Before we start, I must say that there is no rating in cricket which will give you the results you expect exactly. Even if you knew how ICC calculates its rating, you will be able to find holes to pierce in it. We, at Stat Sensei, have done our best to make the ratings as fair as possible according to what we perceive as important. More importantly, we wanted a Rating system where you can see the actual stats of the players while enjoying how he has been rated. Our Ratings are meant to be enjoyed while seeing how the player performed in certain conditions. Then everything adds up to give you the Final Rating. Below is an explanation of how the rating is calculated. Kindly comment if you are not able to grasp something.
Why 1950 As A Starting Date In Test Cricket
1. Duration of Tests:-
- There were 99 Timeless Tests between 1877 and 1939.
- All Tests in Australia were timeless before the Second World War.
- The last Timeless Test was played in 1939.
- Then there were 121 Tests which were 3-day Tests.
- The last 3-day Test was played on August 13, 1949.
- Since 1950, all Tests have been 4-day, 5-day or 6-day with most being 5-day Tests.
2. Only Two Major Teams:-
- Till 1950, England, Australia and South Africa played most of Test cricket.
- South Africa won only 15 of their 102 matches with a win-loss ratio of 0.277.
- West Indies was the only other team that won a test with 7 wins in 31 matches.
- None other team played more than 20 matches in this entire period.
- In 1950s, South Africa had a win-loss ratio of 0.8 and West Indies more than 1.
- This shows that the two teams had become forces to reckon with.
3. No Asian Teams:-
- Prior to 1950, no Asian team had won a Test match.
- In 1950s, India and Pakistan won 12 and lost 13 matches in Asia.
- This shows that they had become competent in Asian conditions.
- Performances in Asia and Outside Asia are integral to our Ratings.
- This categorization didn’t make sense before the 1950s.
Qualification
- All Ratings have a qualification criteria of minimum number of Innings.
- If a player fails to qualify for a Rating, he gets 50% Points for the Rating.
- For example, if a Non Asian player has only played 7 innings in Asia and the min. qualification is 10 inns., then he will get 50% of the points for the criteria in the Overall Rating.
- For Average, SR and such stats there is a qualification of min. Runs, wickets etc. This is for the Trend Setter (TS) and is explained in the TS section.
The Trend Setter (TS)
TS is the basis of our rating and this is what makes our ratings dynamic. As new benchmarks are set in runs, average, strike rate etc., the ratings change. Here is an explanation of how TS works:-
- TS is the player who does the best in a criteria.
- The points of other players in the criteria depend on his stat.
- For some stats, like Average and SR, the TS must have a minimum qualification.
- Otherwise if a batsman has an average of 150.00 after one match, everyone would be judged by that stat.
- Thus, for example, there is a minimum criteria of 2,500 runs for Overall Average In Tests.
- If a player has played more than the Qualification Innings and has a better stat than the TS, he will be given the Max points for the criteria but others will not be judged by his performance.
Here is an example taking Average of Batsmen as the criteria:-
- Min Inns: 10; Min Runs For TS: 2,500; Points: 250.00
- TS Ave: 50.00 after 70 inns with 3000 runs.
- Player M Ave: 100.00 after 12 inns with 1000 runs.
- Player N Ave: 40.00 after 100 inns with 3600 runs.
- Player O Ave: 200.00 after 4 inns with 600 runs.
- TS Points: 250.00
- Player M Points: 250.00 as he does better than TS but fails the qualification runs.
- Player N Points: 40.00/50.00 X 250.00 = 200.00.
- Player O doesn’t qualify as he has played less than 10 inns. His rating is not calculated till he plays 10 inns.
Eras
The Prolific gives points for runs scored for Batsmen and wickets taken for Bowlers. For this criteria, we have divided Test cricket from 1950 onwards and all ODI cricket, into Eras. This has been done to make it fair for players from earlier era, when less cricket was played, and also for current players, who are in the middle of their careers. There are no Eras for T20Is as they are fairly recent.
Let’s take an example:-
- Let’s assume Murlidharan has taken 800 wickets, which is the maximum and gives him 250.00 points.
- Now, say Underwood in earlier times took 400 wkts, which was the max for his era.
