CricketPunt

Was Jack Taylor unlucky to be undrafted?

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:03:14 GMT

The draft came and went on Monday, but one of the names that wasn’t picked up was Gloucestershire captain, Jack Taylor.

Taylor the niche finisher?

Taylor operates in an interesting niche in the in the t20 world – the finishers, but more specifically, the seam finisher. This is a highly specialised role, batting at 5 or 6, where players are expected to get their team over the line chasing, or if setting go at at least 10+ runs per over in the last 3-5 overs of the innings.

A lot of franchises double this role up with a 5th / 6th choice bowler and fill the team with these in the 5-8 slots. The modern team generally now has 4 specialist bats, a batting keeper, 4 specialist bowlers and 2-3 all rounders who either fill the 5th bowling option or combine as a 6th bowler for specific match ups. Examples of these players include Ben Cutting, Carlos Brathwaite, Keiron Pollard. Therefore, for Taylor to be noticed and stick his head above the parapet as a non bowling finisher you need to be elite to get drafted.

The average Blast, IPL or BBL batsman in the 5/6 batting position will go at a Strike Rate of 130 (The top 10% go at 173). Jack Taylor the last four years goes at an overall strike rate of 143, chasing this goes up considerably to 166 which is outstanding. Setting it’s a rather middling 127.

When you compare Taylor’s record to others in the 5 or 6 position only it stacks up very well and he is among elite company.

Taylor ranks 19th/108 for batsman in the 5-6 position in the last four seasons, Blast, BBL and IPL (minimum faced 100 balls)

No surprises to see Andre Russell and Hardik Pandya at the top in terms of strike rate. In the 5/6 slot I have ranked by strike rate as there are too many not outs to make average a particularly useful metric. Six percentage or balls per wicket would be a more useful stat instead.

(On a side note, Will Fraine, can probably consider himself rather unlucky not to be drafted.)

Any how Taylor comes out 19 ^th of 108 players. Everyone else in the list has had lots of chance at international or franshise level to showcase there skills and I think Taylor can feel a little bit aggrieved he has not had the chance yet. If you look at the players that Taylor is ahead of names such as M. Marsh, Pant, Karthik, Pooran, Buttler, Pollard, Billings and Dhoni you see a player that has been consistently very good over four seasons in his role lower middle order / finisher role.

A World Class Chaser

Below we are looking at all players in the Blast, IPL and BBL batting in the 5th and 6th position in the last four seasons who have faced at least 100 balls whilst chasing. This is the reason you want Jack Taylor in your team. Arguably his greatest skill set in T20 has been getting his team over the line and ending up on the winning side, and as a result his strike rate in the 2nd innings is the 6th best of those three leagues.

This is a who's who of franchise cricket, Russell, Morgan, Hodge, Clarke, Narine, Striling, Pandya, Pooran, Russell, De Villiers, Roy, Pollard, Finch and Jack Taylor.

A lack of exposure to spin bowling

One of the drawbacks at coming in so late in the innings is exposure. Taylor’s average innings lasts 11.36 balls over 44 innings. The average Blast top 4 batsman over the same period faces 22 balls. Over four seasons Taylor is yet to register a half century. Coming in late in the innings and hitting sixes is one of the most valued skills. When you look at Taylor’s statistics in the death overs, 16-20, only 11.8% of his deliveries have been against spin. I think Taylor could probably do with coming in at the four slot for several reasons.

Moving up the Order?

At 29, he is now in the peak of his career, one of the more experienced players and can start taking on a bit more responsibility. Playing some match winning 40s, 50s and 60s from the four position.

Secondly, his record in List A versus spin is excellent so I would see no harm in him coming in and setting up the game before launching at the death. This would also put to bed the questions that remain about his ability to play spin from lack of exposure over the last four seasons and prove his value as a batting all rounder to franchises.

Limited opportunities in 2020

Last season’s opportunities were limited for two key reasons.

