Who is the greatest match-winner in Tests among current batsmen?

Kumar Sangakkara – The greatest Test batsman of these times

Thus far, we have looked at eight different factors that govern a batsman’s match-winning ability. An easy way of finding out the winner is to add up everything and find out who has the highest total.

But not all eight factors are equal. For instance, Warner has scored a century in 40% of Australia’s Test wins, but his impact in the results has been very low.

It appears, therefore, that the impact a batsman makes in one particular area – as we calculated above – can have a profound influence on the result of a match.

So to find the weighted average match-winning ability of a batsman, let’s first find out the mean of each record and then compute the percentage of deviation.

MOM (%)	7.002%
MOS (%)	9.91%
Difference between avg in wins	16.78%
Top scores in victories (%)	21.11%
Contribution to winning score (%)	3.74%
Centuries resulting in wins (%)	58.01%
Wins in which a century was scored (%)	31.86%
Impact	8.41%

Now, we know the average numbers, so let’s compute the percentage of deviation from the mean value for each batsmen. The percentage of deviation is calculated by dividing a batsman’s record by the mean value and multiplying the answer by 100.

Player	Centuries in wins	Centuries resulting in wins	Diff. in avg in wins	MOM%	MOS%	High contribution	Impact	Top score
Younis Khan (Pak)	127.23	89.16	192.48	116.58	96.09	72.18	248.86	128.03
KC Sangakkara (SL)	114.67	86.19	158.81	175.76	74.73	359.52	185.63	145.76
AB de Villiers (SA)	94.15	123.13	113.88	72.86	112.10	53.41	123.48	123.17
AN Cook (Eng)	93.48	89.38	95.88	62.63	89.02	56.82	122.88	90.71
MJ Clarke (Aus)	87.46	104.66	91.29	91.71	136.34	43.78	69.88	77.66
HM Amla (SA)	85.59	89.94	71.87	104.49	91.72	121.4	63.22	53.83
BB McCullum (NZ)	67.25	0	66.8	75.96	0	0	69.4	67.67
IR Bell (Eng)	104.61	117.53	60.66	0	0	59.35	119.43	94.74
DA Warner (Aus)	125.54	0	48.33	0	0	133.54	-102.8	118.43

*Note that certain players have a 0 deviation, since the concerned record was too low to be reckoned as a sufficient sample space.

Now that we have the percentage of deviation, let’s assign different weights to different records according to their importance, and find the weighted average of the percentages.

Below is the list of records in the descending order of importance to compute the match-winning ability of a batsman. I have allocated a number starting from 8 in the descending order to each record to find out the weightage each record would have in the final value to be calculated.

Record	Index	Weightage
Impact	8	22.2
Contribution	7	19.4
Top Scores	6	16.67
MOS	5	13.89
MOM	4	11.11
Diff. in avg in wins	3	8.33
Centuries resulting in wins	2	5.56
Centuries scored in total wins	1	2.78

Your priority list might vary, and if you want to find out who the greatest match-winner is according to your list, all you need to do is find the product of each record and its weightage and divide by 100. Then add the result for each record to find the weighted average.

So according to my list, here is what I got.

Player	Centuries in wins	Centuries resulting in wins	Diff. in avg (wins)	MOM%	MOS%	High contribution	Impact	Top Score	Weighted Average
KC Sangakkara (SL)	3.18	4.78	13.23	19.53	10.38	69.90	41.25	24.28	186.54
Younis Khan (Pak)	3.53	4.95	16.04	12.95	13.34	14.03	55.3	21.33	141.48
AB de Villiers (SA)	2.61	6.83	9.49	8.09	15.57	10.39	27.44	20.52	100.94
AN Cook (Eng)	2.6	4.97	7.99	6.96	12.36	11.05	27.3	15.11	88.33
HM Amla (SA)	2.38	4.99	5.99	11.61	12.74	23.6	14.05	8.97	84.33
MJ Clarke (Aus)	2.43	5.81	7.61	10.19	18.93	8.51	15.53	12.94	81.95
IR Bell (Eng)	2.91	6.52	5.06	0	0	11.54	26.54	15.78	68.35
BB McCullum (NZ)	1.87	0	5.57	8.44	0	0	15.42	11.27	42.57
DA Warner (Aus)	3.49	0	4.03	0	0	25.96	-22.84	19.73	30.37

Predictably, Sangakkara establishes his status as the greatest match-winner among current batsmen. But what surprises me is Younis Khan’s underrated match-winning ability. The world waxes eloquent about Sangakkara, Amla and De Villiers but the accomplishments of the Pakistani great are not paid much heed.

In a brittle line up, the Pakistani stalwart’s achievements should be cherished. Carrying a team’s batting single-handedly is an enormous task. Many greats have succumbed to the pressure of doing so.

Sangakkara, despite not getting the amount of accolades he merits, has somehow let the world know of his prowess. But Younis Khan still spends his life in limbo. When will the world recognize the Pakistani’s incredible match-winning ability?