Mailbag #2

Questions and Answers!

Thanks so much for the questions which people have sent in over the last few days for Mailbag #2, it’s great to have this opportunity to try and give my thoughts on some various subjects, although one or two subjects are a little off limits due to commercial sensitivities.

I really enjoy doing these so in a few weeks time, maybe around the end of the World Cup, I’ll ask for some more questions for Mailbag #3. Straight onto this batch of questions…

Cricwizard: “Which team Pakistan would find tough to win against in the semi final?”

In my view, this would clearly be England. We know that Pakistan have a very strong bowling attack with high quality pacers in particular and their general gameplan is to post/chase low-medium scores. We’ve also seen Babar Azam play match losing innings in big chases a couple of times in recent years so putting him and fellow opener Mohammad Rizwan under a lot of scoreboard pressure makes sense for opposition teams.

In Group One, the only team who looks capable of doing this (who is likely to qualify, at least) would be England. Their batters are generally strong against pace bowling plus have the skillset and greater intent than most other countries to put an above-par total on the board if they bat first. West Indies’ aggressive, boundary-oriented style of batting (although Lendl Simmons didn’t get the memo against South Africa!) could pose problems for Pakistan in a one-off knockout match, but have a low chance of qualifying having lost their opening two matches in the group.

With England highly likely to win Group One, Pakistan must avoid coming second in Group Two if they want to avoid England in the semi-final. They’ve put themselves in a great position to win Group Two, but will likely need to win at least two out of their last three group matches to ensure this.

Sam: “If someone gave you odds of 2/1 for heads on a coin toss, how many times would you pick tails before you realise you are getting it wrong?”

I know Sam well and we chat a lot, so I know he’s alluding to teams making bad decisions on team strategy and probably specifically, hitting.

Teams who voluntarily choose a team or strategy without a decent level of hitting intent, and don’t have an elite bowling group, are essentially repeatedly choosing tails on a biased coin where heads lands far more often. They are setting themselves up to fail by voluntarily adopting strategies which have negative expected value.

I want to bring this back to the net boundary percentage stat for winning matches. If 85% of teams with the highest boundary percentage in the match win, you want to be on the right side of that. It’s not far off 100% if you have the highest boundary percentage in conjunction with the highest six percentage as well, so if you want to win matches on a regular basis, it’s imperative to structure up accordingly.

For all the expensive ex-player coaches and mentors which teams seem more than happy to pay big bucks for, a strategic, data-driven consultant offers far better value.

Joseph: “I think most people here would agree a lot of teams have made some bad selection and tactical decisions for this World Cup, so are there any teams you think have got it right?”

Yes, I completely agree about many teams making bad selection and tactical decisions. Even the better teams have made some - for example England are still persisting with Dawid Malan which may cost them against better teams, Morgan appears to have this strange obsession with using Adil Rashid in unconventional phases, and they still pick Chris Jordan and have Tom Curran on the bench when, numbers-wise at least, there appear to be better options. Pakistan, who have impressed many so far, picked Shoaib Malik, whose numbers in the recent CPL were appallingly bad and I’d be hugely concerned at long-term decline from him.

Strategy wise, I think England have done better than many. While I quibble about a number of their actual squad/team selections, they have at least grasped the concept of intent and seemingly are cognisant of winning the boundary percentage count. Afghanistan may also fall into this bracket as well in terms of adopting similarly good strategy and I think they’re only a few players away from being one of the best teams in world T20 cricket.

Dave: “England have been retaining several young players with varying CC batting records around the Test squad saying their batting will develop (e.g. Crawley, Bracey, Lawrence and S Curran). Do you expect players to develop better on the fringes of the Test squad rather than being given time with their counties? Is this just because there has been no Lions tours? Also, which of these do you think is most likely to have a decent Test career?”

Interesting question. I’m not a huge buyer of England’s approach here - I’d prefer these young players to perform well at county level first before they play international cricket. It’s pretty well known in the analytics community at least that very few players can improve their county averages in international cricket, and I think that this is one major mistake England are making with their Test squad selections.

All of the players listed in the question could well be very good in the future but at this point in time it’s difficult to ascertain that any of them will be very likely to have a successful Test career - we are just guessing, because none of them have really had a sustained period of success at county level first.

Ayat: “Your thoughts on the inclusion of two new teams in the ipl and what type of foreign players would you go for if you was part of the recruitment team for the new franchise given the supposed 90 crore budget which is on hand.”

I am a big fan of the IPL expansion and can easily see a tournament develop in the future with around 16 teams in it, with the event taking 4-5 months. Assuming overseas player limits are increased (because otherwise the quality of domestic players would overall be much worse due to dilution of talent) I’d be a big fan of this too, and whether traditionalists like it or not, this is the way the game is going.

I describe overseas players as the icing on a cake, with the domestic players as the base. Without a good base, a cake will collapse, and so it can be said for domestic players in a T20 team as well. So for me, overseas players in the IPL are far less important than quality domestic performers.

When considering overseas players, teams need to be cognisant of the supply/demand dynamics of the market. It’s no good saying ‘player x is the best player in the world and therefore I want to pay 15 Crore for them’ when there’s 10 players who are 95% as good as that player who you can buy for 1 Crore. Some skillsets are more plentiful than others - for example, there’s many, many good overseas top order batters but there are far fewer high quality overseas death bowlers and genuine all-rounders.

