Indian pitches: a veritable graveyard for bowlers!

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bumper]

Runspertest of all countries IN India as compared to their RunsperTest IN Eng , SAF, Pak, AUS (Couldnt bother with the rest :D ) Interesting Points : SAF,SL & even WI find it easier to score runs in AUS as opposed to IN INDIA. :haha: This is for the current Decade.

               
          [B]   IND       ENG    SAF    PAK    AUS[/B]

Australia          576.71    541.30    585.33    0.00    0.00
England            544.67    0.00    472.14    554.50    531.4
New Zealand        621.00    631.33    463.33    319.00    504.8
Pakistan           752.67    550.83    460.60    0.00    412.17
South Africa       506.25    664.60    0.00    646.50    554
Sri Lanka          366.67    541.00    380.20    562.67    448.5
West Indies        412.67    469.38    655.25    516.40    429.5

Some revealing stats there. A bit surprised by WI's average in SA & NZ's average in India. As expected Pakistan finds our conditions the closest to home and SL, the most alien (which explains why they are yet to win a test in India) And the consistency of the Aussies show in their relative low standard deviation in diff surfaces. Great stats overall, i learnt something.

[Bongosamaj]

but my take is that it generally evens out especially when the dataset is soo huge and vast.

That is a supposition that has very little backup, my friend. For eg, i can easily see two periods of history where scoring runs for the opposition was much harder vs Australia ( the invincibles period and the last 15 yrs) while India has had only one such period. That things even out is often a 'get out of jail' card played in these types of debates that often have zero substantiation in precedence or logic. You have to also acknowledge that this runs per test and wickets per test is not a very good benchmark for judging how easy/hard the pitch was over a period of time to bat on either- for this completely ignores the time periods when one team excelled and had an awesome bowling + good/great batting or vice versa. In such a scenario- say AUS for eg- they have a superb batting lineup and a super bowling battery. They also have a preferred tactic (after 2001 Kolkata) of not enforcing follow-on but building a 500+ run lead for the opposition to chase down. This strategy, for example, says NOTHING about how hard/easy it is to bat on the surface- since if you do not enforce follow-on, your runs/test will be ALWAYS higher than had you enforced follow-on. Regardless, the stats you've presented show India to be one of the best places to bat in for the 80s-2000+ period, which serves as proof against your original claim that batting in India is not as easy as it looks.

[chanakya]

dude you rock. awesome stats

[Chandan]

Very detailed stats BB, but not an eye opener for me. I knew all along that India is a very difficult place to adapt for any foreigner. Plus we do not have same kind of pitches everywhere. Pitches vary in almost every state. So it is quite wrong to generalise India as a whole. We have 34 grounds in our country. As you see, Even the Indian players are struggling to get their timing right on sluggish pitches as they've been playing away from home since last 5 months. It is not that easy to adapt here as opposed to when you bat on slightly faster pitches where the ball easily comes on to your bat. We had this debate quite a long time back on C4 albeit sans stats. Now your stats prove it. People out there used to say that India bats on flatter tracks just to demean the stats of our batsmen. And we discussed tests there, not ODIs. Because ODI tracks are flat all around the globe and we're yet to witness a 400 runs match or even the 350 runs ones regularly out here in India if the tracks are sooooo flat even by ODI standards. But a terrific job to prove what we were saying through words. Good job!:wtg:

[The Outsider]

Haven't read the thread and stats in any detail yet, but why not simply use the average runs per wicket as a first approximation to see where batting is difficult and where it is easier.

[yoda]

Haven't read the thread and stats in any detail yet' date=' but why not simply use the average runs per wicket as a first approximation to see where batting is difficult and where it is easier.[/quote'] 2000 Country RunsPerTest WktsPerTests RunsPerWkt Bangladesh 912.78 29.83 30.60 New Zealand 944.48 30.03 31.45 Sri Lanka 987.88 30.81 32.06 South Africa 1008.33 30.90 32.63 Zimbabwe 986.14 30.05 32.82 West Indies 1044.92 30.85 33.88 India 1074.00 31.00 34.65 England 1091.38 31.50 34.65 Australia 1098.85 31.30 35.11 Pakistan 1145.66 31.94 35.87 Eliminating minnow Bangladesh due to their own inept performance at home and Australia for the opposite reason, it seems like NZ is the toughest place to play and India is the joint 2nd easiest place.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[yoda]

Naah yods .... its Pak' date='Aus,Eng & Ind ... in descending order ... (Going by RunsPerWkt)[/quote'] Eng and Ind are same RunsPerWkt. I removed Australia cause the home team skews their numbers like the Banglas do.

[The Outsider]

Sounds like what I would have expected. Would have guessed South Africa and NZ to be tougher places to bat and Australia and Pakistan easier than India without looking at the numbers. Anyhow, the difference between the maximum and minimum is around the 10% range, hardly big enough to warrant decisive statements either way.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[The Outsider]

ias the datasets are sunstantial it takes quite a lot to get these numbers to shift proffesor ... so even a 2 point difference in avg makes a substantial difference. Sort of like the temp of ocean.:D

I am not saying that error bars are big or anything. My reasoning is that saying in cricketing context how significant is saying one place is 5-10% more/less difficult to bat on. Ok, one can pretty clearly say it's easier to bat in Pakistan vs. NZ (the extreme ends of the scale) and would even concede a 10% difference to be significant. But there is hardly any significant difference in cricketing terms between WI, India, and England the middle of the spectrum. One can say : 1. Batting conditions are the best in Pakistan and Australia 2. Its toughest to score in NZ, SL, and SA 3. WI, India, and England lie somewhere in between but to put too much heed on decimal points doesn't offer any real insight IMO.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

this has been my pet project for over a year and I have looked at it in more ways than you could possibly imagine .... to get to the bottom of it.

