The Gambhir Factor

This article has been published here.

India's march towards the top of the heap in the Test tables started in October 2008, which was when Australia toured India for a four-Test series. From the start of that series, till now, India has not lost a single Test match. They have played 14 Test matches starting from then, across three countries and two continents, and have not lost a single one since.

India's top seven batsmen in the batting line-up have not changed much since the start of that journey. Sourav Ganguly retired after the Australia series, and hence figured in the first four Test matches, but with Yuvraj Singh replacing him, the line-up of Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Yuvraj and Dhoni has remained more or less constant - barring injuries, suspensions etc.

With batting being India's stronger suit by far, it has often been the weight of the runs the batsmen have scored in this period that has either set up wins or prevented defeats. Here is a look at how the top seven performed since October 2008:

Player	Matches	Innings	Not Outs	Runs	Average	Highest	100s	50s
Gautam Gambhir	12	23	2	1758	83.71	206	8	5
Virender Sehwag	14	25	1	1244	51.83	293	2	7
Rahul Dravid	14	24	2	1149	52.23	177	4	6
Sachin Tendulkar	14	24	4	1357	67.85	160	6	5
VVS Laxman	13	22	6	993	62.06	200*	2	8
Yuvraj Singh	10	14	2	532	44.33	86	0	5
MS Dhoni	12	16	3	847	65.15	110	2	8

Gautam Gambhir clearly dominates the table. He has missed two matches - one due to a suspension when he was provoked into elbowing Shane Watson, and one to attend his sister's marriage - but he still leads the charts in runs scored, average and number of centuries. The others have contributed no doubt, but nobody's contribution has matched the strength and consistency of Gambhir's. Tendulkar has been solid throughout, but has lacked a big innings. Dravid has seen ups and downs - the last of his wretched form was in the first four Tests in this period, after which he re-emerged as the old Dravid. Sehwag has blasted the bowling, but has also self-destructed at some key moments. Laxman has been contributing quietly, but has lacked a match-winning effort (that may be partly due to the position he bats in), while Dhoni has not batted enough, and Yuvraj has not scored enough. Only Gambhir has had all the check-boxes ticked against his name: he has dug in to play a long match-saving innings, he has not endured a single spell of poor form, he has scored match-winning innings, he has always put a premium price on his wicket, and he has scored runs by the buckets against every opposition and in every condition that India have played in during this time period.

Further analysis, demonstrates Gambhir's consistency better. Here is a look at how the top seven have performed in matches that India have won and matches that India have drawn:

Player	Matches	Total Runs	Runs in Wins	Average in Wins	Runs in Draws	Average in Draws
Gautam Gambhir	12	1758	732	81.33	1026	85.50
Virender Sehwag	14	1244	976	81.33	268	22.33
Rahul Dravid	14	1149	480	48.00	669	55.75
Sachin Tendulkar	14	1357	876	97.33	481	43.72
VVS Laxman	13	993	361	40.11	632	90.28
Yuvraj Singh	10	532	248	41.33	284	47.33
MS Dhoni	12	847	564	80.57	283	47.16

Again, only Gambhir has demonstrated outstanding excellence in both won matches as well as drawn matches. Sehwag has been outstanding in wins and pedestrian in draws; Dravid has been solid in both without being outstanding in either; Tendulkar has shone like no other in victories, but has been middling in draws, while the opposite is true for Laxman. Yuvraj and Dhoni have once again not scored enough and batted enough.

Gambhir has revelled in all situations, whether under pressure or free of it, whether setting up a match or finishing it, whether chasing a large target or digging in. The table below illustrates the performance of the top seven in the first Team innings (which comprise the 1st and 2nd innings of the match, depending on when India batted) and the second Team innings (which comprise the 3rd and 4th innings of the match, again depending on when India batted).

Player	Matches	Runs	1st Inns Runs	1st Inns Avg	2nd Inns Runs	2nd Inns Avg
Gautam Gambhir	12	1758	862	71.83	896	99.55
Virender Sehwag	14	1244	810	57.85	434	43.40
Rahul Dravid	14	1149	934	71.84	215	23.88
Sachin Tendulkar	14	1357	942	72.46	415	59.28
VVS Laxman	13	993	542	45.16	451	112.75
Yuvraj Singh	10	532	242	26.88	290	96.66
MS Dhoni	12	847	668	60.72	179	89.50

Perhaps nothing encapsulates Gambhir's value to Team India by the figure in "Average in 2nd Inns" column. Gambhir has averaged an astounding 99.55 in the second innings of matches played in the time period. It is almost as on the rare occasions that he has failed in the first innings, he has taken it as a personal insult, and decided to dig in and make the opposition pay for the grave error of dismissing him cheaply!

