Relative merits, great South African Test bowlers

Dale Steyn's pretty damn good. And for a guy who I remember as really fast but didn't trouble Australia as much as his counterparts, Allan Donald fares especially well. As usual, qualifier is 200 Test wickets.

Relative merits, great Indian Test bowlers

As per the last three posts, this chart plots the relative effectiveness of the Indian bowlers to take 200 Test wickets. The size of the circle is their comparative wickets-per-innings (i.e. the larger the circle, the more average wickets the bowlers claims per innings).

The comparison between legspinners Chandrasekhar and Kumble is striking, while when choosing one of Bishen Bedi and Harbhajan Singh (personally, I'd opt for Erapalli Prasanna, who missed the cut by 11 wickets), one must decide on whether to value attack (Harbhajan) or defence (Bedi). The strike rates and averages are comparatively higher from the other charts in this series, which is presumably a reflection on low, slow subcontinental pitches.

Relative merits, great Australian Test bowlers

Following on from our chart yesterday, here's one about Australia. It effectively demonstrates the quality of Dennis Lillee and Glenn McGrath as world-beaters while also establishing Mitchell Johnson as the wicket-taking phenom he has been over the past two years.

Given the different era in which he played, Ray Lindwall fared very well while the dearly departed Richie Benaud's (a strike-rate nearly 10% worse than any other Aussie bowler to take 200 wickets) perhaps comes out worst, despite his outstanding record.

Not quite an infographic, but...

This is a spreadsheet visualisation that I just enjoy looking at. It tracks the performance of every English Football League club during the Premier League era. It gives a real feel for the cyclical nature of English football and allows for easy tracking of precipitous ascents (c.f. Hull City, circa 2004-08), descents (Luton Town, 2007-09) and deaths (marked with an X).

Numbers in bold face indicate the highest position a club has reached - if there are several, the latest is highlighted. Those figures in italics represent a club's league nadir.

For more easy-to-follow data like this, visit the Room of Informational Illusions.

Shaun Marsh - Ducks and Tons

It has come to some people’s attention that Shaun Marsh has an unenviable record in Test cricket.

Should Shane Watson re-enter the Australian team for the third Test at Cape Town at his expense, Marsh will have one foot in each of two curious history books. Were he never to play another Test – an eminently possible proposition – he would join such luminaries as Barry Richards*, Clive Radley and Tom Moody to have scored two tons in less fifteen or fewer innings. (*No one doubts Richards would have played many more innings and scored many more hundreds had South Africa been able to play Test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s).

Less appealingly, Marsh also be the star feature in another tome detailing batsmen with the highest percentage of failed innings.

On a good day, Shaun Marsh is splendid to watch. On bad days – of which there are far more – you barely get a look at him. This is because for any Test batsman (i.e. not specialist wicketkeeper or bowler) who has played at least 15 innings, Marsh has the highest rate of ducks per innings. He records one zero every 2.5 times he strolls to the crease (40%), a truly remarkable rate that makes him a true outlier. The only other true batsman with at least 15 innings’ experience to record even one duck in every four innings is the immortal Saleem Elahi, who made six gozzers in twenty-four.

The following is a chart that plots the frequency of a player’s ducks against the frequency of their scores above 50. To qualify, a player must have been selected as a batsman or all-rounder, played a minimum of fifteen Test innings and had a duck frequency rate (DFR) over 10% (i.e. one duck every ten innings).

Notable outliers have been named and highlighted.

A table containing these players can be found at the conclusion of this post. 

Graphic: English Premier League promotion survival rates, 2013-14

(c) Balanced Sports

The graphic above details the prospects of each team that has been promoted to the English Premiership since its institution in 1992-93. Blue indicates the number of years spent in the top flight after a club's initial promotion, green the number of years after a consequent promotion and red indicates a year spent outside the top division.

Just how good has Mitchell Johnson been?

That good.

Not only has Johnson lowered all the three key bowling stats since his last Test bow in last year's ill-fated tour to India, but he has (mostly) done so by an astonishing margin. For a player with 50 Tests' experience to lower his bowling average by a full 11% and Strike Rate by 10% is, well, almost unprecedented.

