Another look at the best ODI batsmen

Stats analysis ranking the best ODI batsmen

25-Feb-2013

It is with great interest that I read Ananth Narayanan's analysis of one-day players. Independently, our database provides a ranking of batsmen, which first of all adjusts each innings played according to batting conditions and the quality of the opposition bowling, then takes these adjusted scores and combines them with the scoring rate and also longevity in the game to provide a career batting quality measure. The results are given here below:

The best ODI batsmen
Rank	Player	Bat Quality	M	Runs	Ave	100s	R/100b
1	Sachin Tendulkar	94.69	417	15481	41.95	34	80.83
2	Vivian Richards	87.92	187	6692	46.80	10	89.83
3	Michael Bevan	87.08	232	6695	51.90	3	72.00
4	Ricky Ponting	83.05	301	10422	40.55	15	75.33
5	Michael Hussey	82.35	93	2252	52.37	1	78.83
6	Brian Lara	80.59	299	9952	38.72	12	75.83
7	Jacques Kallis	80.02	279	9107	42.36	11	67.50
8	Adam Gilchrist	79.09	287	9031	33.70	12	91.00
9	Sanath Jayasuriya	79.01	421	11977	30.63	20	85.33
10	Inzamam-ul-Haq	78.90	378	11054	37.22	8	69.83
11	Kevin Pietersen	78.12	82	2699	45.75	5	83.67
12	Sourav Ganguly	77.95	311	10476	37.82	16	68.00
13	Mahendra Singh Dhoni	77.31	120	3484	43.55	3	83.83
14	Mohammad Yousuf	77.19	269	8522	39.82	7	69.50
15	Dean Jones	77.03	164	5921	43.54	7	70.83
16	Rahul Dravid	76.91	333	10064	37.55	7	67.67
17	Mark Waugh	76.00	244	8162	37.79	12	73.83
18	Saeed Anwar	75.68	247	8263	36.72	11	75.50
19	Zaheer Abbas	75.47	62	2425	44.91	4	80.00
20	Desmond Haynes	75.08	238	8447	40.42	17	61.67
21	Andrew Symonds	75.02	193	4709	37.98	4	87.50
22	Aravinda de Silva	74.83	308	8977	33.75	11	78.33
23	Javed Miandad	74.69	233	7226	40.82	6	65.50
24	Mohammed Azharuddin	74.60	334	9058	35.66	4	71.50
25	Lance Klusener	74.48	171	3458	39.75	1	86.83
26	Matthew Hayden	74.19	161	5663	40.45	8	72.83
27	Gary Kirsten	73.58	185	6557	39.50	10	69.50
28	Gordon Greenidge	72.72	128	4963	43.54	6	62.67
29	Shivnarine Chanderpaul	72.17	235	7128	38.12	3	66.50
30	Hansie Cronje	71.84	188	5447	37.83	5	74.83

The top two players are, as with Ananth's scheme, Tendulkar and Richards, with the former enjoying a significant lead over the latter. Seven of Ananth's top ten are in our top ten. But whereas Ananth has Haynes, Javed Miandad and Symonds, we have Hussey, Lara and Kallis. Two notable absentees in Ananth's top 30 who rank quite highly in ours are Pietersen and Dhoni, 11th and 13th respectively.

Given that limited-overs cricket is all about scoring runs, and scoring them quickly,a much simpler algorithm to arrive at the best ODI batsmen is to multiply the batting average by the scoring rate, and divide the product by 1000 to reduce the magnitude of the result. This requires a minimum qualification of (in this case) 50 matches, otherwise the well known Canadian, Rizwan Cheema, heads the list after only three ODIs! This method will favour modern players because of increased scoring rates in modern times, but we find that Zaheer Abbas and Viv Richards still make the top eleven:

Combining batting average and scoring rate
Rank	Player	Index	M	Runs	Ave
1	Michael Hussey	4.91	93	2457	57.14
2	Mahendra Singh Dhoni	4.33	120	3793	47.41
3	Vivian Richards	4.24	187	6721	47.00
4	Kevin Pietersen	4.19	82	2822	47.83
5	Zaheer Abbas	4.04	62	2572	47.63
6	Michael Bevan	3.99	232	6912	53.58
7	Sachin Tendulkar	3.79	417	16361	44.34
8	Andrew Symonds	3.76	193	5006	40.37
9	Lance Klusener	3.69	171	3576	41.10
10	Adam Gilchrist	3.48	287	9619	35.89
11	Ricky Ponting	3.48	301	11113	43.24

The largely-forgotten Klusener rates well, but apart from him, they all are prominent in the both Ananth's table, and mine above.