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Originally Posted by Milo It is all about consistency. This is the true measure of a bowler's worth |
Milo, in trying to simplify the discussion, I think that you might have just provided a further misdirection. Short of extremes (highest, lowest, most, etc) I think that most of the statistics that are applied to cricket should only ever be used as a guide. If you speak to statisticians about cricket, they'll start talking about terms like confidence levels, non-normal distributions, confounding factors and insufficient sample sizes, the bottom line being that you generally can't draw any conclusions with confidence from the limited sets of data that cricket provides (particularly in something as limited as a cricket series).
Watch the statistician with pleasure as you try to explain that each match is played on a (very) different wicket, often against different players, let alone their reaction when you explain the differences between series (or the difference between India's strength home & away!). Median's are just another descriptive tool in this set, better under some conditions, worse under others - two players can have similar median levels, but one can putter along around this mark whilst the other has bad days, but tears the opposition apart on good days, winning a test/series on the back of it.
To get a 'measure' of a players worth, you need to consider many other things, including how he made his runs (circumstances & manner), when and where he made his runs, location, condition of pitch, calibre of opposition, etc, etc. Sorry if this has gone on too much, but its a pet frustration of mine.
Having said all of the above, there are a few exceptions, just look at Bradman…
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