Visualised EPL player offensive/defensive contributions

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This chart tracks individual players' contribution to team offense and defense across the Premier League season so far. In so doing, it tracks how regularly their teams score a goal while an individual is on the pitch, versus how regularly they concede,  normalised to ninety-minute matches.

In essence, it asks "If every player in this sample played 90 minutes, how often would their teams score and/or concede". It allows us some insight into the individual contributions (or maybe just luck) that each player brings their team. Each team was chosen to ostensibly represent a portion of the table - reigning Champions, Champions League contenders, two from the mid-table and one promoted club.

Team performances are listed for comparative reference.

To qualify, a player must have played a minimum of 600 minutes (of a possible 2160 so far) - hence the absence of notables Shinji Kagawa, Juan Mata, Javier Hernandez, Lewis Holtby, Etienne Capoue and Sandro. Four players from the sample have played every minute of Premiership football this term - Brad Guzan of Villa, Steve Caulker of Cardiff City, United's David De Gea and Michael Dawson at Spurs.

With that said, there are some easy conclusions to draw: first, Emanuel Adebayor may be the most influential offensive player in this sample - Spurs score nearly 0.7 goals more per game when he plays than when he doesn't. Some of this, however, must be down to Tim Sherwood's tactically adventurous spell as manager. That Spurs concede far more frequently while Ade is on the pitch (nearly half a goal more per game) suggests this may have more to do with Sherwood than Adebayor.

A player who actually played for both Villas-Boas and Sherwood - and is thus more representative of Spurs' season as a whole - is Romania captain Vlad Chiriches, whose presence corresponds to an increase in the Whites' productivity by 0.4 goals per game while reducing defensive leaks by half that amount.

Manchester's darling, Adnan Januzaj, is perhaps a greater example of the tactical nuke. While Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney (and latterly Juan Mata) get most of the publicity, Januzaj boosts United's goalscoring by nearly half a goal a game without sacrificing defensive stolidity. van Persie's presence, on a per-minute basis, sees the Red Devils actually scoring less often.

While the numbers claim that Don Cowie is this sample's most ineffective player, this might be somewhat misleading - we can still claim unluckiness. The cluster of Bluebirds (no, shan't say Dragons) in the top left hand corner are superseded by the Scot, who sees the Welsh team concede nearly half a goal more during his matches as when he doesn't play. This may also correspond to his stint in the first team, which occurred just prior to the firing of former manager Malky Mackay.

Further quick grabs: Artur Boruc is super-important and Victor Wanyama is channelling some 2011-style Cheick Tiote stuff for Southampton; Danny Rose seems to be the best left-back option at Spurs; Rio, Rio, Rio - it was nice while it lasted; Andros Townsend's drop from superstar to irrelevance is now nearing completion.

How much impact do individual players have on their team's performances?

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The chart above details something of the relative contribution made by individual English Premiership players to their team performances: it maps the amount of goals scored and conceded per ninety minutes with each player on the field this season.  In effect, this chart mimics the plus/minus stat used in hockey*, adjusted for time spent on the field.

The sample size is relatively small – teams from five teams were included, one from each of five categories: last year’s champions, Manchester United, a top-four contender in Tottenham Hotspur, two suspiciously mid-table teams in Aston Villa and Southampton and promoted Cardiff City. 

A player’s contribution can be surmised from how far he is from a large cluster of teammates – these represent the players a manager thinks of as the core of his team.  Examples are easily found in the defensive units of Spurs, Villa, Southampton and Cardiff. 

The spread also represents the amount of squad rotation favoured by certain managers – the northwest regions of the graphic indicate Manchester United have a core that manager David Moyes is currently coming to grips with simply by virtue of the player spread.  Southampton, however, are far more congested.

We can see that the player who represents the greatest forward boon to his side is Wayne Rooney, who after a slow start, has made a startling return to form at Old Trafford.  While it’s no surprise given his team’s relative miserliness, Nathaniel Clyne of Southampton seems to have proven the difference between the Saints scoring or not.

(This ongoing project began as an attempt to keep plus minus records for individual Premier League players; you can find the results here: so far, the player with the worst plus/minus ratio is Kim Bo Kyung of Cardiff City followed by Ashley Young of Manchester United; the player from the five teams selected with the best plus/minus stat is again Nathaniel Clyne).