The Gloucestershire top 3 was extremely strong, Cockbain, Dent and Hammond leading the way. Therefore, Taylor only faced on average only 10.27 balls per game and secondly captain Taylor couldn’t win a toss and kept getting sent into bat. When you look at Taylor’s record over the last four seasons there is an interesting anomaly, his strike rate is far better in the 2 ^nd innings, 166. In the 1 ^st innings when setting, it is 127.

Taylor is one of the best players at seeing home chases and getting his side over the line. When you look at the first innings last season these were four not outs. Had he entered at 4 all of a sudden we are looking at potentially four match winning knocks. His 27 not out off 16 v Worcs last season cou ld have been transformed to a 50+ off 30 ball innings. With such a strong top three for Gloucestershire I think a move to the four slot for the captain and taking on a bit more batting responsibility for setting large totals would be a natural fit for himself and the team.

Two dimensional cricketer?

One of the obvious steps to raise your profile would be to be able to bowl spin for specific match ups. Players such as Livingstone, Labuschange, Denly, and Short have become useful spin options for their teams and franchises. Taylor used to bowl offbreak but has been banned three times subsequently for an illegal action. He has gone on record to say in 2018 and again this year that he has been working on his legbreaks in the nets and it is ready to be unleashed in the 2nd X1 and in the Blast this season. If he can now re-discover his form with the ball then this could be a game changer for his t20 career.

Wild card?

There are eight wild cards after the t20 blast group stage and I am sure Taylor will have his eye on one of these as one of the best domestic bats on the circuit. Lots of players will be vying for these spots, so you could see increased risk taking next season and subsequently an increase in scoring rates. The best players will adapt and up their personal statistics whilst scoring runs and winning games for their team. Will Taylor be able to do this…. I hope so…. He’s a very talented player as he has showcased on the big stage such as the 2015 Royal London one day cup.

Looking forward to 2021 : The Gameplan

First of all, Jack Taylor's priority will always be focused on the most important thing, that is to win as many games for Gloucestershire as possible and hopefully go all the way to the Blast title. In order to help Gloucestershire achieve their goals and accelerate his personal development, these would be my recommendations to help take his T20 game to the next level and start to attract franchise attention.

Move up to the number 4 slot….
Thereby increasing his exposure to spin…
Scoring more runs by coming in earlier…
Playing match winnings innings, 40s 50s and 60s in the engine room…
Whilst developing his legspin for match ups when two right handed players are at the crease.
Making sure he is as aggressive when setting a score in the first innings as he natually is when chasing

In summary, Taylor has been a bit unlucky not to showcase his skills worldwide, but his niche role is naturally competing with the best batting all rounders in the world such as Christian, Russell, Maxwell etc. The recency bias of a leaner than average season in 2020 may have meant he dropped down the pecking order on franchise’s radars. A move up to four in the 2021 Blast would be a good call for a captain ready to take on more responsibility as a senior pro. Developing his legbreak as a 5 ^th or 6 ^th bowling option, whilst scoring more runs for Gloucestershire in this year’s Blast would probably be enough for him to pick up one of the eight wild card slots before the Hundred starts.

Hope you enjoyed this in depth player analysis. Please retweet, like or send me a message.

Look forward to your comments.

Thanks

Neil

Read the Cricketer article - Jack Taylor 2.0: The reinvention of Gloucestershire's T20 skipper

Listen to the County Cricket Podcast - with Jack Taylor

Jack's social media handles:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jacktaylor10/?hl=en

Twitter - https://twitter.com/jacktaylor141

Let's talk about All Rounders

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 19:47:38 GMT

Taking a closer look at the Blast all rounders - Balls per boundary

When a franchise is putting together a team, there are different ways to be build the team. In my opinion the best balance is to have five out and out bowlers. In an ideal world one of them would including one of them left arm pace such as a Dwarshius or Topley. An unorthodox spinner (or 2) is a must and then the rest filled with the best bowlers available.

I am not a massive fan of all rounders in t20 cricket. It’s useful to have a world class bat like a Glenn Maxwell who is a 6th bowling option or high quality overseas options like D’Arcy Short for match ups but not essential.

