Last year, I had done an analysis of outperforming innings in
ODI matches. This table was dominated by Shahid Afridi. It is very fair that I
do the same for the forgotten species, the bowlers. The ideas are similar. I
determine the RpO values of the bowler and team and determine the ratio between
these two values. This has turned out to be an interesting analysis and led to surprising
conclusions.

First, let me clarify that this cannot be
done based on wickets captured. There are only 10 wickets available and anyone
who has captured 5 or more wickets has outperformed his teammates. Vaas, with 8
wickets, would have outperformed his fellow bowlers by a factor of 4. It would
be silly for me to analyze this.

So I would do this analysis based on the
RpO (Runs per Over) values which show wide variations and there is no limit to
the numbers, either way.

I have selected 4 overs as the minimum for
inclusion. This is based on the fact that a typical opening spell could be 4
overs long