March Mailbag

Finally ready!

Apologies this was a little late this month, what with hospital, recovery and then the start of the county season I got a little waylaid but here it is.

As always, thank you so much for all of your questions!

Sam: “You often talk about how low boundary rate anchors are overvalued on the franchise circuit and why, usually due to a lack of intent. Regarding bowlers, you often talk about a low strike rate and high boundary percentage being indicators of a lack of quality, but like a lack of intent is often the core factor behind low SR batting, are there any key actions from the bowler themself that cause this low strike rate and high boundary percentage?”

Ok, so there are two main reasons why a batter will have a low, or unspectacular boundary percentage - attacking mentality and ability. You have a player like KL Rahul who has world-class ability but often finds himself lacking with attacking intent. Often Virat Kohli could be bracketed in the same area as well.

This manifests itself into the options which a batter takes. So the options which Tim David will take are very different to the options which, for example, Kane Williamson will take. Obviously David is mostly going to take a more attacking option than Williamson most of the time.

The same can go for bowlers too. Look at spinners - you have those spinners who fire it in and use defensive lines, which in theory should produce low economy (due to conceding a low boundary %) but have a strike rate around the high 20s/low 30s balls per wicket. They might go for something like 1-28 on average in a match, which definitely has its role in certain teams.

You also have the spinners who bowl with more air, using a slower pace. They’ll trade off the economy/boundary % conceded but will get more wickets (because batters will attack them more and hit more aerial shots) and that’s the trade-off. They might go for something like 2-34 on average in a match, which can also be useful.

Looking at pacers, it’s pretty similar. Yorkers have the best economy and balls per wicket but if a bowler misses that length either side then those lengths (full toss/half volley) have two of the worst economy figures. So there’s a clear risk/reward conversation to be had there - if a pacer can execute their Yorker a high percentage of the time (and hardly anyone can, you’d be amazed at the Yorker percentage compared to full toss/half volleys of even the best bowlers) then the reward potentially is worth the risk. Otherwise, it’s very risky because the downside is clear.

The alternative would be to bowl more back of a length - a defensive length - which gives you more margin for error and a lower standard deviation. However it could also be argued that consistently bowling back of a length could make a pacer predictable. Tymal Mills is a pacer who has done well in this respect, he bowls more this length than most but he has the benefit of express pace which many don’t possess.

I hope that explains it well enough - it’s just a question of options which players take.

Lew: “I appreciate the answer will always depend on the players available in a squad, but if you are expecting a T20 game to be played on a road with 200 par, as a rule would you want an extra batter or extra bowler in your 11?

What would change if expected par was 130?”

That’s such a tough question to answer given we don’t know whether we are batting or bowling first. I’d probably go with the extra batter in both cases actually. For 200 par, this is because having the extra depth allows the other batters to play with higher intent knowing they have a safety net still to come, and we can rationalise in advance that our 6th choice bowler is probably going to get smashed on a road anyway so won’t add much value.

If expected par was 130 then again I would want an extra batter, just because it gives a greater opportunity to hit over the par score.

Obviously, as you say, this all depends on your squad and how a roster is constructed but this is why I am strong on top six batters who can bowl at least match-up spin, because this generally allows the scope to structure up in the way I’ve described above. You can see from the teams that I’ve worked with and recruited for that this is a pretty common theme.

Raghav: “Hello Dan. What would be your predicted top 4 teams for IPL 2023? Mine would be in no particular order, RCB, GT, PBKS and CSK”

Well, we’ve seen a bit of the tournament so far so I get the benefit of a little bit of hindsight!

Pre-tournament I went for RR, SRH, Lucknow and with any of above five teams who aren’t KKR or MI fighting for the fourth spot.

With each team playing several matches I’m still keeping RR and Lucknow onside, and I’ve been delighted with how Punjab have played so far too. SRH look to be very poor tactically which could completely ruin their season despite what looked like some pretty solid recruitment at mini auction, while GT continue to blow my mind.

