A great observation as always. The reason England is losing is because they are over indexing on batting to provide insurance for their cavalier batting approach. But that should also mean that the difference between the two teams in this series should be much wider than how close the series has been so far.
Their bowlers have still found ways to take wickets even with their limited resources and skillsets.
The gap in the averages and strike rates for Indian spinners vs English spinners that you have highlighted is significantly inflated because of two recent innings (3rd and 4th test's second innings).
I would like to see a comparison by excluding those 2 innings.
That could highlight how Indian spinners have not been significantly more consistent or dominating for large parts of the test series. Which is why the series feels lot closer than what those numbers suggest.
6 of 8 innings Indian spinners have not been as effective.. so looking at median and variance instead of mean to understand whether the difference is as pronounced as means suggest because of those two outlier innings.
look we know India are 3-1 up so we know that india has been better.. have they been consistently better or just won some big moments very decisively.
Also, I wonder if there is a way we can quantify wickets that their rookie spinners have taken due to errors induced by their skills (great balls) vs unforced errors vs errors forced by stokes's captaincy and field placements. Everyone raves about his captaincy and he is a busy captain for sure. And my instincts tell me his captaincy should good as he has extracted this much from his rookie spinners. I will concede that they are up against an equally inexperienced Indian batting lineup.
but is stokes able to conjure a better performance from his spinners which has been "almost" at par with Indian spinners for majority of test series (thats why excluding the two outlier brilliant bowling innings)
I don't think his captaincy (or any other captain's captaincy) is competitively significant. If captaincy was a significant skill in professional cricket, it would be a specialist position (like spinner or fast bowler or opening batter or middle order batter or wicket keeper). But it isn't. Teams pick the best available batters and bowlers and make one of them captain.
I'm afraid this captaincy thing is yet again an example of observers remembering 5 balls out of 500 in the day and telling themselves that they're especially important at the end of the day.
I dont full agree.. yes captaincy is not as important to warrant a specialist position but if cricket allowed outside consultations (remember Cronje's ear piece), then we would have had analysts with little physical skills running the show.. like the managers in football do..
As much as sports is about physical skills, there is also an element of tactics and psychology. Take Kuldeep and chahal -- they had better outcomes when dhoni was guiding them behind the stumps and setting fields for them vs when he retired. same skills, better tactics and maybe some psychology, inspiring confidence.
> I don't think his captaincy (or any other captain's captaincy) is competitively significant
if this was true then we would not need a captain.. lets take a toy extreme example where we have an astute captain and a dumb captain.. astute captain understands the tools at his disposal and makes plans and sets fields accordingly.. dumb captain just sets a random field every ball. who is likely to have better outcomes?
I tend to think that if the tactics and psychology are accessible to you and me, they're accessible to the average player. It can't require specialist skill to deploy them.
Captains are a social necessity, not a competitive necessity. Every player in the XI, every club cricketer understands those tools. It doesn't take astuteness to understand them.
Captaincy (like pretty much every other thing of its kind), as a skill, exists in the cricket discourse because the press box exists and the commentary box exists. Its because its very hard to keep track of 540 balls in a day. These are all devices to paper over the fact that while the players compete for every ball, observers find it exhausting to consider every ball.
They have been consistently better. The IND spinners have better control of length than the ENG spinners even though they turn the ball significantly harder and get more drift. They are much better bowlers and have been much more effective than the ENG spinners.
There are no big or small moments in Test cricket (or in any cricket). The outcome of every ball counts exactly equally. None of the deliveries are optional. There are more and less obvious moments, and more or less memorable moments, but those are not more and less competitively significant moments.
> They have been consistently better. The IND spinners have better control of length
I am not contesting that. Indian spinners have much better accuracy and control. But accuracy does not always translate to outcomes.
Iord shardul is inaccurate but has had favourable outcomes more frequently than his skills suggest (strike rate of 46!).
stuart mcgill had slightly better strike rate than Shane Warne despite being much less accurate.
outcomes != accuracy/control.
> There are no big or small moments in Test cricket (or in any cricket). The outcome of every ball counts exactly equally.
I am not contesting that either. what I am referring to big moment is -- if you are able to get favourable outcomes more frequently, it has higher impact on the outcome of the match. So in those two innings india definitely had sudden burst of highly frequent favourable outcomes, induced by their skills and accuracy.
