About Runs Above Average

Introduction

Runs Above Average measures each player's contribution to the team's final score relative to the contribution made by the average player, given the state of the match in terms of overs bowled, wickets lost, and team runs scored.

Example

For example, an opening batter may score 60 runs off 60 deliveries. While this might seem like a respectable performance, scoring at a run a ball is not a great strike rate in T20 cricket. If the team has lost few wickets, it is likely that this performance would have negative runs above average, which means the average player would have scored at a faster rate given the state of the game. However, had this performance been made in the context of wickets tumbling at the other end, this performance could well have a positive runs above average.

By definition, if a batter achieves positive 5 runs above average off a particular over against a bowler, the bowler who bowled that over had a score of negative 5 runs above average.

Use Cases

 

Runs Above Average allows us to analyze matches in a unique way. Following are some examples:

 

Batting Runs Above Average: Suppose the average score for a team batting first in T20 cricket is 165 and Team A scores 200. It means that Team A scored 35 runs above average. The sum of Runs Above Average for each batter in the team will also equal 35, which means we can measure each batter's contribution to the team's above average score.

 

Bowler Runs Above Average: In the above example, the bowling team (Team B) allowed Team A to score 35 runs above average. The sum of Runs Above Average for each bowler will equal negative 35, which means we can measure each bowler's contribution in allowing the opposition to score 35 runs above average.

 

Player Runs Above Average: There will be many players who bat and bowl in the same match. They will get runs above average for both batting and bowling. We can simply add these numbers together to measure their contribution to the team's performance in the match. The player with the highest sum of batting and bowling runs above average had the most standout performance of the match.

 

Comparing Batters and Bowlers: Runs above average allows us to directly compare batters and bowlers when analyzing who makes the biggest contribution to a team's performance.

 

Career/Season Runs Above Average: Runs above average can be measured over a match, a series, or a career. The average runs above average shows the players' average contribution per match in terms of batting, bowling, or combined as a player for every match where they have contributed as a batter, a bowler, or both. A player with a positive series average runs above average has contributed more to the team's performance over the course of the series compared to the average player. A player with a negative series average runs above average has contributed less to the team's performance over the course of the series compared to the average player.

 

Match Winning Margin: Suppose in a match Team A (batting first) scored 200 runs and Team B in response scored 170. Team A won by 30 runs. The player runs above average for Team A will equal 30 and the player runs above average for Team B will equal negative 30 runs. Therefore, we can see which players on Team A contributed most to the winning margin. Similarly, we can see which players on Team B contributed most (or least) to the losing margin.

Suppose in a match Team A (batting first) scored 160 runs and Team B in response scored 161 with 5 wickets down in 19 overs. Normally the result is expressed as Team B winning by 5 wickets with 6 balls to spare. Runs above average allows us to convert this winning margin into runs, which allows us to compare winning margin performances across a series regardless of whether the win was achieved batting first or second. This can be used as an alternative way of separating teams locked on the same number of points at the end of the league matches.