- If there are no eras, he would get 50% of the pts, that is 125.00
- Instead of that, we reduced 50 pts (according to %age) from the max to arrive at the figure of 200 pts for Underwood.
- Now, everyone in his era is compared to Underwood and not Murlidharan.
- So a player who has taken 160 wkts in Underwood’s era will get (160/400) X 200.00 pts or 80 pts. Otherwise, he would have got 160/800 X 250.00 or 50 pts.
- Eras are calculated by MP, which is the mean of the years a player has been active: First Played (FP) and Last Played (LP).
R Ave, R SR And R ER
Relative Average (R Ave) is a more accurate Average which takes into account strength of opposition and the decades a player was active. For batsmen, it also takes into account the positions he has played in. Relative Strike Rate (R SR) and Relative Economy Rate (R ER) are calculated exactly the same way with average being replaced with strike rates and economy rates respectively. Let’s take R Ave for this explanation.
- For opposition, we took the bowling average of teams at home, away and in neutral conditions by decades. For bowlers, we took the batting average.
- We also took the bowling average of teams in Asia and outside Asia by decades. For bowlers, we took the batting average.
- For batsmen, we also took the yearly average of all batsmen at all positions.
- For each player, we took out the number of innings against each opposition in each decade and in the specific condition (home, away, etc.)
- We multiplied this with the average of that opposition in that decade in that condition.
- For batsmen, we also saw how many times he had batted at which position in which year.
- We then multiplied those innings with the average of all batsmen in those positions.
- All this was data was combined to get a figure, an average for those oppositions, conditions, decades and positions (for batsmen).
- This figure was used to either improve a players average or worsen it depending on whether it was easier for his contemporaries to perform against those oppositions, in those conditions and in those positions (for batsmen).
Broadly, this is how R Ave, R SR and R ER affects the figures:-
- In an era where batsmen dominate, bowlers will benefit while in an era where bowlers dominate, batsmen will benefit.
- So in Tests in the 1980s, batsmen will benefit while in 2000s, bowlers will benefit. Opposite is also true.
- In ODIs, nearly all earlier batsmen benefit as less runs at a lower average and SR were scored.
- Also, all ODI bowlers from the earlier period are at a disadvantage while the average and economy rate of new bowlers go down accordingly.
- Players who play in difficult conditions benefit like Fast Bowlers in Asia, Spin Bowlers outside Asia and batsmen who play most of their cricket on pitches which are difficult to score.
- Stats for home are generally affected negatively while those of away are positively affected. Thus players who play well away from home benefit in the Overall Ratings.
- Opening batsmen usually benefit in Tests as average and strike rate of openers are generally low.
- In ODIs and T20Is, while openers benefit in average they loose out in SR due to the fielding restrictions in the beginning.
- In ODIs and T20Is, good lower order batsmen benefit a lot as most find it difficult to score from those positions.
- In batting strike rate, in both Tests and ODIs, earlier batsmen benefit a lot as SRs were fairly low in those times and have gone up with time.
- In bowling strike rate or balls per wicket in Tests, earlier bowlers benefit a lot as it took more balls to dismiss a batsman in those times.
- In economy rate in ODIs, earlier bowlers are at a disadvantage while active bowlers benefit a lot from R ER as batting SRs have skyrocketed.
- There are other finer details due to which figures vary. These are generally different from player to player.
BIP and QIP
- These criteria are pretty simple.
- In Big Innings Potential (BIP), the top innings of a batsman are used while in Quick Innings Potential (QIP), the quickest with a minimum qualification of runs.
- QIP is used only in ODIs and T20Is.
- BIP has more value in Tests as ‘daddy hundreds’, as they are called, have a major role to play.
- In ODIs and T20Is, to make it fair for lower order batsmen, points for BIP are reduced while QIP is introduced so that their quick innings at the end are of value.
- In QIP, R SR (see previous section) is used so that earlier batsmen are not at a disadvantage.
BBW and BBE
- In Best Bowling By Wickets (BBW), the top innings of a bowler by wickets are taken while in Best Bowling By Economy (BBE), the most economical with a minimum qualification of overs.
- BBE is used only in ODIs and T20Is.
- The value of BBW is reduced in ODIs and T20Is as economy becomes important too.
- In BBE, R ER (see previous section) is used to make it fair for current bowlers.