"Real" averages

Given that the cricket match I was meant to be playing in today was washed out, it has allowed me to be very sad and calculate the various "real averages" of the England and West Indies players over the first two Test Matches so far. What are "real averages"? Well I've started to think that far too much of a player's success or failure is based on luck over recent months and years. Their batting average can of course be affected by the standard of bowling they face, the quality of the wicket, the speed of the outfield, the quality of the oposition captain (i.e. does he place his fielder's in the right place), the quality of the ground fielding, the quality of catching and the quality of the umpiring. Most of these can't be accounted for - or at least they could be, but it would take a lot of analysis and work. The last two, wrong decisions by umpires and dropped catches can be accounted for pretty easily, so that's what I've tried to do below.

The person most affected from England is Collingwood - this isn't an attempt to slate him - if you have read Cricket Burble for a while you'll know that I'm a big Collingwood fan. But his official average is very different from his real average as he's been dropped in every innings he has played so far in the series. For West Indies Morton has been affected twice by real averages. His scores in the series are officially 14, 5 and 25 but given that he was dropped on 1 in his innings at Lords and he was incorrectly adjudged out by Rudi Koertzen in the 1st innings at Headingley, his scores which create his real average are 1, 5 not out and 25.

AVERAGES AFTER FIRST TWO TEST MATCHES, ENGLAND v WEST INDIES 2007.

RA = Real average
OA = Official average
* = not been out in series yet, so has no OA

England:

Pietersen, RA = 115.33, OA = 120.33
Prior, RA = 108.5, OA = 111
Vaughan, RA = 103, OA = 103
Cook, RA = 70.67, OA = 70.67
Bell, RA = 58.5, OA = 58.5
Plunkett, RA = 33, OA = 44
Strauss, RA = 24, OA = 24
Collingwood, RA = 22.67, OA = 58
Shah, RA = 5, OA = 5
Harmison, RA = 2, OA = *

West Indies:

Chanderpaul, RA = 74, OA = 74
Bravo, RA = 36, OA = 43.67
Sarwan, RA = 35, OA = 35
Ganga, RA = 31.33, OA = 31.33
Gayle, RA = 30.67, OA = 33.67
Ramdin, RA = 22.33, OA = 23.67
Powell, RA = 22, OA = 22
Taylor, RA = 22, OA = 22
Smith, RA = 21, OA = 21
Morton, RA = 15.5, OA = 14.67
Joseph, RA = 7, OA = 7
Collymore, RA = 2, OA = 2

I'm still to consider how to create real averages for bowlers...