The fact that he is an opener is what makes that average so outstanding. Although Laxman has a higher average, he has had a lot more opportunity than Gambhir to be there when matches end, and thereby get a not out against his name. Gambhir has managed his feat by coming in at the top of the order. Even Bradman would have been impressed.

And though Gambhir narrowly failed to emulate Bradman's feat of centuries in six consecutive Tests, he did equal the feat of another batting legend - Viv Richards - in scoring a half-century for the 11th consecutive Test. He will now have a chance to make the record his own if he scores more than fifty in an innings in the first Test against South Africa. At the rate he is going currently, the odds of Gambhir failing to score a fifty should be roughly the same as the odds that Pakistan cricket functions chaos-free for the next six months.

Photos courtesy Cricbuzz.

The God of All Things

This article has been published at Cricbuzz and at Ten Sports

In 1989, during the selection of the Indian team for the tour to Pakistan, the selectors - led by the late Raj Singh Dungarpur - were faced with a tricky question. They had in their minds an outrageously talented young boy, who they were sure would represent India with distinction. The question they wrestled with was whether the boy should be thrust into the lion's den so soon. And the den couldn't have been more hostile than a tour of Pakistan, facing the likes of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Imran Khan in their backyard, with crowds everywhere baying for the blood of the Indians.

Would selecting the boy for the tour be the right decision? Would it leave him with mental scars that would retard his development? Would they be risking a potentially world-beating future for a tenuous present?

The selectors then were each nominated from different zones in the country. As they debated the question - so the story goes - two of the selectors thought the boy was ready, and two of them wanted to wait.

The ones who wanted to wait had the valid question: "What if the tour proves to be too much? What if he fails?"

On hearing this, another selector turned to the fifth man in the room, who had not expressed his opinion yet. This was the West Zone selector who had seen the boy blitz all comers across all playing divisions. The words he is supposed to have said sealed the deal in favour of selection, though none of the five men could have known just what they were about to unleash into the cricket world.

The selector from the West Zone simply said: "Gentlemen, Sachin Tendulkar does not fail."

And he hasn't - for twenty years and counting.

Batman puts on a cape, Spiderman wears a costume, Superman sheds his normal clothes to reveal his true self - Sachin Tendulkar needs only to pick up a bat in hand to be a superhero.

This is not an attempt to dissect the man statistically. It is not an attempt to provide expert views on his cricket. It is not an attempt to add to the paeans being sung about him as the cricketing world celebrates twenty years of excellence.

This is simply an intensely personal view by a fan of a man who remained a hero from boyhood to adolescence and beyond.

What do twenty years mean to a fan? It means a vignette of images that Tendulkar has left us with.

From running around in a playground during the 1992 World Cup and yelling, "India beat Pakistan. Tendulkar is the man of the match!" to remembering the headline that announced that Tendulkar had scored his second ODI century after taking an inordinate amount of time to score his first - a headline that said, "Rutherford Ruthless, Parore Roars, but Tendulkar, Prabhakar steal the limelight."

From getting excited in 1994 when he made his then-highest Test score of 179 to feeling cheated when he was not awarded the Man-of-the-series in the 1996 World Cup for being the highest and classiest scorer in the tournament. From remembering the painful struggle he went through as captain in 1997 - when he had to battle not only opponents but officials as well - to feeling exhilarated throughout much of 1998, as the destroyer in Tendulkar returned to quell not just Australians but sandstorms too on an unforgettable night in Sharjah. From having our hearts broken along with his when he miscued a Saqlain doosra in the Chennai Test of 1999 to having our faith in the game restored during the match-fixing scandal, when it was revealed that bookies would take bets on Indian matches only after he got out.

From remembering the 2003 World Cup as an image forever frozen of Tendulkar cutting Shoaib Akhtar over third-man for maximum to shaking our heads in disbelief in 2004 at the amazing self-control and discipline of a man who did not play a single cover drive in an innings of 241 not out.

