Reaching 50 - Reliability in Men's Test Cricket. Along the x-axis, we see the % of innings that a batter reached 50 and along the y-axis, their total number of innings (min. 5,000 test runs/Bradman excluded as he compresses the scatter graph too greatly).

https://i.redd.it/ml7qpsptslge1.png

created by OkAdvantage6422 on 01/02/2025 at 22:31 UTC

33 upvotes, 8 top-level comments (showing 8)

Comments

Comment by LexiFloof at 02/02/2025 at 02:20 UTC*

25 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Bradman excluded

42 50+ scores in 80 innings for 52.5%. That's as far from Barrington and Hobbs as they are from Hayden, Laxman, Lawry, and the rest of that cluster.

Fair call.

Comment by OkAdvantage6422 at 01/02/2025 at 22:34 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

For an analysis of the most reliable men's test batters of all time head to my blog using the link below. Be sure to leave a comment if you have any thoughts about it. I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

https://jacksurtees1.wixsite.com/rootanalytics/post/the-most-consistent-run-scorers-of-all-time-part-1[1][2]

1: https://jacksurtees1.wixsite.com/rootanalytics/post/the-most-consistent-run-scorers-of-all-time-part-1

2: https://jacksurtees1.wixsite.com/rootanalytics/post/the-most-consistent-run-scorers-of-all-time-part-1

Comment by Emergency-Twist7136 at 02/02/2025 at 04:00 UTC

4 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Reminds me of something I periodically think about. Players that get 50s but rarely go on to a really big score her a lot of criticism, but would you rather have a player who averages 50 and contributes 50 every single innings or one who gets a 200 one innings on a flat track but then three ducks?

Comment by CoolRisk5407 at 02/02/2025 at 02:50 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This does comparison in only one category, i think having runs per innings upon crossing 50 as Y-axis would be more meaningful in this scenario

Comment by bar901 at 02/02/2025 at 03:36 UTC*

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Overall a decent article, but I have a few pieces of feedback.

You start the entire article with this premise:

"Reaching 50 is good.

Objectively, it’s the most basic measurement of a test batter doing well. It’s the first mark that’s typically celebrated and the lowest score we traditionally track."

I mean, that's just not really true? And if it is, it's certainly not self-evident. If you are going to base an entire article around a single premise, you need to make sure that the premise is widely agreed upon and / or inarguable on a surface level or well supported within the article itself. Your premise here has neither of these and I'd honestly argue that innings / 50 is a fairly average and a very basic metric to use. At the very least, it's absolutely not "objectively the most basic measurement" and if you think it is you need to justify that.

If I was going to rewrite the intro it would be something like this:

**"There are many ways to measure the success of a batsman and whether you value the boom-or-bust peaks of big-game players like Ben Stokes & Travis Head over the insane longevity and consistency of players like Tendulkar & Kallis can make for a great debate.***

**However, there is one simple and widely measured stat that, while certainly not perfect, is a decent way to measure batting consistency: the number of 50s scored versus innings played - or more simply, innings per 50+ score.***

**There is no doubt that cricket stats are heavily contextual and of course not all 50s are equally important, however if a player finishes their innings with 50+ runs then there is a good chance they made a genuinely positive contribution to their team's score on the day. With a large enough sample size this can be a basic but fairly interesting way to judge batting consistency."***

I'll be honest, I'm pretty hungover so this was just a quick example of an intro and is far from perfect - the player examples in particular were just the first that came to my head, but I'm talking more about structure than actual content in this case. The idea is to make sure that the premise of your article is either blatantly obvious (e.g, the sky is blue) or supported by evidence. Even if it is an obvious premise, adding examples or providing some context will only make your argument stronger and lead to a more engaging article or post.

Also, I'll be honest, the graphic fucking sucks ahaha - it's just way too busy and somewhat unclear. The point of a graphic in this type of scenario is generally one of two things:

1. Show something interesting or eye-catching that provides clearly presented, easily consumed and interesting data which will then encourage the viewer to read the article and engage with the content.

2. Provide in-depth stats that will add context to the article itself, but likely won't make much sense if you haven't already read the article.

An easy way to look at this would be **"does the graphic provide clear value with no additional context, or does it require the user to read the article for them to easily understand it and get the most out of it."** This is obviously a bit of simplification, but ideally you should be have a clear idea of which side of this scale you are aiming for which then makes it significantly easier to optimise the content based on that goal.

Despite some genuinely interesting data, this graphic falls somewhere between both of these approaches without fully commmiting to either of them. After reading the article the graphic makes sense and the attempts at segmenting the players into groups is a genuinely great & clever way to make the data more engaging, but it's far, far too busy and you either need to simplify the graphic or provide a table type format that supplements the data. One of the key rules of writing these sorts of articles is that you just can't expect people to follow along with your logic and data even if you feel that it's obvious. In this instance I think the data is great but I feel like you're missing an opportunity to really ensure the the graphic has a clear and obvious value-proposition. And the thing is, you've already done the hard work and the data is great, it's just about presentation and deciding exactly what you want the audience to get out of it. I would suggest you either simplify the graphic for instant readability or go all in on a more detailed, in-depth visual and supplement it with additional context.

I know this is somewhat unsolicited advice - although you did ask for any comments- and do feel free to disagree, but as someone who's been published a few times in various (non-cricket, to be clear) magazines etc. I'm really just trying to help out! I had a look at your blog and I saw you've posted a few articles so you're obviously keen on making this work so hopefully there is at least something you can take from this whole essay I've written here ahah. If you did find any of this useful, feel free to shoot me a private message and I'm happy to chat through anything.

Keep up the good work though - the more people adding to our great cricket ecosystem the better!

Comment by Boatster_McBoat at 02/02/2025 at 06:26 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Dougie Fucking Walters, no wonder they loved him so much.

I only caught his very last couple of innings but he had an aura about him

Comment by Relief-Glass at 02/02/2025 at 07:39 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Why innings on Y-axis? Average on y-axis would be more interesting in my opinion.

Comment by prongs1547 at 02/02/2025 at 06:02 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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