Blog Posts by Impact Index

By Jaideep Varma and Jatin Thakkar

The most important players in any side are the ones who perform in big match situations – the knockouts (or playoffs) in a tournament and the deciders in bilateral series. They are the ones who relish the big challenges and produce their best when their teams most need it. They are the real gems of any side when their teams go on to lift the trophy – they are the ones who define the tournament (or series, in bilateral encounters) – this is the real legacy of a player.

Amongst the 9 squads in IPL 2012, there were 57 players who have a history of series/tournament-defining performances. It is perhaps not a coincidence that amongst the teams that have made this year’s knockouts, the team with the maximum series/tournament-defining players have made the playoffs – all four of them.

Here is a complete list with the respective teams (arranged as per their positions in the final league table) and the number of players in each team who have had such

Read More »from What the big match talent in each IPL side means

By Jaideep Varma and Jatin Thakkar

Three teams have won the IPL so far - Rajasthan Royals, Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings (twice). This is an attempt to find the common thread between these 3 sides, and try and examine what it possibly takes to win the longest competitive league in cricket history.

We use the Team IMPACT function to examine this - which is fundamentally the potential impact of each team based on the impact of each player that constitutes the team.

First, on a team level (and on a scale of 0 to 5), the four champions till date register these as their Team IMPACT numbers - Rajasthan Royals (2008) - 1.95, Deccan Chargers (2009) - 2.06, Chennai Super Kings (2010) - 1.96, Chennai Super Kings (2011) - 1.95. It is interesting that DC comes out the highest impact side amongst the four (despite being fourth at the end of the league phase in 2009) - and the other 3 teams had almost exactly the same impact.

Three out of the four times, we also found that the team with Read More »from Why they won the Indian Premier League

By Jaideep Varma and Jatin Thakkar

To use the obscene parameters by which modern-day life is judged, we look at the 5 years of IPL so far and see who justified the money they got with their performances.

By combining the impact a player made that IPL year with the public pay packet he got, we determine who delivered the most value, and the least. Sometimes, the sheer magnitude of the pay packet makes certain performances, which would be deemed adequate otherwise, seem like not such a good value, so to prevent such performances/names from getting into the list (like Andrew Flintoff in 2009, who had a more-than-reasonable IMPACT of 2.29 in 3 matches which still did not justify a pay-packet of $1,550,000), we limit the flops to players who did not even register an IMPACT of 1 per match.

NOTE: All IMPACT numbers on a scale of 0 to 5.

IPL 2008 -

Biggest hit – Shane Watson
(Rajasthan Royals, IPL 2008 IMPACT 4.20, 15 matches, was bought for $ 125,000 at the second round of IPL auctions in Read More »from The biggest hits and flops in IPL history

By Jaideep Varma and Jatin Thakkar

Conventional statistics are inadequate in every respect to identify the truest performers on the cricket field. Still, in Test cricket, and even ODIs to some extent, conventional cricket statistics have some meaning (though far fewer than most think) but in T20 cricket, they make no sense whatsoever. Which is why no one knows who the best batsmen, bowlers and players in T20 cricket because there are quite simply no measures to even give an indication. 

The splintered T20 domestic circuit also plays a part in this confusion. No one knows where to look either to identify the best players. There is no one place where all domestic leagues are accounted for and its stats neatly arranged for each player.

Impact Index not only does all of that but also processes all the numbers to find the highest impact players in this format. All numbers updated till the beginning of IPL 2012.

1. Shahid Afridi (International T20 IMPACT 4.57)

IPL’s covert ban on Read More »from The highest impact T20 players ever

T20 is the only format of the game where economy rates assume almost as much importance as wickets, sometimes more.

The real value of a bowler’s performance is the combination of wickets and economy rate, and conventional stats make a mockery of trying to measure this with just wickets tallies and economy rates. It is facile also to try and combine the two outside match contexts.

Impact Index calculates the impact of economy rates relative to every match the performance comes in. So, a bowler with an economy of 8 in a match will register a negative Economy IMPACT where the average economy rate in the match is 7 and a positive Economy IMPACT where the average economy rate is 9. This gives a much truer picture of a bowler’s ability of choking runs than conventional economy rates do.

These are the five highest impact T20 Internationals bowlers on Economy IMPACT:

1. DL Vettori (Economy IMPACT 1.45, 28 matches)
2. BAW Mendis (0.97, 17)
3. MH Yardy (0.93, 15)
4. J Botha (0.74, 31)
5. SE Bond

Read More »from Economy Rates in T20 History

By Jaideep Varma & Jatin Thakkar

Given the helplessness of conventional statistics to determine who the most valuable batsmen and bowlers are in a series or a tournament, the Neanderthal system of Runs Tally and Wickets Tally suffices, as the Orange and Purple Caps are prominently celebrated every few days as movement happens on those respective fronts.

We do a comparison here of the Orange Cap contenders currently – that is, the highest run-scorers of IPL 2012 so far, with who the highest impact batsmen actually are. And then of the Purple Cap – the highest wicket-takers of IPL 2012, and who the highest impact bowlers really are. Whatever the tenor of the disagreements, some interesting extra insights do emerge.

Despite Sehwag being the highest run-scorer, right now Gautam Gambhir is the highest impact batsman of IPL 2012. He nudges out Virender Sehwag very slightly only because of a marginally higher Runs Tally IMPACT (very interesting, given that he actually has scored 11 runs less

Read More »from Why the Orange and Purple Caps are flawed

By Jaideep Varma and Jatin Thakkar

It is interesting that in what is largely considered a batsman’s format, bowlers not only hold their own they even dominate it in some quarters. The glamorous aspect of big-hitting batsmanship (the most prominent in this format) however does not let them bask in the limelight for too long. Hence, a piece like this will probably be very revealing to most fans of the game.

What is even more revealing is that spinners, who are considered cannon fodder by casual viewers of this format of the game, are actually the highest impact bowlers in this format. 4 out of the 5 highest impact bowlers in T20 cricket internationals and also domestics around the world are spinners (that’s 8 of the highest impact 10 bowlers discussed here). Some of this does indeed have to do with the role of spinners in this format – most of them do not bowl during the powerplay and death overs – but they also don’t get the benefit of easy wickets being squandered due to excessive

Read More »from Bowlers in T20: The Impact Makers

By Jatin Thakkar and Soham Sarkhel

Whenever we discuss cricket amongst ourselves, we have a common tendency to say that a particular batsman played well under tremendous pressure. However if one is asked to define what pressure is according to cricketing norms, he/she will most definitely be at a loss of words. At Impact Index, we are able to measure at least a good part of it. For a batsman the Pressure IMPACT measures pressure that comes from fall of wickets. It kicks in when a batsman comes in to bat in a tough situation (as defined from how many wickets have fallen) and makes a certain proportion of runs (based on the match totals). This does identify a lot of players whose contributions often get overlooked.

Here are the batsmen with the highest Pressure IMPACT numbers in the history of T20 International matches (minimum 15 matches).

1. Umar Akmal (Pressure IMPACT 0.21, 28 matches)
2. KP Pietersen (0.20, 38)
3. Misbah Ul Haq (0.19, 35)
4. SK Raina (0.19, 26)
5. CO Obuya (0.19, 17)

Umar

Read More »from Batting under pressure in T20