Flat Track Bully? What the stats say about Virender Sehwag

What do stats say about Virender Sehwag

If Virender Sehwag gets the chance to play Test cricket again, it would mean that the present generations have failed big time and Indian cricket is going backward to find a solution. That’s unlikely to happen, and is not good for the health of Indian cricket as well. His return or the failure to do so won’t change anything however, as he has given us enough memories to cherish about.

According to John Wright, “He didn’t redefine his game because of his batting position. He redefined the position with his batting.” One cannot disagree with this simple yet strong statement. Aakash Chopra, probably one of the finest cricket writers amongst Indian Test cricketers, goes one step further by saying, “It would be fair to say that opening in Test match cricket can be divided into two eras – pre-Sehwag and post-Sehwag.”

Sehwag has literally inspired David Warner to play Test cricket and his performances have inspired captains and coaches to try players like Tillakaratne Dilshan and Shane Watson as Test openers. Without Sehwag’s success and more importantly, success with his method, it is difficult to imagine Test debut of the aforementioned players.

He has shown others it is possible to score more than run-a-ball in Test cricket and that too for an extended period. An opener with more than 14 scores in excess of 150 and more out of 23 hundreds with a career strike rate of 82.23, Sehwag is appropriately described by renowned writer/editor Dileep Premachandran as a sprinter with a marathon runner’s stamina.

There have been many excellent articles written about Sehwag, his method and the visual delight he gives to his audience. What I intend to do here is a mere number based comparison to show where Sehwag stands among the greats of his time.

I consider the players who have scored more than 6000 runs at an average of more than 45 after Sehwag’s debut. The reason behind putting the constraint on the time period is that at least we are reducing few variables (i.e. the condition of pitches, batting equipment, rules and regulations) from the many variable space on which a measure of batting greatness possibly depends.

So, the statistical error, and the absurdity of comparison based on numbers decreases.

So, the list contains 19 players who have dominated Test cricket in last 15 years. The temptation to include Inzamam-Ul-Haq, Steve Waugh and particularly Brian Lara in a list which already contains Ponting, Tendulkar, Kallis and Dravid was very hard to avoid but I stuck to the list of 19 players. The list is arranged in the descending order of batting average.

Serial No.	Name	Runs	Average
1	K Sangakkara	10368	60.27
2	J Kallis	9949	59.22
3	S Chanderpaul	8386	58.23
4	R Ponting	10548	54.93
5	M Hayden	7306	53.72
6	Y Khan	6575	53.45
7	AB de Villiers	7168	51.94
8	R Dravid	9255	51.7
9	M Hussey	6235	51.52
10	M Clarke	8240	51.5
11	S Tendulkar	9002	51.44
12	H Amla	6214	51.35
13	M Jayawardene	8853	51.17
14	V Sehwag	8586	49.34
15	VVS Laxman	7343	48.62
16	G. smith	9265	48.25
17	A Cook	8181	47.28
18	K Pietersen	8047	46.51
19	I Bell	6722	45.41

Table 1: List of all the players who have scored more than 6000 Test runs at an average of 45 or more after Sehwag’s debut (03.11.2001).

As it turns out, Sangakkara, Kallis and Chanderpaul lead the way with overall average while Ponting has scored more runs than any other in the mentioned time interval. On an unrelated note, there is nothing much to separate between the numbers of two Indian legends, Dravid and Tendulkar. Sehwag occupies 14th spot in the list and more importantly only one of the three openers in the list, with Matthew Hayden and Greame Smith being the other two.

There are some common criticism against Sehwag’s performance which I have come across while talking with friends and following the discussion of cricket community on social platforms. This motivates me to break the numbers depending on the point of argument and compare his number with those of the mentioned successful batsmen of his generation.

(a) Flat track bully:

For this purpose, I break down the overall average into home and away (and neutral venue in case of Pakistan) average. This makes sense to me as we can get a measure of success of a subcontinent player in pace friendly conditions and also the ability of English, South African and Australian batsmen on spinning tracks.

The difference between the away and home average is calculated which shows the relative adaptability of individual player. The results are summarized in Table 2 (a). For the ease of comparison, the name of the players are re-arranged in the decreasing order of difference in Table 2 (b).

Serial No.	Name	Home Average (X)	Away + Neutral Venue Average (Y)	Difference D= (Y)-(X)
1	K Sangakkara	67.34	53.68	-13.66
2	J Kallis	63.56	54.55	-9.01
3	S Chanderpaul	66.06	52.14	-13.92
4	R Ponting	60.47	48.92	-11.55
5	M Hayden	62.29	42.52	-19.77
6	Y Khan	65.26	50.28	-14.98
7	AB de Villiers	45.85	59.85	14
8	R Dravid	51.3	51.96	0.66
9	M Hussey	61.19	41.37	-19.82
10	M Clarke	61.9	42.77	-19.13
11	S Tendulkar	46.85	55.57	8.72
12	H Amla	45.74	56.06	10.32
13	M Jayawardene	61.28	42.47	-18.81
14	V Sehwag	54.13	44.65	-9.48
15	VVS Laxman	55.75	44.88	-10.87
16	G smith	41.52	54.98	13.46
17	A Cook	52.75	41.88	-10.87
18	K Pietersen	43.55	49.93	6.38
19	I Bell	53.68	38	-15.68

Table 2 (a): Performance difference of players in home and away matches.

