The divergence of three formats

Format specialism an important tool for workload management

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY PROVIDE DATA WHICH MAKES YOU REALISE THAT SOME HIGH PROFILE PLAYERS AREN’T CURRENTLY QUITE AS GOOD AS YOU MIGHT THINK!

Cliffnotes: 9 batters worldwide are currently around or above-average (including tolerance limits) in all three formats.

Babar Azam/Jonny Bairstow/Quinton de Kock/Ravindra Jadeja/Marnus Labuschagne/Rishabh Pant/Rohit Sharma/Joe Root/David Warner.

If no tolerance limits are used, this drops to just four batters - Bairstow, De Kock, Jadeja and Sharma.

The hot topic of workload management and the change of priority of different formats has been discussed at length in the media this week, following Ben Stokes’ decision to retire from ODI cricket and focus his attention on Test and T20 cricket instead. Further to that, renowned players such as R Ashwin and Usman Khawaja have also questioned the ODI format in particular, and it does appear that out of the three formats, that format - 50 over cricket - is the one which is giving way.

Certainly this is the case in English domestic cricket, with the domestic 50 over tournament now taking place during The Hundred, without the 100 or so best shortest-format players. This is also sometimes the case in other countries too - for example, Virat Kohli hasn’t played a Vijay Hazare Trophy match since 2010.

With such a hectic calendar - particularly post-Covid where international boards are trying to recoup losses from postponed fixtures and crowd-free matches during that period - I do agree it is unreasonable for anyone to expect any player to play their best on a consistent basis if they are selected for all matches in all formats. Considering this, it would be a surprise if anyone had a major issue with Stokes’ decision to jettison a format - something does have to give.

My main contention is that I do think that some international teams should have been more proactive in managing players workloads, particularly given that many bilateral series aren’t a great deal more than glorified friendlies. Was it critical for England to ask Stokes to play all of their ODIs and T20Is this summer? I’m not so sure.

At this stage, a few people might have read the warning at the top of this page and be thinking ‘well, where’s the data?’. Don’t worry - it’s coming.

It’s coming, because I have an even more clearly defined point of view which would really help with workload management - a firm belief that it is extremely difficult for any international cricketer to be above-average in all three formats. Given this, wouldn’t it make more sense to use players as single-format specialists - an approach which international teams are often unwilling to utilise. The skillset for each format is becoming increasingly different - T20 isn’t far off being a different sport to Test cricket, for example, and this divergence will continue.

My belief in the previous paragraph is quite a bold claim, so here’s where the data comes in. While for recruitment purposes, I use very advanced value added metrics and modelling - stuff which isn’t even in the public domain and probably won’t ever be - here we don’t even need to go into anything more than really basic data. Simple averages and (for white-ball cricket) strike rates are just fine for this purpose, to help ascertain the world’s best players in each format. I’m going to use batters as an example for this article here, although the same dynamic largely exists for bowlers too - and show that genuine three-format superstars, or even players who are above-average in all three formats, are extremely rare.

First up, here’s some data showing Test innings and batting average for batters in the format from the start of 2020 to the current date. What I’ve done here is used a qualification of minimum 20 innings during this time period, and for the first two columns of players, listed every player who has reached the top six batter Test average during this time period, plus those who were at worst, within 10% below that figure. Players in the third column of players were notable players who did not fit even this criteria:-

If we use that extra 10% as a tolerance limit, we can continue assessing the 43 players listed in the first two columns as above-average Test batters, and then look at how they perform in other formats compared to benchmark figures.

So, how many of these 43 players are now around or above-average in ODIs during the same time period? Let’s find out, with to start, a list of players above average for a top six batter in ODIs (among Test playing countries) from 2020-current date, plus those within a 10% tolerance limit for average, and within 5 for strike rate (because anything more will leave the tolerance limit below 80 SR, which clearly isn’t good). Also, some notable players (right hand column) shows some higher profile players who haven’t been able to come close to benchmarks for a top six batter in this time period. A sample size of minimum 15 matches played during this time period was used:-

I also then filtered for players playing 10+ ODIs, because so many decent players were missed out on this list. Here’s a list of notable ODI players who hit benchmarks or within tolerance limits with that slightly smaller sample size:-

You may have noticed that some players have now been highlighted in blue - 13 in total (Babar Azam, Tamim Iqbal, Quinton de Kock, Liton Das, Jonny Bairstow, Tom Latham, Steve Smith, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant, Rohit Sharma, Joe Root, David Warner, Marnus Labuschagne).