When we look at all rounders there are four categories in my opinion, the genuine all rounder who would get in the team with his bowling or his batting. I think world wide there are only three of these, Hardik Pandya, Andre Russell (when fit) and Shakib Al Hasan.

Then the next category is the Batting all rounder. These players can sometimes be the 5th bowling option and expected to bowl 4 overs in weaker teams. Or two batsman fulfil the role of the 5th bowler. There is an extremely long list of these players, Stokes, Maxwell, Cutting, Root, Stirlling, Christian, Pollard, Stoinis, Watson, Neesham etc. First of all though these players are elite batsman who can bowl reasonably well. Most teams around the world get composed, especially in auctions, of these batting all rounder. Teams seem to over value, or over pick these players.

Then there are the all rounders, who in my opinion wouldn’t get in a normal team with either skill set. Think Carlos Brathwaite, Darren Sammy, Ravi Bopara, maybe who are both below the average in each department but in lower grade franchises these players can become important but they generally struggle at international or IPL level.

Then there is the category that in my opinion is the most undervalued in world cricket and the one I want to focus on today. The elite bowler or bowler who is definitely bowling four overs who can also find the fence. Rashid Khan, Sunil Narine, Coulter-Nile, Hasan Ali and most recently Jhye Richardson are names who I think fulfil this role. These players to me are under utilised in t20 franchise cricket. The fact you would have these players in your team has multiple benefits.

Firstly, it means your top order can be more aggressive as the fear or leaving too many balls to the tail is diminished. Secondly, they can also pinch in the powerplay, or in the middle overs if one of them possesses spin hitting ability like Narine. Thirdly, it also means you can trust these players to get you home in run a ball chases 6 down, such as Hasan Ali in the 3rd Pak v SA t20, but they may also win you a 12 or 13 rpo chase with a few overs to go occasionally.

This is a skillset that requires dedication and opportunity. Management first of all need to recognise the skillset then accept that the failure rate of these players will be high. But this should not matter, it’s almost a free bet. Teams rarely get bowled out. A team going at optimal aggression should be bowled out around 10% of the time batting first. Daniel Worrall recently showed in the BBL what can be done by a tailender whose only mindset is hitting boundaries. These players must have low balls per boundary numbers and / or high six percentages.

I will talk about how I would set up a batting team to take advantage of the three batting phases in a future article. For now I would like to depth chart the Blast from last season and see how we can break up the players in to the four categories and see if there are any undrafted players who catch the eye.

So I have taken the data from the Blast last season. If you’re a batsman I rate balls per boundary extremely highly. Likewise the opposite should probably hold fairly true, if bowlers can prevent teams hitting the ball to the boundary then that is a useful skill. Obviously there is a number of limitations using this state, there are other important factors that I am not going to explore today such as non boundary scoring percentages. This is also a small data sets for some players, there is a recency bias as this is 2020 data and the data hasn’t been adjusted for the match or innings situations. This could all be done but would add many more hours so I am going to keep it simpler for now.

Let’s look at the All Rounders, these are players who are bowling frequently in games and batting.

* SR and Economy are career T20 strike rates and economy

** BPB is balls per boundary

Some interesting names in there if unfiltered. Zaib comes out top with small sample data, not a player you would expect. He does tick a lot of boxes, being left handed helps. Certainly one to keep an eye on considering that his raw data isn’t that impressive, SR 120 and Econ 8.12. Luke Procter comes out second. The table above is filtered for players who have participated in 150 balls in the 2020 Vitality Blast so we get this table, but we do lose players such as Ben Mike, Rikki Clarke, David Willey.

Now the top player using this metric is Joe Root. I am surprised to see Delport and Livingstone in there as neither would bowl much at international level but at Blast level they get regular overs. Luke Hollman is a very interesting name in the list, clearly a young player breaking on the scene. In my opinion if he can get that balls per boundary down to under 6 than he is looking at being an elite all rounder.

At the bottom is Ravi Bopara. I watched him a lot in the t10 and how he gets contracts is unknown.

Here is a look at the bowling all rounders

I am trying to see with these players if there are any diamonds in the rough that captains aren’t using enough or have the potential to be very good players.

