Rubu
July 30, 2005, 05:27 PM
All the cricket fans here tend to choose players depending on two separate methods. Group one, let us call them pro-talent, believes that class is permanent, and form is temporary. Therefore, it is talent that should matter most when choosing a player for the national team. The other group, let us call them pro-performance, believes that talent is just a mean to an end, performance. It does not matter what mean someone uses to perform, as long as he performs. Interestingly, both sides have quite a few valid arguments. As a result, the dispute goes on and on. Here is an adventurous effort from me to end this argument. I will call it the frequency interval hypothesis. Of course, not every one will agree with me, but I am hoping that at least some from both sides will.
Before I explain the hypothesis, let me state some background information. There are some players who are labeled as talented and perform on a regular basis. They are never part of this argument. Players such as Rafique, Mashrafee and Pilot might fall into this category. There are not our concerns here. There are another group of players who are not thought to be talented and they do not perform either. They are not our concerns as well. There are however, two more groups. One group of players are thought to be highly talented but do not performs very often. This is our interest group one. Let us call them the talented group. These players, even though they do not perform very often, can alter the result of a game on their day. These players, however, fails to have an impact on the game on other days. In short, either they perform well or do not perform at all. The other group of players, without being highly talented, always contributes a bit into the game. We can call them the utility players. These players can never change the outcome of a game single handedly like the other group, but will have some contribution more often than them.
The question is which group to choose? If we do choose the utility group, we will only have a better looking lose unless it is a close game. If we choose the talented group, we either win or loose miserably. The answer is it all depends on two main factors. How many close games are there, and what is the frequency of interval a player performs. Obviously, if the number of close games is high, a utility player would be preferable to a talented player. On the other hand, talented player is preferred when the outcome is heavily leaning toward the opponents. This is the frequency interval hypothesis in short, but I try to put it in a mathematical form.
The hypothesis is based on the fact that the main goal of a match is to win it. We should pick the squad in a way that will maximize the number of win. Let us take a hypothetical player X. Mr. X is a talented player who has the ability to change the outcome of a game single handedly. He comes ups up with those kind of match winning performance once in every 25 matches. In other 24 matches, his performance is below a utility player performance, say below 20 runs. Should we pick him? It all depends on how those 24 matches were. How many of them were close matches? Say, the number is 6. Here, say a utility player contributes once in every three matches. Now, if you add those runs of a utility player to a close match, you get a win. So, once in every three matches gives you two wins in those six close matches. Final outcome, two wins if you choose a utility player but one if you choose a talented player. But what if the talented player performs once in every 10 matches instead of 25? Everything else being equal, we get 2.5 wins using the talented player but 2 wins using utility player. In this case, the choice is the talented player.
It might sound a bit complicated to use, but all of it is simple math based on statistics. It can be actually done. Here, I would use it to analyze one special case, Rana v Kapali. One is a talented player, and the other is a utility player. I will consider a 50+ innings from the talented player (Kapali) as a difference making innings, and a 20+ innings from Rana as a utility innings. I will consider all the matches since Kapali’s debut to find out how many close matches are there. A loose below 25 runs, at the 47+ over or below 2 wickets will be considered a close match. Then I’ll use the difference making frequency from Kapali and utility frequency from Rana to figure out who would possibly bring in more wins. In this interval Bangladesh has played 61 ODI. Out of these 61 games, Bangladesh had 12 close games. The following are the ODI numbers that I considered close games: 2044, 2110, 2111, 2128, 2129, 2130, 2199, 2201, 2207, 2210, 2250 and 2257. Kapali had 43 innings so far and he scored above 50 four times. In other words his performance interval is 43/4 = 10.75. Given that in those 61 matches he would be able to make an impact in (61/10.75 = 5.67) matches. What about Rana? In his 18 innings, he scored utility runs (20+) 5 times. That gives him a utility interval of (18/5 = 3.6). So, how in how many matches, he would be able to make a difference? Since we know that there were 12 close matches, it will be (12/3.6 = 3.3) matches. What is the result? Considering pure batting only, Kapali has an advantage of (5.67 – 3.3) = 2.37 over Rana. This does not include any consideration of Rana’s bowling ability over Kapali’s, and probably Rana stays ahead there, but if are to pick one between this two as a “pure” batsman Kapali is the choice.
