| Twenty20 World Championship: Key performers (Part I) |
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| Written by Sreeram Ramachandran & Jatin Thakker | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 08 August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In the coming two months,
that Twenty20 is a 'whole new ball game' is likely to be the most
abused pun in world cricket, right up there with 'bowling maidens
over'. But it is difficult to deny that this is true, especially when
you analyze current domestic & International performances and
figure out who is doing well, and more insightfully, who is not.
There are a fair number of theories going around which speculate why twenty over cricket will or will not require skill sets different from those required in a 50 over game. What may be lacking, though, given that the 20 over format is a relatively new phenomenon, is sufficient information to back these theories up. As of now, Twenty20 cricket is played most in domestic circuits. The maximum number of games any international team has played is 6 (England). And there have been a lot of heard, unheard and forgotten names who have been raking up the records in their domestic leagues, away from the International eye.
In a three part series, we look at trying to bring the spotlight on these leading batsmen and bowlers who seem to have gotten a firm grip on the mechanics of the new format, and have the potential to make a serious impact in the upcoming Twenty20 Championships. A look at the names here suggests that Twenty20 is, as much as we would like to find other ways to put it, a whole different ball game.
We start with looking at the key players from South Africa, India and Pakistan
Batting
South Africa
Top five batsmen in the South African Domestic Pro20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum Five Innings)
None of Bosman, Petersen, van Wyk and McKenzie are players with a contract with the South African cricket board, but are likely to play key roles in the World Championship. They have all been consistent run scorers, with relatively high averages complementing the strike rates. Also, each of these five batsmen have high propensity to notch up 50+ scores, which are extremely significant in a 20 over game. Between the five of them, they account for 22 fifties and 2 hundreds. In a format where 200 is a winning total, it is rather difficult to emphasize enough on the value of a hundred.
Top five batsmen in the Pakistani Domestic Twenty20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum Five Innings)
Imran Farhat and Shoaib Malik, however, remain the key men to watch out for, the former with 363 runs in 11 games so far, and the latter with a phenomenal 606 runs in 17 games at an average of 55.09 runs per innings.
India Top five batsmen in the Indian Domestic Twenty20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum Five Innings)
There were - and still are – a lot of people worrying about the absence of India’s big three from the Twenty20 World Championship. But the evidence here suggests that India aren’t going to miss much – Sachin, Saurav and Dravid’s performances are completely overshadowed by a lot of young, unknown talent. Rohit Sharma and Niraj Patel have shown reassuring ability to smash the ball around at strike rates of 146 and 133, with very encouraging averages of 42 for Sharma and a remarkable 50 for Patel. And then there’s Dhoni, of course, with what is right up there amongst the best strike rates in world Twenty20 cricket – 180.88.
However the inexperience shows. While these figures aren’t discouraging, it is pretty clear that their Pakistani and South African counterparts have better and more consistent statistics to back up their biggest advantage – more experience and the performance-boosting familiarity with the format. Besides, it also remains to be seen if these figures remain when they pad up against the more experienced and more challenging bowlers from other parts of the world. Bowling
Top five bowlers in the South African Domestic Pro20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum 12 overs bowled)
The top South African bowlers list has more names from their contracted players, although topping the list is the relatively lesser known Thandi Tshabalala. Tshabalala has the best strike rate from amongst all South African bowlers in their Inter-State Twenty20 Championships, picking a wicket every 13.19 balls. Nel has an excellent economy rate – conceding only 5.64 runs every over, which wouldn’t be outrageous by even ODI standards
Top five bowlers in the Pakistani Domestic Twenty20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum 12 overs bowled)
It is curious to see that while relatively newer batsmen seem to be doing better than established Test and ODI bowlers in the 20 over format of the game, the top bowlers lists seem to comprise of more regular International players.
It is not surprising the Mohammad Asif, with all his swing, guile and variation, is amongst the top Pakistani Twenty20 bowlers, with an excellent balance between the average, strike rate and most importantly, the economy rate. No one would accuse Imran Farhat of trying to upstage Imran Khan as Pakistan’s best all rounder in International cricket, but quite surprisingly, he has performed quite well with both, the bat and the ball. With 18 wickets at a strike rate of 11.88, he is likely to prove to be a useful utility bowler, or possibly, more. India Top five bowlers in the Indian Domestic Twenty20 circuit (Qualification: Minimum 12 overs bowled)
Ajit Agarkar has always been the bowler who ‘is likely to give away a lot of runs, but might pick up wickets at crucial intervals’. But quite ironically, he has a very reasonable economy rate (6.19) as far as Twenty20 is concerned. This seems to add some weight to the school of thought that there is some sort of Theory of Marginal Utility at work here. Players who play the ODI game as if it were a 20 over game anyway do not play any better/ worse in what is actually a 20 over game, because their strategy and nature of playing remains the same. For e.g., the highly rated and awaited Afridi’s performance is mediocre, by his standards and expectations – 153 runs in 11 games at an average of 17 without a single fifty. Likewise with Sehwag, who hasn’t shattered too many window panes or bowler’s egos in the few 20 over games he has played. However, Sehwag is a bit of an exception, considering he has always performed better in Tests rather than in ODI’s. His bowling skills here have so far proved to be more useful than his batting abilities. Manoj Tiwary and Rohit Sharma, both slow bowlers, the former a leg-spinner and the latter an offie, also seem to weigh in as very useful utility bowlers, with 6 and 8 wickets in as many matches respectively, at useful economy rates of around the 7 per over mark.
A couple of interesting points reveal themselves through this exercise. The first is the liberal presence of spinners and slow bowlers in the list of top performers. This could possibly be on account of the sub continental pitches factor, but it has been observed across the globe that taking the pace off the ball works much better in Twenty20 than trying to blast the batsmen out. The second and the most obvious is the absence of big names from the list of the top players. It can be argued that this is because they haven’t played enough Twenty20 cricket, but several major International names – Kallis, Tendulkar, Afridi, Gibbs, to name a few – cross the basic minimum criteria that has been set while taking these stats into account (minimum of five games or 12 overs bowled). A possible explanation for this is that with the packed cricketing calendar and their jam-packed schedules, big name International players may not be sufficiently motivated to give the 20 over format their best – the Australians have conceded as much publicly. But a possibility that could have the biggest bearing on how the route this Twenty20 Championship goes is the one we began this piece with – Twenty20 requires a completely different set of skills altogether, and a 50 over player may not necessarily do well in Twenty20, and vice versa. So, irrespective of whether the ICC Twenty20 World Championship is or is not bereft of existing big ticket stars to begin with, there is enough reason to believe that by the time it ends, there will be a few more new names waiting to be added to the pantheon.
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