INDIA VS. SOUTH AFRICA - A STATISTICAL PRELUDE

If the two-test curtain raiser held in February 2010 in India was any indicator, then we are in for some pulsating action, come 16^th December. India and South Africa locked horns in that mini series and neither of the teams managed to unlock them. So the 3 test series beginning in two days will be one last chance for the two teams to establish supremacy in the world test arena before the ODI fever catches on from February 2011.

On comparing the two teams it is evident that India holds the edge in Batting while South Africa is easily the better bowling outfit. So, many ‘experts’ have already dubbed the series as ‘Indian batting Supremacy vs. S. African Bowling Fury’ which, according to me, is not entirely convincing.

When two teams with exceptionally strong line ups with respect to batting or bowling face each other, it’s not the stronger departments that should be compared but the weaker ones. We all know that South African Bowling attack has the capability of taking twenty wickets on any sort of pitch against any batting line up. Similarly the Indian batting line up, on its day, can put any bowling attack in the world to sword irrespective of rumoured weaknesses and pitch warnings. So the two strengths cancel each other out. What about the South African batting line up and the Indian Bowling line up? In my view, these two departments will decide the whole series. So let us make an independent comparison of the two departments. Fixing the maximum rating points as 60, we shall compare the four Indian bowlers (leave out the bench for now) against the six protean batsmen. Each Batsman will have maximum rating points of 10 while each bowler will have 15. I have tabulated the results after taking into account the performances of the players in the calendar year of 2010.

India			South Africa
Player	PP	Pts (/15)	Player	PP	Pts (/10)
Zaheer	50%	7.5	Smith	78%	7.8
Ishant	33%	4.95	Peterson	50%	5
Sreesanth	20%	3	Amla	78%	7.8
Harbhajan	50%	7.5	Prince	33%	3.3
			Kallis	78%	7.8
			De Villiers	67%	6.7
Total		23			38

*PP is Performance percentage which is calculated with respect to the number of matches that the player has made an impact for his team as a percentage of number of matches played in the year 2010. For example, Zaheer Khan has played 8 tests in 2010 and has made an impact in 4 of them, making his PP 50%.

It is clear from the above table that South Africa is stronger than India when it comes to its weaker department.

Thus, statistics say that South Africa, in accordance to the favourites tag, should win the series.

But Statistics tell only half the story right? Well, let’s wait and watch…