Greatest cricket stat never used

There is a lot of hand wringing about the state of the current Australian Cricket team. Especially the batting line up. Anyone who has scored a decent innings in grade or Sheffield Shield cricket is quickly offered up as the new hero who needs to be parachuted into the top 6.

I argue that it is not runs alone that are important, but the manner in which you score them. Scoring runs on a flat deck against a weak opposition is great for your career average but isn’t a true test of your mettle.  A truly great batsman can grind out an innings when all around him fail. The Bannerman ratio might just be the metric that defines truly outstanding batting performances.

Charles Bannerman

Charles Bannerman played the leading hand in Australia’s 45 run victory over England in the first ever test match (Melbourne 1877). Charles Bannerman opened the batting and scored 165 (on the way scoring the first ton in test history) to contribute to Australia’s first innings total of 245. The top image is the 1878 Australian Test team (Charles Bannerman is second from right in the back row).

This amazing ratio of runs contributed by a single batsman (0.67) still stands as the single highest contribution of an individual to an innings total (hence it is called the Bannerman ratio). When compiling the Bannerman ratio only completed innings are considered. Smashing out a quick 200 and declaring at 4 for doesn’t count as a completed innings because not all batsmen got a chance to bat.

Table 1: Top rated Bannerman ratios in test cricket history. (Source: ESPN Cricinfo)

Player	Runs	Innings Total	%	Team	Opposition	Ground
C Bannerman	165*	245	67.34	Australia	v England	Melbourne
MJ Slater	123	184	66.84	Australia	v England	Sydney
VVS Laxman	167	261	63.98	India	v Australia	Sydney
KC Brathwaite	94	148	63.51	West Indies	v Australia	Hobart
CG Greenidge	134	211	63.5	West Indies	v England	Manchester
AP Gurusinha	52*	82	63.41	Sri Lanka	v India	Chandigarh
JR Reid	100	159	62.89	New Zealand	v England	Christchurch
SM Nurse	258	417	61.87	West Indies	v New Zealand	Christchurch
M Amarnath	60	97	61.85	India	v West Indies	Kingston
GN Yallop	121	198	61.11	Australia	v England	Sydney
GA Gooch	154*	252	61.11	England	v West Indies	Leeds
V Sehwag	201*	329	61.09	India	v Sri Lanka	Galle
KL Rahul	64	105	60.95	India	v Australia	Pune
VT Trumper	74	122	60.65	Australia	v England	Melbourne
HA Gomes	91	151	60.26	West Indies	v India	Chennai
JT Tyldesley	62	103	60.19	England	v Australia	Melbourne
N Kapil Dev	129	215	60	India	v South Africa	Port Elizabeth
HW Taylor	109	182	59.89	South Africa	v England	Durban
JH Sinclair	106	177	59.88	South Africa	v England	Cape Town
Saeed Ahmed	68	114	59.64	Pakistan	v England	Nottingham
MG Burgess	119*	200	59.5	New Zealand	v Pakistan	Dhaka
Saeed Anwar	188*	316	59.49	Pakistan	v India	Kolkata
BC Lara	176	296	59.45	West Indies	v South Africa	Bridgetown
RG Pollock	209	353	59.2	South Africa	v Australia	Cape Town
B Sutcliffe	74	125	59.2	New Zealand	v England	Dunedin
DG Bradman	334	566	59.01	Australia	v England	Leeds
MN Samuels	123	209	58.85	West Indies	v New Zealand	Kingston
KC Sangakkara	100*	170	58.82	Sri Lanka	v New Zealand	Christchurch
L Hutton	202*	344	58.72	England	v West Indies	The Oval
DG Bradman	299*	513	58.28	Australia	v South Africa	Adelaide

Current Form

Many of the current Australian batting line up do not have a long international career, so we have looked at the Australian domestic cricket results for 2017-18 and the 2018-19 season to December 2018. For every shield match we have picked out the outstanding batting performances for each completed innings. The outstanding bating performance is top scorer or near tie top score, where you must have scored at least 50 runs. We have defined a completed innings as 8 or more wickets down. Through this analysis we came up with 118 good batting innings produced by 49 different players over the last season and half of Sheffield Shield games.

Demonstrating the ability to have an outstanding innings is important. However, consistently scoring runs is also critical. So we have created a combined score by simply multiplying the Bannerman ratio by the player’s Sheffield Shield average to create the Bannerman Ratio x Average (BRA) score.

Table 2 has players listed according to their BRA rank (the top players have produced an outstanding batting innings and consistently scored runs). Members of the Australian Mens squad (as listed by Cricket Australia) have been highlighted. Bare in mind, with the current state of Australian cricket the squad seems to change every second day, so this is just a rough team list.