Graphic: Transfer window MADNESS!!

The summer transfer window really is quite long.  Like, over 90 days long.  

But clubs still tend to make purchases late.  For some, like Arsenal, this was an absolute gift because Mesut Özil is better than others the club may have bought earlier.  However for other slackers - stand up, Ed Woodward and David Moyes - the laissez-faire posture displayed over the warmer months left them £4 million out of pocket and the proud owners of the gangliest gangler who ever did gangle.

The graph below charts British player movement by date.  Over the course of the 2013 offseason, there were 156 paid (or undisclosed) transfers and 182 loan deals, while 125 players moved clubs for no fee.  Most activity occurred at months' end - particularly July (when standard contracts expire) and August (when the movement window expires).  

A typical day in the transfer window saw five transactions (or, about 1% of the total) with the busiest days other than Deadline day recording seventeen moves.  On the final day of the movement window, 12% of all paid/undisclosed transfers were finalized, as were nearly 19% of all loan deals.  This number is half that of the end of the Winter transfer window, when nearly 24% of 284 all deals were completed on January 31.

Jim White loves it.

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Graphic: Manchester United's best defence

Click to expand

The chart above details how well each of Manchester United's key defenders perform as part of a three-man unit.  These units - goalkeeper plus two centre-backs - were tracked for minutes played together, goals conceded and goals scored over the season so far.

Should a player be farther right on the X-axis, United scores goals more regularly (per 90 minutes) while he is on the field; the Y-axis indicates how regularly they concede while that player is in a key defensive position.

While sample size for some players is small - Michael Carrick has a total of 360 minutes at centre-back this season, Scott Wootton 281, Phil Jones and Michael Keane nominally 180 each - their positions above represent not so much a change in defensive efficiency but in United's tactics.

United is blessed with five players with whom they can be comfortable at the heart of defence, but problems emerge when they employ their sixth choice.  That guy, Carrick, is a central midfielder and part of a three-man central defensive unit concedes a relatively high average of 1.5 goals per 90 minutes - no matter who his partners have been.  What makes this worse is United feel the need to cover more for him and drop drop midfielders back to cover, creating a double-edged sword in which they concede more and score fewer.

Also noticeable is that Nemanja Vidic's presence almost automatically means United are entering a game with a more defensive mindset.  The Serbian's figures correspond to a significant reduction in both goals allowed and scored per 90 minutes - highlighting a change in Ferguson's tactical outlook.

Graphic: EPL best buys of 2012-13

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The above chart hints at just how much English Premier League clubs are prepared to pay for good attackers.  Any forward (ie. wingers and strikers) who arrived at an English club during the Summer transfer window of 2012 has been included and the cost of his acquisition plotted against the number of goals for which he has been directly responsible.

When transfer fees were not disclosed, best estimates were taken from reputable online sources such as transfermarkt.co.uk and several online newspapers (chiefly the Guardian, Mirror and Independent).

Unsurprisingly for a Golden Boot contender - and discounting QPR's Andy Johnson, who has managed only two games this term - Robin van Persie leads last season's acquisitions, averaging nearly a goal created/scored per game.  His price tag however means that he doesn't provide as much bang-for-buck as the likes of Villa's Christian Benteke, Wigan's Arouna Kone or Michu.  Were it not for any of this trio (or indeed Fulham's depreciated Dimitar Berbatov), all three clubs might be struggling at the foot of the table.

This year's flop crop includes Manchester City new boy Scott Sinclair, injured Liverpudlian Fabio Borini and, most surprisingly, the fleet of foot and extremely impressive Oscar.  Obviously this analysis takes into account only part of one season and measures only discrete measurable events - part of Benteke's success hasn't so much been his scoring but the fact his leadup play has created space that Andreas Weimann and Gaby Agbonlahor have used to get open and score.

Interpreting value from afar is always a risky business: from the stats above, it would seem that Oscar has yet to repay Chelsea's investment.  However, in concert with Juan Mata and Eden Hazard, the Brazilian maestro seems likely to torture Premiership defenders for years.  Blues' fans and administrators alike should have no doubts about their potential ROI.

