Friday, July 3, 2009

What If?

This is case has been dead and buried for all purposes. VVS Laxman's ODI record. The idea is to put things in perspective, question the perils of stereotyping cricketers and seeing them through blinkers.

VVS Laxman is one of the greatest batsman India has produced. With close to 7000 test runs, he is arguably the best cricketer in the world to have never played a single World Cup match. The two reasons cited for which he was kept out or missed out (depending on which way one looks at it) were 'Running between the wickets' and 'not the best fielder'.

Let us consider his two contemporaries, great batsmen, who were not great runners and not the best fielders (ground fielding and run saving ability, NOT catching) either and use them as a benchmark for various comparisons. Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly.

Career Stats as of date

Player/Matches/Innings/NO/Runs/Average /Strike Rates/HS/100s/50s Dravid/333/308/40/10585/39.49/71.22/153/12/81

Ganguly/311/300/23/11363/41.02/73.70/183/22/72

Laxman/ 86/ 83/ 7/ 2338/ 30.76/71.23/131*/6/10

At first sight, Laxman's record suggests an inconsistent underacheiver. One has to note that the played his 86 matches staggered over 1998 to 2004 as opposed to the other two who were sure starters in this period. Confidence and assurance of a place plays no small part in performance as you will see.

The fact is that both Ganguly and Dravid were notoriously slow starters in ODIs and grew with experience and responsibility. Ganguly matured soon, and benefited from opening the batting which did his average and SR a lot of good. After 2002, Dravid found his niche at No5 and became perhaps the best middle order batsman in the game, till the time he was dropped. The high NOs and 81 fifty plus scores attest to that fact.

One interesting column is the strike rate. Notice that, even with the staggered 86 matches and even with Dravid and Ganguly improving their ODI play in the middle and later stages of their careers, Laxman has the same SR as Dravid and only 2.5 runs per 100 balls less than Ganguly. So much for Ganguly's big hitting and fast scoring abilities.

So how did Dravid and Ganguly fare in their first 86 matches?

Overall Records in the same number of matches

Same number of innings would have been a better indicator, but since I could not find such a filter in cricinfo (maybe I did not look hard enough) hence this. Even so, being top order batsmen all, it would be a fairly accurate reflection of performance.

Player /Matches/Inns/NO/ Runs/ Average/SR/HS/ Hundreds/ Fifties/ Period

Dravid/86/79/6/2738/37.50/68.70/145/5/18/1996- 5 Jun 1999

Ganguly/86/81/7/2998/40.51/68.87/124/5/20/ 1992(1996)-10 Jan 1999

(Forget the 'on-paper' debut in 1992)

Laxman/ 86/ 83/ 7/ 2338/ 30.76/71.23/131*/6/10/ 1998-2006

Here Laxman's runs and average are low compared to the other two giants. One obvious reason is in the last column. While the other two played out those 86 matches within 3 years, VVS had them staggered over a 12 year period, being in and out of the ODI side. That is not a recipe if one is looking for consistent run of scores. Had he been given a consistent run at No 3, who knows what might have been possible. Plus one must consider he did not make many runs against the minnows of those days. Although it is not clear from this bit of statistic, there were innumerable matches with likes of Bangladesh, Kenya, Zimbabwe and weak bowling sides ( in the subcontinent) like NZ against which Ganguly especially scored a lot of runs. Bringing them into the equation is beyond the scope of the subject.

One measure of how good a player is would be how you fare against the best in the business. It is known that Laxman enjoyed playing against Australia. However, the other point is that Australia were(are) the pre-eminent ODI side in the world, winning ALL the ODI World Cups in question, in this period of later half of 1996 to 2007. To score runs against them in ODIs, one would have to be exceptionally talented to find the gaps, or clear the field, and/or be fleet of foot to beat their super-strong fielding side. None of this three were exceptional runners, although Dravid was/is a great judge of the single. So how have this three gentlemen fared against the Aussies?

Record against Aus in 86 matches

For Laxman, these are the only ODIs played. For Dravid and Ganguly, these were the first 86 Matches they played.

Player /Matches/Inns/NO/ Runs/ Average/SR/HS/ Hundreds/ Fifties/ Period

Dravid/5/5/0/125/25.00/65.44/56/0/1/ 1996 - 5 Jun 1999

Ganguly/8/8/0/213/26.62/64.74/72/0/2/ 1996 - 10 Jan 1999

Laxman/21/19/3/ 739/46.18/77.05/106*/4/2/ Till Date

VVS strike rate against Australia 77.05 is considerably better than his career average. Nothing surprising here. This is more than the career strike rates of all three.

The stats also show that for an Australia series VVS was more likely to be selected. Hence he high proportion, almost 25% against Australia.

Obviously in their first 86 matches Dravid and Ganguly were not very 'seasoned' and pitted against Australia in that period, their records are fairly ordinary. Comparitively VVS's most productive matches against Australia came on the back of his most productive test series against them (2001 India and 2003-04 Australia - confidence and assurance of a place). As for Dravid and Ganguly , undoubtedly, as they grew in class and stature, their career records improved vastly.