Then please prove it to me that 'this evens out' as the reason for you generalizing. I am saying it does not and i stated why- i can see atleast different # of instances in historical perspective when batting/bowling somewhere was harder than elsewhere. Some nations have had protracted period of bowling-friendly wickets, some not so potracted, some in more periods than others, etc etc. That you are saying it 'evens out' is not demonstrated in any evidence i've seen- just a commonly stated assumption to the process of trying to codify cricketing ideas/perceptions.

It is derived from a very basic understanding that if batting is easy there will always be more runs scored per test.

That understanding is too basic to serve as any sort of guage- too imperfect and i've stated why. Without wicket/match involved, it is utterly irrelevant, for strictly by runs/match basis, a 300/8 would seem a 'worse batting track' than 200/1 when in cricketing terms, the latter most definitely is an easier batting track.

I put up wktspertest and then RunsPerTest .... and further since you wanted it analysed per decade I put up stats for the last 3 decades.

Yes. But without a decade-by-decade analysis, i don't see any relevance to the topic whatsoever. Plus as you stated at first, it is STILL a very general concept, not a precise one.

the follow on not enforced scenario usually results in huge victory (Won by 10,9,8,7 wkts) .... and I put up those stats also .... India actually goes to rock bottom in those scenarios.

Eh ? explain ? India rarely if ever gets the chance to impose follow-on (check up the frequency-its rarer than most teams-home or away- when real crappy teams are eliminated from the draw-SL of 80s, ZIM/BD of the recent times, etc) and its pretty much only the Aussies of the last 5-6 yrs who've passed up chance for follow-on regularly and piled on a huge score. What i am saying (and is a logical cricketing fact) is that if you DO NOT enforce follow-on, you WILL end up with more runs/wicket and more 'total runs in the match' than if you enforced follow-on. The probability is overwhelmingly in favour of so- simply because not enforcing follow-on = making runs in 2nd innings totally indefinite rather than 'chase definite total runs set by opposition'. This is a mathematical fact and your analysis completely ignored that from what you've presented. Hence i said what i said.

based on which stat ?

based on the stats you posted !!!!!! In 1980s, India has 4th highest RPT out of 7 and the HIGHEST runs per wicket- indicating that while batsmen didn't score the highest on average but most definitely lost the fewest wickets (which really, is the POINT of batsmanship from test cricket for the most part) . Which again, is consistent with the idea/perception that in the 80s, Indian pitches were flat, slow borefests, where batsmen batted at leisure and bowlers toiled hard without wickets. Again, the whole '300/8 is a worse figure than 200/1' argument comes to the fore and clearly, by its standards, India was the easiest place to bat in the 1980s judging by your own statistical interpretation. Now, in 1990s, India has the 4th highest RPT out of 9 teams and the 4th highest runs/wicket. This is again, right at the median range/just above it ( 4-5 is median of 9) and again, shows us that in the 1990s, India was average in terms of batting friendlyness/slightly more batting friendly than the average for the nations ( 3 nations more batting friendly & 5 less). Now, in 2000s, India has the 4th highest RPT out of 10 teams and joint third (with England according to your stats) for the highest runs/wicket. Yet again, shows us that in the 2000s so far, India has been easier than most places to bat in ( 2 places easier & 6 places harder by runs/wicket). So in short, even if i were to accept your statistical argument (which i don't due to previously stated gaps in quantifiable analysis), your statistics itself shoots your objection to the notion 'India is easier than most places to bat in' down. You've presented 3 decades, chronologically, in 1st India was easiest place, in the 2nd, India was just above average 'easyness' for batting and in the last case, India is definitely near the top for easier places to bat in. Based on your own statistics, it becomes clear that in the last 30 years, India has been one of the easier places to bat as far as Test cricket goes.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

Iam confused ... later on in your post you refer to the decade by decade stats that I posted in post # 25 !!!

What i meant is, test cricket started in 1880s- thats about 12-13 decades. You provided only 3. India has also played cricket for 8-9 decades so far. You provided only 3. So i said that your analysis requires far more sample study to pass a relevant judgement. On the second had, i used your own presented statistics to show that the conclusions of your own presented stats go against your objection to considering India as one of the easier places to bat in. So basically, i made two seperate arguments against your posts: 1. It is not a very robust analysis (there are gaps in analysis that is not quantified, factors-such as the 'not enforcing follow-on' not included, very small sample-point study to pass conclusive judgement on the whole set, etc) 2. By your own statistical analysis, the limited one provided (as pointed out in point #1), it still goes on to show that India is easier than most places to bat in as far as Test cricket goes. These two are seperate points where your theory/assessment falls flat and hence they are mentioned seperately. I hope it is clear now ?