We often hear the argument that a batsman’s efforts are more commendable when he makes runs for a weaker side. Arunabha Sengupta crunches numbers to show that there is no evidence that a batsman is handicapped by batting in a weaker side. On the contrary, there is plenty to suggest that such situations boost the career of a batsman.
Allan Border - one of the many counter-examples
“We must remember that he got all those runs while batting for a weak team.”
“We need to see his batting records in the proper perspective. He played for a very weak line up.”
“His case was different. Unlike his closest rivals, he batted for a very weak side.”
How many times have we heard these arguments?
It is almost taken for granted that batting for a weak batting line-up works negatively on one’s batting records. It is supposedly more difficult to score runs for a weak side than a strong one. There should be some ‘grace marks’ when we evaluate the batting average if one some of his innings for a weak team.
Has this claim ever been tested? Is batting for a weak side really more difficult or prone to failure?
The answer is that hardly anyone bothers to check such cricketing claims made with a wave of the hand and full faith in one’s intuition.
The claim is repeated for many men, from George Headley to Sunil Gavaskar to Andy Flower toBrian Lara to Younis Khan. It is seldom checked whether these worthies themselves enjoyed batting more in weak sides or stronger ones. It is also seldom verified whether the teams talked about were indeed as brittle as they are made out to be.
Cricket is a curious game. It is one sport which pits the individual against a team. Besides, the two disciplines, batting and bowling, are radically different.
Bowling is carried out as a team. A bowler bowls in conjunction with the fielders and other men sending down their fare from the other end. There are examples aplenty that bowling with a lethal partner allows one to be more effective. Fast bowlers hunting in packs, spin twins, spin trios and such combinations litter the landscape of cricket.
However, batting is a far more individual endeavour. There, one shuts out the world and faces the eleven men of the opposition. Batting partnerships are important, but far less than bowlers plotting the downfall of batsmen together.
A weak bowling team may grant the batsmen the luxury of seeing off a great bowler, milking runs off the good and plundering the bad. Thus a great bowler may struggle to pick up wickets while bowling for a weak bowling side. However a poor batting line-up seldom takes away the prowess of a great batsman. While frustration at others giving it away sometimes affects him, there is also further responsibility thrust on the stalwart. He cannot afford to throw his wicket away, there is a greater chance of one putting one’s head down and amassing runs and, very importantly, an increasing chance of having not outs registered against one’s name.
So, it is not really axiomatic that a batsman will fare worse if he is in a weak batting side.
How do we check the veracity or invalidity of the claim?
In this exercise we have taken a cohort of ten batsmen who have played for teams that went through strong as well as weak phases. For each batsman we have considered his performance during the worst period of his team’s fortunes, when the batting line up was at its weakest. We have contrasted this with the rest of his career, when the team fared much better and there was more muscle in the batting.
The names are handpicked, because we have had to ensure that against each there are sufficiently large data points for weak as well as strong sides.
So, let us see whether the strength of the side and its batting riches really have influenced the record of these men.
1. Len Hutton. The first name in our list is the great England and Yorkshire opening batsman.
a. His overall record shows that from 1937 to 1955 he played 79 Tests of which England won 27 and lost 20.
b. During his career, the post War period between 1946-47 and 1950-51 was the most devastating for the England side — when they went through 40 Tests winning 8 and losing 16.
c. Hutton played 35 of these 40 Tests, in which England won 8 and lost 15.
d. In these 35 Tests for the weak side, England batsmen averaged 30.32. During the rest of the Tests Hutton played, the England batsmen averaged 34.82.
e. Now we come to the interesting part. In the 35 Tests for the weak side Hutton scored 3300runs at 57.89.
f. In his other 44 Tests of his career played for stronger sides, of which England won 19 and lost just 5, he scored 3671 runs at 55.62
So, Hutton’s career was actually boosted by the period he played for the weak side. And no, he did not just take the opportunity to scoring heavily against the minnows of the era. During this period of batting for weak sides, he scored 1292 runs at 58.72 against Australia.
2. Denis Compton. His career coincided with Hutton and he played 32 of his 78 Tests during the same lean phase of English cricket.
a. Compton scored 2773 runs at 51.56 in these 32 Tests for the weaker side of which England won 7 and lost 11
b. In his other 46 Tests for a strong side, of which England won 18 and lost 10, he managed 3074runs at 48.79.
So, we find Compton’s career did not suffer for the matches played for the weak side. However, it must be added that he averaged 42.96 against Australia during this period while maximising against South Africa with 1159 runs at 72.43
3. Neil Harvey. The next great name in the list is Neil Harvey
a. His overall record shows he played 79 Tests between 1948 to 1963 of which Australia won 41 and lost 15.
b. During his career, the period from summer 1953 to spring 1955 was the most bleak for the Australia side — when they went through 10 Tests winning just one and losing four.
c. Harvey played all of these 10 Tests
d. During the 10 Tests for the weak side, Australian batsmen averaged 24.09. During the rest of the Tests Harvey played, the Australian batsmen averaged 33.25.
e. In the 10 Tests for the weak side Harvey scored 700 runs at 38.88.
f. In the other 69 Tests of his career, of which Australia won 40 and lost 11, he scored 5449 runs at 49.99
So, Harvey seems to have fared worse during his stint for a weak side.
However, we must add here that the Australian side during 1953-55 was more of a collection of good players who had lost form simultaneously rather than a team comprising of ordinary men.