Hence a better measure would be to compare how each of them has fared in similar number of outings against the best. This is by no means conclusive, since each batsman tends to have his 'favourite' opposition. Ganguly's in this stage was Pakistan who was still India's bogey and that spoke for temperament. But Austalia were top dog any day.

Record against Australia in same number of matches played

Player /Matches/Inns/NO/ Runs/ Average/SR/HS/ Hundreds/ Fifties/ Period

Dravid/19/19/0/543/28.57/64.56/80/0/5/ Upto 14 Oct 2003

Ganguly/20/20/0/466/23.30/64.36/100/1/3/ Upto 10 Jan 2003

Laxman/21/19/3/ 739/46.18/77.05/106*/4/2/ Till Date

Considering similar number of innings/matches against Australia, Laxman is head and shoulders above the other two while Ganguly's is the poorest in terms of average. Strike Rate wise too Laxman is streets ahead. The Aussies really had Ganguly sorted out on the offside, while Dravid's 6 fifties (seen here and few more 40s not seen here) are proof of his growing assertiveness in the middle overs. Finally, let us see how Dravid and Ganguly fared against Australia till date. Laxman's stats, as expected, remain unchanged. Surely Dravid and Ganguly cannot beat that average of 46 plus by Laxman against Australia.

Career Stats against Australia as of date

Player /Matches/Inns/NO/ Runs/ Average/SR/HS/ Hundreds/ Fifties
Dravid/42/39/0/974/24.97/66.94/80/0/8
(includes all innings played for India and ICC World XI)
Ganguly /35/33/0/774/23.45/67.71/100/1/5
Laxman/21/19/3/ 739/46.18/77.05/106*/4/2

As expected, Dravid and Ganguly are nowhere near that average. Although had Laxman played another 14-15 matches against his favourite opponents, his average might have come down, but that again is arguable. Curiously, Dravid has regressed in terms of average but has got one fifty plus score in every 5 outings. Ganguly has not improved by much. Possibly an older Laxman in ODI's may have deteriorated performance wise.

Comments and Conclusion

The reason for choosing Australia has been mentioned - that they are the premier one day side and it is a fair indicator of the ability of the man in question and he has played most matches against them. It would not have helped to track Laxman's record against, say, Pakistan (against whom, perhaps Ganguly played some of his best knocks) since Laxman played only 10 matches against them (including a matchwinning 107(104) in a ODI Final in Lahore)

It must be noted that this is THE BEST form of Laxman in ODIs. Dravid and Ganguly had similar runs against different opposition in different times. This is a question - 'What if?'

This is not meant to be a critical assessment of Dravid and Ganguly, but it is notable for two things. One - Dravid and Ganguly were far from their usual best against Australia in their ODI game and Laxman raised his ODI game against Australia. Two - how much perception influences reality. Given 330 odd ODIs what could have Laxman done?

Laxman's best place was No 3, but due to the Saurav/Sachin/Sehwag opening conondrum in the later years, the No 3 spot was not available for him.

Call it Laxman'sbad luck or whatever, but the earlier half of his career ODI specialists JAdeja and Robin Singh were around and later half, Yuvraj Singh and company had made it, hence the theory that there were 'better' players for the ODI game. (BTW Ajay Jadeja's career SR was 69.80 - another statistical quirk? or perception becoming reality? Truth was , Jadeja was an established matchwinner in ODIs when Laxman came along)

One final statistic. Please consider the following list.

Ajay Jadeja 196

Ajit Agarkar 191

Harbhajan Singh 185

Venkatesh Prasad 161

Nayan Mongia 140

Robin Singh 136

MS Dhoni 134

Manoj Prabhakar 130

Mohd Kaif 125

Vinod Kambli 104

Kiran More 94

VVS Laxman 86

Dinesh Mongia 57

Hemang Badani 40

The above list shows names of certain players and their ODI caps for India. Now ask yourself - What if?

All stats from Cricinfo

3 comments:

  1. I've often gone down this road, but boy you've paved it well. My take on VVS' odi numbers is simple - he was never a star player, Dada was. And nobody talks SRs, these numbers are always manipulated by the media - just see how they screwed him in the IPL, tho I really feel he should have gone the Icon way.

    Most incredible bit abt VVS, you can mess with him still he comes out unscathed. He's the real deal.

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  2. Nice to have your presence in this post NC. The VVS admirers club is a pretty lonely place anyway :)

    Yes, media influences popular perception and by extension -careers and livelihoods.

    I saw an interview of VVS with Harsha Bhogle where he spoke without any rancour at all and at the same time frank enough not stick to the cliche.

    I recall John Wright mentioning(in his book) one regret of his India coaching tenure was the handling of VVS one day role and the subsequent fall-out in relationship.

    While Dada and RD were champions no doubt, there was another and he dint get his due - either in terms of opportunity or in terms of recognition. That prompted this little exercise.

    Thanks for ur comments.

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  3. Bhogle's a diff guy when he does an Azhar or a VVS, that's what a connect does, and he sure has it with Hyderabad.

    Cheers man.

    ReplyDelete