Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

There are lies, bloody lies and Statistics. And then there is Sports Statistics!

A hard-nosed sports fan will love to buttress his arguments with stats just to prove his idol is the best of all.

But stats, in spite of all its wide acceptance and its uses, can never be the judge of the greatest of them all, be it in any sport, and certainly, I feel, in no way be the fairest comparison of athletes over eras! 

Not surprisingly, I was intrigued by The Hindu’s statistical conclusion about the Best batsmen of them all, spanning eras. Crunching mere numbers can certainly produce a result, but it will be just exercise to induce an argument. (See how I have been sucked in).

Sports is alway evolving. To  compare the athletes of the 60s with the present day one is fraught with danger. The training methods, the diets, the very nature of looking at the sport and all that cannot be summed up in stats.

And cricket too is as evolving as ever. Then how come one can crunch the numbers to announce someone is the best.?

Was it not in the early days of the One Day Internationals, when we were often told 200 runs was a psychological mark! Now teams regularly plunder 300 and yet end up on the losing side.

The playing conditions, the rules, the equipment, the mental training and the use of vastly advancing technology to help the players go a long way in their  game. Why, even the very reason, the thought process and the will to play too has gone through a  transformation. Not to speak of the changing playing conditions across various eras. (Climate-change activists can weigh in here!) Will any numbers reflect that?

The statistician can, of course, use  artificial intelligence to develop a model to reflect all that and yet all it will remain is a numerical case for argument. For excellence over a period of time depends on far more variables than can be encapsulated. Maybe statistical comparisons can add a rider, like in those car ads highlighting its mileage saying under test ride conditions.

I guess I am an outlier when it comes to sports fans. For I have a lot of favourites, but certainly no greatest of them all. And the chance that I pick one based on numbers is as low as a statistician willing to drop his numbers.