Gully Cricket and Silly Stats
If I could remember something very distinctly from my school and college days that is the time I spent playing either cricket or football in the grounds, streets, and terraces. Even now when I cross streets and grounds, I stand and observe people playing for a while with a smile, while cursing the law of aging.
Gully cricket holds a special place in school life for most of us. We remember it so very distinctly not only because those were the happiest times but also because of some of the weird rules it had. Rules and laws so weird and complicated that it will put Christopher Nolan to shame. 2Gs, 3Gs (Grand) were mere runs those days and not scams. In real cricket, there are only ten different ways a batsman can be dismissed, but In gully cricket, there are hundreds. I still remember once getting dismissed because I argued with the umpire who was actually from my very own team. There wasn’t any rule book of sorts but there was always a guy who would remember it all. Most of the cases he used to be the guy who created it. These are not universal rules. These rules change from street to street gully to gully, time to time.
Recently came across this ball by ball IPL dataset for the past 9 seasons. I was in no way interested in finding out the best player, the best buy, the player with the best strike rate etc. I was more interested in finding out players with some stats and some characteristics who will be a perfect find to form a gully cricket team. Let’s use this dataset to compute those stats. Let’s compute all the stats only on players who have played at least 10 IPL matches.
On an average gully cricket team has 4 to 5 players each side. Let’s start by picking a couple of them based on simplest of rules. It is a well-known rule that if a guy hits the ball directly into the houses in the neighbourhood it is considered to be a dismissal. Where ever there is a bunch of kids playing cricket there is always few nosy neighbours living in the neighbourhood who don’t like noise. They come out and shout once in a while asking us to play without making noise. They are the ones who don’t give back the balls that fall into their house making a livelihood for the guy who runs a fancy store on the parallel road. Seeing this someone came up with a brilliant rule to minimise the number of balls being hit into those houses and punishing the batsman if he does so. So hitting the ball directly into the house is the first form of dismissal according to the gully cricket rules and also one of the best.
Drawing a parallel with actual cricket, it can be equated to the rule that when you hit a six you are out.
Let’s parse the IPL data and find players who on average score most runs before hitting a six as once you hit a six you are considered to be out.
Oh! The two lords of the game who believe in elegant shots rather than hard hits tops this list. Tendulkar in gully cricket will average 25+ runs, which will make him the star of the street.
On similar lines let’s pick bowlers who lead in conceding wickets as well as sixes, which according to gully rules is also a wicket.
Imran Tahir tops the list with averaging over 3. One good thing about picking Imran Tahir is he not only takes wicket, he will also run wildly after that which will help in taming the nosy neighbour who comes shouting outside.
One more important characteristic of a gully cricket team is that there is always a player who is so fond of taking a single in the last ball so that he can retain strike the next over. This is the beginning point for all social evils and such people have a special place in hell reserved for them. They also have a place reserved in our team.
According to stats VK has taken most number of last ball singles.
But he has also been a non-striker on so many occasions when the last ball single was taken, so he is not all that bad. So let’s pick only players who have a high ratio of striker vs non-striker singles.
NLTC Perera has taken 3.5 times more singles in the last ball when he was the striker to when he was the non-striker. It is 1.5 Times more than his nearest competitor. Just googled and found out his full name to be Narangoda Liyanaarachchilage Thisara Chirantha Perera. I wish he had a heart as big as his name.
Off to the final player and most important player for our team. He either owns the bat or owns the house in front of which the game gully cricket is played. He is the big boss of any cricket match that is played there. He is the first umpire, second umpire also the third and 4th. Sometimes even the VAR. But he doesn’t necessarily play well. It is very difficult to trace him from data if not for this attribute. There is a law which every gully cricket match abides by, which states that “He who bats first shall not bowl first and Vice versa.” If someone could violate this rules it is none but this boss himself. From they data let’s try to find players who have violated this basic rule. That is batting first when their team is batting and bowling first when their team is bowling.
These are those players. You can’t pick them. They pick you, adopt you, give you snacks between the game, give water at the end of the game and give you memories which you can cherish for a lifetime.