Scott Steel is interesting. He’s only 21, he did well opening in 2019 but only had 6 games last year and was dropped. In an auction you might want to take a chance on him at base price as a back up. But in a draft you must pick the best player available in that slot. He’s the kind of player I would be scouting, and pointing out his weaknesses as there is the core of a good player there.

Generally, you need to have that balls per boundary below six. Graeme White is a player that ticks a lot of the boxes with a very high six % of 10.3 that we discussed in a previous article.

Jamie Overton is becoming a very good player and had an excellent t20 tournament. I’d be surprised if he isn’t one of the first picks. Some of the players in the list will lose out because of Brexit and the expiry of Kolpak deals such as Van Der Merwe.

Then there are players such as Ed Barnard who look ok with the bat but then they fail to be a good enough bowler in the first place. The main criteria is these bowling all rounders need to be good bowlers. I looked at Barnard’s numbers in a bit more detail and he clearly has a problem bowling to left handers that needs looking at. Over 45 blast games he conceded 9.7 runs to left handers with 38 Balls per wicket compared to 8.5 right handers and 20 BPW. Work on this weakness and then he can be considered. To me this is a big red flag and even though his raw data is ok would make him unselectable for a franchise competition at this stage. He is only 25 though and with good coaching and more analysis say using CricViz to look in to this weakness he is definitely a player to watch out for if he can address that issue.

This BPB metric is just a starting point when looking at players data and obviously I am using a very small sample. There is one thing I like about this metric though a lot, it identifies players who are just not up to scratch. Lewis Gregory is not an all rounder looking at the data. The eye test watching England games and Big Bash also confirms this in my opinion. He has been extremely fortunate to have been handed the opportunities he has. Must have a good agent.

Before we finish I just want to look at a one more young name that I think could have an excellent future, 20 year old Luke Hollman. He ticks those boxes that we just love when looking at T20, Left Hand bat and a skiddy Legbreak bowler. He was in the England U19 World cup set up so no doubt will be getting the best coaching and career path and I am sure being part of the England set up at youth level will be invaluable in his development.

His economy to right handers is exceptional 6.6. His captain, Steven Finn, leading a very young team with no internationals, was extremely conservative about how he used him last year, carefully picking him for matchups with right handers almost exclusively. His batting was good, going at 157 strike rate in the death overs which is decent for a young cricketer. I think this summer he needs to get some more cricket under his belt and then demand the ball in more difficult circumstances, ask to bowl against their best bowlers and be confident he can take wicket as well as occasionly when required bowling in the powerplay and working on his non stock deliveries. From a batting point of view he needs to push his case for batting at 5 and come in a bit earlier in the innings to really show his skillset. Middlesex have a gem that needs polishing so it's up to them and the England set up to get this player the exposure required.

Is he ready for franchise cricket? Probably not, he might sneak in the 14th or 15 ^th spot in the hundred. But if he can improve this season and gain game experience versus lefties, and get the six percentage up a bit and / or reduce his balls per boundary into the elite level that would make him a real all rounder given his left hander and legbreak combo, exactly what coaches and captains value the highest.

Finally, there are three batsman that I included who had good numbers from a very small sample of balls bowled in the blast. Striling, Leaning and Libby. They can provide a 6th bowling option and these players should be encouraged to work on their skillsets in the nets to increase their usefullness to franchises.

If there's anything cool you saw in the data give me a buzz. If you loved the article please retweet.

Thanks very much

Neil

Batsman statistics in the 2020 Blast Season

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:29:44 GMT

The Hundred – Men’s Player Retention and Draft Order

The cancellation of the Hundred due to Covid has provided some teams the opportunity to keep their best players and dump the players they weren’t sure about.

There is a new dataset in the Vitality Blast that the teams can pour over and pluck out some of the best performers. I am going to run over some key batting statistics that I feel are important and won’t be found on Cricinfo or basic website to guide recruitment in the upcoming draft.

Batsman Selection

1. Strike rate after 18 balls faced

I think this is a wonderful statistic. All players should be set after facing 18 balls. I like this stat as it’s a good way to compare players whether they come in at the start, middle or at the death. It’s a bit more a true way of calculating strike rate. Here’s a list of the top 20 players from the 2020 Blast.