Serial No.	Name	Difference D= (Y)-(X)
1	AB de Villiers	14
2	G smith	13.46
3	H Amla	10.32
4	S Tendulkar	8.72
5	K Pietersen	6.38
6	R Dravid	0.66
7	J Kallis	-9.01
8	V Sehwag	-9.48
9	VVS Laxman	-10.87
10	A Cook	-10.87
11	R Ponting	-11.55
12	K Sangakkara	-13.66
13	S Chanderpaul	-13.92
14	Y Khan	-14.98
15	I Bell	-15.68
16	M Jayawardene	-18.81
17	M Clarke	-19.13
18	M Hayden	-19.77
19	M Hussey	-19.82

Table 2 (b): Re-arrangement of Table 2(a) in the decreasing order of difference (D) between away and home matches.

What the difference column shows us that only 6 players in the list have a positive difference i.e. better away record. The list is headed by 3 South Africans (de Villiers, Smith and Amla) and the 3 bottom places are occupied by 3 Australians (Hussey, Hayden and Clarke).

Rahul Dravid is the batsman whose numbers vary the least with respect to conditions. Sehwag is placed at No. 8 in the list. But based on the difference it would be misleading to say he is a better away performer than Sangakkara or Ponting, since his absolute away average is still lower than them.

What it shows the relative measure of a player’s own performance in home and away matches. But to suggest that Sehwag is a flat track bully is no more meaningful than to suggest Hussey and Clarke are lesser players of spin bowling.

(b) First innings specialist:

From outset it is easy to expect that Sehwag’s or most of the player’s second innings average will be less than their first innings average.

In order to get a quantitative picture, the overall average is broken down into 2 innings and the comparison is shown in Fig. 3(a). Like the earlier case, we calculate the difference between 2nd innings and 1st innings average, and rearrange the players in the descending order of difference in Table 3(b).

Serial No.	Name	1^st Innings Average (X)	2^nd Innings Average (Y)	Difference D= (Y)-(X)
1	K Sangakkara	62.21	57.32	-4.89
2	J Kallis	58.53	60.45	1.92
3	S Chanderpaul	64.64	49	-15.64
4	R Ponting	59.96	46.73	-13.23
5	M Hayden	51.2	57.53	6.33
6	Y Khan	54.69	51.64	-3.05
7	AB de Villiers	56.38	44.81	-11.57
8	R Dravid	59.72	39.67	-20.05
9	M Hussey	55.12	45.87	-9.25
10	M Clarke	57.79	41.54	-16.25
11	S Tendulkar	58.44	39.86	-18.58
12	H Amla	48.68	55.35	6.67
13	M Jayawardene	60.93	36.1	-24.83
14	V Sehwag	62.5	30.25	-32.25
15	VVS Laxman	48.01	49.77	1.76
16	G smith	49.63	46.19	-3.44
17	A Cook	53.49	38.38	-15.11
18	K Pietersen	47.28	45.43	-1.85
19	I Bell	51.04	37.16	-13.88

Table 3 (a): Performance difference of players in 1^st and 2^nd innings of match.

Serial No.	Name	Difference D= (Y)-(X)
1	H Amla	6.67
2	M Hayden	6.33
3	J Kallis	1.92
4	VVS Laxman	1.76
5	K Pietersen	-1.85
6	Y Khan	-3.05
7	G Smith	-3.44
8	K Sangakkara	-4.89
9	M Hussey	-9.25
10	AB de Villiers	-11.57
11	R Ponting	-13.23
12	I Bell	-13.88
13	A Cook	-15.11
14	S Chanderpaul	-15.64
15	M Clarke	-16.25
16	S Tendulkar	-18.58
17	R Dravid	-20.05
18	M Jayawardene	-24.83
19	V Sehwag	-32.25

Table 3 (b): Re-arrangement of Table 3(a) in the decreasing order of difference (D) between 2nd innings and 1st innings average.

Hashim Amla leads the way this time, followed by Matthew Hayden and Jacques Kallis. It comes as no surprise that VVS Laxman, the crisis man, has the highest difference as well as the highest absolute 2nd innings average (49.77) amongst the Indian batsmen. He is roughly 10 runs clear ahead of Dravid and Tendulkar.

Sehwag is at the bottom of the list, both in terms of 2nd innings average and the difference. In fact his first innings average (62.5) is more than twice that of his 2nd innings average (30.25). It’s not really a bad thing to do the bulk of scoring in the first innings and set the game up for your team. The numbers really confirm the notion that Sehwag is not the man for epic 2nd innings chases, memorable rear-guard performances.

This is by no means a complete analysis. In fact, what I believe, a fractionally better idea to test (only statistically) the consistency of a player, is to break his numbers into several sections, based on his performances

Against all the oppositions
On all the countries
During each year of his career

Say for the third heading, we will get Sehwag’s average in each of his seasons. Then we can have an idea about the standard deviation of his all year averages and the mean is of course his career average. A player with maximum mean supposed to be the best (only statistically) of his time (in this case Sangakkara), while a minimum standard deviation is a measure of his consistency.

Though most of the players go through purple patches and lean patches, and the height and depth of these crests and troughs will affect the standard deviation. This can be repeated for all the 3 headings mentioned earlier. But, for the time being I restrain myself from such a crazy and even meaningless number crunching.

It’s true to certain extent that numbers don’t lie but at the same time they don’t tell the complete story either. For people of our generation will fail to understand why with a career average of 39.62, Victor Trumper is considered as the first great batsman from Australia and almost always preceded by the word “immortal”.

The sheer joy, the anxiety, the air of unpredictability and the frustration when they got out, makes player like Sehwag inaccessible to numbers. Our generation can consider ourselves very fortunate to see Virender Sehwag’s batting, that is an experience to tell our grandchildren. Long live Virender Sehwag, your memories will remain with us.