4. Trevor Goddard. We now consider the South African all-rounder Trevor Goddard.
a. From 1955 to 1970 he played 41 Tests of which South Africa won 11 and lost 14.
b. During his career, the period from 1955-56 to spring 1961-62 was the worst for the South African side — when they went through 20 Tests winning just four and losing 10.
c. Goddard played 15 of these Tests, in which South Africa won 2 and lost 8.
d. During the 15 Tests for the weak side, South African batsmen averaged 21.19. During the rest of the Tests Goddard played, the batsmen averaged 34.74
e. In the 15 Tests for the weak side Goddard scored 837 runs at 31.00.
f. In the other 26 Tests of his career, of which South Africa won 9 and lost 6, he scored 1679 runs at 36.50
So, Goddard also seems to have been negatively affected while batting for a weaker side. And here we must remember that Goddard was an all-rounder for whom batting was only half the job.
The next few batsmen are an interesting lot.
5. Alvin Kallicharran. During the Packer circus Alvin Kallicharran led West Indies in nine Tests between 1977-79, steering a severely depleted side.
a. Kallicharran’s overall record shows 66 Tests of which West Indies won 19 and lost 15.
b. During the 1977-79 period, the nine Tests of the Packer era saw West Indies win one and lose two.
c. In these 9 Tests, West Indies batsmen averaged 29.47. During the remaining 57 Tests of Kallicharran’s career, the batsmen averaged 32.35.
d. Kallicharran’s record in the 9 Tests for the weak side is 811 runs at 54.06.
e. During the remaining of his career, in 57 Tests the strong West Indies won 18 and lost 13. In these Tests, Kallicharran scored 3588 runs at 42.71.
So, it seems Kallicharran’s figures were given an incredible boost when names such as Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd were removed from the line-up.
6. Larry Gomes was another batsman who played those 9 Tests for West Indies during the Packer era.
a. This is an even more spectacular contrast because Gomes played in one of the strongest ever sides to be assembled on the cricket field.
b. In the remaining of his career, Gomes played 51 Tests of which West Indies won 26 and lost just 4.
c. In contrast to 29.47 during the Packer era, West Indies scored at 33.71 during the rest of Gomes’s career
d. Gomes scored 670 runs at 41.87 in those 9 Tests for a depleted side
e. In the remaining 51 Tests Gomes scored 2501 runs at 39.07 for the strongest ever West Indian side
Again, Gomes seems to have done rather better when Greenidge, Haynes, Richards and Lloyd have not been there to support him.
7. Allan Border. Australia went through two distinct bad phases during the 1970s and 1980s. The first was obviously the Packer period of 24 Tests of which only 6 were won and 13 were lost. Next came the three year period between 1984 and 1987 when the team struggled to fill the void left by Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. During this phase the side played 33 Tests, won just 4 and lost 14.
a. Of these 57 dismal Tests, Allan Border played 44 of which Australia won 6 and lost 19.
b. Over the rest of his career Border played 112 Tests, winning 44 and losing 27.
c. Of these 44 Tests played by the weak sides, Australian batsmen scored at 27.49. In the remaining 112 as the stronger side they scored at 33.60
d. Playing the 44 Tests for the weak side Border scored 3892 runs at 55.60
e. In the 112 Tests for the stronger side Border scored 7282 runs at 48.23
Border is another example of a batsman who boosted his figures significantly due to the responsibility he bore as the primary batsman of the team.
8. Kim Hughes. In stark contrast with Border we have Kim Hughes.
a. He played 25 of his Tests for the weak sides of the 1970s and 1980s.
b. In these 25 Tests he scored 1411 runs at 30.02
c. In the remaining 45 Tests of his career, he scored 3004 runs at 42.31
So, Hughes was a batsman whose career suffered when he played for the weaker teams.
9. Brian Lara. From 1998 till the end of Brian Lara’s career, West Indies played 93 Tests, winning 17 and losing 54.
a. Lara played in 76 of these Tests, with West Indies winning 11 and losing 48.
b. Before 1998, Lara played 54 Tests, of which 21 were won and 14 lost.
c. West Indies batsmen averaged 26.62 after 1998 during Lara’s playing days. Before 1998, in matches Lara played, they scored at 29.57
d. In the 76 Tests played for a poor team, Lara scored 7362 runs at 54.13
e. For the stronger side, Lara scored 4550 runs at 51.70
f. We have ignored the farcical ICC World XI Test match
This is a strange enough result. A fair proportion of his legion of admirers believe that the legend’s numbers were compromised because he batted for a weak line up for most of his career. What the analysis shows is that it perhaps worked more in his favour than against.
10. Shivnarine Chanderpaul. After 1998 and up to 2012, the West Indies team went through a mighty slump. In the 14 years they played 135 Tests winning 22 and losing 74.
a. Chanderpaul played in 107 of the Tests. West Indies won 19 and lost 56 of them.
b. Outside this period, Chanderpaul has played 51 matches, with West Indies winning 19 and losing 18.
c. In the 107 Tests, the weaker West Indian side scored at 27.44. In the 51 other Tests, they scored at 31.64
d. Chanderpaul made 7830 runs at 50.19 in the 107 Tests. In the other 51 Tests, he has 3854 runs at 60.22
This result is again counterintuitive because a large number of fans believe that Lara’s figures went down because of batting in a weaker side, while the numbers of Chanderpaul remained unaffected.
Here are the final results from the analysis.
From these ten comprehensive samples we find 6 batsmen whose records have been boosted by weak batting line ups. Four have been affected negatively.
Of those negatively affected, one was an all-rounder. As mentioned, Harvey had his samples drawn more from a side suffering simultaneous loss of form than from a weak team.
Hence, there is absolutely no evidence to conclude that batting for a weak side affects a batsman in a negative manner. If anything the numbers indicate that quite a few great batsmen have an inclination to be more prolific when he has to carry the side alone.