Graphic: Four-year EPL efficiency

This efficiency study tracks how effective each English Premier League team has been since 2009-10.  It does so by mapping a team's offensive efficiency (measured in shots per goal scored) against their defensive resilience (measured in shots faced per goal conceded).  Data is updated to 22nd February 2012 and so includes Liverpool's recent 5-0 win over Swansea City.

The axes cross at "league average" positions, meaning the graph is divided into relatively even quadrants.

As one would expect, twinn'd Manchester clubs appear to have the greatest cumulative combination of offense and defence, Chelsea's numbers lessened by a misfiring striker and ill-fated flirtations with seductive foreign managers (their 2010 season was probably the most efficient EPL club season in recent history).

Click on the graphic to enlarge.

(c) Balanced Sports

As always, thanks to Ben Mayhew at Experimental 3-6-1 for the idea, sourced over a year ago.

Graphic: Winter transfer activity by date

There's a reason that Transfer Deadline day in European football is such an event - it completely dwarfs the number of deals done throughout the rest of the window.  In fact, 284 players bowled up at new clubs across England's four-tier league system during the monthlong transfer window; nearly a quarter of those deals went down on January 31.

The following chart tracks transfer activity by date throughout the Winter Transfer window, from it's December leadup to flurried conclusion last Thursday.  To qualify, a "transfer" must have been full and permanent and the price either listed, or announced by a club as being "undisclosed", a term which could mean the purchasers were ashamed at the fee paid or that the selling club's patriarch wouldn't mind a nice chunk of any incoming cash.

As always, feel free to click the image to make it much bigger and more easily readable.

Although some might snigger at "eight hours of uninterrupted LIVE deadline day coverage", these figures behove news agencies to keep their men in the field: the sixty-eight player moves signed off on last Thursday was a figure more than three times the next busiest day, and included fresh rumors emerging as late as two hours before the cutoff.

Graphic: European football conversion rates

The following chart displays the efficiency of European football forwards my mapping their conversion rate (goals per shot) against the number of shots per game.

The higher on the Y-axis the forward, the more efficient the player in front of goal; the farther to the right on the X-axis, the more shots they generate.  Only players with four goals or more this season were considered (ie. forwards with a goals/game ratio higher than .364).  Players are colour-coded according to the league in which they play: red for La Liga, orange for the English Premier League, green for the Bundesliga and azure for Serie A.

Finally, a statistical category in which Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo don't lead the pack!

Click to enlarge.

Graphic: The Football League heat map

This is a concept I've been playing around with for the past week.  It's basically a year-by-year standings of the English Football League tree made to look pretty by colour-coding specific finishes.  That is, red represents a league finish in the top 15 of the 92 Football League teams, a year highlighted in orange denotes a club finishing in position 16-30 and so on.

Clubs are arranged according to their average league position over the 20 years - that is, Manchester United are ranked highest because since 1992-93 their average league position (ALP) is 1.6.  Clubs in boldface type are those who competed in the Football League/Premier League in 2011-12.

Graphic: US arena naming rights

The following graphic shows the startling range of companies that have the naming rights for North American major league sports arenas, broken down by company market.  That is, each company is categorised according to its primary industry.

The category "other" includes all companies which sponsored only one arena, eg. Petco Park in San Diego is the only stadium sponsored by a pet service company.  Traditionally named stadia are those whose iconic status is enough to generate income rather than relying upon corporate sponsorship - for example, Candlestick Park or Arrowhead Stadium.  (It is debatable whether multinational sports companies like Fenway Sports Group or the Madison Square Garden corporation in fact "sponsor" their arenas; for this purpose, they are lumped in with "traditionally" named stadia.)

As you can see, Financial Service, banking and mobile telephone companies dominate the naming rights landscape.

The EPL run home "analyzed"

As the Premier League season rampages towards the Manchester derby which will (probably) decide the ultimate route and destination of this season's victory parade, we've got enough data from the season in progress to suggest how results for the rest of the season plays out.  The season is now thirty games old for each club, with the last eight enough to determine who raises the cup this season, which of the upstart clubs finishes with a well-earned chance at European football and which clubs will be facing derbies next season with the likes of MK Dons, Watford or Burnley.