From exulting with him at burying the ghost of 'finishing' matches for India in the CB series in 2008 to the sharing his solemn joy and humility at bringing a Test victory to the nation immediately after his city had been ravaged by scum towards the end of the year.

As the years rolled by, we got used to a different Tendulkar, and his 2003 heroics seemed the last time he would throw back the years and bat as he had in his youth. His average and strike rates didn't suffer, but he had made a subtle shift from run-plunderer to intelligent accumulator. And then, as he so often has in the past, he showed us that the plunderer still remained in a knock that was as inspiring as it was heart-breaking.

Through proxy-wars and floods, through terrorist attacks and droughts, through living under corrupt politicians and battling for survival at work or school - through it all, it was one man that brought us hope. One man who needed only to wield a bat to unite the most diverse country in the world. A hero who did not need a script, arc-lights and endless retakes to have the audience gasping in awe, but played out his dramas in real-time.

And yet, even he has fallen short of universal acclaim. His knock of 175 though, and others like it in his career when he led India to the doorstep of victory but fell short of actually marching in only to see his team-mates fail around him, has been the catalyst for re-igniting the debate about whether he has won enough matches for India. The analyst in me wants to examine the question using all kinds of criteria and statistics, but for today he has been banished by the fan. And a good thing too, because it is with a fan's eyes that I can see what I wouldn't otherwise. It is his failures as much as his success that brings him closer to us. Without them, he would have been the perfect man - so perfect that we would have been forced to admire him from afar. But when he perishes at the doorstep of victory, we bleed with him. And we are reminded that even though he performs superhero-like deeds, he is still human.

The sages who seek silence to meditate go to the loneliest reaches of the planet to achieve it. But if they were looking for that unreal moment when there is a silence so pervading that you could hear a feather drop, they need to attend a match in India when Sachin Tendulkar plays. Most of the time, when he bats the noise will be deafening. But when gets out, as he must because he is mortal, they will hear the most deafening silence that it is possible to hear. And they will hear it in a stadium jam-packed with frenzied fans who have all come to pay homage to their God.

Even in defeat, Sachin Tendulkar weaves miracles.

Echoes

This article has been posted at Cricbuzz and at Ten Sports.

It had the echoes of 2005, but they were faint and far-off, being reflected only in the identical scoreline of 2-1. The Ashes 2009 couldn't match the quality and drama on display in 2005, but then the series four years ago couldn't match the sheer unpredictability of this one. Not a single Test match went the way the pundits had predicted. 'Momentum' is possibly the most used and abused word in the cricket lexicon today, and it was conspicuous by its absence. Instead, in a physics-defying series, the side that appeared to have the upper hand in the preceding Test, always came up short in the next one. Australia won Cardiff on all but paper, England then broke free of history at Lord's. Defying the script of the series, England carried their form to Edgbaston, where rain and Michael Clarke took Australia to safety. Australia then detonated England at Headingly, only to implode at the Oval.

The yo-yo could have been the official emblem of the series.

Here's a look back at the series, Test by Test.

1. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
Monty Panesar came into the Test match with the following batting statistics to his name:
1. Batting average - 5.30
2. Average number of balls faced per innings - 12.5
As the fifth day of the opening Test played out, you could almost hear the old-time English fans resigning themselves to another sixteen Ashes-less years. After all, the script was being played out as it so often has in the past - England opened well, Australia then responded with characteristic ruthlessness, and as the Test was concluding, the Australian bowlers were cleaning out the English batsmen. However, in the most impressive punching-above-the-weight performance of the Ashes, Monty scored 7 runs, survived for a precious 35 balls, and echoing namesake Monty Python (in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) seemed to take the attitude that "None shall pass" - none of the Australian bowlers pass his defensive blade that is. The Test was saved, and that was to remain Monty's most significant contribution for the rest of the series.

