Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Are the IPL Teams Reliant on Aussies?

I thought about this question after a brief discussion on Uncle J's blog on this particular post.

Did, a commenter on the post said "I think the IPL should be renamed the Antipodean Premier League anyways cause it would be twice as $%^£ without the backbone provided by the Aussies and Kiwis."

And he went on to mention that the Aussies had won 14 MoM awards in 34 games, 4 of the top 10 batsmen were Aussies, as were 2 of the top 10 bowlers.

It won't be a surprise if the IPL teams are reliant on Aussies as they are the best cricket players in the world. But are the teams actually reliant on them?

Lets take a look.

(Note: I'm assuming Hayden, M. Hussey, Ponting, Lee, and Symonds as first choice XIs because they would have been had they stayed on. Well maybe not Ponting but would Ganguly or Buchanan have dropped the Aussie Captain?)

Chennai Super Kings
Captain: Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Coach: Keppler Wessels
Number of Aussies in First XI: 2 (Hayden, Hussey)
Leading Batsman: MS Dhoni, 289 runs @ 41.28
Leading Bowler: M. Gony, 11 wkts @ 26.09

Reliance Factor: 2.5/8 (half a point for Wessels' Aussie connection) - 31.25%

Rajhastan Royals
Captain: Shane Warne
Coach: Shane Warne
Number of Aussies in First XI: 2 (Warne, Watson)
Leading Batsman: Shane Watson, 287 runs @ 57.40
Leading Bowler: Shane Watson, 12 wkts @ 19.33

Reliance Factor: 6/8 - 75%

Royal Challengers Bangalore
Captain: Rahul Dravid
Coach: Venkatesh Prasad
Number of Aussies in First XI: 1 (Cameron White)
Leading Batsman: Rahul Dravid, 198 runs @ 22.00
Leading Bowler: Zaheer Khan, 13 wkts @ 21.07

Reliance Factor: 1/8 - 12.5%

Deccan Chargers
Captain: VVS Laxman / Adam Gilchrist
Coach: Robin Singh
Number of Aussies in First XI: 2 (Gilchrist, Symonds)
Leading Batsman: Adam Gilchrist, 308 runs @ 38.50
Leading Bowler: RP Singh, 12 wkts @ 22.75

Reliance Factor: 3.5/8 (half a point for Gilchrist filling in as captain) - 43.75%

Kolkata Knight Riders
Captain: Saurav Ganguly
Coach: John Buchanan
Number of Aussies in First XI: 2 (Ponting, D. Hussey)
Leading Batsman: David Hussey, 263 runs @ 43.83
Leading Bowler: Ajit Agarkar, 8 wkts @ 19.75

Reliance Factor: 4/8 - 50.00%

Delhi Daredevils
Captain: Virender Sehwag
Coach: Greg Shipperd
Number of Aussies in First XI: 1 (McGrath)
Leading Batsman: Gautam Gambhir, 336 runs @ 48.00
Leading Bowler: VK YoMahesh, 8 wkts @ 28.12

Reliance Factor: 2/8 - 50.00%

Mumbai Indians
Captain: Sachin Tendulkar / Harbhajan Singh / Shaun Pollock
Coach: Lalchand Rajput
Number of Aussies in First XI: 1 (Thornely)
Leading Batsman: Robin Uthappa, 211 runs @ 42.20
Leading Bowler: Ashish Nehra, 10 wkts @ 16.80

Reliance Factor: 1/8 - 12.50%

Kings XI Punjab
Captain: Yuvraj Singh
Coach: Tom Moody
Number of Aussies in First XI: 2 (Marsh, Lee)
Leading Batsman: Shaun Marsh, 295 runs @ 98.33
Leading Bowler: Irfan Pathan, 13 wkts @ 17.69

Reliance Factor: 4/8 - 50.00%

So is the IPL reliant on the Aussies?

Maybe this gives a clearer picture:

  • The top 50 batsmen have scored 8,332 runs at an average of 32.17 with 4 100s, 50 50s, and 312 6s.
  • Aussies contribute to 18% of the batsmen, 23% of the runs, at an average that is 21 runs higher than the overall, 75% of the 100s, 28% of the 50s, and 28% of the 6s.
  • 47 bowlers have picked up wickets with a collective amount of 319 wickets at an average of 25.8. (Despite all this talk about bowlers taking a whack they haven't really done that badly have they now)
  • Aussies contribute to 8.5% of the bowlers, 11% of the wickets, at 3 runs per wicket less than the overall.

So is the IPL reliant on Aussie Power? Or rather are the Aussies the backbone of the IPL?

