Rebuilding the West Indies

A big project following the T20 World Cup!

The West Indies have a proud history in T20 cricket. Having won two out of the last three T20 World Cups, in 2012 and 2016, they played a fearless, aggressive, boundary-hitting brand of cricket which other teams seemed scared to try and emulate.

This, in theory, was the way they intended to go in this year’s World Cup as well. With a team packed full of hitters, so they probably thought, they’d be able to bully the opposition into defeat. The attacking strategy was good, it makes sense - we know that around 85% of teams with the higher boundary percentage in matches win the match, and that net boundary percentage is a huge driver towards qualification out of groups in T20 cricket. We also know that historically, West Indies have been very strong six-hitters and if a team wins the boundary percentage count and the six percentage count in a match, it’s not far from impossible that they will lose a match.

Unfortunately for the West Indies, there were two problems.

1) Their team is now getting old. On a general basis, when players get old, no matter how good they are, they get worse. It happens in all sports. It’s why England don’t have Gary Lineker, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney competing for striker roles for their national football team. It’s why Mike Tyson doesn’t box any more, or why ex-world champion F1 drivers have now retired or drive for midfield/back of the grid teams.

The best players have a high ceiling to decline from, but decline they will. I wrote about this in detail in my book (drop me an email if you’d like to buy a copy), but it’s why the pace bowlers in the IPL aged 33+ are traditionally almost always the guys who are previous greats, because they have such a high ceiling to decline from. The good, but not great, or the mediocre, no longer tend to feature past this age because they are declining from a lower ceiling. It’s that simple.

2) Teams also need a strong bowling attack to win matches. Remember, I talk about net boundary percentage, not just batting boundary percentage. A pace bowling attack of 38 year old Dwayne Bravo, 37 year old Ravi Rampaul, 33 year old Andre Russell and 30 year old Jason Holder - the last two players being all-rounders and not necessarily frontline bowlers - is unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of world-class batters. These guys might be able to do a job at franchise level in some comps, but against world-class batters, a general lack of pace is unlikely to do them many favours. Also, let’s not forget as well that Holder wasn’t originally in their squad, and was an injury replacement, so selection looks ‘confused’ at best - but don’t let me get started on that.

In this World Cup, West Indies couldn’t even hit well. Here’s a look at the scoring data for each team in the Super 12s:-

West Indies ranked 7th for boundary hitting out of the 12 teams, and only Scotland rotated worse. West Indies have rarely been a strong rotating team, and being great at running between the wickets is definitely a ‘nice to have’ as opposed to being mandatory but let me be clear - you can’t be this bad at scoring off non-boundary balls when you hit less than 18% boundaries, if you are going to do well.

Bringing bowling into the equation, and a similar issue manifested itself:-

West Indies conceded the 5th most boundaries, and were nowhere near the boundary prevention levels of the successful/major teams in the competition.

While there’s no doubt that net boundary percentage can be skewed a bit in five-match tournaments, particularly given some mismatches and teams basically not caring in some cases once they’ve been knocked out, it’s still pretty useful to have a look at as well:-

West Indies ranked 9th here, with only Bangladesh, who performed abysmally in the tournament, and associate teams Scotland and Namibia ranking worse. Unfortunately, it’s not pretty.

If the above hasn’t convinced you that West Indies need to rip the script up and start again, I’m not sure what will. Just to reinforce the current ages of the players who represented West Indies in the World Cup, here’s a list:-

With six players aged 33 or older, and only two under 25, this West Indies squad already had ‘last hurrah’ themes surrounding it. The testimonial feel of their loss against Australia in their final group match basically confirmed those thoughts. Quite why so many cricket teams are so fearful of moving aside older, declining players is beyond me, but many need to be better at it.

Following the World Cup, Dwayne Bravo has already announced his international retirement while Chris Gayle has pretty much confirmed it also. Because they have such high peaks to decline from, Pollard and Russell should still be ok for a year or two, but I think the West Indies need to move on from Ravi Rampaul and Lendl Simmons (who they should have moved on from a while ago already). Simmons’ 16 from 35 balls against South Africa - his final match before being dropped - was probably the worst T20 innings I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch.

We can’t wind back the clock, even though I’m pretty sure the squad I’d have compiled for the West Indies would have been markedly different to the one they picked, but we can move forward. So let’s have a go at picking a future core group they can move forward with, who provide both quality and longevity, as well as future upside. A pre-requisite, naturally, would be for this group to play the West Indies brand of cricket - the attacking, fearless style which has already seen them dominate T20 over the last decade, culminating in two World Cup trophies.

Earlier on in this article, we’ve seen that team boundary percentages (both scored and conceded) are quite a bit lower in this World Cup than tends to be the case. I don’t want to go into the reasons for that now (that’s a whole new article in itself!) but on a general basis in T20, around 16% boundaries is ballpark average. With this in mind, I set up a few basic database filters in order to find West Indies a batting group capable of future progression:-

1) Minimum 150 balls faced in T20 internationals and major T20 leagues combined

2) 16% minimum boundary percentage, 2020+

3) 4/6 ratio below 4

4) Age 30 or below

These are very, very basic. I haven’t even moved on to other basic stuff like performance against pace/spin types, or more detailed, recruitment-specific metrics which I can’t really share - they’re exclusive to the teams I work with - but what this does do is provide a list of batters who could be capable of doing a job for the West Indies moving forward who the management can do further scouting/due diligence on.