2. Killing the past, and coming back to life
Andrew Strauss made 161, Alistair Cook made 95, James Anderson took 4 for 55 to trigger Australia's collapse in the first innings, and Michael Clarke played a flawless innings under pressure in the fourth innings - but the headlines all belonged to one man who took 5 wickets in an innings for just the third time in his career. Trust Freddie Flintoff to first turn the spotlight on himself and then step up and deliver a performance worthy of it. The statistics say that Flintoff was not a great of the game, and they don't lie. But his ability to lift his team and the fans, and inspire by sheer presence is second to none. He also has the knack - in common with great sportspersons - of choosing the most apt stage to deliver his chef-d'oeuvre. Thus decades of English misery at the home of cricket were buried under the giant weight of Flintoff's boots, and England finally tasted victory at Lord's over Australia.

3. The cloud bursts thunder in your ears
Rain robbed the Ashes of what promised to be a fascinating Test match. England dominated it for the most part, but Michael Clarke conjured his second masterpiece of the series, to ensure that if England had the time to mount a fourth innings chase, it would have been far from easy. With Australia ahead by 263 runs with 5 second innings wickets intact, the odds actually favoured Australia more than England. However, even more ominous for England than their inability to get past Clarke's defences, was the troublesome knee of Andrew Flintoff. After his Lord's heroics and his Edgbaston hobble, Flintoff may have been reminded of the lines:

For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.

4. How I wish you were here
England's nightmare came to pass, as Andrew Strauss must have been left wishing for the services of Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen - none of whom featured in the annihilation at Headingly. In spite of Andy Flower's brave words of England being able to win the Ashes without their two superstars, the only match of the series in which both were injured saw England crash and burn. To complete their cup of woe, both Aussie bowlers who had struggled on tour until then - Siddle and Johnson - picked up fifers. With the return to form of their strike bowlers, and the continuing runs from the batsmen, no critic gave England a hope of a chance in the deciding Test.

5. We'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph
Cometh the hour, cometh the man - England found its new set of heroes and the Australian knights lost some of the sheen from their armour. This Test will go down in history as a landmark event - it not only saw England win an Ashes decider for the first time, but also ended Australia's hegemony at the top of the world rankings. The English selectors did a spectacular job in ignoring the media, and backing their judgment of Jonathan Trott as the next-in-line batsman, and were rewarded for it. And when it seemed, just for a moment, that Australia might pull off the improbable, that man Andrew Flintoff sealed it for England by a pin-point throw. England's lynch-pin had taken out Australia's, and with the departure of Ricky Ponting, the series momentum shifted for the last time, and stayed with England.

It was a series that will be remembered for the unexpected grace that Ponting displayed - being booed at all the grounds, but not losing his composure; for the emergence of Andrew Strauss as the unquestioned leader of England; for the downfall of the once-mighty Aussies to human plains; and for the magnetic persona and sheer joy that Andrew Flintoff exuded and awoke, wearing England whites for the last time.

The IPL's Most Valuable Player

This article has been cross-posted at Cricbuzz

Now that the IPL is done and dusted, we can all go back to our normal evening routines (even if there's a weirdly empty kind of feeling at 4 p.m. and you log on to Cricbuzz to check the latest score updates, only to figure out there is no match happening - not for the next week anyway).

We can think back to our favourite IPL memories - Shane Warne's ruffled look as he spun the ball in his hand before ripping one across the batsman; Anil Kumble's fiercely competitive streak that made the people who were calling for his head wonder why he retired; AB de Villier's masterful strokeplay and the rare delightful time when the commentary box was empty of Ravi Shastri, Ramiz Raja, Pommie Mbangwa, Ranjit Fernando and Danny Morrison.

However, discussions will continue unabated over who exactly were the 'best' players in this edition of the IPL. While there is no way to quantify the quality of runs scored or wickets taken, the pitch conditions and pressure situations et al, we can attempt to pull out numbers based on the quantity of runs scored, strike rates, economy rates and wickets taken.

Towards that end, this is an attempt to form an index for the 'Most Valuable Players' of the IPL.

Each player has been assigned points for batting, bowling and fielding, and the player with the highest number of points is, appropriately enough, IPL Version 2.0 MVP.

Batting Points:

The batting points were fairly straightforward to calculate. You have to take care of two parameters: the number of runs scored and the strike rate. The simplest way to do this is by multiplying one by the other, but there is a qualitatively better method and that is to calculate points based on the Relative Strike Rate.

The Relative Strike Rate is simply the ratio of a particular batsman's strike rate divided by the tournament's average strike rate. So if the average strike rate for the tournament has been 120.00 and Batsman A has a strike rate of 150.00, his relative strike rate would be 1.25.