So considering this, if a team is to prioritise any area for their overseas players they should really focus on these areas of scarce resource. You can easily pick up other squad overseas players for cheap later on in the auction, but once you miss out on a few players whose skillsets are rare in the market, you’ve lost that opportunity and can’t replace their skillsets with what other players can offer.

Alec: “We’ve seen you say a lot that teams often recruit batters with a good reputation perhaps in other formats or in past t20 cricket but don’t show enough intent in the current game. I’m interested as to what proportion of batters you think don’t show this intent out of choice (rather than simply not being technically good enough to bat at 140+) around the world. As an example, we could compare KL Rahul’s 2018 IPL with his 2019 and 2020 versions to see a batter who is capable but perhaps reins himself in - he has ‘intent potential’. Do you take ‘intent potential’ into your recruitment on the proviso that that batter would be given clear instructions by you and the coaches to show intent? Or would you only ever recruit batters that have the raw numbers to prove that they can bat quickly enough? Hope this makes sense and many thanks.”

As far as the first question goes, I think the lack of intent is often through choice as opposed to not having the skills to do so. For example, players like Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Dawid Malan all have high death over strike rates so they clearly have a high strike rate in their locker, they just choose not to deploy it as often as I think they should.

Particularly for Kohli and Rahul, two superstars of the IPL, this is what frustrates me with them. They actually have this in their locker and because of this it’s more frustrating watching them than watching some low-intent, low-skilled nurdler who lacks ability and isn’t good enough - because these guys like Kohli and Rahul can actually do it.

On the ‘intent potential’ point, yes, I am aware of some players who have this but perhaps due to team instructions, aren’t showing good boundary numbers, for example. The player has to be aware of this too - the fact that his ‘brand’ or ‘share price’, if you’re looking to treat all players like a commodity, is going down due to these team instructions is something players need to rationalise. As I’ve said many times, cricket can be individuals playing a team sport. What might be best for the team might not be best for a player’s career.

Coaches have a big part to play in the intent discussion too. They need to create and maintain an environment where players can play with no fear, to play brave cricket and take the positive option. If you get out cheaply trying to take your match-up down, so be it. When watching cricket around the world, I’m not sure I see many teams adopt this mantra, so I’m unconvinced by the coaches of a lot of teams on this basis.

Felix: “Hi Dan, any theories on whether teams should mix up their openers depending on what they deem to be a bar score if batting first/what target they’re chasing? I know you mentioned Babar and Rizwan as the masters of the lowish chase, so is the inverse worth it to get high SR players in during the Powerplay to reach a higher bar?”

Teams are far too reliant on fixed batting orders. I even know that there are some players at some teams who pretty much refuse to bat in anything other than their ‘standard’ position, or that if you did move them they would be extremely upset.

As I’ve written about numerous times, a par score should deviate based on a number of factors, including your opposition. So Pakistan chasing 150 against India (as they were) would be in a great spot opening with Babar and Rizwan, but (let’s use an extreme scenario here) chasing 220 against England, opening with these two players is unlikely to be a decision which offers positive expected value - you might even want to open with one of Asif Ali and Hasan Ali!

Mixing up opening partnerships based on opposition tendencies is also something to consider. For example, if you know that pretty much always the opposition opens with a left arm spinner, regardless of the hand of the batters facing them, you might want to ensure you have a left-hander opening the batting for you and taking the first ball. All of these micro decisions can make small positive contributions to a team’s expected win percentage and in a format where many matches are decided by just a few runs, taking advantage of as many of these marginal gains as possible is recommended.

Yosef: “How does england properly balance their xi for the ashes tests?”

Things just got a lot easier for them with the availability of Ben Stokes! Numbers might suggest that he’s an unremarkable batter and bowler but what he does very well is balance the team, and give extra depth in both departments.

In Australia, teams need to have the ability to put 350+ on the board on a regular basis if they are to have a chance of success, and Stokes’ availability just improved England’s chances of doing so - for example now he is playing, they might be able to pick one fewer bowler, and/or bat the likes of Woakes or other bowling all-rounders one spot lower, having additional batting depth.

Ry: “What were the key differences in recruiting for T10 compared to T20 and do you think the T10 format will gain enough popularity to ever be played globally/internationally?”

It’s tough for me to specifically comment on the differences between T10 and T20 recruitment but I’m probably one of the only people in the world now who has recruited for all of T10, Hundred and T20 teams, which is quite a random claim to fame!

Essentially, as with all recruitment, being aware of which strategies have worked in the past is critical to understanding how to recruit in the future. Once you understand the various ‘drivers for success’, you can then find players who should improve your chances to achieve those drivers.

Purists will hate me saying this but I genuinely think that T10 will continue to grow and become very popular worldwide in the future. Think about it like this - we are living in a world where increasingly, people are becoming time poor and developing smaller attention spans. If you can get a cricket match done in the same time as a football match, that’s probably a good thing, particularly if you can then play three on the same day and get a whole day of TV coverage, hospitality and food and beverage income all rolled into one.

That’s it for Mailbag #2, I hope you enjoyed reading, and please feel free to leave any comments or questions for Mailbag #3 below in the comments section.