It’s about time the T20 stats became relevant

It has been more than a decade since the inception of T20 cricket and with the advent of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 10 years back, T20 cricket has progressed to a whole new level. League cricket has since risen exponentially in popularity with almost all major cricketing nations in the world hosting their own league.

T20 cricket has predominantly been a batsman’s game. It is only recently that the bowlers have started influencing the format with their skill and deception. Talking about the great batsmen in general, we think of Bradman, Barry Richards, Sir Jack Hobbs in Test cricket and Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards in ODIs and now we have arrived at a juncture where we start referring a few as T20 greats as well.

Based on the legacy created thus far, Chris Gayle is the man who stands above all. His dominance has been ubiquitous in T20 cricket. In order to assess a few more batsmen in this format, let us have a look at the all-time T20 runs scorers. We’ve included all T20s and not just internationals as the latter does not provide a considerable data set yet.

In terms of most runs scored in T20, Gayle is leaps and bounds ahead of other players with a lead of 2,000 runs over the second best. He has played for 22 different teams and has been one of the busiest T20 players. His dominance becomes much more apparent when we study the averages and strike rates of the cricketers in the list above.

What these records tell us is that Christopher Henry Gayle is literally the Universe Boss when it comes to T20 cricket. He has been almost Brandman-esque in this format and holds almost every batting record worth holding- highest score in a T20 innings, (175* scored against Pune Warriors while playing for RCB in 2013), most 100s (21), most 50s (70) in T20 cricket, the fastest 100 (30 balls, on his way to the innings of 175*), fastest 50 (of 12 balls, a record he shares with Yuvraj Singh), most 6s (846), most 4s (865) and most man of the match awards (55)

FOR THE RECORD*:      

• Virat Kohli has the highest average in T20 cricket
• New Zealand’s Colin de Grandhomme has bludgeoned 2,445 runs at a strike rate of 167.12., the highest in professional T20 cricket

*(Among players with min. 50 T20 innings)

To analyze these batsmen further, we have looked at the metrics like the number of innings per 50+ scores and % of runs in boundaries which might help us to understand each of these players better.

With these numbers, what we understand is-

• Chris Gayle is the king; Kohli and Warner are also considerably consistent in terms of playing a long inning in T20 cricket and stand well above the rest
• Dwayne Smith, with 67% runs in boundaries and a strike rate of ~128 doesn’t mind playing a lot of dot balls in his quest for those boundaries
• Shoaib Malik (49% runs in boundaries) is the Miandad of T20 who believes in running the hard yards for his runs

So where does this leave us? Is the information we have analyzed till now sufficient to rank the best or the most impactful T20 batsmen we have seen in our times? We can certainly not call this list complete without considering AB de Villiers or MS Dhoni for that matter.

Assessing a batsman is tricky when we look through the T20 lens. Chris Gayle definitely stands out but what about the rest? While thinking through this, I thought to lay down the key qualities that make one a complete T20 batsman-

1. Hitting ability: It goes without saying that batting in T20 is about scoring at a very brisk pace. Maintaining a healthy strike rate is sometimes not enough, you might be batting at a strike rate of 160 which is exceptional but the asking rate is 200. I believe the ability to hit boundaries is equally important. You will find it difficult to cross the line with just hard running if you need 60 in the last 4 overs.

2. Consistency: T20 is the easiest format for a player to be lost in the crowd if he doesn’t come up with a match-defining knock frequently. Players like Gayle, Kohli and Warner lead the score sheet now and again while a few others like Glenn Maxwell for e.g. often go through a struggling phase despite being very clean hitters

3. Ability to finish games: It’s rare to find players with the nerves to stay in the middle till the last ball of the innings is bowled or the last run is scored. Quite often we find players throwing it away at the end which many a time turns into a heartbreak for the team. Additionally, this gives us an input to judge the lower order batsmen who do not get enough overs to score a century but are expected to finish the game

The qualities listed above are the key ingredients for an impactful T20 batsman. Using these, I have tried to assess the batsmen through a score (let’s call it- “Batsman Impact Score” or BIS) which will help us measure their impact through the years. I have used the following parameters to calculate the BIS-

1. Average
2. Strike Rate
3. 4’s Per Innings
4. 6’s Per Innings
5. Innings Per 50+ Score
6. Not Outs Per Innings

By taking this wide range of factors into account, the BIS allows for a holistic evaluation of a batsman’s performance, consistency and impact, and provides a robust score that offsets the effects of batting positions, home-advantage and any other factors that can skew such an assessment. Using this score, listed below are the 20 most impactful batsmen since the inception of T20 cricket in the decreasing order of rating points-

The list includes batsmen with a minimum of 150 innings in professional T20:

Now that we have a score, we can finally assess what we could not before-

• There is only an eight-point range between the second and twentieth player and a range of seven between first and the second- Chris Gayle has been that good
• We get a glimpse into how great a player AB de Villiers has been; despite not being among the all-time run scorers, he has been very impactful in the overall context of the game
• The BIS gives an opportunity to lower order batsmen to be seen in equal regards as top order batsmen. This is justified by the position of Andre Russell who is usually left with fewer overs to turn up the volume of runs but continue to deliver epic performances
• There are 3 players in the top 20 who have retired from the game: Virender Sehwag. Kevin Pietersen and Brad Hodge
• If we exclude the players who have now retired we can include Jos Buttler, Martin Guptill and MS Dhoni at #18, 19 and 20 respectively

Application of BIS: Predicting Future Stars

Now that we have established the greatest T20 batsmen of all time, let’s use our model to identify the players to look forward to.

We have used two conditions for batsmen to be considered in this category-

• They should be aged under 30
• They have played less than 150 innings in T20 as of now

Using this, the top 5 upcoming players that have been identified are-

1. Rishabh Pant had an outstanding IPL 2018, his hitting ability and consistency were remarkable
2. D’Arcy Short had a great Big Bash season but failed to carry his form in the IPL; his ability to cope with different conditions across the world will define his future
3. Evin Lewis has been around for a while and already appears to be a bright prospect to fill in the giant boots of Chris Gayle
4. Chris Lynn or Lynn-sanity has the ability to turn the game on its head by playing those big shots with ease; if he can find a way to cope up with his frequent shoulder injury, he can be one of the greatest of all time
5. KL Rahul’s game is not only pleasing to the eye but also impeccably consistent; he was in a different league as a batsman in IPL 2018 and is also turning up the numbers in international T20

In times to come, it will be very interesting to see if the Chris Gayle behemoth will continue to dominate or eventually be caught up to by a rising star.

All data is as of June 26th 2018

~ Written by Somesh Agarwal

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