International cricket rolling thread

The Game Room
963

Great game. The English batting and the Pakistan bowling is like a heavyweight with a glass jaw, if you can hit them you can hurt em.
In all three games England suffered a collapse, even in the previous game, when Morgan got out, if there had been 10 or so more runs they might have lost. Come T20WC time, it’s gonna hurt.
I was impressed with Shaheen, unlike the other youngsters, he didn’t panic when faced with a counter attack. Shadab and Rauf especially had some mind numbingly insane choices of deliveries at inopportune moments.
Captaincy is a shortcoming for Pakistan in all formats, while Azhar has improved as the tests went on, Babar should be shielded from it. Give it to Imad Wasim.

Good series and glad got to see some cricket this summer.

964

Remember England can bring Roy, Buttler, Root and Stokes back to the batting line up. They are not in a bad place in this format.

965

immense fun! to chase down totals of that size twice in a row would have been something else.

It has been great to have the cricket back over the summer, something of substance to listen to. Nothing says “normal” like TMS or “England batting collapse” . Well done to all involved for putting it on and to Pakistan, WI and the Aussies for being willing to come the UK to play. The results are almost incidental (almost!)

966

I have been quite critical of Moeen recently and I think he needed that innings to have a chance of keeping his place (to be fair I didn’t see his bowling). I agree England aren’t in a bad place here, especially if they can smarten up their bowling a bit. In a way I’m glad Pakistan went home with something, would have been harsh otherwise.

967

The main thing I took away from the T20s is how little we’re being told about what is actually happening by the TV comms.

Two things happened with Moeen in this game that made me think this - one I understand and one I don’t.

He opened the bowling, got a wicket and then didn’t bowl again in the innings. This is the one I don’t really get and needed the comms to actually tell me what was happening. Did England see that there was a match up issue for Zaman against spin in the PowerPlay? And that once Mo got the wicket, he’d done his job and didn’t need to bowl again? He bowled a bit in the PowerPlay in the PSL I seem to remember. Someone could have helped explain the game there I think.

The other I happened to know about because I’d read a piece in Wisden or CricViz or somewhere. Moeen is absolutely dynamite against spin in the middle overs of a T20. His strike rate balloons enormously according to his numbers collected across all the leagues - so when he got hold of Shadab, it conformed to what he is expected to do. Pakistan should probably have persisted with seam against him, as he performs much worse against pace. I only know this latter thing because I happened to have come across the relevant article though - the comms didn’t say anything about this.

Now, I know that T20 has several issues with comms getting into this stuff. It’s whizz-bang and the comms are trying to give a sense of how amazing the shots being played are to try and capture a younger audience. The game is also much quicker, so getting into detail is more difficult from a time perspective. Further, the game is very high variance, so you could point something out and the bloke in the middle could get out next ball and you look like an idiot.

But T20 is incredibly numbers and analysis driven, since all the leagues are televised and many have the more advanced ball tracking and what not numbers in them, plus in IPL, BBL, PSL and to a certain extent CPL (the highest forms of T20 - internationals and T20Blast don’t concentrate enough talent into the teams, and in the Blast’s case have enough money or access to Indian players to produce really great teams), there’s a lot of money knocking around, so teams are looking for every edge possible. On British TV at least, there’s little sense of actually explaining what the teams are trying to do and why they’re making the decisions they are making at the moment - and I think it needs to be the next evolution of cricket commentary. You can’t rely on people reading through myriad pieces to work it out - they should be telling us, so we can enjoy the game more.

This is a bit of a moan, which is unfortunate. The fact is though that the blokes in the comms box played a lot of Test cricket much of the time - that game is also slower and the tactics are more understood from centuries of trial and error. So the Sky guys routinely produce very good analysis on what is happening, why and what should happen next. I think they need to apply similar thinking to the T20 game. They could probably do with getting more T20 specialist cricketers into the box and possibly a different statistician/analyst dedicated to the form.

So to return to Moeen, in some senses, what happened last night isn’t really a return to form - it’s what he does to spin bowlers in the middle overs in T20. I love Mo and hope he sticks in the team, principally because he plays amazing shots that I love to see, but we’ll know that he’s in the team on a permanent basis when he’s smashing the pacers all over the place and/or his bowling tightens up a bit (usually he’s good for econ rate, rather than wickets).

968

Great analysis as always, thanks. I too love seeing Moeen play shots, unless they are stupid shots that get him out in his first 5 balls faced. But maybe that’s more of a gripe with his last few Test appearances than with T20. In the latter we could certainly do with a bowler capable of consistently going for less than 8 or 9 an over and I’m not sure Moeen is the answer.