The batting points are then assigned thus:

If R is the number of runs a batsman has scored, and S is his relative strike rate, the number of points B, the batsman will get is: B = R * S.

The only other thing that needs to be factored in to this is a batsman remaining 'Not Out' at the end of the innings. To make matters simple, every 'Not Out', contributes 10 runs to a batsman's score for the purpose of this analysis. Therefore, if N is the number of Not Outs, the formula becomes: B = (R+10N) * S

For IPL-2, the average strike rate has been 116.61.

The top 15 batsmen by this method, along with their batting point tallies per innings, are:

		Team	Runs	Strike Rate	B
1.	Matthew Hayden	Chennai	572	144.81	722.73
2.	Adam Gilchrist	Deccan	495	152.31	646.51
3.	AB de Villiers	Delhi	465	130.99	567.24
4.	Suresh Raina	Chennai	434	140.91	524.42
5.	T Dilshan	Delhi	418	122.58	470.92
6.	MS Dhoni	Chennai	332	127.20	416.69
7.	Brad Hodge	Kolkata	365	117.74	398.82
8.	Sachin Tendulkar	Mumbai	364	120.13	395.59
9.	JP Duminy	Mumbai	372	114.46	394.58
10.	Rohit Sharma	Deccan	362	114.92	386.31
11.	Herschelle Gibbs	Deccan	371	112.08	385.43
12.	Dinesh Karthik	Delhi	288	132.72	384.68
13.	Yuvraj Singh	Punjab	340	115.65	357.01
14.	Jacques Kallis	Bangalore	361	108.73	355.26
15.	Ross Taylor	Bangalore	280	134.62	346.31

Not too many surprises in the rankings, there! Most people would have probably had a similar list if asked to come up with their top 15 batsmen. However, it is nice to be able to put a number to the contributions of various batsmen.

The only team who doesn't have a batsman featuring here is Rajasthan. Their highest ranked batsman is Ravindra Jadeja who makes an appearance at No. 20 in the list.

Bowling Points:

For the bowlers, the parameters are slightly more complicated, as is the fact that straight multiplications will not work, because the lower a bowler's figures are, the better he has performed (a lower average/economy rate is better than a higher one).

The factors I have taken in account while awarding points for bowlers are:

1. The number of wickets taken and the strike rate

2. The number of balls bowled and the economy rate.

The reason for clubbing the factors as above is that for any given economy rate it is more credit-worthy for a bowler to sustain it over a higher number of balls - i.e. it carries greater weight to return an analysis of 4-0-16-0 than 1-0-4-0. The method followed is similar to that for the batsmen, and involves relative economy rates. The Relative Economy Rate (E) of a bowler is the tournament's average economy rate divided by his own. So if the tournament's average economy rate has been 8.00, and Bowler A has bowled his overs at 6.00, his Relative Economy Rate will be 1.33.

If O is the number of balls a bowler has bowled, he would then get O * E points for economy rate.

For his wickets, the points are assigned thus:

Each wicket will fetch him the number of points (W) that an average wicket has cost in the IPL, i.e. W = Total number of balls bowled/ Total number of wickets taken.

This would then be multiplied by his Relative Strike Rate (S1), which will function on the same principle as the Relative Batting Strike Rate, and the Relative Economy Rate. The reason the wickets taken are multiplied by the relative strike rate is so that a part-time bowler who might have picked up a stray wicket or two does not get inordinately rewarded for the same. Therefore the total number of points a bowler gets (B1) is:

B1 = (O*E) + (W*S1).

To homogenize the ratings between batsmen and bowlers, B1 is multiplied by a constant so that both can be measured on the same scale.

For IPL-2, the average economy rate has been 7.31, while the average strike rate for bowlers has been 21.07. Each wicket has been worth 25.67.

