Dan Weston's September Mailbag
Your questions answered
As always, the mailbag has been extremely popular and there’s been an avalanche of questions posted - thank you so much for getting in touch with all of your questions. Hopefully I can get to most of them here…
Oliver Holden: “Thoughts on SA T20I captain Temba Bavuma not being signed in the SA20 Auction? And also who you think is the best value for money signing from the Auction?”
I spoke about this a bit on The Cricket Podcast last week (link here) and also my recent SA20 Auction post (link here). Basically his issues largely stemmed from his high base/reserve price, I think if he had a base price of 175k Rand he almost certainly would have got a deal.
Best value for money? Ngidi at 3.4m looks cheap compared to other similar players, of the midrange players, I like Wiaan Mulder at 1.9m, and of the cheaper players the big-hitting Marco Marais at 175k Rand. He has a career boundary percentage of around 20%, and has also hit a really good 6/4 ratio too, so he’s exactly the short of low risk/high reward purchase that makes sense to me.
Lew Carey: “By picking six-hitters in Green and (finally!) David, have Australia stumbled upon a much better batting line-up in time for the T20 World Cup? Or do you expect continued selection of Finch and Smith will continue to hold them back? And if yes re Finch/Smith, who would you pick?”
I think Australia have some difficult decisions to make, but they’re arguably nice problems to have. Since this question was asked, Green hit 19-ball 50 so again his value is rising to the Australia set-up and David has quickly become a non-negotiable pick as well.
Based simply on my perception of current ability I’d go something like this as the top 7:-
Warner, Green, Marsh/Stoinis, Inglis, Maxwell, David, Wade.
However, I’d be amazed if Finch didn’t play, and I’d probably say the same about Smith too.
Also Lew: “Will boundary percentages remain the most important KPI for batting sides on the bigger grounds?”
Yes, but of course that focuses as much on boundary prevention as boundary scoring. I’d be very surprised if the boundary % winner in a match didn’t win the match at least 80% of the time in the World Cup.
Bazball Convert: “How do you assess whether to buy an unknown quantity like cam green? Also, how do you assess whether someone who has performed well in other more minor leagues will perform well in the IPL e.g gurbaz?”
An unknown quantity like Green would have been very difficult to assess prior to his recent run of form. Essentially this is where data goes out of the window and traditional scouting has to take more precedence, but with the obvious caveat that the scout has to actually be good at what they do.
Minor Leagues are easier for me, I have run production models which value each player’s performance levels. So someone like Gurbaz will have a big sample size in those leagues and that would be a solid guide to his expected level in different tournaments even if he’s never played in them.
Charlie Auckland: :”Are there such players who are 'enhancers'? Whereby the player at the other end (bowler or batsman) generally improves their strike rate/economy/boundary % by the 'enhancers' presence, over another player. Hypothetically, how much would you value this type of player in an XI?”
There probably are some, but it’s not something I’ve really quantified (perhaps I should!). Generally though these players are likely to be anchors but with a high upside when they need to attack, there’s not many of them and there’s a fine line between success and failure for anchors as we all know.
Chris: “Is a 15 man squad too small for a World Cup and are they being released too early? Surely they could wait until this Pakistan series was over”
Yes, and yes. England seem to adore naming teams/squads far earlier than they need to, which makes no sense to me.
On a related subject, Cricketology: “Unlike Football WC and IPL which have 22-23 size team squads, why haven't WC cricket, either ODI or T20s squads have only increased from 14 to 15 in four decades ?!!!”
It seems really strange that squads are this small. A team would want skillset cover for each area (and much more specific than batter replacing batter etc) and there’s nothing really to lose by bringing in more squad players for experience too. I’m not sure why squads are this small, and I’d be fine with increasing the size of them.
Ben Smith: “Ben Stokes in the world cup squad given he hasn’t played the format in so long. Valid due to past success or no? Also would like to publicise the inclusion of Dawson over Benny Howell. Not sure why he’s so neglected when he’s better…”
I don’t think it’s a justified selection, it’s done completely on name/reputation. If Stokes had been incredible in T20 in the last year or two prior to his absence from the format, I’d be fine with the selection, but he hasn’t been. However I’m sure he will start every game if fit because that’s what England do.
Dawson over Howell - even considering Dawson’s innings yesterday against Pakistan I’m in full agreement. A defensive left-arm spinner who (with one or two exceptions) hasn’t got good hitting numbers doesn’t excite me. Benny Howell not having a T20i cap is in my view the biggest selection travesty over the last decade in cricket, across any country.
Naz: “How much should Cam Green be worth in a T20 league / how much will he go for after these performances? (Any variation on this, including the recency bias effect would be great)”
I still would find it tough to price him in an immediate auction. However I’m sure IPL teams are already anticipating bidding wars in the next mini-auction, and the recency bias will no doubt be in full effect. As a conservative estimate, I wouldn’t be shocked by 8+ Cr.
James McCaghrey: “Thoughts on the England T20 world cup squad, and do you think they'll regret not having someone like Jacks in the squad.”
As I’ve often said over the last few years, it’s batting-strong and bowling weak. There are injury doubts over main pacers, and even with the batting group there are question marks - notably the likely shoehorning in of Stokes, and the knock-on effects of this (e.g. shunting Moeen Ali/Liam Livingstone down the order).
I agree with dropping Roy but my numbers rate Jacks higher than Salt currently, so I’d have looked to have gone down that road instead. However England seem to have a ‘next cab off the rank’ selection strategy, so leapfrogging players (although Hales did it) appears pretty tough.
The other interesting debate could have been Duckett v Malan for the LHB at number 3 - I’m in favour of Duckett currently, and given an eye on the future as well, picking him could have been beneficial.
Imajith: “What do you make of babar/rizwan as a t 20 batters?”
They do the perfect job for Pakistan, who are a bowling-strong team. However, they would be likely less effective in a bowling-weak team, such as England. Various playing styles can work in cricket, but in T20 it has to be all geared up to winning the boundary % count by hook or by crook.
Seb: “What did you make of the player amount being set at 17 in the SA auction? I thought it made an interesting dynamic with a few teams having a fair bit of money left over”
I quite like bigger squads in franchise tournaments, so you can have a degree of flexibility and more like for like replacements. I was pleased when The Hundred increased squad sizes for this season and I’d be happy if that increase continued (particularly with an increase to, say, pick 4 from any 6 overseas players in the squad). With IPL having a 25 max squad, there’s quite a bit of difference between that and the SA20, so I can see the SA tournament increasing squad sizes slightly moving forward.
Ayet: “Hi dan how would you differentiate between recency bias in a draft/auction or if the player is worthy of being picked through good form like what factors are vital in saying yes he or she is the one we need in our team”
Personally my expected run production/prevention modelling takes care of all of this, but of course, most teams don’t have that! Generally I guard against over-reactions in the short-term (and short-term can even be an entire tournament) and take a more considered view when looking at performance levels over a couple of years.
Now short-term data can still be useful, particularly if you’re assessing a player at either end of the age curve. A young player showing rapid improvement should be noted, while an older player who has had a tough time of it in the short-term could well be in the stages of long-term decline.
So recency isn’t an exact science, but teams still often fall victim to that recency bias if they don’t do enough due diligence before recruitment.