10 hours to go - I am so bloody nervous

Pakistan's opener against the West Indies is in less than 10 hours. I can't sleep! I am so nervous. I want Pakistan to win, but realistically speaking, I don't think we will make the final 4. Anyway, as usual, I am being too pessimistic, so I'll just shut up.

Where was omarlovescricket?
Fans of this blog may be wondering where I disappeared for the past 4 days. Well, its spring break here, and I took to the weekend off to attend to family matters and some other personal stuff. Not that you care, but if you're really bored, you can email me and ask me about my weekend. Jokes aside, I knew, that with the WC starting, I am going to be eating, breathing and umm, chewing(?) cricket for the next month or so. So the best time for a break from blogging is probably right about now!

Update on past issues
I will continue posting the wicket keeping study as it is still incomplete. Some of you were genuinely interested, while others were shocked at how much time I have to waste looking at Excel sheets. I have spent way too long fudging data around, so readers of this blog will indulge in my exuberance for a bit longer. I am still working on those bloody Excel sheets but am awaiting word from Cricinfo about using their database for ball-by-ball data. Fingers are crossed!

A bit of recognition
This blog, and more importantly other fine cricketing blogs, including our pet project, Cricket.bloggers.pk, were highlighted in Pakistan's Spider Magazine which deals with Internet related stuff. Pretty cool right? The review about my blog was amusing though. He wrote "The language used is one that the reader can easily comprehend, which makes the pieces more effective." Hmm! I think he's saying I am a dumb-ass. Maybe I need to spice my writing up a bit!

Ranking the contributions of Wicketkeepers

As part of the wicketkeeping study initiated at this site, it was necessary to incorporate a ranking system in order to gauge wicket keeper contributions. As mentioned before in an earlier post, due to database restrictions, I can only quantify the contributions of keepers rather than judge them by the byes or catches dropped. I have used 5 different scoring techniques.

• A - (dismissals/Test) * batting average
• B - (batting average/10) + dismissals/test
• C - (batting average – overall average of batting average for all keepers) + ((dismissals/test)-overall average of dismissals/test for all keepers))
• D - (batting average/highest batting average amongst keepers) + ((dismissals/test)/(highest dismissals/test amongst keepers))
• E - (batting average/average batting average amongst keepers) + ((dismissals/test)/(average dismissals/test amongst keepers))

D and E use constants (D using highest average, while E used average batting average) so they give the same order.

30 wicket keepers were used to calculate the average of the batting average and the average of the dismissals/test. The average batting average is 20.09, which the average dismissals/test is 2.95.

Contributions of wicketkeepers have increased over the years

Using the 5 scoring techniques for wicket keeper contributions, it was possible to churn out data for different decades. Players that kept wicket for 5 years till 2000 and 3 years after 2000, were included in the 1990 decade. The groupings are presented below in the following ugly colors.

Name	Country	Career
Evans, T G	England	1946-1959
Waite, J H B	South Africa	1951-1965
Parks, J M	England	1954-1968
Murray, D L	West Indies	1963-1980
Knott, A P E	England	1967-1981
Wasim Bari	Pakistan	1967-1984
Marsh, R W	Australia	1970-1984
Taylor, R W	England	1971-1984
Kirmani, S M H	India	1976-1986
Smith, I D S	New Zealand	1980-1992
Dujon, P J L	West Indies	1981-1991
Salim Yousuf	Pakistan	1982-1990
More, K S	India	1986-1993
Russell, R C	England	1988-1998
Healy, I A	Australia	1988-1999
Parore, A C	New Zealand	1990-2002
Stewart, A J	England	1990-2003
Moin Khan*	Pakistan	1990-2004
Richardson, D J	South Africa	1992-1998
Flower, A	Zimbabwe	1992-2002
Rashid Latif	Pakistan	1992-2003
Kaluwitharana, R S	Sri Lanka	1992-2004
Mongia, N R	India	1994-2001
Boucher, M V*	South Africa	1997-Present
Jacobs, R D	West Indies	1998-2004
Gilchrist, A C*	Australia	1999-Present
Sangakkara, K C*	Sri Lanka	2000-Present
Kamran Akmal*	Pakistan	2002-Present
Jones, G O *	England	2004-Present

The groupings are certainly not meant to be precise, so don't hate on me, but the results below do give us a clear indication of where cricket is headed.

The chart above indicated the trend using the 5 scoring techniques. D and E were calculated using 2 different constants, so when normalized, are exactly the same. I didn't have too much data before 1970, but I have included the few players from that era for which I did have some. The average on the chart is the average of the 5 scoring techniques (weighted a bit more towards D and E unfortunately).
The conclusion is that the days of the specialist keeper are numbered. A keeper is now as much a batsmen as he is a keeper. More importantly I feel that a player like Adam Gilchrist, who people think is a once-in-a-lifetime cricketer, is just the first great wicket-keeper batsmen in this trend. Dhoni, Sangakarra, McCullum and even Akmal to an extent may eventually surpass Gilchrist's statistics.

Announcing a statistical study on wicketkeeping

With all this talk about Kamran Akmal's decline in recent months, I wanted to look at the statistics on offer and try and figure out if his glovework and batsmanship are truly in decline. I've been working on this for quite a while now, and in doing so, have managed to put together some interesting trends. I'll post them on this site routinely over the next couple of weeks, as we don't have too much live cricket going on. A direct link to the study can be found here.

I also wish I had access to Cricinfo's ball by ball statistics database. If I had access to "byes conceded" or "dropped chances", I'd be a happier man. On that note, does anyone know of other cricket databases, where I can access this information or does Cricinfo have the monopoly? As a result of this, I am a bit handicapped as to what I can work with. So instead of judging a keeper by his failures (which would probably be a more accurate technique), I will rank them by their contributions. This contribution consists of their batting and fielding averages. Some of the questions that I wish to address are:

• Can I rank the contribution of wicketkeepers against other keepers?
• Can I rank the batting and fielding contributions of wicketkeepers to their team?
• Is Kamran Akmal's contribution to the Pakistani side in decline?
• How does Kamran Akmal compare with past Pakistani keepers?
• Are exceptionally good wicket-keeping batsmen (Gilchrist, Sangakarra, Flower) an anomaly? Or is this a trend of the times?
• If so, can I show that the times indeed, are changing, in that, keepers are becoming better and better at batting?
• Who are the best keepers by year with regards to their contributions?
• Which keepers are most consistent in their performance?

Some questions may not be answered, while other queries may yet be added to this list. Stay tuned to this blog as results on this study are posted.