They shouldn’t be very good but somehow it seems to work, and I also think they got lucky (and I know it sounds awful but it’s hard to phrase it in any other way) with Kane getting injured allowing them to structure up differently with two overseas pacers which really improves their bowling attack. I’ve spoken on numerous occasions that buying overseas anchors in the IPL is pointless as there are so many domestic batters who can do 90/95% of the same job for less money and not waste an overseas spot and we are seeing that playing out now as well.

Myname: "Hi Dan, which Pakistani quick outside of Shaheen, Haris, Naseem has the most potential?”

Ihsanullah, and it’s not even close. What I like about him is that his express pace allows him to get away with bowling poor lengths (see above question from Sam) and he bowls more tough overs than, say, Umran Malik does in the IPL.

If Ihsanullah can get better line control, which should be possible in the future with more experience and evolution of his career, he could be a truly world-class pacer.

Suhas: “What is an ideal way to judge bowlers & batsmen against a particular player type?”

Good question. I don't value individual batter v bowler match-ups because the sample sizes of these are almost always tiny. The question for me that I always want to answer in this situation is how confident would I be for the current data to be sustainable, and it’s very difficult to be when those sample sizes are so small.

It’s also vital to find that sweet spot for time scale as well. Too long a time period and you might not be able to factor in player decline or improvement efficiently, and too short and there’s even more of a sample size issue.

So for generally I’ll look at performance vs pace as a grouping (you could also split it by speed brackets) and for right-handed batters in particular, I’ll often group in leg spin and slow left-arm if the sample size for either isn’t big enough (because both spin types turn the ball away for the right-hander).

Overall I’m pretty flexible with my approach as I see fit (the benefit of being an analyst as opposed to being a statistician) and I feel like my methodology is pretty solid as I’ve got more experience working in this particular area.

Aries: “How do you see Punjab faring this season given the injury doubts of Bairstow and Livingstone?”

I have the benefit of hindsight a bit here, but it looks good! I’m really pleased that Prabhsimran Singh has had a great start to the season which I was confident he would if given consistent opportunities. Livingstone looks like being back for match four and in my view should come in for Sikandar Raza in the line-up.

Aries: “And how far/close away is the time when we will see IPL franchises who have teams in other leagues begin dishing out year round contracts as was rumored a while back?”

The pace of IPL teams acquiring teams in other countries is rapid. I have no doubt that this situation could evolve in the future, and probably not too far away. The time of players at peak age quitting longer format cricket to play T20 an entire year round for the same team isn’t far around the corner in my view.

Charlie: “With the Impact Player rules almost reducing the need for all rounders, was thinking, how many genuine all rounders are there out there in T20 that get into the side with just Bat or Bowl? (Stokes = Batsman that can bowl, Holder = Bowler that can hit. Just Curran and Jadeja?)”

Curran and Jadeja are my main names in this area. I’ve written before about how few genuine all-rounders there are and these two stand out in the IPL. In the T20 Blast, you could look at someone like Benny Howell as well who consistently bowls four overs with excellent returns and has batted in the top 6 for Gloucestershire with a high strike rate and boundary percentage.

Tarun: “Any thoughts on sam curran. Where will he bat ? In top 6 or as finisher?”

Looks like PBKS are looking at him in the finisher role. However if they don’t pick Rajapaksa for any reason (e.g. getting Rabada back in the team and going bowling-strong) then Curran could bat higher up the order to give more balance to the left-right combos.

Cricket on your screen: “Can PSL sustain 8-10 team tournament on a draft model? Will it not affect the Pakistani players core, which is less and also hamper the quality of the tournament, which has already been hampered bcoz of KK and QG?”

In my view the issues of KK and QG are largely of their own making, so I wouldn’t look at them as a benchmark for quality of the tournament. Both teams, in my opinion, need a complete overhaul from top to bottom.

There are so many talented young players in Pakistan that I think an 8-team tournament is really possible without diluting the quality of the event. However, it would require some teams to be a little better with their recruitment, match strategy and structure for it to not be an issue, which at the time of writing is far from a given.