Baseball vs Cricket

Revision as of 23:19, 18 January 2016

See BaseCricket for a discussion of baseball style batting average in the context of Cricket.

Cricket is a sport of statistics. So is baseball.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_statistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_statistics

Modern baseball even has "Sabermetrics" - being the field of empirical analysis of the sport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_baseball_and_cricket

Comparing the two sports, then, requires finding either directly comparable numbers (eg, bowls per minute vs pitches per minute), or equivalents (can you create a cricket equivalent of a baseball Batting Average? Or a baseball equiv of a cricket Strike Rate or Economy Rate?

I'm coming to this from familiarity with Cricket, so I'm going to take some baseball statistics, and try to work out cricket equivalents.

There are numerous statistics, and the value of each is debatable, but there seems to be three for batters, and three for pitchers which have been exalted in the form of the "triple crown". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Triple_Crown

• Batting

1. Batting Average - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average#Major_League_Baseball
2. Home runs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_run
3. Runs batted In - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_batted_in

• Pitching

1. Wins - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win%E2%80%93loss_record_%28pitching%29#Winning_pitcher
2. Strikeouts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikeout
3. Earned Run Average - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_run_average

I believe rough cricket equivalents would be as follows:

• Batting Average - count of scoring strokes / total balls faced (ie, opportunities to get out)
• Home runs - sixes (because "over the fence")
• Runs batted in - no equivalent (because a batsman's efforts never count to someone else's runs)

• Wins - no equivalent (because cricket has a range of bowlers, rather than one pitcher central to the 'attack')
• Strikeouts - no equivalent I think?
• Earned Run Average - something similar to economy rate?

Proposed statistic: "Strike Efficiency"

Strike Efficiency would be the baseball style batting average mentioned above. Count of scoring strokes, divided by total balls faced. It will be a value between 0 and 1.

This fits into existing statistics well. Take the strike rate, and divide by efficiency, and you get a "scoring strike rate". That is, where normal strike rate measures against 100 balls faced, the scoring strike rate measures against 100 balls scored from.

To use an example, Chris Gayle equalled the T20 fastest 50 (in 12 balls) on 2015 Jan 18. He got out after 17 balls, with a score of 56. He scored runs off 13 of those 17 balls.

• Strike rate (SR): 56/17 as a percentage: 329
• Strike efficiency (SE): 13/17 = 0.764
  • alternative name: scoring efficiency
• Scoring Strike Rate (SSR): SR/SE = 430 (ie, 56/13 as a percentage, or "4.3 runs per ball he scored from"

This matches observation - he scored 7x 6s, 2x 4s, no 3s, 2x 2s, 2x 1s = 13 scoring strokes for 56 runs.

Misc

397 feet (121metres) is average home run distance - I am certain that the average 6 is shorter than that (90-110 metres for a guess) - but I'd also suspect that baseball batting action is more inherently powerful than the normal cricket batting action - combined with a (usually?) faster ball too, it is not surprising.

• http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-hidden-minimalism-of-home-runs/

• A 20/20 has 240 balls bowled (120 per team), plus extras from noballs, wides, etc.
• A baseball game has no set number of pitches, but the average apparently is rising, and is at around 150 per team.
  • http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/7533

MLB vs BBL

I'm planning a bit of an in-depth "objective" statistical comparison of Major League Baseball (US Baseball) to the Big Bash League (AU T20 Cricket). See MLB vs BBL