What makes a cricketer valuable in ODI cricket? If he's a batsman he must score a lot of runs, and score these runs quickly. If he's a bowler he must take a lot of wickets, and concede as few runs as possible. As a fielder he must take every catch that comes his way, help effect run outs and save as many runs as possible. The most valuable cricketer must also possess attributes that are harder to quantify. ‘Grit', 'determination ', 'flair ', 'cool ', 'courage' and all those others qualities that commentators love to eulogize. Let's leave out these ‘hard-to-quantify' variables and attempt a simpler formulation that still seems sensible and interesting. Let's decide that every run scored fetches a point. So if a batsman scores 60, he gets 60 points. Let's agree that every wicket is worth 20 points. So a bowler who takes 3 wickets also gets 60 points. Finally, let's say that every catch taken is worth 5 points. Next, we must give more points to a batsman who scores 60 in 60 balls than someone who scores 60 in 100 balls. We must, likewise, reward a bowler who gets 3-25 more than someone who gets 3-55. How could we do this? The average number of runs scored in ODI cricket is about 225. This is usually scored in 300 balls (50 overs) implying a strike rate of (225/300) x 100 = 75. So we would normally expect a batsman to score 75 runs in 100 balls. If he gets a century in 100 balls, we offer him 100-75 = 25 bonus points. So these 100 runs fetch him a total of 100+25=125 points. By the same argument we expect a batsman to score 45 runs in 60 balls. If he scores 60 runs, he gets 15 bonus points or a total of 60 + 15 = 75 points. It works the other way if you score slowly. A 60 scored in 100 balls, i.e. 15 runs less, would fetch only 60–15 = 45 points. Let's consider the bowler's performance now. The batsman's strike rate (SR) is equated with the bowler's economy rate (ER): in effect, a SR of 75 implies an ER of (75/100) x 6 = 4.5 runs per over.  Thus, if he bowls 10 overs, he's expected to give away only 45 runs. So a bowler with figures of 10-0-25-3 gets 60 points for the 3 wickets and 20 bonus points -- because he gave away 20 runs less than expected. So this performance will fetch the bowler 60+20 = 80 points. If, instead, the bowler has figures of 10-0-55-3, then he gets 60 points for the 3 wickets but loses 55-45 = 10 points for his poor economy to end up with 60-10 = 50 points. Notice, in passing, that negative marks are possible. A batsman scoring 30 in 100 balls (he should actually have scored 75 runs) ends up with 30-45 = -15 points. Similarly, a bowler with figures of  6-0-37-0 also ends up with -10 points (he should have only given away 4.5 x 6 = 27 runs, i.e. 10 runs less). When we worked out this formulation a few weeks ago it looked sufficiently attractive. So we requested the Rediff team to dig into the archives and compile the relevant statistics, over the period January 1st 2001 31st December 2002, for all the 15 x 7 =135 players representing the top nine ODI playing countries. Our analysis was great fun and contained unexpected surprises. Sachin Tendulkar We started with Sachin Tendulkar. During 2001 and 2002, Tendulkar played 37 matches and scored a total of 1645 runs in 1837 balls for a strike rate of 89.55 runs per 100 balls. The average strike rate in a 225-run innings is 75. So Tendulkar earned a bonus of 89.55 - 75.00 = 14.55 for every 100 balls faced. Since he faced a total of 1837 balls, this translated into a total bonus of 14.55 x 1837 = 267.28 points. Tendulkar's total batting points were therefore 1645 + 267.28 = 1912.28. Tendulkar took 7 catches to get 35 fielding points. As a bowler, he took 12 wickets that fetched him 240 points. But his bowling economy rate was poor; he gave away 5.4 runs per over -- instead of the average 4.5 runs -- while bowling his 109 overs and 5 balls. Tendulkar was therefore penalized (5.4-4.5) x 109.83 = 98.85 points. In sum, therefore, Tendulkar's tally after playing 37 matches was 1912.28 + 35 + 240 - 98.85 = 2088.43 points. Tendulkar's average points were therefore 2088.43 / 37 = 56.44. This provides a good indicator of Tendulkar's ‘value' or ‘worth' to his team. Muthiah Muralitharan We next looked next at Muthiah Muralitharan, one of the most successful ODI bowlers during 2001-2002. We found that Murali had played 50 matches, taken 86 wickets, and bowled at an economy rate of 3.15. After a similar calculation (that we won't bother our readers with), we found that Murali's value was 50.62. Jacques Kallis Finally we checked out Jacques Kallis, arguably the best all-rounder in ODI cricket today. In 2001 + 2002 Kallis played 52 matches and scored 2052 runs in 2752 balls, at a strike rate of 74.56. Being a shade below the average 75, Kallis's batting points dropped by a little over 12 to end up with 2039.89. Kallis took 62 wickets but at an economy rate of 4.65, again a little worse than the average of 4.5. So his final bowling points were 1181. He also took 29 catches to earn another 145 points. Kallis finally ended up with a total tally of 3366.29 