Pucovski stands at the top of the list as a bolter. But before you sign him up as the new opener just remember that he has only played 5 Shield games.

Before we rush Finch and Carey into the test team based on short cricket form, we should note how far down the ranking they are as shield batsmen.

I don’t know what Maxwell has to do to get in the test team – he is clearly capable of creating an outstanding innings in long form game and has a good average (45.9). Just because he can be a slogger when called on in the short form, doesn’t mean he is a slogger in long form.

What is also interesting is that several bowling all-rounders have made the list (Stoinis, Wildermuth, Zampa) indicating that they have potential at number 8 and 9 to hold up an end.

Figure 1: Top 20 Sheffield shield batsmen (2017-2018) based on Bannerman ratio times batting average.

 

Table 2: Top Sheffield Shield batting performances in recent times. (Source: Cricket Network)

Player	BRA Rank	BR Rank	Top Innings				Lifetime Shield Batting Average	BRA
			Batters Runs	Innings Runs	Bannerman Ratio	Number of Top Innings
W Pucovski	1	10	243	504	0.48	2	82.3	39.7
M Henriques	2	5	152	449	0.54	2	43.3	23.6
G Maxwell	3	7	278	562	0.49	2	45.9	22.7
G Bailey	4	2	106	477	0.62	4	35.9	22.1
U Khawaja	5	13	122	311	0.43	2	51.5	22.0
C Ferguson	6	6	111	283	0.52	3	41.7	21.7
M Harris	7	3	109	345	0.60	4	35.3	21.1
T Head	8	4	145	485	0.57	5	36.9	20.9
S Marsh	9	18	91	243	0.41	3	48.9	20.0
P Handscomb	10	8	123	351	0.49	3	38.5	18.7
M Wade	11	26	139	477	0.39	5	46.2	17.8
T Cooper	12	9	178	505	0.48	3	35.1	17.0
C Bancroft	13	12	86	223	0.43	2	39.3	17.0
J Burns	14	22	97	271	0.40	2	41.8	16.7
K Patterson	15	16	107	261	0.41	4	39.3	16.1
P Nevill	16	28	70	402	0.38	3	41.1	15.6
C White	17	20	149	371	0.40	2	38.6	15.5
T Rogers	18	1	80	104	0.77	1	19.8	15.3
H Cartwright	19	32	83	355	0.36	2	42.0	15.2
D Warner	20	34	83	242	0.34	1	43.9	15.1
J Inglis	21	19	87	213	0.41	1	35.6	14.6
E Cowan	22	39	67	208	0.32	2	44.1	14.2
D Hughes	23	31	98	271	0.36	3	39.0	14.2
J Weatherald	24	14	152	363	0.42	3	33.6	14.1
M Labuschagne	25	17	134	438	0.41	4	33.7	13.8
M Stoinis	26	27	81	212	0.38	2	35.1	13.5
A Finch	27	21	151	378	0.40	2	33.5	13.4
C Hemphrey	28	23	103	516	0.39	4	33.9	13.3
M Renshaw	29	37	112	342	0.33	2	40.1	13.1
T Dean	30	30	111	392	0.38	2	34.5	13.1
A Doolan	31	25	115	355	0.39	2	32.6	12.6
J Doran	32	11	114	393	0.43	4	29.0	12.6
J Lehmann	33	40	103	379	0.32	2	38.4	12.3
D Christian	34	29	69	182	0.38	1	31.1	11.8
J Wildermuth	35	24	95	516	0.39	3	29.7	11.6
A Turner	36	36	101	355	0.33	3	34.2	11.3
M Marsh	37	35	151	540	0.34	2	32.5	11.1
J Silk	38	38	113	477	0.32	3	32.4	10.5
H Nielsen	39	42	105	379	0.31	2	32.0	9.8
J Philippe	40	15	104	302	0.41	2	23.4	9.7
A Carey	41	43	139	485	0.29	1	28.4	8.1
W Bosisto	42	41	167	540	0.31	2	25.1	7.8
A Zampa	43	33	57	161	0.35	1	21.8	7.7
S Gotch	44	47	98	450	0.22	1	33.7	7.3
N Maddinson	45	48	87	402	0.22	1	32.8	7.1
C McInerney	46	45	51	201	0.25	1	27.4	6.9
M Neser	47	46	62	516	0.24	3	27.6	6.6
J Richardson	48	44	53	207	0.26	1	22.2	5.7
S O’Keefe	49	49	50	243	0.21	1	25.4	5.2

Maybe the Bannerman ratio isn’t the greatest single cricket stat, but it is interesting to have another way to sort the wheat from the chaff instead of just batting average and strike rate.

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