Win Factor: Either score 280, or bowl Pakistan out for 200

One of the maddening things about this series, from the point of view of a statistician or notation expert, is that stats don’t help in...

One of the maddening things about this series, from the point of view of a statistician or notation expert, is that stats don’t help in making predictions unless players conform — in some manner — to type. When they don’t, as in this series, forget the betting, all predictions can go for a six.

However, it’s best to focus, as the teams should, on the job at hand. And so we look at the Win Factor — which, simply put, is the average sum of all games won, sub-divided into first and second innings and further broken up into phases for easier comprehension.

This analysis (see box) takes into the account only the 32 games India have played from the 2003 World Cup till the beginning of the ongoing series, and the 38 Pakistan have played in the same period.

What we find is this:

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• When India bowl first and chase to win the match, the average total they chase down is 199. Which could mean that the Indians — traditionally poor chasers — have an easier time of it when the target is around 200. For Pakistan, though, this bar is raised to 221, meaning they manage to chase down comparatively higher targets at times.

• When India win after batting first, their average total is 280. For Pakistan, the same is set at 268, which is because of the well-known fact that Pakistan’s bowling is better, they can defend a smaller total.

• The other thing that coaches across the world use to determine what level they need to play at is the combination of three indices — average, runs/over and balls/wicket, broken up into the three regular phases: 0-15, 16-35 and 36 to 50 overs. Overall, when bowling first, India concede an average of 24.37 (total/wkts) to Pakistan’s 27.70, and when bowling second, they concede 18.96 to 21.20.

Then what does this serve to predict for the match at Lahore today? Well, nothing. And everything. Stats, as I’ve already said, may not be the best indicator but these figures explain what the two teams have done in recent times and what they are capable of, and that has to be our best yardstick to go by.