over 52 matches for a average value of 64.74. Kallis' value was 8 points more than Tendulkar's -- confirming what everyone really knows; that an outstanding all-rounder like Jacques Kallis is priceless in ODI cricket and even more valuable than a Tendulkar or a Muralitharan. Since our values appeared sensible we undertook a similar analysis for all the 135 players from the top nine ODI-playing teams. Our results were extremely revealing, but there was a minor hitch. Certain players like Blackwell and Harmison of England, Blignaut of Zimbabwe or Parthiv Patel of India -- who have so far played too few games for their values to become ‘stable' -- appeared in the top ten. So we decided to consider only those ODI players who have played at least 10 matches for their team in 2001 and 2002. With this correction, we got extremely satisfactory results. The table below lists ODI's Most Valuable Players (MVPs) from the 2003 World Cup squads (there are some truly valuable players -- e.g. the Waugh brothers -- missing from our list) based upon our allround performance index Rank Name Index 1 CH Gayle 67.92 2 JH Kallis 64.74 3 CL Cairns 64.04 4 SR Tendulkar 56.44 5 ST Jayasuriya 53.24 6 Shahid Afridi 51.73 7 M Muralitharan 50.62 8 DS Lehmann 49.68 9 CL Hooper 48.79 10 AC Gilchrist 48.21 11 Salim Elahi 47.88 12 SM Pollock 47.75 13 A Flintoff 47.56 14 V Sehwag 47.53 15 ML Hayden 47.52 16 GW Flower 46.45 17 ME Trescothick 46.07 18 HH Gibbs 45.49 19 RT Ponting 45.37 20 Wasim Akram 45.33 21 SC Ganguly 44.20 22 SE Bond 43.87 23 A Flower 43.65 24 HH Streak 43.57 25 Yousuf Youhana 43.23 26 Abdul Razzaq 42.59 27 SB Styris 41.67 28 RR Sarwan 41.39 29 B Lee 41.35 30 AR Adams 40.56 Rank Name Index 31 NV Knight 39.90 32 GD McGrath 39.90 33 NJ Astle 39.23 34 MN Samuels 39.04 35 L Klusener 38.83 36 JN Gillespie 38.70 37 N Boje 38.65 38 WPUJ Vaas 37.46 39 VC Drakes 37.46 40 G Kirsten 36.93 41 Harbhajan Singh 36.52 42 JN Rhodes 36.45 43 N Hussain 36.43 44 PT Collins 36.23 45 RC Irani 36.06 46 CZ Harris 35.84 47 AA Donald 35.83 48 CD McMillan 35.77 49 AB Agarkar 35.73 50 KD Mills 35.32 51 BC Lara 34.87 52 SK Warne 34.69 53 M Ntini 34.00 54 M Jayawardene 33.57 55 RS Dravid 33.17 56 Shoaib Akhtar 33.16 57 Saeed Anwar 33.00 58 S Chanderpaul 32.99 59 A Symonds 32.88 60 Waqar Younis 32.79 Rank Name Index 61 MS Attapattu 32.63 62 Yuvraj Singh 32.19 63 HH Dippenaar 32.15 64 Zaheer Khan 32.07 65 JDP Oram 31.13 66 RP Arnold 31.06 67 Younis Khan 30.28 68 DA Marillier 29.76 69 RL Powell 29.62 70 CD Collymore 29.57 71 AJ Bichel 29.55 72 M Dillon 29.41 73 PD Collingwood 29.24 74 NAM McLean 29.24 75 PA de Silva 28.73 76 Saqlain Mushtaq 28.70 77 D Mongia 28.57 78 A Gunawardene 28.26 79 Inzamam ul Haq 28.15 80 DR Tuffey 28.02 81 MJ Hoggard 27.64 82 DR Martyn 26.67 83 SP Fleming 26.44 84 MG Bevan 26.41 85 J Srinath 25.93 86 SR Watson 25.86 87 AR Caddick 25.77 88 CRD Fernando 25.20 89 M Kaif 24.69 90 CB Wishart 24.38 Rank Name Index 91 SB Bangar 24.30 92 Mohd Sami 24.26 93 MS Sinclair 24.09 94 AJ Stewart 24.07 95 WW Hinds 23.86 96 DT Hondo 23.45 97 TJ Friend 23.44 98 DL Vettori 23.39 99 TCB Fernando 23.23 100 MV Boucher 22.18 101 KC Sangakkara 21.66 102 Rashid Latif 21.36 103 A Kumble 21.34 104 JP Maher 21.00 105 SM Ervine 20.77 106 A Nehra 20.62 107 AF Giles 20.43 108 PW Gunaratne 20.19 109 RD Jacobs 19.55 110 BA Murphy 19.17 111 MP Vaughan 18.30 112 L Vincent 17.93 113 Azhar Mahmood 17.21 114 HK Olonga 16.55 115 GJ Whittall 16.05 116 DD Ebrahim 14.83 117 RAP Nissanka 13.85 118 BB McCullum 13.16 119 C White 12.94 120 T Taibu 7.99   The biggest surprise was to find Chris Gayle right at the top. He's up there because he scored a lot of runs (1819), scored them at a strike rate of almost 85, took 39 wickets, bowled at an acceptable economy rate (4.86) and also took 22 catches -- and all this in only 42 matches. There are some other easy conclusions: to make it to the top 10, you must ideally be an excellent all-rounder. You can also make it to the top if you are outstanding in one skill and dabble with some success in the others. If you are excellent in only one skill, expect to be only in the next ten or twenty. Finally, if we add up the total (not averaged) player tally country-wise, we get the following aggregate score over the 15-man squad that each country is fielding: 1 South Africa 20395 2 Pakistan 19261 3 Sri Lanka 18714 4 India 18568 5 Australia 16627 6 West Indies 15228 7 New Zealand 14957 8 Zimbabwe 10935 9 England 9390 South Africa are at the top because they have the best collection of all-rounders. Pakistan are second because they have the second best set of all-rounders. Sri Lanka and India have among the most talented individual players. The real surprise is Australia at No. 5. It is easy to see that this is because the Waugh brothers are absent and are being replaced by relatively inexperienced players like Martyn and Maher; together, the Waughs would have contributed at least 3000 points more to the tally -- putting them right at the top! Australia, not to mention World Cup viewers, are going to miss them sorely.

Design: Imran Shaikh