Pappus' plane - cricket stats

Samir Chopra asked for a stats post on "mini-orders", and here it is.

A mini-order is defined, for this post, as a block of three players at the same positions in the batting order. So, for instance, you could have Langer-Hayden-Ponting as a mini-order (with positions 1, 2, and 3). Now, I could fill up pages with the various possibilities (123, 345, 456, 567, etc.), but that seems like it might be excessive. So below I've listed the leading mini-orders by runs scored. This is, of course, a list heavily biased towards recent teams.

In the table below, the columns are the number of team innings in which the triple appeared; total runs made in those innings by the batsmen in that mini-order; their average in those innings; the number of runs made in partnerships between those three batsmen in those innings; and the average of those partnerships, adjusted for era and quality of the bowling (relative to an overall average of 31.5). The regular average and partnership average are typically close to each other. The partnership stats are not complete, since I ignore any team innings which look like they involved a retired hurt.

Note that the order is strict — Langer-Hayden-Ponting is considered separately from Hayden-Langer-Ponting. The latter only happened twice, by my count. If you ignore order, then Taylor-Slater-Boon would go into fifth place. Taylor and Slater alternated almost perfectly in which of the two faced the first ball.

pos name1          name2            name3           i   runs  avg   p-runs  adj part avg
123 JL Langer      ML Hayden        RT Ponting      94  15034 60.6  10352   53.8
345 RS Dravid      SR Tendulkar     SC Ganguly      78  11319 55.8  5624    49.5
123 CG Greenidge   DL Haynes        RB Richardson   84  9778  43.8  6611    41.5
123 MS Atapattu    ST Jayasuriya    KC Sangakkara   58  7352  46.5  4807    35.2
456 SR Tendulkar   SC Ganguly       VVS Laxman      54  6742  49.9  2806    53.0
345 JL Langer      ME Waugh         SR Waugh        51  6405  47.1  2340    34.9
123 ME Trescothick MP Vaughan       MA Butcher      49  5956  44.8  4132    41.8
456 ME Waugh       SR Waugh         RT Ponting      43  5466  48.4  2343    54.2
456 PA de Silva    A Ranatunga      HP Tillakaratne 43  4688  40.1  2033    38.2
345 JH Kallis      DJ Cullinan      WJ Cronje       37  4412  43.7  2190    37.6
345 RR Sarwan      BC Lara          S Chanderpaul   35  4281  42.8  1560    40.3
123 SM Gavaskar    CPS Chauhan      DB Vengsarkar   35  4038  40.4  2555    41.3
456 DJ Cullinan    WJ Cronje        JN Rhodes       33  3999  46.0  1678    39.8
345 KC Sangakkara  DPMD Jayawardene TT Samaraweera  32  3992  45.4  1464    30.7
345 HM Amla        JH Kallis        AG Prince       29  3951  52.0  2209    46.4
123 CG Greenidge   DL Haynes        IVA Richards    32  3813  42.8  2990    47.2
345 Younis Khan    Inzamam-ul-Haq   Yousuf Youhana  25  3772  54.7  1778    48.5
123 L Hutton       C Washbrook      WJ Edrich       28  3729  49.7  2407    47.8
345 AP Gurusinha   PA de Silva      A Ranatunga     33  3721  42.8  2081    50.1
123 GR Marsh       MA Taylor        DC Boon         30  3675  43.2  2779    44.3
345 Younis Khan    Yousuf Youhana   Inzamam-ul-Haq  21  3600  66.7  1766    77.0

The constancy of the Australian batting lineup in recent years is well-known, of course, so it's perhaps no surprise to see that the Langer-Hayden-Ponting trio has appeared in more innings in that order than any other. Even allowing for the high scoring these days, they come out easily better than Greenidge-Haynes-Richardson.

Leading mini-order at each position by adjusted average of the batsmen, qualification 10 innings:
123: Woodfull-Ponsford-Bradman, 13 innings, avg 81.7, adj avg 75.4
345: Bradman-Kippax-McCabe, 12 innings, avg 78.8, adj avg 71.7
456: Hussey-Clarke-Symonds, 16 innings, avg 64.3, adj avg 57.8
567: Clarke-Symonds-Gilchrist, 11 innings, avg 53.1, adj avg 48.6

A very Australian affair.