969

Moeen’s bowling figures in T20s are actually not that bad on their face:

Moeen’s career figures

From here, we can see that his implied 4 over figures are 1-31(going at roughly 7.68 an over and a strike rate of a wicket every 20 balls). These are really good figures. If every bowler on your team did this, you’d only be chasing 154 every game.

Unfortunately, the numbers on Cricinfo are not particularly helpful from an analysis perspective. You can only Statsguru his international performances - and as already discussed, the best T20s are now probably club games - so it’s difficult to split his figures and look at how he does when the competition ramps up. He captains Worcs in T20 Blast and bowls like a hero in that competition - but English T20 is weak by comparison to other competitions, so his numbers may be benefiting from large numbers of games in weaker competitions.

The stats are also not cuttable (at least on Cricinfo) by which overs he bowled (is he better in PowerPlay, in the middle or at the death?) or which type of batsmen he regularly faces when he does bowl (maybe he is used in canny ways against batsmen who are weak against spin?) - so it’s really difficult to tell the truth of the matter.

It relates somewhat back to the point I made above - we could stand to have an iteration of Statsguru on Cricinfo which is just for T20, includes all the league cricket, and allows splitting of data into interesting component parts. This must already exist (it will be show analysts employed by the clubs themselves will be helping set tactics, plan for player auctions, etc) but it is probably proprietary. Something open would help us to answer that question you pose: you’re not sure Moeen is the answer for someone who can go at 8-9 an over. I am also not sure that he is. But I think we’re answering that question from two different angles.

970

That is certainly true - you are gathering stats and applying a lifetime of watching cricket regularly, I’m going on gut feeling as a casual observer of the game! I was pleasantly surprised by the stats you posted though, albeit with caveats.

It’s also interesting how not only has T20 made the other forms of the game more attacking (i.e. in terms of scoring rate), it has also evolved in itself towards higher totals - at least, that’s my impression. It seems to me that when it first came in, conventional wisdom was to see off the new ball/powerplays with wickets in hand, then accelerate in the last few overs, with 160+ being considered a good score. Now 180+ seems closer to par on most pitches - you look to score at least a single off nearly every ball, plus a boundary off the one bad ball per over. Which is where Root can really add something for England - he’s not your typical T20 batsman in that he rarely if ever slogs it for 6, but he’s excellent at working the ball around for those singles plus he’s quickly on to any bad balls to put them away for 4 - and he rarely gives his wicket away. Exactly the person you want at one end in the middle overs while someone like Stokes or Buttler smashes it around at the other.

971

The rate of evolution of T20 cricket is the root cause of my gripe about the way that the commentators are approaching the game and informing the audience. This particular form of the game is moving very quickly I think - driven by monetary rewards (and willingness to throw money at the form to chase those rewards).

Without getting into the numbers, my gut feel is that you are right. A few years ago, it felt like par was 160 and now it’s more like 180, with teams more regularly breaking 195-200. We’re starting to get analysts looking at performances and saying things like “Player X cost his team the game, he only scored at a SR of 130”, which would have been unthinkable not that long ago.

And Root, and in particular his role in limited overs cricket, is an interesting case study in how readily the game has changed. Back in 2016, he was very important in England’s run to the World Cup final. Now he can’t get in the team. The question of whether you have an anchor in your team anymore is indicative of the rapidity with which the game has changed. It seems now, at least give the way selection is going, you maybe don’t want one!

Bearing in mind that England have Buttler, Stokes and Roy all not in the current line up - I think that they’ll try and go all guns blazing and not have Root in the side (keeping Banton and Bairstow in the team - albeit with one or both moving down the order), on the basis that Buttler or Morgan could adapt and do the anchor role on the fly if England fall to 20-3 in a game, but otherwise, you don’t want someone who doesn’t score at nearly 200 SR - or is at least capable of flicking the switch and putting in a period of 12 balls where he scores that quickly.

It’s different in 50 over cricket where there is more time and a well played innings at 120 SR for 80-100 could well win you a match. There’s just so few deliveries in a T20 game that even the approach that Chris Gayle takes (get your eye in, block a few, and then back yourself to catch up by going tonto) is being looked at as a bit of a relic. Now it seems the philosophy is you go hard, all the time.

And all of this has unfolded in 4 years (bearing in mind Root’s importance in 2016). T20 is a crazy game from an evolution perspective.