I concede that accuracy will increase probability of favourable outcome and over a large sample set more accurate bowlers will have better outcomes more frequently. but the variance will be higher over smaller samples.
In this series, I feel less skilled English rookie skippers have been able to get outcomes similar to their much more skilled Indian counterparts.
And my intuition tells me they had similar frequencies of favourable outcomes compared to Indian spinners except those two "big moments" where Indian bowlers became runaway trains and demolished English batting for 122 and 145.
but outside of those two performances, English spinners had been to Indian spinners what lord shardul is to Bumrah.
similar strike rates, slightly worse averages, but enough to keep England in the game for longer periods and if England had conjured a "big moment" (like Ollie Pope innings) the result could have been in their favour.
and I am trying to understand the reason for these outcomes that these rookie spinners were able to achieve..
was it pitches (not penalising inaccuracy as much).. was it stokes's captaincy (was he able to extract more from his spinners because of field placements and playing with the psyche of the batsmen)..
or was it just down to luck (unforced error by Indians).. or was it because of Indian batting's inexperience, levelling the playing field.
also, lets take the outcomes at a more fundamental level -- false shots.. what percentage of times did Indian spinners induce false shots vs their spinners.. and what percentage of those false shots resulting in wickets.. that will give a sense of whether they were luckier or equally threatening.
The ENG spinners took wickets at a cost of 38 runs each. The IND spinners took wickets at a cost of 28 runs each. The ENG spinners took a wicket every 46 balls. The ENG spinners took a wicket every 68 balls. ENG's bats edged of missed 17% of the deliveries they faced from IND's spinners, attacked 32% of the deliveries they faced from IND's spinners. IND's bats edged or missed 11% of deliveries from ENG's pinners, and attacked 27% of deliveries. ENG's spinners got a wicket for every 7.5 false shots, IND's spinners, every 7.8.
ENG's spinners were average. Their control of length is average. The amount of turn they impart is average.
But, when you start out expecting nothing from one set of bowlers and everything from another set, then the former invariably comes out ahead in your estimation. That's a problem of your set up, not of the record.
When you refer to "these outcomes that these rookie spinners were able to achieve" - the outcomes were poor.
A great observation as always. The reason England is losing is because they are over indexing on batting to provide insurance for their cavalier batting approach. But that should also mean that the difference between the two teams in this series should be much wider than how close the series has been so far.
Their bowlers have still found ways to take wickets even with their limited resources and skillsets.
The gap in the averages and strike rates for Indian spinners vs English spinners that you have highlighted is significantly inflated because of two recent innings (3rd and 4th test's second innings).
I would like to see a comparison by excluding those 2 innings.
That could highlight how Indian spinners have not been significantly more consistent or dominating for large parts of the test series. Which is why the series feels lot closer than what those numbers suggest.
Why is it a good idea to exclude those innings? Weren't they part of the Tests?
6 of 8 innings Indian spinners have not been as effective.. so looking at median and variance instead of mean to understand whether the difference is as pronounced as means suggest because of those two outlier innings.
look we know India are 3-1 up so we know that india has been better.. have they been consistently better or just won some big moments very decisively.
Also, I wonder if there is a way we can quantify wickets that their rookie spinners have taken due to errors induced by their skills (great balls) vs unforced errors vs errors forced by stokes's captaincy and field placements. Everyone raves about his captaincy and he is a busy captain for sure. And my instincts tell me his captaincy should good as he has extracted this much from his rookie spinners. I will concede that they are up against an equally inexperienced Indian batting lineup.
but is stokes able to conjure a better performance from his spinners which has been "almost" at par with Indian spinners for majority of test series (thats why excluding the two outlier brilliant bowling innings)
I don't think his captaincy (or any other captain's captaincy) is competitively significant. If captaincy was a significant skill in professional cricket, it would be a specialist position (like spinner or fast bowler or opening batter or middle order batter or wicket keeper). But it isn't. Teams pick the best available batters and bowlers and make one of them captain.
I'm afraid this captaincy thing is yet again an example of observers remembering 5 balls out of 500 in the day and telling themselves that they're especially important at the end of the day.
I dont full agree.. yes captaincy is not as important to warrant a specialist position but if cricket allowed outside consultations (remember Cronje's ear piece), then we would have had analysts with little physical skills running the show.. like the managers in football do..
