Friday 12 July 2013

Mega Dhoni Vs. Bevan Best Finisher Stat fight

But are either as good as a Stunner?
Dhoni wins another game for India and there are calls to recognise him as the greatest chaser/finisher in ODI history. Now, we can argue on semantics on who can do the most damage and is the last person that a bowling side wants to see take strike in the last over of an ODI, but they just cannot compare to stone cold statistics. And here, I shall see the merit of the statistical case of ranking Dhoni above the previous greatest finisher in ODI's, Michael Bevan.

Why is this comparison being made now?
It is being done now as Dhoni has finally gotten close to the level of games that Bevan played during his career. Dhoni has 226 ODI's as compared to Bevan's 232, Dhoni has 96 innings chasing compared to Bevan's 81, and more important than all those, it is because you, the reader, want it to be done and we here at Cardus (Keshav and Keshu), provide what you need for your cricketing soul.

Right, on with the numbers.
Out of the 96 innings that Dhoni has played while chasing, his side has won 54 times (56.25% success rate), while Bevan got a victory in 45 of those innings (55.56%).

Dhoni's average of 52.45 in all chases (successful or not) is below Bevan's chasing average of 56.50. Furthermore, Dhoni averages above 40 in chases against only Bangladesh (137), Pakistan (77.42) and Sri Lanka (82.84), which means he doesn't actually chase well against a lot of teams.

In contrast, Bevan averages over 40 in all chases against all teams, other than West Indies (39) and Kenya (15). This certainly shows that Bevan was a much more consistent performer against all sides, while Dhoni may be accused of boosting his performances against sub-continental teams.

When comparing averages in chases they have won, Dhoni overtakes Bevan quite significantly, averaging 100.09 compared to Bevan's 86.25. But the fact remains that Dhoni continues to enjoy his time against Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, keeping an average of 262, 172.5 and 157.20 against these opponents, while having an average of 10.33 against South Africa. Bevan gets even more superlative in his consistency in chases won as he maintains an above 50 average against all teams, apart from Kenya (15) and boosting his average against West Indies from the aforementioned 39 to 136 in wins. Bevan also has a 100+ average in chases won against Zimbabwe (121) and Pakistan (133.50), while he averages 97.33 against India.

But averages don't tell the whole story. Looking at their scoring rates, Bevan scored at a strike rate of 66.42 in chases won, which was well below his career strike rate of 74.16. Dhoni scores his runs at a brisk rate 89.63 in chases won, which is marginally higher than his career strike rate of 88.17. If we magnify Bevan's strike rate by the amount that scoring has increased for all batsmen between the period that he was active (RPo of 4.72) and Dhoni's career (5.01), Bevan would still be striking his runs at a rate of 70.50 runs per 100 balls. Thus, Dhoni is far and away the more dynamic striker. Doing the same to Dhoni's average, it would reduce his average to 98 in wins.
So what about their peers?

Considering their playing careers, and a cut-off of a minimum of 20 innings played, these two certainly had the best averages in chases won. Dhoni's average of 100.09 is followed by Misbah-ul-Haq's average of 89.83 (1.11 times) in 27 innings, while Bevan's average of 86.25 leads Arjuna Ranatunga's glorious average of 74.70 (1.15 times)in 34 innings, which shows that Bevan was slightly better, but not conclusively so.

Taking the number of other batsmen who had averages above 50 during their playing periods doesn't help. Bevan's playing days saw 33 batsmen above that benchmark and Dhoni's have seen 31 batsmen. However, the change in strike rates is the most eye-catching bit about the two sets of players though.

Dhoni's time has seen 10 players average more than 50 while scoring at a strike rate above 90. This list is so exclusive, that not even Dhoni makes it to this list. In Bevan's time, this list was so exclusive, that there was only one member in it over the 10 years of Bevan's ODI career, and he was Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar scored at an average of 64.90 at a strike rate of 92.38 from 14 April 1994 to 29 Feb 2004. Why does nobody ever put him in the ranks of greatest chaser ever?

But anyway, getting back to the topic at hand. We have seen that Dhoni scores heavily against a handful of teams, while Bevan scored against everyone other than the cricketing powerhouse of Kenya. Dhoni can certainly play bigger shots and chase higher scores but such was never asked of Bevan and we cannot rule out the possibility that he might have been able to do the same. Neither has proved that they were significantly better than their peers. If it was for the most valuable player, Dhoni would certainly clinch it with his wicket-keeping, but we are only considering their batting exploits.

 I fear, that stats have not quite been able to help us here. Hence we must settle it the old fashioned way... a drunken fist-fight to the death.

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