These are batters who are around or above average for both Test cricket and ODI cricket in the time span used - not many players, particularly considering we haven’t even moved on to T20 cricket yet. However, what it does start to show is how difficult it is to be a batter who is above average in just the two longer formats, let alone all three - showing how easy it should be to diversify a selection process via format specialisation, and therefore evolve player’s workload decisions on that basis.

T20 is a whole other format in itself. For a start, unlike Test cricket and ODI cricket, bilateral T20 is not necessarily a higher standard than T20 leagues. Most international teams - even the biggest ones - have players in their T20 line-up who wouldn’t be likely to get an IPL contract, for example. So we have to look at domestic performances as well as international performances. In an ideal world, what I would want to do here to assess above-average T20 batters is to use the following criteria:-

• Time period 2020-current

• Minimum 1 T20 international appearance during this time period

• Minimum 20 T20 innings played across internationals and high level T20/100-ball leagues (any of the IPL/PSL/CPL/BPL/Big Bash/Hundred/Blast) combined during this time period

However, this does rule out Joe Root (no T20 internationals played in this time period), so I relaxed the rule for him specifically.

While these criterion rules out uncapped players (which I quite like, so I can keep those gems to myself!) or obviously above-average white-ball/T20 players such as Alex Hales who haven’t been picked by their national teams, it does give all the above players listed a chance of inclusion - and that’s enough for us to filter further to find true three-format specialists.

The average numbers for a top six batter across T20 internationals (at least one Test-playing nation included) and those high level T20 leagues from this time period is as follows:-

26.29 Average Runs Per Wicket, 131.81 Strike Rate

Given this, I set tolerance limits at 23.66 average (as consistently the case, 10% below the average) and a strike rate of 126.81 - as with ODIs, a strike rate of 5 below the mean strike rate for a top six batter. Here are how the magic 13 from Tests/ODIs performed in T20s from 2020-current:-

Liton Das, Steve Smith and Tamim Iqbal were ruled out on grounds of strike rate being below tolerance limits, while Tom Latham (5 T20I innings, no high-level T20 leagues) was also eliminated. While Azam/Labuschagne/Pant/Root were slightly below average too, they came within tolerance limits.

However, if we are being super strict, only four players - Bairstow, De Kock, Jadeja and Sharma have proven themselves to be above-average batters in all formats from 2020 to the current time, adequately illustrating how difficult it is for batters to be strong across all-formats, particularly given the divergence in skillsets required to be successful.

What of the ODI-only leading lights listed above - do any of them have above-average T20 data in this time period? There were eight, who I think it’s fair to term high quality white-ball specialists on the whole:-

The likes of Virat Kohli, Aaron Finch, Shreyas Iyer, Rassie Van Der Dussen and Shikhar Dhawan were ruled out on a strike rate basis (below 131.81).

However, this does all lead to some very interesting debates regarding international selection and workload management. Just to give two examples:-

• With Jos Buttler being so much better than average in white ball cricket and far less relatively impressive in Tests, wouldn’t it have made sense for England to focus his attention to white ball cricket before they eventually did so? Foakes or Billings probably could have done a decent enough job in Tests, while ensuring Buttler’s workload is focused on what he does best.

• Given that Steve Smith is so good at Test cricket, but relatively less so at T20s, wouldn’t it make sense for Australia to ease him out of those format plans, and give more game time to the likes of Josh Inglis and Tim David - two players who could definitely fall into the white-ball specialist data brackets eventually.

Another observation worth noting here is that none of the traditional ‘elite four’ batters worldwide - Kohli, Root, Williamson, Smith - were above-average across all formats by the strictest definition.

With such few players being able to legitimately claim to be so (based on this data at least), it clearly illustrates how tough it really is to excel in all three formats, and that format specialisation is something which must be taken extremely seriously by international teams, both in order to improve their expected win percentage on the pitch, but also in order to efficiently manage the workloads of their star players.