The top 15 bowlers, with their normalized ratings are:

		Team	Balls Bowled	Runs	Wickets	Econ Rate	Strike Rate	B1
1.	RP Singh	Deccan	358	417	23	6.99	15.57	480.53
2.	Anil Kumble	Bangalore	355	347	21	5.86	16.90	456.26
3.	Ashish Nehra	Delhi	306	346	19	6.78	16.11	396.24
4.	Lasith Malinga	Mumbai	297	312	18	6.30	16.50	382.61
5.	Pragyan Ojha	Deccan	321	348	18	6.50	17.83	371.22
6.	Munaf Patel	Rajasthan	209	241	16	6.92	13.06	361.66
7.	Irfan Pathan	Punjab	302	390	17	7.75	17.76	328.57
8.	Yusuf Abdulla	Punjab	168	241	14	8.61	12.00	316.77
9.	Muralitharan	Chennai	300	261	14	5.22	21.43	316.69
10.	Pradeep Sangwan	Delhi	280	360	15	7.71	18.67	286.58
11.	Dirk Nannes	Delhi	297	372	15	7.52	19.80	286.05
12.	Shadab Jakati	Chennai	174	217	13	7.48	13.38	284.68
13.	Amit Mishra	Delhi	252	294	14	7.00	18.00	279.98
14.	Shane Warne	Rajasthan	300	365	14	7.30	21.43	267.68
15.	Harbhajan Singh	Mumbai	264	256	12	5.82	22.00	256.60

There aren't too many surprises in this list too, though Lasith Malinga has suffered due to his team's early exit - a few more games and wickets and he could well have been heading the table. RP Singh just about manages to edge the titanic Anil Kumble into second place, and that is the beauty of numbers - though most people would pick Kumble as the bowler of the tournament, pure numbers without qualitative analysis give the crown to RP Singh.

The only thing that remains is to factor in the fielding points - which I have taken as 15 each for a catch or a stumping - and arrive at the combined value of each player in the IPL.

So, taking into account batting, bowling and fielding, the Most Valuable Players of this year's IPL have been:

		Team	Batting Points	Bowling Points	Fielding Points	Total Points
1.	Adam Gilchrist	Deccan	646.51	0.00	270	916.51
2.	Matthew Hayden	Chennai	722.73	0.00	75	797.73
3.	Suresh Raina	Chennai	524.42	149.18	105	778.60
4.	AB de Villiers	Delhi	567.24	0.00	195	762.24
5.	Rohit Sharma	Deccan	386.31	253.17	75	714.48
6.	Dinesh Karthik	Delhi	384.68	0.00	255	639.68
7.	Irfan Pathan	Punjab	229.78	328.57	60	618.34
8.	RP Singh	Deccan	11.30	480.53	105	596.83
9.	T Dilshan	Delhi	470.92	46.91	60	577.84
10.	Jacques Kallis	Bangalore	355.26	136.53	75	566.79
11.	Brad Hodge	Kolkata	398.82	135.04	30	563.86
12.	Anil Kumble	Bangalore	54.88	456.26	45	556.14
13.	Herschelle Gibbs	Deccan	385.43	0.00	165	550.43
14.	Yuvraj Singh	Punjab	357.01	117.02	75	549.03
15.	JP Duminy	Mumbai	394.58	92.88	60	547.46

A word about Matthew Hayden and AB de Villiers: The men have been in such awesome form that they have outperformed people who have brought bowling, batting and fielding skills to the table. They were, without a doubt the batsmen of the tournament, and had Delhi performed better in the semi-finals, AB could well have given Hayden a run for his money. No less impressive are RP Singh and Anil Kumble who have made it to the table largely due to their bowling efforts. Everyone else is an all-rounder of sorts with Gilchrist and Dinesh Karthik being the wicket-keeper batsmen, except for Herschelle Gibbs who also makes it to the top 15 due to his batting.

Adam Gilchrist has been the star Aussie though. In much the same way as last year, a retired, legendary, all-time great Australian cricketer, led a bunch of initial no-hopers to IPL glory. People will remember Gilchrist's innings in the semi-finals when they talk about IPL 2.0, but do not forget that he ended the tournament as the second highest run-scorer - and that after scoring a duck in the finals. In some way, it was fitting that he fell to Anil Kumble, seeing whom perform would have given immense joy to many an Indian fan.

Appropriately enough, the winner of the Man-of-the-series is also the Most Valuable player by a quantitative analysis - which might go some way towards demolishing Navjot Sidhu's oft-quoted dictum about statistics, viz. "Statistics are like bikinis - they reveal a lot, but not the most essential parts!"

Disclaimer: Yes, I know - I've put that pic up, just to get more hits on the site :-)