As much as sports is about physical skills, there is also an element of tactics and psychology. Take Kuldeep and chahal -- they had better outcomes when dhoni was guiding them behind the stumps and setting fields for them vs when he retired. same skills, better tactics and maybe some psychology, inspiring confidence.
> I don't think his captaincy (or any other captain's captaincy) is competitively significant
if this was true then we would not need a captain.. lets take a toy extreme example where we have an astute captain and a dumb captain.. astute captain understands the tools at his disposal and makes plans and sets fields accordingly.. dumb captain just sets a random field every ball. who is likely to have better outcomes?
I tend to think that if the tactics and psychology are accessible to you and me, they're accessible to the average player. It can't require specialist skill to deploy them.
Captains are a social necessity, not a competitive necessity. Every player in the XI, every club cricketer understands those tools. It doesn't take astuteness to understand them.
Captaincy (like pretty much every other thing of its kind), as a skill, exists in the cricket discourse because the press box exists and the commentary box exists. Its because its very hard to keep track of 540 balls in a day. These are all devices to paper over the fact that while the players compete for every ball, observers find it exhausting to consider every ball.
They have been consistently better. The IND spinners have better control of length than the ENG spinners even though they turn the ball significantly harder and get more drift. They are much better bowlers and have been much more effective than the ENG spinners.
There are no big or small moments in Test cricket (or in any cricket). The outcome of every ball counts exactly equally. None of the deliveries are optional. There are more and less obvious moments, and more or less memorable moments, but those are not more and less competitively significant moments.
> They have been consistently better. The IND spinners have better control of length
I am not contesting that. Indian spinners have much better accuracy and control. But accuracy does not always translate to outcomes.
Iord shardul is inaccurate but has had favourable outcomes more frequently than his skills suggest (strike rate of 46!).
stuart mcgill had slightly better strike rate than Shane Warne despite being much less accurate.
outcomes != accuracy/control.
> There are no big or small moments in Test cricket (or in any cricket). The outcome of every ball counts exactly equally.
I am not contesting that either. what I am referring to big moment is -- if you are able to get favourable outcomes more frequently, it has higher impact on the outcome of the match. So in those two innings india definitely had sudden burst of highly frequent favourable outcomes, induced by their skills and accuracy.
I concede that accuracy will increase probability of favourable outcome and over a large sample set more accurate bowlers will have better outcomes more frequently. but the variance will be higher over smaller samples.
In this series, I feel less skilled English rookie skippers have been able to get outcomes similar to their much more skilled Indian counterparts.
And my intuition tells me they had similar frequencies of favourable outcomes compared to Indian spinners except those two "big moments" where Indian bowlers became runaway trains and demolished English batting for 122 and 145.
but outside of those two performances, English spinners had been to Indian spinners what lord shardul is to Bumrah.
similar strike rates, slightly worse averages, but enough to keep England in the game for longer periods and if England had conjured a "big moment" (like Ollie Pope innings) the result could have been in their favour.
and I am trying to understand the reason for these outcomes that these rookie spinners were able to achieve..
was it pitches (not penalising inaccuracy as much).. was it stokes's captaincy (was he able to extract more from his spinners because of field placements and playing with the psyche of the batsmen)..
or was it just down to luck (unforced error by Indians).. or was it because of Indian batting's inexperience, levelling the playing field.
also, lets take the outcomes at a more fundamental level -- false shots.. what percentage of times did Indian spinners induce false shots vs their spinners.. and what percentage of those false shots resulting in wickets.. that will give a sense of whether they were luckier or equally threatening.
The ENG spinners took wickets at a cost of 38 runs each. The IND spinners took wickets at a cost of 28 runs each. The ENG spinners took a wicket every 46 balls. The ENG spinners took a wicket every 68 balls. ENG's bats edged of missed 17% of the deliveries they faced from IND's spinners, attacked 32% of the deliveries they faced from IND's spinners. IND's bats edged or missed 11% of deliveries from ENG's pinners, and attacked 27% of deliveries. ENG's spinners got a wicket for every 7.5 false shots, IND's spinners, every 7.8.
ENG's spinners were average. Their control of length is average. The amount of turn they impart is average.
But, when you start out expecting nothing from one set of bowlers and everything from another set, then the former invariably comes out ahead in your estimation. That's a problem of your set up, not of the record.
When you refer to "these outcomes that these rookie spinners were able to achieve" - the outcomes were poor.