Doesn't anyone else find vsssarma's self-designed cricket ratings annoying?

Question

The user named vsssarma says that he "developed a cricket rating system that monitors progress of players and teams, both test matches and ODIs", and refers to it in practically all his answers. Am I the only one who finds it irritating? What is the underlying logic of his ratings system and what is the validity of this logic? How does he account for differences in playing conditions in different parts of the world, playing styles in different eras and all the other variables of cricket? Even if his logic is sound, isn't it self-aggrandisement on his part to keep referring to it all the time, e.g. in the question below?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvAj7vnLJ6iVSRQ0Gafe387sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20080806074552AAJvsmW

Do you think his ratings add an important dimension to Y!A cricket or do you simply ignore his answers when you see them?

Answer 1

i will go with vss, its just his view on things on his calclation so why should it bother you. if you simply don't agree with him then skip his answer and move on. but as far as i've noticed the system he uses gives good LOGICAL answers that hits the mark most of the time.

say arma are you a software engineer. did you make that system by your self ???

Its allways good to have a lot of views rather than going on just one set of ratings.

the best example look at the many ratings on international players how many do correspond to each other, more over they are very confusing!!!!

cheers

Answer 2

this is my ranking

NO 1 INDIA   9989  points

NO 2 AUSTRALIA   9867points

NO 3 PAKISTAN    9789points

OI !!  who gave me thumbs down !  im going to get you for that he! he!

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only joking !!!........but  im ok if Vassama wants to post his stats ,i find them interesting you carry on old chap

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Answer 3

No, i find Vssarma's ratings intresting & nothing wrong.

Answer 4

dont give as much attention to vssss rating.. who cares about his

Answer 5

yes ,it will add some thing new

Answer 6

Marco has beautifully answered. He ignores them as he doesn't like them. But I can assure you that a lot of logic went into these ratings. All matters like playing conditions, times were taken into account. My objective was that a player be identified with a number to indicate his performance so that it becomes easy for comparision.

As for Dean Jones' rating as the best batsman, simply see one thing. How many matches (as percent) that Dean played were lost by his team and how many matches of Sachin did India lose ? Great players contribute greatly to make a difference to their teams and would not tolerate a loss because they dominate. You remember what was the performance of Sachin as Bangladesh was defeating India in the world cup ? Great players will not tolerate defeat !

Further, What was the average per innings of Dean Jones and that of Sachin Tendulkar ? What is the runs per match of each of these players ?

Sachin's greatness is not his 'per match performance'. It is his staying power of playing so many years for his team and his country in all forms of cricket and the personal sacrifices he has done to play for his team. But when a team is entering the field to play a match, it is the 'per match performance' that counts. After retirement, what matters is the career contribution. My system measures both of them in test matches and ODIs separately. It measures batting strength, bowling strength, fielding strength and overall strength of each player and each team. It measures these criteria for every series, every calender year, every year and for the entire career. It has considered every single test match as well as every single ODI that was ever played. Being a mathematically bent individual, I felt the need to develop a system that can identify a player with a number. Now you can forget data such as how many matches he played, how many innings, runs scored, how many runs the others scored relatively, how many balls he bowled, how many runs he conceded, how many wickets he has taken, how many wickets the others had taken by bowling how many balls and conceding how many runs, how many catches a player has taken and how many catches the others had taken, etc. Remember only one number. This is the concept. I worked hundreds of hours on this system. I was the one who prdicted last year that neither India nor Pakistan would go to the top 4 in the world cup. Many of my predictions have come true which you can see for yourself. May be some of them have not because of the very nature of the game.

A lot of people are becoming my fans as you can see. May be some of you have hated these comments also. You have the freedom.

Edit: I have not made up the numbers. I am 53 year old mechanical engineer and use this forum for some chat on cricket which I like to see and talk about and which I have been following since 1969. If someone is interested to know about the system, they can email me and I can explain the rationale.

Answer 7

I respect every user's opinion & I personally mailed & discussed about this rating system with vsssarma & I thought its good that we have unique users in the section to present their different point of view, & I mean- You, me, ..everyone. Every user is special to the section for keeping it interesting with their own understanding of the game :)

Answer 8

Yes, Quite right. He never explains on what basis he is rating players. Some times I find it awkward, to see some players I never expect to be there based on their performance, but manages to find a place on his rating.

I think he goes by stats alone, the number of matches played or position of batting etc are not considered in his rating.

An example

Take a look at his answer to this question.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

this is a list of allrounders

He has put players like Azhar Mahmood, Pat Symcox etc ahead of Lance Klusener.

Chris Cairns, Vinoo Mankad etc are ahead of Kapil Dev.

There is guy called Rumesh (Joseph) Ratnayake, ahead of Klusener, and this is his profile -

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/srilanka...

and this is Kluseners' - http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/southafr...

Paul Strang is ahead of Heath Streak and Ravi Shastri

Wilfred Rhodes finds himself behind Shahid Afridi

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/england/...

Thanks for raising the question. He is misleader. Cricket is not a game where you achieve greatness by statistics alone.

