Monday, January 6, 2014

Assessing Australia and England Following the 2013-14 Ashes

Before the 2013-14 ‘Ashes’ series I wrote that I thought Australia had a fair chance of winning the series. This was due to the English cricket team being only about ‘8 per cent’ better than Australia, based on the Reliance ICC Player Rankings, which I thought may well be overcome by Australia having the home ground advantage.

Well, as we now know, Australia not only won the series, but won it easily (‘five-nil! fivenil fivenil fivenil…). So what changed? Let’s have a look at the line-ups as the ICC Player Rankings now assesses them.

Australia
England
% Advantage of Eng over Aus
Batting Ratings - Batsmen
Rogers
694
Cook
677
Warner
683
Carberry
394
Watson
605
Root
558
Clarke
817
Pietersen
674
Smith
626
Bell
682
Bailey
236
Stokes
441
Haddin
618
Prior
586
Total
4279
4012
-6.2
Batting Ratings - Bowlers
Johnson
331
Broad
399
Siddle
243
Swann
325
Harris
248
Bresnan
286
Lyon
201
Anderson
126
Total
1023
1136
11.0
Bowling Ratings - Bowlers
Johnson
743
Broad
729
Siddle
779
Swann
663
Harris
866
Bresnan
512
Lyon
618
Anderson
683
Total
3006
2587
-13.9
Bowling Ratings - Batsmen
Smith
107
Root
33
Watson
433
Stokes
311
Clarke
134
Pietersen
80
Total
674
424
-37.1
Total team rating
8220.8
7557
-8.1

Team rating = Batting rating – Batsmen + Bowling rating – Bowlers + ¾ * Batting rating – Bowlers + ¼ * Bowling rating - Batsmen

In contrast to before the series started, Australia is now assessed as being superior in every aspect except for the batting ability of their bowlers (though even that seems debatable given the batting averages for the series). Before the series, England’s main advantage was assessed to be its batting. However, for the Australians, Warner, Haddin, Rogers, and Smith are now assessed to be much better than they were before the series, while Cook, Bell and Prior are now assessed to be somewhat worse. The English team is also assessed to have suffered from Trott’s departure after the first Test, when he was replaced by new boy Ben Stokes, although looking at the Ashes alone Stokes’ batting average stacked up relatively well to his countrymen.
On the bowling side, man of the series Mitchell Johnson was much, much better than his pre-series rating suggested, and Ryan Harris was also better, while the now-retired Graeme Swann and James Anderson took steps back. The net result is that, while England’s bowling was assessed to be slightly better pre-series, now it is Australia that are assessed to have the somewhat stronger bowling line-up.

Overall then, England’s ‘8 per cent’ advantage has now turned into an ‘8 per cent’ deficit. Add to that the fact that Australia was playing on their home turf, and the eventual result becomes more explicable. Still, even then one might not have expected Australia to win quite so easily - the rest of the margin then might be able to put down to nebulous concepts such as ‘form’, ‘luck’ … or maybe ‘overcoaching’.

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