*player already recruited in The Hundred

The players who have faced over 50 balls deeper, domestic and undrafted are Sam Hain and Ian Cockbain. I would definitely look at these players in more detail.

2. Strike rate 1 ^st ten balls faced

I like this statistic because one of the thing I value most if the ability to hit a six from ball one. It is perhaps the rarest of T20 skills. The next is finding the boundary when you haven’t seen the pitch or the bowler. Finally it is rotating the strike. Dot balls in t20 are death by 120 cuts, so you inmy opinion the best players need to get off to a strong start and continue accelerating until they are set at 18 balls faced.

Here is a list of the top Strike rates based on the first ten balls faced in the innings from last season’s blast.

Top of the pops is Dan Weston’s favourite player Benny Howell. There’s some quality players in here. One’s I would want to investigate more are Graham Clark, veteran Hildreth, Mike and White.

3. Six %

Sounds obvious but the most important batting skill in t20 is being able to clear the rope. West Indies worked it out before anyone else 6 or 7 years ago and it’s why their players are so valued. Looking at the last data from last year, there’s a few names that haven’t bene picked up yet…

I’d make Dan Christian my first pick as an overseas. He used the surges amazingly in the BBL, was a useful 5 ^th bowler bowling pressure surge overs. He needs to drop the round the wicket tactic bowling. He is firmly in the world class bracket and was crucial in Sixers winning the Big Bash.

Rutherford makes it in the list again, so do Cockbain, Mike and White. Cockbain especially stands out with his 22 sixes.

4. Player comparison

So I have ranked all the players from last year’s Blast. If you ranked first in that column you rank 1. Obviously some of these columns are massively related. I am just having fun with these data whilst highlighting players that I find interesting and I am sure the 8 teams will be looking at similar data.

I’ve averaged the ranks out based on the 8 metrics and have restricted it to players who have faced at least 100 balls in last year’s Blast. If a player is below the Blast average I have given them the Blast average as I don’t want to overly penalise someone for being bad in one category over one season and the variance that comes with it, e.g Livingstone and Lyth death strike rate is below the Blast average of 154, therefore they get ranked as 70 ^th (the average) rather than overly punish them.

C ockbain comes out as the star. Across the metrics he ranks superbly on all metrics, especially as he faced over 200 balls. The other players are overseas star Rutherford and Bell-Drummond. I will publishing some pieces starting with Cockabin and some others this week.

Stevie Eskinazi and Sam Hain also deserve recognition and will be looked at. I will also look in more detail at these players over the week and see what we can uncover as well the bowlers in future articles.

Should anyone wish to discuss the recruitment data in more details please DM me or if you have any suggestions please let me know.

Thanks

neil@cricketpunt.com

Ian Cockbain - anchor, destroyer or finisher?

websitebuilder@1and1.de — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:29:44 GMT

My initial research on the Hundred batsman came up with a few names like Hain, Bell-Drummond and Luke Hollman. One name that kept coming out though was Ian Cockbain, so I am going to take a closer look at his numbers over the last three seasons to see what we can learn about this player.

1. Role change : From Anchor to Destroyer (and potential Finisher)

Ian Cockbain is a unique cricketer who can fill any roll for his team and bat in any position. He can open, play the hardest role at 3 and 4 or be a finisher.

The numbers Ian Cockbain clocked up with match winning knocks in the 2020 blast at number 3 were truly exceptional. On the back of solid 2018 and 2019 games, Cockbain’s job was to anchor the innings, score at a steady rate whilst accumulating runs then explode at the end if he was still in at the 16th over (a feat he managed in 36% of games). He would then take down the bowling at a 205 Strike Rate (Blast average over same period 150 SR) and finding a maximum with 16.1% of the deliveries he faced in the last 5 overs.

Cockbain was the classic anchor and a superb one at that. However, his numbers in the 2020 Vitality blast show there was unlocked potential that was has finally been unleashed, as shown by his 205 strike rate at the death in overs 16-20. In 2020 it looks like his role has changed from anchor to destroyer. Let's take a closer look.