Answer 9

honestly, yes, i dont understand how they work, i think his system rates Dean Jones as the best ODI batsman, yeah the guy was good, but you cant tell me that hes a better ODI player than Tendulkar. truth be told, when i see posts using that points system, i just ignore it, as i said, for the most part i dont understand it

EDIT: just for the record, its not so much that i dont like them, but that i dont understand the system, so when those messages do come up i ignore them, but it doesnt bother me when vss does it, its his system and his opinion, everyone is entitled to one

Answer 10

It's an interesting dimension rather than an important one. It doesn't really bother me when he posts it to be honest as for most of the time I usually ignore it.

There are several things I wonder about though. Why does he thinks his system is such an authoritative method for coming up with the rankings? How are we to know he's not making them up? What makes it different from all the others? He doesn't really account for how the system works at all, or how he came up with it (does he even say what program he used other than a mathematical computer?). Or on what basis is he rating the players. How accurate/valid is it? What's the margin of error for it? How does he account for the different conditions round the world? What about different eras? Surely you can't logically put players of the past with players of the present as it was a totally different game back then, not to mention that they were playing on different pitches and playing more cricket. Even with the explanation he's posted he still doesn't really explain anything.

I'd be more inclined to pay more attention to it if he could account for all of these things. But like I said, it doesn't really bother me.

Answer 11

Dear Bhai mian,

On the whole this has turned out to be an interesting question, and my answer may have very little to do with Mr Vssarma, but, rather on the logical underpinnings of your question.

Yes indeed I have wondered about Mr VSSSarma's cricket rating. I have thought about asking the gentleman for the logic behind his numbers.

However, I have not found his rating system irritating. Of course if all of us get to know Mr VSSSarma's  logic then it will be more understandable from the scientific point of view.

Q. What is the underlying logic of his ratings system and what is the validity of this logic?

A. I dont know. But simple rating can be based on performance metrics. These metrices are used not only in sports but in many other disciplines where user efficiency is measured. My best guess would be that his rating (including many others) are based on these premises.

Q. How does he account for differences in playing conditions in different parts of the world, playing styles in different eras and all the other variables of cricket?

A. This is a good question indeed. This is no simple matter like the rating system. Usually such comparisons can be made based upon  methods, rules, and postulates in the discipline of forecasting.

A simple example would be non-parametric multifactorial regression. It is non-parametric because the indices cannot be assigned a ratio scale. Basically performance metrices would serve as the different "independent-variables"...the performance of a person (as the "dependent variable") at a different era then can be guessed by changes in these variables . This is as you can well imagine, not a simple task. However, to a person with sufficient knowledge of the probability theory it could be a good pass-time. As the saying goes "different strokes for different folks".

This is my guess but he may use some other techinque.

Q. Even if his logic is sound, isn't it self-aggrandisement on his part to keep referring to it all the time, e.g. in the question below?

A. Bhai mian, that is fine by me, I dont mind. Frankly, worse has been said in this forum. If his logic is sound,  I would like to examine it carefully and ponder upon it,.. if possible , as also congratulate him once I am convinced.

Q. Do you think his ratings add an important dimension to Y!A cricket or do you simply ignore his answers when you see them?

A. Well, here again, once we are convinced that his rating is good then yes it will add an important dimension to YA cricket. Bhai mian, the problem is sometimes we dont know what is going on so there can be some amount of reticence in that context.

Do I ignore? Well, no I dont. I usually measure his answer to my intrinsic rating system (which is based on my beliefs and rarely some statistics), and that is how I judge his answers. If they measure okay by my intrinsic rating system, it is okay. However, if there are counter-arguments then I pay close heed to them , just in case my beliefs are wrong. See often my beliefs can be wrong, for example recently I thought that England really low down in the test ranking, however, I stood corrected whilst checking the stats.

Importantly, now if the stats were based on say 1 years performance (I believe) then England would perhaps be quite low in ranking.

Thank you

Rehman of Multan

Answer 12

Remember, there are lies, d**n lies and statistics. It can also be construed that if a person is unable to logically provide a logical, coherent argument, then  the next step is to try to blind everyone with statistics, and hope that this works.

Answer 13

some things can be judged best by gutt feelings and not by ratings , which appear, points can be dodgy as wrong inputs can lead to wrong outputs!

hence i consider the ratings NULL and VOID and consider my gutt feelings based on factors established in my mind as the best judge to evaluate anything!

hope this helps!

god bless!

Answer 14

First of all Thanks to the questioner & to Ben for advertising my questions.

Now i just have to say, that its pretty rude of you, to try and publicly trash Vsssarma and his system for everyone to see. If you had a problem with the system you should have either emailed him about it, or asked others (via email) what they thought about the system.

To clear something up, the reason i gave the best answer to vsssarma in Ben's question is because, he stated the reason why he thought Pollock was the not the in the same league as Botham, he then backed his arguement up with statistics and then he used his system as more evidence.

Now i have to say that i am not the biggest fan of the system. Sometimes facts dont tell the whole truth. vsssarma used his system to prove to me that Sidebottom doesnt deserve to be dropped. Now even though the system showed Sidebottom has been England's 2nd best bowler this year, what it didnt show was the Sidebottom had taken his wickets in swinging conditions. Thus making him a 1 trick pony

Anyway the system doesnt bother me, because unlike most people in this forum, vsssarma uses his system to prove statement he has made. Most people in this forum just say a blind statement and have no facts to prove it.

I dont fully understand the system, but he i dont mind, if he keeps using it

Answer 15

Every cricket critic is entitled to their own views and calculations ,..

so theres nothing to worry about~