Up thread, there is a comment about how light the batting looked for England. That’s another one which is really strange. I’ve seen some really unbalanced teams go out in various T20 comps - 5 recognised bats (including a wicketkeeper) and 6 bowlers, two or three of which can swing from the hip but not much else. Looking at the numbers, your #7, if he bats at all, will only face on average 6 balls (guys below that even fewer). Teams seem to be saying that you don’t want a real allrounder down there - you just want someone who lashes it and if it comes off, great, since you’re probably already in trouble if your 7 is batting. Instead, they seem to prefer to carry more bowlers to defend totals, since if one of your guys has an off day but you’ve only got 5 guys who can bowl, he’ll have to bowl his 4 overs and could lose you the game as a result.

So side composition is also evolving rapidly, and teams are willing to try out new tactics to see what works - back their upper order batsmen to come off and then hope they have enough bowling options to cover all eventualities. Indeed, in IPL, the sides who go big in the auction on batting (particularly RCB) have been found out for thinking it’s a batsmen’s game. The teams that do well have tended to spend on better quality bowlers, which is really weird, given the prevailing view of T20 is one of balls being smashed out of the park, but it also makes a certain degree of sense when you think about it.

Finally, in this stream of consciousness post, you’re even getting people suggesting things that haven’t been seen yet. For example - say you’re an IPL franchise and you’ve somehow picked up Stokes and Jason Holder. They’re in your 5 best batsmen but both can bowl too. Is it worth picking the very best wicketkeeper you can find regardless of batting talent and just batting him at 11? It might save you more runs and take you more wickets than picking up a worse wicketkeeper and better batsman, especially since you’ll have 6 or 7 potential bowlers in your line up. I don’t know the answer, and it hasn’t really been tried yet, since you need the right side composition to make it work but who is to say?

I much prefer Test cricket to T20 but I find it difficult to deny that T20 is currently in a really interesting place with how the game is going. Eventually, a “winning” set of strategies is going to be found and the sides will become more homogenous in structure and in the cricketers in those structures, but right now it’s a really exciting place for the game to be in, as we’re seeing it transition before our eyes.

972

I’ve heard it said that T20 is heading for a place where even specialist batsmen specialise in 12-ball 25s. And stuffing the side with slogging “all-rounders” to the point where, like a baseball bullpen, you have bowlers picked specifically to target a single opposing batman. After all, if you have the wickets in hand, a 30-ball 50 is worth less than three sloggers each hitting 20 off 10. And if your numbers 4-10 can collectively face 70 balls and hit 140, you’re in pretty good shape.

973

This sounds highly plausible to me.

974

I think you do then start to run into problems with consistency, though - it only needs a couple of your batsmen to fail and suddenly you have almost no chance. And given the way you have to play to hit 25 in 10 balls, failure is going to be common.

Conceivably you could also pick your batsmen (and/or batting order) target certain bowlers, also. All very interesting.

975

To clarify, I think I mean that I can see that being at least tried, if not in total, then in some measure.

Of course, the best thing you could have is someone who can do more than one job with the ball (i.e. get more than one of the opposition out). I’m yet to see decent evidence that, at the death, there’s anything more effective than being able to bowl accurate yorkers ball after ball. They’re seemingly impossible to hit 6s off. If you’ve got a couple of guys who can do that but are also highly effective against certain types of player, then you need fewer bowlers and can try to load up more on batsmen than all rounders.

One of the other problems with this is, of course, that the batting order isn’t technically fixed. Let’s use a couple of live-ish examples: Mo is good against certain players in the PowerPlay so you bowl him at the start of the innings - he gets a wicket with his first ball. If your designated #3 is bad against spin, you’re potentially not going to put him in to then face 5 balls of Moeen; maybe you put in the guy who monsters spin.

Conversely, a wicket falls in the middle overs to a spinner and in walks Mo. You know he tees off against spinners in the middle overs, so you probably want to use seam against him. But if you do so, does that leave you with someone who can bowl yorkers at the death, or is your spinner going to be left bowling over 20 and potentially getting smashed? What’s the thing you need to do to win the game? You can get into really interesting what-if scenarios quite quickly I think.

So there’s potential for this dynamic, turn based game within the game happening around the fall of wickets, dependent on how confident you are on the sameness of return in the batting you’re going to get by switching your order around to react to what is happening. Do I think it will go all the way to the extreme? Where everyone in the team can turn their arm over to do one specific type of job well and hit 24 off 12? Maybe not, but I bet some people are playing around on the edge of such thinking - which to come back to where I started, is why I think commentators need to be up on, e.g. what certain players do well, against whom, so that they can explain why a player has been bumped up the order or a bowler looking like he’s a world beater has suddenly been withdrawn from the attack.