Rather than taking 10 balls to get set and then slowly accelerating through the innings, Cockbain, now starts to go from about ball 7. His strike rate in 2020 after facing 7-10 balls is a world class 212!

What is amazing about this role change in 2020 after the Powerplay is twofold. He still averages 72 in the Powerplay and then when he enters the middle phase he doesn’t slow down, he gets even quicker, targeting the 4 ^th and 5 ^th change bowlers.

If we take a closer look at his Strike Rate in the late middle or pre launch phase of 11-15, his 212 SR was the 7 ^th best in the world in 2020 to face at least 50 balls. The average domestic player in this period goes at 129 SR.

If we look at his numbers in the death, his Strike rate drops off a bit to 155. Over the last four years his overall strike rate in overs 16-20 is 184 so perhaps last year was a bit of natural variation. Alternatively, there is perhaps an element of tiredness that has played a part and I would recommend that he looks at this as part of his development.

So Cockbain could equally come in at 5 or 6 and be the finisher and have the perfect skill set for that role.Since 2018, he was in at the death in 11 games and hit a six with 17.1% of the deliveries faced with a 193 strike rate. Should a franchise require him to play the finishing role Cockbain will be ready to deliver.

2. Hundred draft – where does he rank versus his peers?

Cockbain’s last 3 years of performances compared to the other players being selected is excellent. The table below shows how Cockbain ranks compared to the Blast players who came in at position 3 or 4 in the 2020 season.

A- Strike Rate 1st 10 balls faced

B - Average 1st 10 balls faced

C - Death Strike Rate - Overs 16-20

D - Death Balls per Wicket - Overs 16-20

E - Death Average - Overs 16-20

F - Overall Strike Rate

G - Overall Average

H - Six percentage

I - Strike Rate once set (after 18 balls)

Cockbain appears to be one of the most flexible players in domestic cricket. He has taken a look at his main weaknesses in 2018 and 2019 in my opinion and turned them in to strengths in 2020. Once the Powerplay has finished he has taken it on himself to carry the attack to the spinners. Being aggressive against the spinners is something that has worked for him as I show in the comparison below.

Cockbain ranks 5th in his Strike rate for the 1st 10 balls in an innings in 2020 Blast – very few can get off to a quicker start and punish the bowling early on. This means that he could even play the role of finisher should he be required. He also hits a six with 9.2% of deliveries he faces. Only Robert Yates hit at a higher rate (6 from 58 balls)

3. Seam v Spin – an improving cricketer

His record versus pace is well known and elite. However, to do improve his game Cockbain was weak in one area, Offbreak bowling. Oddly for a right hander Cockbain got in trouble by being too negative against Offbreak in previous years.

Cockbain has always been comfortable versus legbreak and able to pick it. However, one can see the difference in attitude and aggression towards spinners in his new destroyer role in 2020.

So Cockbain was aware of his sub par record against offbreak and has developed some new shots and footwork against offbreak bowling. His numbers in the 2020 Vitality blast show his attacking intent against Offbreak bowling has really paid off. Cockbain should now be considered an all round player with few if any weaknesses.

4. Conclusion

Ian Cockbain is coming into the peak of his powers as an elite t20 world batsman at 33 years of age, taking his power and attacking game to approaching world class level. He is aware of his strengths and has considerably improved on his weaknesses to become an elite player that can fill any role a coach or captain requires in t20 cricket. I'd probably use him as a number 3 or 4 in The Hundred, being a 16 over game.

Please comment or tweet me if you would like anymore in depth player analysis. I will try and do a few more before The Hundred starts

Thanks

neil@cricketpunt.com

T20 Blast bowlers - strike rates 1st 10 balls, 19+ and 6 %

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:29:43 GMT

I was thinking about what makes a great bowler in t20 cricket. Some of the obvious metrics are bowling economy, strike rate, balls per wicket. There’s been work done on True Strike Rates that give each ball an expected outcome and how you perform over time against the average gives you a true performance level. This is fantastic but not everyone has access to an all singing, all dancing models.