At this point I do want to say that minimum 16% boundaries and a 4/6 ratio below 4 are very loose for my liking, and I prefer a higher boundary percentage and a 4/6 ratio below 3 in general. However, we have to be cognisant that the CPL is quite a bowler-friendly league, and those increased tolerance levels reflect that.

Here are the results:-

Nine batters listed fitted the filter. Rahkeem Cornwall, Fabian Allen and Jason Holder also fit into the all-rounder bracket, while to some extent Mark Deyal and Sherfane Rutherford do also. Three bowling all-rounders, who didn’t hit the sample size but clearly can hit, are also included in italics.

Roston Chase, in my view, was picked for the World Cup after one CPL season, and there has to be some element of recency bias there. I don’t think West Indies need an anchor (and I’ll say more on this later) but if West Indies want a right-arm off-spinning all-rounder specifically for left-hander match-ups (and that’s basically the only purpose for an right-arm off spinner in your team), they already have Cornwall and Deyal who have shown much more evidence that they can hit more devastatingly. I also think they panicked, and were results-oriented not process-oriented, by playing him after not starting the World Cup with him in their side.

I also want to make two further points. Firstly, Shimron Hetmyer. I’ve watched enough of Hetmyer to know he can play - he’s very talented. So why is his boundary percentage so low? He’s good enough to be one of the core members of the West Indies future, but needs to dramatically up this number.

The second point I want to make is more broad. How lucky are West Indies to have this batting group for the future - look at their 4/6 ratio! For those who haven’t looked at this metric before, let me tell you something - it’s very difficult indeed for a T20 batter to be below 2 (they hit less than 2 fours per six) and hardly anyone can get towards one or below one (they hit more sixes than fours). West Indies have a plethora of batters around or below one for this metric - they have so much six-hitting talent it’s incredible. Remember, if you win the boundary percentage and six percentage in matches, you pretty much always win…

Far from being worried about West Indies batting future without Gayle et al, it appears to be in good health - as long as the right batters get picked. Take this batting group, throw in the experience of Pollard and Russell, who each should have a couple of years at least left in the tank, then there’s a clear core of batters who can take them forward.

I then took a look at their bowlers, using extremely similar basic database filters:-

1) Minimum 150 balls bowled in T20 internationals and major T20 leagues combined

2) 18% maximum boundary percentage, 2020+, for pacers, 15% maximum for spinners

3) 4/6 ratio above 1

4) Age 30 or below

Here were the results:-

Five pacers and four spinners fitted this filter. For a pacer, Obed McCoy’s boundary prevention is unbelievably good. Jason Holder and Odean Smith (plus Oshane Thomas, who we will get to) are good six preventers, with high 4/6 ratios in the context of the dynamics of West Indies T20 cricket where more sixes are scored relative to fours than most other countries. Hayden Walsh also had a low boundary conceded percentage but has conceded more sixes than fours by some distance, which is something of a problem that he will need to address in the future.

Roston Chase’s boundary concession numbers are extremely strong. I can’t help but think West Indies have used him in the wrong role. In my view, he should solely play as a match-up bowler against left-hander heavy teams - not as an anchor batter. His batting should solely be viewed as extra depth, in my opinion.

Also note that the likes of Allen, Holder, Smith, Shepherd and Drakes were all on the batters list too - so there’s the potential for unbelievable batting depth and in theory, hitters down to number 11! Akeal Hosein is also a capable lower-order batter as well. While many say ‘what’s the point of batting depth if numbers 7/8 etc face so many balls’, they conveniently forget that the extra hitting depth enables teams to attack from ball one, and most crucially, KEEP ON HITTING even when early wickets are lost. Winning the boundary percentage count can be achieved in many ways, and having extreme batting depth with the entire line-up capable of high strike rate cameos is one - and is certainly an under-explored method which appears to naturally suit this West Indies player pool.

The seven names at the bottom of the bowlers list are players who missed the filters slightly but are young enough to make a real impact in the future. These are seven bowlers who, if I was selecting a West Indies team, I’d be keeping a close eye on in domestic cricket and hoping they’d get franchise opportunities overseas to continue their development.

These basic database filters give us a list of players who can form the core selection group for the West Indies moving forward in T20 internationals - a list of players with strong current performances but also offer excellent potential upside for the future. The real skill is putting the group together, so that the players all complement each other’s skillsets, suit various conditions and can take advantage of opposition weaknesses and negate their strengths, but I can’t provide all the answers to Cricket West Indies for free!

Look how different these names are to the squad picked for the World Cup (and I could have created this exact article prior to the World Cup!).

Batters (alphabetical order):-

Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Kennar Lewis, Kieron Pollard, Mark Deyal, Nicholas Pooran, Sherfane Rutherford, Shimron Hetmyer

Batting all-rounders (alphabetical order):-

Fabian Allen, Rahkeem Cornwall

Genuine all-rounders (alphabetical order):-

Andre Russell, Jason Holder

Bowling all-rounders (alphabetical order):-

Dominic Drakes, Odean Smith, Romario Shepherd, Roston Chase

Bowlers (alphabetical order):-

Akeal Hosein, Hayden Walsh, Khary Pierre, Obed McCoy.

Young, high potential players to watch:-

Alzarri Joseph, Ashmead Nedd, Jayden Seales, Jeavor Royal, Joshua Bishop, Nyeem Young, Oshane Thomas. I also was impressed by Teddy Bishop (18 year old right-handed batter) in the Under-19 series against England in the summer.

So, a list of 20 players plus eight further players with high potential to take the West Indies forward - looks a lot better than the old guard now, doesn’t it?