Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball measuring the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters, respectively. A statistic (singular is the result of applying a function (statistical Algorithm) to a set of data. Cricket is a bat-and-ball team Sport that originated in England and is now played in more than 100 countries Baseball is a Bat-and-ball Sport played between two teams of nine players each Mike Powell cricketerjpg|thumb|200px| Warwickshire batsman Mike Powell]] A batsman in the sport of Cricket is depending on context Any In Baseball, batting is the act of facing the opposing Pitcher and trying to produce offense for one's team The two statistics are related, in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages^[1]. The term batting average is used as a figure of speech in non-sporting contexts to represent various statistical measures of performance.

Cricket

See also: Cricket statistics

International cricket career batting averages (Jan 2004). Cricket is a Sport that generates a large number of Statistics. Note Bradman's Test average of 99. Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001 often referred to as The Don, was an Australian Cricketer widely 94.

In cricket, a player's batting average is the total number of runs he has scored divided by the number of times he has been out. the Sport of Cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a Batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen (plus In the sport of Cricket, a dismissal occurs when the Batsman is out (also known as the fielding side taking a wicket and/or the batting side Since the number of runs a player scores and how often he gets out are primarily measures of his own playing ability, and largely independent of his team mates, batting average is a good statistic for describing an individual player's skill as a batsman. The number is also simple to interpret intuitively, being approximately the average number of runs the batsman scores per innings. Batting average has been used to gauge cricket players' relative skills since the 18th century.

Most players have career batting averages in the range 5 to 50:

• Between 30 and 50 is typical for specialist batsmen and genuine all-rounders. Mike Powell cricketerjpg|thumb|200px| Warwickshire batsman Mike Powell]] A batsman in the sport of Cricket is depending on context Any An all-rounder is a Cricket player who excels at both batting and bowling. This is also the desirable range for wicket-keepers, though some fall short and make up for it with keeping skill. Cricket wicket keeperjpg|thumb|300px|A wicket-keeper in characteristic position ready to face a delivery Players who can sustain an average above 50 through a career are considered exceptional.
• All-rounders who are in practice more prominent bowlers than batsmen typically average something between 20 and 30. Muralijpg|thumb|250px|right|The world's leading off-spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan sends down a delivery]] A bowler in the Sport of Cricket is usually
• 15 and under is typical for specialist bowlers.

Career records for batting average are usually subject to a minimum qualification of 20 innings played, in order to exclude batsmen who have not played enough games for their skill to be reliably assessed. An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of Sports &ndash most notably Cricket and Baseball during Under this qualification, the highest Test batting average belongs to Australia's Sir Donald Bradman, with 99. Test cricket is the longest form of the Sport of Cricket. It has long been considered the ultimate test of playing ability between cricketing nations The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001 often referred to as The Don, was an Australian Cricketer widely 94. Given that a career batting average over 50 is exceptional, and that only four other players have averages over 60, this is an outstanding statistic. This is a list of Test cricket records; that is record team and individual performances in Test cricket. The fact that Bradman's average is so far above that of any other cricketer has led several statisticians to argue that, statistically at least, he was the greatest sportsman in any sport. ^[2]

Batting averages in One Day International (ODI) cricket tend to be lower than in Test cricket, because of the need to score runs more quickly and take riskier strokes and the lesser emphasis on building a large innings. Note Most of the information here pertains to men's cricket ODI matches are also played in Women's cricket.

Batting averages are affected by the number of not-outs (innings in which the batsman has not been dismissed). For example Phil Tufnell, who was noted for his poor batting [1], has an apparently respectable ODI average of 15 (from 20 games), despite a highest score of only 5* and an overall run total of 15. Philip (Phil Clive Roderick "Tuffers" Tufnell (born April 29, 1966 in Barnet) is a Television personality and former English Note Most of the information here pertains to men's cricket ODI matches are also played in Women's cricket.

A different, and more recently developed, statistic which is also used to gauge the effectiveness of batsmen is the strike rate. Strike rate refers to two different statistics in the Sport of Cricket. It measures a different concept however - how quickly the batsman scores - so it does not supplant the role of batting average. It is used particularly in limited overs matches, where the speed at which a batsman scores is more important than it is in first-class cricket. NightMatchOldTraffordjpg|right|thumb|350px|A night match at Old Trafford.

