One of the great things about cricket is the statistics – no matter what you’re arguing for or against, the stats don’t lie… although they’re always open to interpretation!
Coming into this Ashes series most have acknowledged that neither the Australian nor the English teams are ‘great’ sides, nor in particularly dominant form. Both have inexperienced top order batsmen and while the Aussies have the youth and intimidation in the their pace attack, in Anderson and Broad the Poms have experience and bit of guile.
So most of the focus has been on the stand-out batsmen in each side. The hosts have world number one ranked Steve Smith, backed up by David Warner. The English have Joe Root, backed up by the vastly experienced Alastair Cook. That both talismans are also leading their teams makes it even more interesting.
Smith and Root are often spoken about as two of the four leading young batsmen in the world at the moment – along with Indian skipper Virat Kohli and New Zealand captain Kane Williamson. All four have played a similar number of test matches for their country and bat in the top order.
Teams’ best batsmen generally bat at 3, 4 or 5 in the order. The ability to influence the result more that others through an innings is what sets the greats aside from the very good. These innings are often hundreds, or big hundreds. Test teams that have players who are able to regularly score 100s, opposed to 50s and 60s, are the ones that are able to regularly post the runs needed to put pressure on opposition and give their bowlers something to defend.
I though it would be interesting to do a small comparison of some of the numbers of the top players at the moment, and for interest’s sake a few of the more recent batting legends of the game.
For the sake of this data I looked at runs scored batting at 3, 4 or 5 in the order.
The main thing that jumps out, with an eye on the Ashes, is Joe Root’s poor conversion rate. He goes past 50 at a similar rate to Smith – approximately 45% of all innings. (This in itself sets the two of them on another level compared to their contemporaries). However while Smith goes on to a hundred more than half of the time, Root’s conversion from 50 to 100 is just 29% – significantly lower than any on the broader list. Kohli, on the other hand, gets past 50 less frequently, but when he does his conversion to 100 is over 60%.
While England continue to rely on Root as the one to consistently turn matches their way with the bat, it is going to become more of an issue if he is not able to score the big hundreds his team needs. It’s a lot of pressure and while Steve Smith has blossomed with the burden of captaincy on him, it remains to be seen if Root with be able to do the same.
Note: Data provided by cricinfo and correct as of 26 November 2017
Balls on the line 