South Africa's Planning against Afghanistan

Comments in the media suggest a questionable analytical process...

A post from Werries on Twitter/X yesterday caught my eye and I thought it would be a great example to write about how processes of cricket teams can be improved.

The link to the thread is at https://x.com/Werries_/status/1836672342031782120 but here’s a screenshot of the first couple of posts, because they’re very relevant to this discussion.

For those who are unaware, Ghazanfar is a prodigiously talented young spinner from Afghanistan (the latest on their production line of extraordinary spin talent) who caused South Africa a number of problems in their recent ODI match, which ended in an excellent victory for the underdogs, Afghanistan.

There is some crossover from earlier this year between Ghazanfar and South Africa, as mentioned in the screenshots above - he played against their Under 19s in January. There are quite a few videos even on YouTube of him bowling here including one from domestic cricket (Shpageeza T20 League) around a month ago - so Wiaan Mulder’s comments above inadvertently illustrate a likely lack of preparation from South Africa against him.

Most people outside cricket overvalue the level of preparation which goes into matches and series. I think they’d expect team meetings where this sort of stuff gets presented and discussed but it’s more of an anomaly than a regular occurrence. I’m not big on long meetings but a 5-10 minute separate group chat with bowlers and batters is something I do advocate. If well presented, that’s enough and keeps attention levels high. Rightly or wrongly, you lose the players with long meetings.

My suspicion is that South Africa (after the departure of Prasanna Agoram) could improve their analysis department significantly. If a quick YouTube search or a quick database query can find out a great deal about Ghazanfar, then it’s clearly possible to collate this into a short video and analysis pack.

The problem is, there aren’t many people who can plan strategically for teams. Analysis is still the biggest potential growth area in the sport. It’s important to clarify here that analysis isn’t basic and inane statistics (e.g. he scored the fastest 50 on a Wednesday when the weather was sunny), nor is it coding/data entry, climbing on top of buildings to set up cameras, or throwing/mitting in training.

Instead, the purpose of high level analysis is to provide actionable insight to inform future decisions. This is worth its weight in gold yet, while some teams get it, many teams often fail to understand this - they’d rather spend more money buying a lottery ticket on a player or paying someone more as opposed to investing in a high quality analysis department which can inform future decision making.

Despite other sports illustrating this for 20+ years, many cricket teams still seem to disagree. There is also a talent drain into other industries because there is little in the way of career progression or salary increase for analysis talent. Teams constantly say that they can’t afford this - my view is they can’t afford not to.

This needs to change, but until franchise cricket in particular has more jeopardy - implications for failure and rewards for success - then owners and senior management don’t always have the incentive to make those necessary changes. It’s wrong that four teams qualify out of 5 or 6 in a T20 league - it promotes mediocrity. It’s wrong that an IPL team can consistently fail to qualify yet their brand value goes up.

However, as I’ve said before, there’s the obvious potential for a multi-club ownership group to revolutionise short-format cricket, making massive efficiency gains and also increasing the value of their investment as a successful collective group. This is a space which I am exploring how to move into - my email address is below if anyone would like to get in touch to discuss this.

While there are multi-club ownership models in cricket, they are far from efficient. Even yesterday I was speaking to an agent who told me that they managed to get players placed for a tournament at a major multi club group - the team didn’t even have a clue who they were, because their scouting is so far from being joined up or even thorough. But they listened to the agent - it’s like being in football 20 years ago.

The teams which work out how to become much more efficient quicker than the rest will have a huge competitive advantage, which will lead to huge improvements in both on-pitch performance and brand value.

Anyone interested in discussing how I can help their team with strategic management and data-driven analysis can get in touch at sportsanalyticsadvantage@gmail.com.