Leading Test batting averages (retired batsmen)

(Source: Cricinfo Statsguru 1 March 2008)

Rank	Batsman	Tests	Innings	N. Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common O.	Runs	Highest	Ave[3]	Career dates
1	D.G. Bradman	52	80	10	6996	334	99. Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001 often referred to as The Don, was an Australian Cricketer widely 94	1928–1948
2	R.G. Pollock	23	41	4	2256	274	60. Robert Graeme Pollock (born 27 February 1944 in Durban, Natal) was a South African cricketer 97	1963–1970
3	G.A. Headley	22	40	4	2190	270*	60. George Alphonso Headley (May 30 1909 in Panama – November 30 1983 in Kingston, Jamaica) was a West Indian Cricketer He is 83	1930–1954
4	H. Sutcliffe	54	84	9	4555	194	60. Herbert William Sutcliffe (born November 24, 1894, Summerbridge Harrogate, Yorkshire, England; died January 22 73	1924–1935
5	E. Paynter	20	31	5	1540	243	59. Edward Paynter ( 5 November 1901 - 5 February 1979) was an English Cricketer: an attacking batsman and excellent fielder 23	1931–1939
6	K.F. Barrington	82	131	15	6806	256	58. Kenneth Frank Barrington, generally known as Ken or Kenny was an English Cricketer who played for the English Test team and Surrey County Cricket Club. 67	1955–1968
7	E.D. Weekes	48	81	5	4455	207	58. Sir Everton DeCourcey Weekes, KCMG, GCM, OBE (born 26 February, 1925) is a leading former West Indian Cricketer 61	1948–1958
8	W.R. Hammond	85	140	16	7249	336*	58. Walter Reginald "Wally" Hammond (born 19 June 1903 in Dover, Kent, died 1 July 1965 in Kloof KwaZulu-Natal 45	1927–1947
9	G.S. Sobers	93	160	21	8032	365*	57. Sir Garfield St Auburn Sobers, AO (born 28 July 1936 in Bridgetown, Barbados) often known as Garry Sobers (though earlier in his life he preferred 78	1954–1974
10	J.B. Hobbs	61	102	7	5410	211	56. Sir John Berry Hobbs ( 16 December 1882 - 21 December 1963) generally known as Jack Hobbs, played Cricket for Surrey 94	1908–1930

Table shows retired players only, with at least 20 innings completed. * denotes not out.

For more comprehensive statistics, see List of cricket batting averages. This is a list of Test and One Day International cricket Batting averages Career Test average leaders Current as of 16 June 2008

Baseball

See also: List of Major League Baseball batting champions and Baseball statistics

In baseball, the batting average (BA) is defined as the ratio of hits to at bats. The batting championship is awarded to the Major League Baseball player in each of the American League and the National League who has the highest Batting average Statistics play an important role in summarizing Baseball performance and evaluating players in the Sport. In Baseball statistics, a hit (denoted by H) sometimes called a base hit, is credited to a batter when the batter safely reaches In Baseball, an at bat ( AB) or time at bat is used to calculate certain statistics, including Batting average, On base

Henry Chadwick, an English statistician raised on cricket, was an influential figure in the early history of baseball. Henry Chadwick may refer to Henry Chadwick (writer (1824-1908 early baseball writer Henry Chadwick (theologian (1920-2008 England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland In the late 19th century he adapted the concept behind the cricket batting average to devise a similar statistic for baseball. Rather than simply copy cricket's formulation of runs scored divided by outs, he realised that hits divided by at bats would provide a better measure of individual batting ability. In Baseball, a run is scored when a player advances safely around first second and third base and returns safely to Home plate, touching In Baseball, an out occurs when the defensive or fielding, team effects any of a number of different events and the umpire rules a batter This is because of an intrinsic difference between the two sports; scoring runs in cricket is dependent almost only on one's own batting skill, whereas in baseball it is largely dependent on having other good hitters in your team. Chadwick noted that hits are independent of teammates' skills, so used this as the basis for the baseball batting average. His reason for using at bats rather than outs is less obvious, but it leads to the intuitive idea of the batting average being a percentage reflecting how often a batter gets on base, whereas hits divided by outs is not as simple to interpret in real terms.

