101: Mark Waugh

128 matches. 8029 runs @ 41.81. 20 hundreds. Highest score: 153*

12 years. 5x good. 1x excellent.

The discussion

Those that have never seen Mark Waugh bat have missed out. Sure, the modern era has powerful hitting, 360-degree batters that can seemingly hit any ball anywhere at any stage of the game. But I am telling you, watching Mark Waugh was an experience. A wonderful, painful, frustrating experience.

Mark Waugh was, perhaps, the most stylish batsman of his generation. Predominantly a leg-side player, it was his cover drive that was the most beautiful stroke to watch. It was elegant, like a perfectly turned ankle, or a toned calf, rather than a more traditional example of beauty.

But, like many other gifted athletes, Mark Waugh appeared almost embarrassed by his gifts. Sometimes laconic would look lethargic, casual would look careless. The apocryphal tale goes that Mark Waugh once threw away his wicket when he was on 80-odd because he had a nag (that is a horse) that he wanted to watch. Allegedly it was a first-class match, not an international, but it still adds to the legend of his career.

One of the early activities in the process of compiling the Hall of Fame (in fact, the first thing I did) was to prepare a list of all the players that I thought were likely candidates, without reference to their record and before any further research. Mark Waugh was definitely on that list, somewhere in the 80s from memory.

Then you look at the data. To score 8,000 Test runs, with 20 centuries and 47 half-centuries appears to give him a concrete case for selection. So far so good — 30th in runs scored, 14th in half-centuries, and 42nd in centuries. Mark Waugh is right in the mix as far as his total numbers are concerned.

But when you start to dig a little deeper, some of the shine wears off. Maybe it’s a bit of recency bias, maybe it’s that Mark Waugh is an Australian, and so am I. When you look at the data clinically, in particular the numbers relative to either others in his peer group, or the frequency with which Mark Waugh scored centuries, then other, stronger candidates emerge for the Hall of Fame ahead of Mark Waugh. Waugh’s average, at 41.16, ranks 135th among candidates evaluated for the Hall of Fame, his centuries per 100 innings ranks 129th. Considering fewer than 50 batters have made the list, it goes without saying that those rankings aren’t especially flattering.

The more I explore the Hall of Fame, the more I believe in ‘centuries per 100 innings’ as a measure of how dominant a player was against their peers. I feel that it demonstrates how often a player took charge of a Test match and played a significant innings. It’s not a perfect metric — it doesn’t take into account the gritty 60 on a difficult wicket, or a fighting 45 not out to save a draw. To delve into that level of detail requires looking at the relative scores during each Test, scoring rates, ground and series averages, and a number of other factors. That level of analysis would have me staring at numbers ad nauseum and this list would still be sitting on my laptop or buried in a corner of the cloud gathering digital dust 10 years from now. So I’m subscribing to the argument that sometimes an imperfect measure that you can see quickly is just as effective as a slightly better measure that takes you an inordinate amount to time to compile.

I can picture Binksy’s eyes glazing over at all this stats chat, so back to the topic at hand. What to make of Mark Waugh? I choose to believe that Mark Waugh was a fierce competitor — a world-class fielder and catcher, and a handy medium-pace cum off-spin bowler after a back injury curtailed his reasonable pace. His lack of apparent emotion portrayed not a lack of care or desire to achieve at his best every time he played, but that he was able to control his emotions and demeanour in the white-hot cauldron of Test cricket.

The verdict

Mark Waugh was an exceptional talent, who scored 8,000 Test runs at an average almost 42. But as much as I enjoyed watching Mark Waugh bat, there are just too many batters that have more runs, or a substantially higher average, to include him. Thus, he becomes my batting cut-off for the Hall.

It is a helluva bar to jump.

In one word

Talented

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo

career peak

Source: ESPN CricInfo