, we have an excellent performance by Meyrick Pringle of South Africa. He dismissed Brian Lara for 9, Richie Richardson for 1, Carl Hooper on 0 and Keith Arthurton on 0. An excellent economy rate meant that his ISV is a very high 4.646. Arthurton's low RpI value pulls this performance down slightly.

Among the other performances, Wahab Riaz's excellent bowling spell against India in the 2011 World Cup deserves a mention. Similarly Nehra's top-class bowling effort against England in 2003 is a notable one. Can anyone ever forget Shane Warne's effort against South Africa in the 1999 semi final? Or Robin Peterson's one-man demolition of England in 2011: he dismissed Andrew Strauss for 0, Kevin Pietersen for 2 and Ian Bell for 5. It can be seen that many of these matches, including the last one, were lost by these teams.

Glenn McGrath appears three times in this table of top 20 World Cup performances. No one else even appears twice.

Just to recap HSI, which is determined by the following formula, given for the top scorer.

HSI = (BatsmanScore / NextHighestScore) * (BatsmanScore / TeamScore) * StrikeRateIndex.

The Strike Rate Index is a composite value between 1.0 and 2.0 derived from the batsman's absolute strike rate and relative factor derived by comparing the strike rates of the batsman and the team. This factor adds significant weight to the quality of the HSI measure.

For the scores other than the highest scores a simple formula is used: HSI = (BatsmanScore / TeamScore) * StrikeRateIndex.

Top batting performances in World Cups: by HSI

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ODI#	Year	Inns	Result	Batsman	For	Vs	Runs	Balls	HSI
.
0216	1983	1	W	N Kapil Dev	India	Zim	175*	138	7.975
1963	2003	1		JM Davison	Canada	Win	111	76	5.549
1944	2003	2		SB Styris	New Zealand	Slk	141	125	4.435
0747	1992	2	W	Rameez Raja	Pakistan	Nzl	119*	155	4.054
2539	2007	2	W	NJ O'Brien	Ireland	Pak	72	107	3.777
2581	2007	1	W	AC Gilchrist	Australia	Slk	149	104	3.439
2535	2007	1		JP Bray	Ireland	Zim	115*	137	3.124
0749	1992	2		BC Lara	West Indies	Aus	70	97	3.123
2547	2007	1	W	Imran Nazir	Pakistan	Zim	160	121	3.098
1955	2003	1		HH Gibbs	South Africa	Nzl	143	141	3.037
2553	2007	1		SO Tikolo	Kenya	Eng	76	97	3.036
2542	2007	2		DL Hemp	Bermuda	Ind	76*	105	2.953
1982	2003	2		PA de Silva	Sri Lanka	Aus	92	94	2.915
1049	1996	1	W	G Kirsten	South Africa	Uae	188*	159	2.887
2555	2007	1	W	ML Hayden	Australia	Win	158	143	2.886
0197	1983	2		MD Crowe	New Zealand	Eng	97	118	2.861
0061	1979	1		GR Viswanath	India	Win	75	134	2.801
0217	1983	2	W	G Fowler	England	Slk	81*	77	2.742
1453	1999	2		GM Hamilton	Scotland	Pak	76	111	2.681

This Kapil Dev innings is well-known. Kapil came in at 9 for 4, saw the score slide to 17 for 5, and scored an unbeaten 175 to take India to 266 for 8 and on to a 31-run win. The next-highest score was 24 by Syed Kirmani. Kapil's innings was scored at good rate. Very few innings in ODIs have a higher HSI value.

At second place is a relatively unknown innings by John Davison, playing for Canada. Not one supporting batsman reached 20. And his hundred was made at breakneck pace.

In 2003, in response to 272 by Sri Lanka, New Zealand slumped to 15 for 3. Then Scott Styris played one of the all-time great ODI innings. He scored 141 out of the team total of 225, in only 125 balls. The next-best innings was by Chris Cairns, with 32.

Since Pakistan scored 167 for 3 in response to New Zealand's 166, Ramiz Raja's 119 in Christchurch in the 1992 World Cup probably does not deserve a place. But these are numbers and cannot be ignored. The next best was 30 and the 119 was out of 167. In fifth place is Niall O'Brien's classic innings of 72 out of 133 for 7, which was a winning total against Pakistan in 2007. The next-best innings was 16.

Adam Gilchrist's masterpiece of 149 in the 2007 final has a high HSI because the next-best score was 38 and this innings was out of Australia total of 281. The strike rate was above 1.5. There are quite a few not-so-well-known batsmen, like Jeremy Bray, David Hemp and Scotland's Gavin Hamilton featuring in the top 20.

One feature of the top 20 table is that no fewer than 12 innings have been played in a losing cause.

In my next pre-World Cup piece I will be looking at team performances. Using the contribution values, I will look at how teams have performed across World Cups and in specific World Cups. During this World Cup, all three types of analyses will be done and presented at appropriate intervals.

Bradman memorabilia

A lovely gift, as beautiful as anything Sri Lankan, given to Don Bradman when the Australians stopped in Colombo halfway through their long journey from Fremantle to Southampton. Bradman left Bowral on March 6 and arrived in London on April 23. Those were the days. The Australian team stopped in Colombo for a couple of days and played a one-innings game against Ceylon. To view this, please click HERE.