I believe that there is no doubt that the Aussies have been the best foreign players on display. There was never any doubt on what Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Hayden, and Symonds would bring to the IPL.

Plus, everyone had only heard of how good David Hussey and Shaun Marsh were. Now everyone has seen them and boy can they bat!

Maybe David Barry can give a more statistical opinion on how reliant the IPL is on Aussies, however, IMO, it is very much the Indian Premier League but the Aussies are calling the shots.

  • The team most reliant on Aussies is at the top of the points table.
  • The team least reliant on Aussies is at the bottom of the table.
  • 3 of the top 4 teams have a 50% or more reliance on the Aussies.

Food for thought that is.

Decide for yourself whether it is the Indian or the Antipodean Premier League.


Make your pitch on this post...



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12 Pitched:

  1. David Barry said...
     

    Perhaps the most useful index we have for limited-overs batting (at least for T20) is average multiplied by runs per ball. And on this measure, the leading players are:

    MEK Hussey 141,1
    SE Marsh 133,7
    SM Katich 133,6
    BB McCullum 128,1
    A Symonds 123,4
    ML Hayden 90,9
    SR Watson 90,5

    All Antipodean....

    Now of course several of those players have now gone off to the Windies or England, and it's an open question whether or not they would have continued to make lots of runs quickly had they stayed on in India. Nevertheless, it's certainly true that in the chances they did have, they did better than all the other batsmen.

  2. Q said...
     

    And the bowlers?

  3. Anonymous said...
     

    Please don't ignore the fact that 5 out of 7 came out to open the innings and got more opportunities than players from other countries.
    But sill a great tournament so far for the Aussies.

  4. David Barry said...
     

    Q: I'm not really sure what the best way of measuring bowler effectiveness is in T20. I'm still leaning mostly towards economy rate, in which McGrath is the current leader, followed by a host of Indians.

    Presumably when people say that it's the Australians making the IPL interesting, they're talking about the batsman, plus Shane Warne.

    Wasim: I entirely agree. Once the IPL is over, I'll spend some time looking at the stats by batting position. I suspect that a significant part of the foreigners' batting dominance comes from batting higher up the order. I don't know how much though - it could be a small part, it could be a large part.

  5. Q said...
     

    Wasim, I'm sure DB will come up with something once the IPL ends. As Uncle J says, he's a statistical Ninja!

    DB, if the batsmen's indicator is the average multiplied by runs per ball, the maybe for the bowlers you should use average multiplied by runs given per ball - the lower the better.

  6. Q said...
     

    Wasim, can you please give me your website again. I want to put a link up in my blog roll. Thanks.

  7. David Barry said...
     

    Q: Yeah, that is kind of the logical thing to do, but I'm not sold on the idea of giving bowlers much reward for taking wickets. Wickets at different times of the innings are of vastly different value. The same is true in ODI's, of course, but there at least players have had long careers to even up the early wickets with the late wickets that don't mean much. In a few matches of the IPL, there are probably some bowlers with useful top-order wickets and some with meaningless tail-end wickets, and we haven't had enough tournaments to even it out. So a lot of the averages is just noise.

    Working out how to measure how good bowling is in T20 is a topic that needs some thought.

  8. Q said...
     

    I see your point DB..

    For example Shoaib's 4-11 last night would mean a lot but Shukla's 3-6 really means nothing..

  9. Anonymous said...
     

    DB,

    Thanks for bringing McCullum's name into this.

    I was beginning to think that Australians = Antipodean...

  10. Q said...
     

    Sorry for ignoring the NZ players LB but apart from that McCullum whirlwind knock and a few cameos by Ross Taylor, there hasn't been much else. Plus all the NZ players have left while a lot of AUssies are still around.

    I know Flemings there but hes been disappointing. And Styris has done alright here and there.

  11. Anonymous said...
     

    Has Fleming started playing yet? I thought he was there as a sideline comments man :)

    Taylor would be the Challengers best perfromed batsman I think. Especially in terms of SR.

    And you've got no idea how much pleasure we are getting in this part of the world at Scott (I'm quitting test to focus on 20/20 and ODIs) tournament

  12. Q said...
     

    Fleming has played the last 5 matches since Hayden left LB. He hasn't done anything of not. His highest is a 20 odd.

    In his first match he got bowled twice in 1 over. First time of a no ball.

    Taylor definitely had the best strike rate for his team, 183.95. Misbah's close though, 160.00.

    Taylor averaged 37.25. Only Boucher is above him at 38.00.

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