In the article about batting, I picked out three key metrics than can be used to assess players which I believe are important. So it makes some sense that if bowlers can restrict these then they must be fairly valuable.

Here are the three metrics but in reverse for the bowlers, a) the best 1st 10 balls strike rate, b) best strike rate to set batsman who have faced over 18 balls and c) the lowest six percentage.

Obviously these figures are not perfect, if someone played all their games at the MCG their six % would be artificially low or if they were at Taunton artificially high but if we inclined we could adjust for that and give each ground a six rating and then apply it to the player. I won’t be doing that today but I could make that data privately available should anyone be particularly interested.

Furthermore the data set is small, so analysing one season like this will give rise to a recency bias. You might get taken down by Colin Munro on one day and all of a sudden your statistics look bad.

Anyway, let's take a look at the worst offenders in the t20 blast last season

1. Strike rate to batsman facing their 1st 10 balls

Doesn't really show us that much - the average is 121 Strike Rate. If we filter for minimum 100 balls then three players are above 150, Matt Taylor's 158 Strike rate comes out worst, followed by Ollie Sale and Ryan Higgins.

And the winners Mark Wood and Callum Taylor, have a look at the table below.

Some interesting names in there who have bowled at least 50 balls. Luke Hollman, comes in to the all rounder category.

There is a lot of part timers especially spinners. These bowlers have probably come on when the game is dead and already won bowling at the tail, or when conditions are particularly in their favour. Callum Taylor would probably fall in to this category. To improve these numbers I could filter out only bowling at say the top 6 batsman.

Danny Briggs showed why he potentially won a BBL contract. Tom Smith’s slow left arm also comes out well. Prem Sisodiya the Glamorgan left arm tweaker also comes out very well. At 22 years old will be interesting to see if he comes out well in another metric and continues to improve over the next few seasons with this age curve.

2. Strike rate to batsman who have faced over 18 balls (SR19+)

Here are the worst offenders in the Vitality blast 2020. These are fairly small samples, the average bowler would go at 148 SR to a player this set.

Bit unfortuante for Ollie Sale who also comes out right near the top at facing set batmsan as well as unset batsman.

And here are the best performers.

I could probably improve these by filtering for number of balls, here I have done minium 10 which is a tiny sample Anyway, I am going to take a look at those with 50+ balls to set men.

Max Waller mostly bowling at Taunton is outstanding. Once again Danny Briggs makes it in there and Joe Root! There are quite a few leg spinners in this bracket. Mason Crane’s numbers are exceptional as well and recently appointed Leicestershire vice captain and slow left armers Parkinson also does quite well.

And finally looking here is the worst offenders for six percentages with at least 40 balls bowled.

Some good players in the list there like Pat Brown and Tim Bresnan.

3. Bowlers six percentage conceded

If we value six hitting as a skill very highly, then it reasons that we should also value bowlers who don't go for sixes. Maybe we could also look at dot ball percentage as well. That might be one for a different day. Anyway here at the worst offenders in the blast last season with a minimum 40 balls bowled.

Some good players in the list there like Pat Brown and Tim Bresnan.

And here are the list of players who average under 2%. The average of all bowlers is 4.1%

No surprise to see Chris Jordan with 0 although from a small data set. Stirling is canny and a good 6 ^th choice option. He might will get picked up as an overseas player.

Tim Murtagh comes out well in this metric. My favourite player Dan Christian only conceded two sixes in over 200 balls bowled. He didn't go so well in the BBL with his round the wicket surge tactic but he is still a very good operator.

Max Waller, Mason Crane, Joe Root, Tom Smith, Luke Procter, Jake Lintott, Mattie McKiernan and Felix Organ all measure well. These are players that I would look and produce individual reports on with data as well as scouting reports and video analysis and I may produce a comparison on these players before the draft or look at one or two in more detail.

Hope you enjoyed the data. Please retweet if you did or reply with some feedback. There will be a few more articles to come before the Hundred Draft.

Thanks

Neil@cricketpunt.com