976

All this of course implies that you also have player on the team who can bat explosively, take at least one batter out and make those tactical calls as captain! Which means at least having a good memory for a fairly complex play book under pressure and ideally the ability to make good decisions on the fly. There’s no or very little slack to carry an underskilled captain but I suppose evolution in competition will start to produce players who have that level of understanding.

977

Yeah, all this is totally correct.

In baseball, the “play calling” is done by the catcher and, if you watch MLB, they usually have an arm guard on, with a bit of plastic sheeting on the top, under which is a list of the batters on the opposition and their tendencies, so that the catcher can call the pitcher to pitch accordingly.

Taking notes onto the field is, I think (but would like to be corrected if not), illegal in cricket. So your captain is going to have to be very smart. If something goes wrong, especially in the second innings of a game, I can see all kinds of opportunities for gamesmanship (a fielder goes down “injured”, so can be replaced and the sub comes on saying “WTF are you doing? Coach says remember the plan to this guy, it’s X”).

978

Excellent analysis on T20’s an I find myself in agreement on most of them.
I agree that the franchises are higher levels currently than internationals. With the exception of the World Cup and we haven’t had one of those for a while. In the 1980’s, the English county one competitions were probably more high level than most internationals and they led innovation.
T20 is in a similar situation to ODI in the 80’s. Its an established form of the game, the World Cup is prestigious, but otherwise the head to head series aren’t really taken that seriously, except by younger players, those on the fringe etc. It was clear that many of the Pakistan players, who have been in isolation since mid June, wanted to GTFO, even the guys who only played a couple of T20’s.

As for tactics, I really want the coaches and skippers to stop trying to emphasise run restricting, against top sides it doesn’t work. The English in both Pakistan innings, and Pakistan in the second game showed why its a bad idea. Wickets are the most effective run rate reducer. Shaheen was most effective when he was attacking, and Haris Rauf was less dreadful when he was. Thought England missed a trick by telling Mehmood and Jordan not to attack.

What I don’t understand is why don’t teams tell bowlers to attack, especially quicks. T20 is a 4 over spell, broken down into 1-2 over increments. Tell Naseem, Shaheen, Jordan, Archer, Starc, Lockie Ferguson etc to bowl flat out from the get go. Sure they might get hit, but in T20’s batsmen are looking to attack anyway and its a lot harder to attack if you are getting 6 90mph+ balls an over.
We see it happen in franchise cricket, in PSL this last couple of seasons the aforementioned Jordan and Shaheen have done this.

979

sounds like you need MLB style “color” commentators usually a former player who can explain the thought processes…

funny I like reading cricket threads even tho I dont understand most of it and never actually seen it played…

980

Really? If you’re relying on 4 batsmen to get the bulk of your runs and 3 of them get out cheaply, you’re in trouble. If your plan is for 10 batsmen to get 20 each, then you expect 2 or 3 of them to fail - but some of the others will get 30 or 40 and it all balances out. And if it doesn’t, you still end up with 170-180, which is not a disaster.

As @Cumbrian pointed out upthread, the average no 7 in T20 faces 6 balls. Lose 3 extra wickets and it’s your No 10 facing 6 balls - which, assuming that 7-8-9 can keep the scoring rate up and No 10 can bash a couple of boundaries in the last over, is no big deal. Provided all your batters can swing, the only wicket that matters is the 10th - and even then 180 all-out off 18 is better than 175-5 off 20.

Regarding tactics, I give it 5 years - tops - before we see captains with headsets and plays being radioed in from the coaching teams on the sidelines, NFL-style.

981

We do actually have those, especially on radio commentary, but the problem is a lot of the former players haven’t been playing for a while, and T20 is evolving very fast.

I think you can over-think this sort of thing, and getting ‘the basics’ right will always stand you in good stead, even if in T20 ‘the basics’ are full fast yorkers and scoring off every ball.

982

Almost all the commentators are ex players, some of them Hall of Famers. Game has changed a lot in the last few years. Imagine if in the past few years in baseball, they had purposefully made pitching harder, permitted bigger bats, encouraged the fences to come in, allowed TV reviews of strike calls. And had a new version of the game with just 3 inning. A former player might be caught out as what worked in his time, won’t now.