It would be interested to see how this works for Rajin and Tushar. But we cannot really identify either of them as talented or utility player. So, what needed to be done is to calculate both utility performance and difference making performance for both of them and add them together to get one number for each. Then see who scores more, Rajin or Tushar. (If no one else is interested in doing that I will try it latter)
How good this hypothesis can be in real life? Feedback wanted.
Before I explain the hypothesis, let me state some background information. There are some players who are labeled as talented and perform on a regular basis. They are never part of this argument. Players such as Rafique, Mashrafee and Pilot might fall into this category. There are not our concerns here. There are another group of players who are not thought to be talented and they do not perform either. They are not our concerns as well. There are however, two more groups. One group of players are thought to be highly talented but do not performs very often. This is our interest group one. Let us call them the talented group. These players, even though they do not perform very often, can alter the result of a game on their day. These players, however, fails to have an impact on the game on other days. In short, either they perform well or do not perform at all. The other group of players, without being highly talented, always contributes a bit into the game. We can call them the utility players. These players can never change the outcome of a game single handedly like the other group, but will have some contribution more often than them.
The question is which group to choose? If we do choose the utility group, we will only have a better looking lose unless it is a close game. If we choose the talented group, we either win or loose miserably. The answer is it all depends on two main factors. How many close games are there, and what is the frequency of interval a player performs. Obviously, if the number of close games is high, a utility player would be preferable to a talented player. On the other hand, talented player is preferred when the outcome is heavily leaning toward the opponents. This is the frequency interval hypothesis in short, but I try to put it in a mathematical form.
The hypothesis is based on the fact that the main goal of a match is to win it. We should pick the squad in a way that will maximize the number of win. Let us take a hypothetical player X. Mr. X is a talented player who has the ability to change the outcome of a game single handedly. He comes ups up with those kind of match winning performance once in every 25 matches. In other 24 matches, his performance is below a utility player performance, say below 20 runs. Should we pick him? It all depends on how those 24 matches were. How many of them were close matches? Say, the number is 6. Here, say a utility player contributes once in every three matches. Now, if you add those runs of a utility player to a close match, you get a win. So, once in every three matches gives you two wins in those six close matches. Final outcome, two wins if you choose a utility player but one if you choose a talented player. But what if the talented player performs once in every 10 matches instead of 25? Everything else being equal, we get 2.5 wins using the talented player but 2 wins using utility player. In this case, the choice is the talented player.
It might sound a bit complicated to use, but all of it is simple math based on statistics. It can be actually done. Here, I would use it to analyze one special case, Rana v Kapali. One is a talented player, and the other is a utility player. I will consider a 50+ innings from the talented player (Kapali) as a difference making innings, and a 20+ innings from Rana as a utility innings. I will consider all the matches since Kapali’s debut to find out how many close matches are there. A loose below 25 runs, at the 47+ over or below 2 wickets will be considered a close match. Then I’ll use the difference making frequency from Kapali and utility frequency from Rana to figure out who would possibly bring in more wins. In this interval Bangladesh has played 61 ODI. Out of these 61 games, Bangladesh had 12 close games. The following are the ODI numbers that I considered close games: 2044, 2110, 2111, 2128, 2129, 2130, 2199, 2201, 2207, 2210, 2250 and 2257. Kapali had 43 innings so far and he scored above 50 four times. In other words his performance interval is 43/4 = 10.75. Given that in those 61 matches he would be able to make an impact in (61/10.75 = 5.67) matches. What about Rana? In his 18 innings, he scored utility runs (20+) 5 times. That gives him a utility interval of (18/5 = 3.6). So, how in how many matches, he would be able to make a difference? Since we know that there were 12 close matches, it will be (12/3.6 = 3.3) matches. What is the result? Considering pure batting only, Kapali has an advantage of (5.67 – 3.3) = 2.37 over Rana. This does not include any consideration of Rana’s bowling ability over Kapali’s, and probably Rana stays ahead there, but if are to pick one between this two as a “pure” batsman Kapali is the choice.
It would be interested to see how this works for Rajin and Tushar. But we cannot really identify either of them as talented or utility player. So, what needed to be done is to calculate both utility performance and difference making performance for both of them and add them together to get one number for each. Then see who scores more, Rajin or Tushar. (If no one else is interested in doing that I will try it latter)
How good this hypothesis can be in real life? Feedback wanted.