In modern times, a season batting average higher than . In an organised Sports league, a season is the portion of one Year in which regulated Games of the sport are in session 300 is considered to be excellent, and an average higher than . 400 a nearly unachievable goal. The last player to do so, with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting championship, was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, who hit . Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams ( August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) also nicknamed The Kid, the Splendid Splinter The Boston Red Sox are a Professional baseball team based in Boston Massachusetts, and are the reigning (2007 World Series Champions. 406 in 1941, though the best modern players either threaten to or actually do achieve it occasionally, if only for brief periods of time.

Ty Cobb holds the record for highest career batting average with . Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb (December 18 1886 – July 17 1961 nicknamed " The Georgia Peach," was a baseball player and is regarded by historians 366, 8 points higher than Rogers Hornsby who has the second highest average in history at . Rogers Hornsby ( April 27, 1896 in Winters Texas - January 5, 1963 in Chicago Illinois) nicknamed "The Rajah" 358. Cobb's career batting average record will probably never be broken, since even the best of modern hitters find it difficult to hit higher than . 360 in more than one or two seasons, let alone consistently throughout their entire careers. The record for lowest career batting average for a player with more than 2500 at-bats belongs to Bill Bergen, a catcher who played from 1901 to 1911 and recorded a . William Aloysius "Bill" Bergen (1878-1943 was a Major League Baseball Catcher in the early 20th century 170 average in 3,028 career at-bats. The modern-era record for highest batting average for a season is held by Napoleon Lajoie, who hit . Napoléon "Nap" Lajoie or often la-ZHWAY per the Canadian French pronunciation or as he himself usually pronounced it LAJ-a-wayLee Allen in ''The American League 426 in 1901, the first year of play for the American League. The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League ( AL) is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in The modern-era record for lowest batting average for a player that qualified for the batting title is held by Rob Deer, who hit . Robert George Deer (born September 29, 1960 in Orange California) is a former U 179 in 1991. The highest batting average for a rookie was . For the Walt Disney Pictures film about Jim Morris, see The Rookie (2002 movie. 373, set in 1930 by George Watkins. Champions World Series: Philadelphia Athletics over St Louis Cardinals (4-2 Awards and honors

For non-pitchers, a batting average below . 245 is often considered poor, and one below . 200 is completely unacceptable. This latter level is known as "The Mendoza Line", named either for Mario Mendoza, a stellar defensive shortstop who hit . The Mendoza Line is an informal term used in Baseball for when a position player's Batting average falls below the boundary between extremely poor and merely below-average Mario Mendoza (born December 26, 1950 in Chihuahua Chihuahua, Mexico) is a former Major League Baseball Infielder who 215 during his Major League career, or for Minnie Mendoza, also a shortstop, who was a long-time minor-league player who finally reached the majors briefly in 1970 at the age of 36 and hit . Cristobal Rigoberto Mendoza Carreras (born November 16, 1933) better known as Minnie Mendoza, is a former Major League Baseball infielder and Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 188 in 16 games. The league batting average in Major League Baseball for 2004 was just higher than . Headline events of the year The Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since, ending the Curse of the Bambino. 266, and the all-time league average is between . 260 and . 275.

Sabermetrics, the study of baseball statistics, considers batting average a weak measure of performance because it does not correlate as well as other measures to runs scored, and because it has little predictive value. Sabermetrics is the analysis of Baseball through objective evidence especially Baseball statistics. Batting average does not take into account walks or power, whereas other statistics such as on-base percentage and slugging percentage have been specifically designed to measure such concepts. In Baseball statistics, on-base percentage (OBP (sometimes referred to as on-base average ', as the statistic is rarely presented as a true Percentage) In Baseball statistics, slugging percentage (abbreviated SLG) is a popular measure of the power of a hitter. Adding these statistics together form a player's On-base plus slugging or "OPS". On-base plus slugging (OPS is a baseball statistic calculated as the sum of a player's On-base percentage and Slugging percentage. This is commonly seen as a much better, though not perfect, indicator of a player's overall batting ability as it is a measure of hitting for average, hitting for power and drawing bases on balls. A base on balls ( BB) is credited to a batter and against a pitcher in Baseball statistics when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire

