The Cricket Lounge’s List Of Top 12 Batsmen Of The Last 20 Years: Everyone likes to support their favorite cricketers, and we get to see a lot of fan wars on social media. Comparing batsmen is a very subjective debate, but we have tried to make it objective by developing an algorithm to rank batsmen in the last 20 years. We considered consistency, longevity, and the era while developing the model.
Discussing the model
To put it simply, we considered averages and strike rates, gave them different weights before adding them for every batsman. To have a decent sample size, we only considered data in years where batsman played more than 10 innings.
We tried to make the rankings fair by considering several factors, we took the player’s stats every year and using our formula calculated points for that year. To reduce the effect of not outs we subtracted the number of not outs from the average. For example, if in 2010 a batsman averaged 56 with 10 not outs, his average will be calculated as 46.
We also punished the batsman for batting too slow or just slogging by taking stat-padding and fluke parameters. This reduced the points for that year if average or strike-rate was lesser than a certain value. We all know that new rules, flat pitches have made the job easier for the modern batsman so we took a gradient. This gradient was highest for 2000 but kept reducing for every year. We multiplied the gradient with points every year to account for the factors mentioned above.
Final Formula
Then we divided the total points by the years played by the batsman, so, the points mentioned for every batsman is (total points/years). We know it is easier to maintain higher consistency for a shorter period. Hence, we took an experience factor, which gave extra weightage to a longer career. After all this effort, we were able to rank 495 players and we listed out the top 12 above.
