Don Bradman “not the greatest” says new stats research

Sir Donald Bradman was NOT, game for game, the most valuable player in the history of Test cricket, according to exhaustive new statistical research published in the April 2010 issue of SPIN magazine.

Rather than the Don, it is an English bowler, George Lohmann, who emerges as, game for game, history’s greatest player.

The research, for the first time, attempts to compare both batsmen and bowlers using the same criteria – of how great a contribution they made to their team’s performances. Though there remains no dispute that The Don, who averaged 99.94 and hit 29 centuries in his 52 Tests, was the greatest batsman of all time, there has until now been no reliable measure that compares the relative values of batsmen and bowlers. Indeed, the greater length of batsmen’s careers has tended to give them more prominence in cricket’s halls of fame than bowlers – despite the fact that it is taking 20 wickets that wins Test matches, rather than sheer accumulation of runs.

California-based ex-pat statistician Dave Wilson came up with a method to compare the different disciplines. This month SPIN publishes the first half of Wilson’s epic research, taking in Test matches up to 1950. Next month will see the second half, which will reveal the modern era’s most valuable player.

Lohmann played 18 Tests between 1886 and 1896, winning a remarkable 15 of them and taking 112 wickets at just 10.75 apiece. That average, as well as his strike rate (a wicket every 34.1 balls) and his economy rate (just 1.88 runs per over) are the best of any bowler in history.

“Traditionally batsmen are more highly regarded,” says Wilson. “It all comes down to the vast majority of cricket fans being romantics, basically – batsmen are lauded for being stylish, graceful and majestic; bowlers are described as menacing, dangerous, demonic. There’s very much a positive/negative slant.

“Systems such as the ICC Player Ratings are extremely useful. But you can only search for batting, or bowling – not both together. What I felt was needed is a method of objectively measuring and comparing all players at the same time, regardless of their main cricketing discipline.”

Wilson’s research was based on the ICC team rankings, which give a Series Points total for each team involved in a Test series. For example, when Australia (ranked first) drew with England (ranked third) in the 1938 Ashes series, Australia were awarded 393 points by the ICC’s system, while England were awarded 502 points (the system rewards England more highly as they performed above their ranking to force a draw).

Wilson’s real work came in then allotting those points for each series to the players involved: he did this by comparing the runs scored and wickets taken against the average Test performances for the time period. Then the batting points were divided up between the batsmen based on runs scored; fielding points on the basis of catches and stumpings made; and bowling points divided on the basis of wickets taken.

• The full story, plus tables, is in the April 2010 issue of SPIN magazine. The May issue will feature the MVP breakdown of the greats of the modern era