In 1887, Major League Baseball counted bases on balls as hits. Champions World Series Detroit Wolverines 10 St Louis Browns 5 (15 game series National League: Detroit A base on balls ( BB) is credited to a batter and against a pitcher in Baseball statistics when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire In Baseball statistics, a hit (denoted by H) sometimes called a base hit, is credited to a batter when the batter safely reaches The result of this was skyrocketed batting averages, including some near . 500, and the experiment was abandoned the following season.

Qualifications for the batting title

The Major League Baseball batting average championship (often referred to as "the batting title") is awarded annually to the player in each league who has the highest batting average. Ty Cobb holds the MLB (and American League) record for most batting titles, officially winning 11 in his pro career. Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb (December 18 1886 – July 17 1961 nicknamed " The Georgia Peach," was a baseball player and is regarded by historians The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League ( AL) is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in ^[1] The National League record of 8 batting titles is shared by Honus Wagner and Tony Gwynn. The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the National League ( NL) is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball Johannes Peter "Honus" Wagner (ˈhɑnəs ˈwæɡnɚ February 24 1874 &ndash December 6 1955) nicknamed " The Flying Dutchman Anthony Keith Gwynn (born May 9 1960 in Los Angeles California) is a former Right fielder in Major League Baseball, statistically one of the best and Most of Cobb's career and all of Wagner's career took place in what is known as the Dead-Ball Era, which was characterized by higher batting averages and much less power. Gwynn's career took place in the Live-Ball Era.

To determine which players are eligible to win the batting title, the following conditions have been used over the sport’s history. . .

• Pre-1920 – A player had to appear in 60% of his team's games to qualify for the league title.
• 1920-1944 – A player had to appear in 100 games to qualify. The lone exception was 1938: By order of the AL president, Jimmie Foxx (. James Emory "Jimmie" Foxx ( October 22 - July 21) ( nicknamed Double X and The Beast) was an American First 349, in 149 games and 565 at-bats) was awarded the batting title over rookie Taffy Wright (. Taft Shedron "Taffy" Wright ( Tabor City, North Carolina, August 10, 1911 - Orlando Florida, October 22, 350, in 100 games and only 263 at-bats).
• 1945-1956 – A player needed 2. 6 at bats per team game. (With the 154-game schedule of the time, that meant a rounded-off 400 at-bats. ) Note that from 1951–1954, if the player with the highest average in a league failed to meet the minimum at-bat requirement, the remaining at-bats until qualification (for example, 5, if the player finished the season with 395 ABs) were hypothetically considered hitless at-bats; if his recalculated batting average still topped the league, he was awarded the title.
• 1957 to the present – A player has needed 3. 1 plate appearances per team game; thus, players were no longer penalized for walking so frequently or benefited for walking so rarely. (In 1954, for example, Ted Williams batted . Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams ( August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) also nicknamed The Kid, the Splendid Splinter 345 but had only 386 ABs, while topping the AL with 136 walks. Williams thus lost the batting title to Cleveland’s Bobby Avila, who hit . Roberto Francisco "Beto" Ávila González ( April 2, 1924 &ndash October 26, 2004) was a Major League Baseball Second 341 in 555 ABs. ) In the 154-game schedule, the required number of plate appearances was 477, and since the era of the 162-game schedule, the requisite number of PAs has been 502. (Adjustments to this 502 PA figure have been made during strike-shortened seasons, such as 1981 and 1994. )

Also note that from 1967 to the present, if the player with the highest average in a league fails to meet the minimum plate-appearance requirement, the remaining plate appearances until qualification (for example, 5 PA's, if the player finished the season with 497 plate appearances) are hypothetically considered hitless at-bats; if his recalculated batting average still tops the league, he is awarded the title. (This policy was invoked in 1981, securing Bill Madlock his third NL batting crown, and in 1996, when NL titlist Tony Gwynn finished the year with only 498 PAs. Bill Madlock Jr (born January 12, 1951 in Memphis Tennessee) is a former Major League Baseball player Anthony Keith Gwynn (born May 9 1960 in Los Angeles California) is a former Right fielder in Major League Baseball, statistically one of the best and )

The decline of the . 400 hitter

A point of interest to baseball followers is that hitting . 400 was a special and rare feat in the early 20th century. It was accomplished only 13 times between 1900–1941 by 8 players, but has not occurred at all since 1941. Many people have expounded theories on why this is the case.