So far, the information that may be the most telling as we enter the season's waning weeks is how each of the teams in the battle to play Champions League football next season got to be where they now are.
The table below includes the five teams currently slated to play continental football next season. It indicates what percentage of available points they have secured against opposition in different parts of the table. For example, Manchester City have played four times against teams currently in the relegation zone and won each encounter. Therefore, they have attained 100% of the points available from those four matches. Chelsea, however, have managed only two wins and a draw from their four encounters with current drop-zone residents – a more sickly 58%.

	Available points achieved by club (%):
Versus teams:	Man United	Man City	Arsenal	Tottenham	Chelsea
In relegation zone	100	100	78	87	58
Are relegation threatened	86	100	52	90	76
In table's bottom half	90	88	64	83	56
“Mid-table”	79	65	71	69	52
In table's top half	69	67	56	42	49
League Top 5	76	83	33	21	29
Total	81	78	64	61	56

For the purposes of this illustration, “Mid-table” includes all teams not currently occupying European slots or in danger of relegation. This means all teams from position 6 – 15 are included, no matter how turgid their play or how daunting their final fixtures appear).  Data correct to Thursday, March 29th.

We can automatically surmise that this season's Premier League has more of a Spanish – or Scottish – appearance to it. The lack competition at the top is galling - and even worse in graphical form (click to enlarge the graph).  While it's expected that clubs lose more points against higher opposition, for a league which champions itself as the most even in Europe, the strength of the Manchester clubs is starkly apparent.

Click to enlarge.

This term displays a major duopoly as the twinn'd Manchester clubs have been markedly more adept at taking points from other so-called “elite” opponents.

 This bodes well for City, in particular, as their April 30^th derby approaches – soon after a trip to Arsenal. Given their record, prior games against mid-table Norwich City and West Brom could provide more hurdlese than their matches against the Red Devils and Gunners. 


Once we depart Manchester, the numbers are just as revealing. Third and fourth positions are the subject of another local rivalry, as despite an ugly start to the season, Arsenal have earned their current tabular position, while Spurs appear a team of bullies. Redknapp's men have extracted only a win and two draws from eight encounters with Top 5 opponents (five points from twenty-four). For Chelsea, these numbers show definitively the poor fit between players and former manager Andre Villas-Boas: last year, Carlo Ancelotti was canned after accumulating more points (by percentage) against every category of opposition.

Cricket lookalikes: Chris Lynn

Doing a bit of research the other day, I happened across the Cricinfo photo of Queensland batsman Chris Lynn.

And the following thought struck me:

EPL: Where the goals come from

"Attacking midfielders" - eg. Samir Nasri or Adel Taarabt - categorized as forwards.

Click image to enlarge.

The table above describes where each team relied upon for scoring in last season's English Premier League.  For example, league Champions Manchester United scored 73.08% of their goals through their forwards - a corps including league-high scorer Dimitar Berbatov, Javier Hernandez and Wayne Rooney.  That they were in the bottom three for goals from midfielders stands testament to the age of last season's key players Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.

It is interesting to note that clubs noted for a passing game - such as Wigan or at times West Brom - were balanced out for goals from midfield by clubs such as Birmingham, who simply didn't have anyone outside central midfielder Craig Gardner on whom they could rely to hit the net with regularity.  It is of course no surprise to see that clubs who required set pieces to score (I'm looking at you Stoke City) had higher rates of goals scored by defenders.  

Given defenders' propensity scoring from corner and free kick situations, we can infer that with the exception of Birmingham, the relegated teams last season had extreme difficulty scoring from set pieces as West Ham managed only 7% of their goals from defenders, while Blackpool bottomed out of the division at just under 5.5%.

A large difference can be seen in the promoted teams.  While Cities Norwich and Swansea both prefer to attack with the ball on the ground, QPR can't ever be mistaken for a team of Xavis.  Manager Neil Warnock's M.O. is to get the ball to Adel Taarabt at all costs, who then attempts to create havoc.  This is displayed in him creating or scoring 47% of all QPR's goals last term.  A simple reason for them being my pick to go down - they, like Charlie Adam and Blackpool last year just don't have enough diversified offensive firepower.