The whole cricketing world is being treated to a feast of one day cricket during the World Cup, and while there have been lots of exciting performances and close games, there has also been a lot of criticism and analysis of the playing styles of various players. What is the true value of a one-day innings?
A number of batsmen currently displaying their cricketing skills with some incredible hitting have been doing so for long periods of time reducing world class bowlers to tears. World records have tumbled, and expectations have been set for every batsman to adopt this template for batting success.
However, the history of almost 50 years of competitive one-day international cricket has taught us that batting aggression, while extremely useful for impact, is not the only ingredient for teams’ sustained batting success.
A fifty-over innings takes a long time in cricket. The rules of the modern one day game dictate the pace of an innings, so a time tested formula for constructing an innings has been to utilise the first 10 overs to get off the blocks quickly, keep a steady charge during the middle overs without losing too many wickets, and sprint towards the end with more aggressive batting in the last 10 overs. Teams are selected based on batsmen having impact at the right time of an innings. Aggressive batsmen have greater impact at the start and at the end of an innings, while the more orthodox (read less aggressive) batsmen have great value in the middle of the innings.
So how do you objectively rate each batting performance when you can’t apply a standard statistic to determine the value of that performance. Number of runs scored in isolation is not enough of a measure, especially if a lower order batsman scores a quick 40 in just 3 overs to provide late momentum to an innings. Similarly strike rates in isolation do not tell the full story. A middle order batsman playing an anchor role may score 100 off 120 balls but would be very instrumental in providing a platform for the final assault.
There are factors that govern any batting performance (i.e. batting first or second, nature of the conditions and playing surface, quality of opposition etc) that can determine appropriate weightage to each batting performance, but it is fair to assume that these factors remain the same for all batsmen in an innings, so for the purpose of this exercise, we can ignore these and focus on only three factors that are batsman specific : score, strike rate, and time of innings (at what phase of the innings the batsman contributed).
In the next blog, we shall attempt to quantify the value of the batting innings. While it may not be perfect, it hopefully provides an objective view.