One theory of particular interest was proposed by biologist and baseball fan Stephen Jay Gould, in his book Full House: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin. Stephen Jay Gould (September 10 1941 &ndash May 20 2002 was a prominent American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science Full House The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin is a book by Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, published in 1996. ^[4] According to Gould, the disappearance of the . 400 batting average does not indicate a decline of baseball skill, but, quite the contrary – an improvement in skill. He suggests that instead of looking at the extreme values (the best and worst hitters), we should be looking at the statistical distribution of the batting average of all hitters. In Probability theory and Statistics, a probability distribution identifies either the probability of each value of an unidentified Random variable If we do this, Gould notes that the league average of batting averages has stayed constant over the last century (mostly due to rules being changed whenever this average started to change), but the variance has been on a continuous decrease, as all major league baseball players have become better and better. In Probability theory and Statistics, the variance of a Random variable, Probability distribution, or sample is one measure of As a result of this decreasing variance, the best and worst batting averages came closer to the league average, and the best batting average dropped below . 400.

Since a batter's batting average isn't determined just by the batter's individual skill (as is the case in, say, track and field records), but rather the batter's success against opposing players, the gap in skills of an at-bat narrowed. In the early 20th century, the variance of baseball player skills was still high, so when the top batters played, they had the opportunity to be opposed by both very good and by mediocre players, and as a result had an opportunity to achieve very high batting averages. As baseball became a more professional "industry", variance in player skill came down, and the best batter found himself opposed by consistently very good players, and as a result was not able to achieve as high a batting average as was possible a century earlier.

It is also important to note that pitching strategies have changed dramatically since the era of the . 400 hitter. Since the 1950s, pitchers have increasingly tried to strike out hitters, rather than get the hitter to put the ball in play. Hitters also more frequently try to hit home runs, which leads to more strikeouts, but in many cases greater offensive production. Also, it is more acceptable to pitch around strong hitters, and to stop throwing strikes after the first two are thrown in a plate appearance, to try to get the hitter to swing at a ball. Lastly, managers now use many more relievers in an average game. This means that hitters see the same pitcher fewer times in a game (losing the advantage of familiarity), and are more likely to face a fresh pitcher, and even a specialist pitcher brought into a game just to get that specific hitter out.

In general, all of these factors either increase strikeout or walk totals, both of which make it much more difficult to achieve a high ratio of hits to at bats, relative to earlier eras of baseball.

Other possible factors are the increase of the number of games played at night (batting average for day games are higher) and the replacement of a number of older "hitter's paradise" ballparks by stadiums of more uniform dimensions.

All-time leaders

Other contexts

Following from usage in cricket and baseball, batting average has come to be used for other statistical measures of performance. The Boston Red Sox are a Professional baseball team based in Boston Massachusetts, and are the reigning (2007 World Series Champions. The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the borough of The Bronx, in New York City, New York. Champions World Series: Boston Braves over Philadelphia Athletics (4-0 Awards and honors Chalmers Champions Major League Baseball World Series: Detroit Tigers over Chicago Cubs (4-2 All-Star Game,

An example is the Internet Archive, which uses the term in ranking downloads. The Internet Archive ( IA) is a Nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining an on-line Library and archive of Web and To download is to receive data from a remote or central system such as a Webserver, FTP server, mail server or other similar systems Its "batting average" indicates the correlation between views of a description page of a downloadable item, and the number of actual downloads of the item. In Probability theory and Statistics, correlation, (often measured as a correlation coefficient) indicates the strength and direction of a linear This avoids the effect of popular downloads by volume swamping potentially more focused and useful downloads, producing an arguably more useful ranking.

References