In 2017, she watched England lift the World Cup from the stands. On Saturday, she could be up on the balcony with the trophy

Matt Roller20-Aug-2021England’s World Cup win at a sold-out Lord’s in 2017 was a defining moment for the women’s game. Every England player involved ranks it as the highlight of their career and administrators regularly cite it as the day they finally recognised that a small amount of investment would lead to exponential growth.But for a handful of the current England team, the memories are bittersweet. While the rest of the squad celebrated a historic win in the dressing room, they were joined by Kate Cross, Amy Jones and Tash Farrant, the three centrally-contracted players who had been left out of the squad for the tournament.They watched the final together, sat with the squad’s family and friends in the stands, and each of them has expressed the bizarre cocktail of emotions they experienced throughout the day; a shot of joy and a chaser of anguish, garnished with a sprig of despair. “I had to take myself away and thought, ‘You’re not involved in this. It’s not your day,'” Cross recalled earlier this year.Four years later, Lord’s hosts its next major women’s final on Saturday. Southern Brave, having won seven group games out of eight, were due to face the winner of Friday’s eliminator: Oval Invincibles, playing at their home ground by happy coincidence, against a Birmingham Phoenix side that had snuck up on the blindside. It meant a chance to put right the disappointment of 2017 for Jones and Farrant, with Cross watching on from Sky Sports’ commentary box.For the first 149 balls, Jones was in the driving seat. She captained her side well in Invincibles’ innings, stifled their scoring with spin and medium pace in the first half of the innings, and rightly recognised that slower bowlers would be more effective than her quicks at the death. Even without Shafali Verma at the top of Phoenix’s batting order, a target of 115 looked straightforward.In the chase, Jones played with poise and calm at No. 3, despite the loss of both openers for ducks. Her paddle-sweep off a fired-up Shabnim Ismail was the pick of her shots, but she punched through cover and pulled square of the wicket with crisp timing.Amy Jones will have to wait for her Lord’s moment•Getty ImagesBut Farrant’s intervention proved to be defining. First, she ended a partnership of 51 between Jones and the Australian Erin Burns, flinging herself to her left at mid-off to take a spectacular catch.”I knew that we needed something special because they were building a really nice partnership and obviously Amy is a gun batter,” she said afterwards. “I just threw my body at it.”As soon as she had finished celebrating, Farrant was back into the attack for her second set of five, with Jones in her sights on 35 off 24 balls. Verma’s absence meant Katie Mack have shuffled up to open, with the results that Phoenix had an inexperienced middle order; another wicket meant it would be exposed in the second half of the chase.Jones had scored heavily through cover against Invincibles’ seamers and Farrant went wide on the crease, bowling her left-arm seam from round the wicket. She rolled her fingers down the side of the ball, inducing a false shot with a 51mph/82kph offcutter. Jones was through the shot early, chipping to extra cover. Jones held her hand to her face as she stood in disbelief before trudging off; Farrant roared in celebration.It sparked a dramatic collapse of 28 for 8 in 45 balls as Phoenix’s middle and lower order froze, caught in the headlights as Farrant rattled through the tail while Jones sat disconsolate in the dugout, forgetting to take her helmet off as though refusing to accept that another Lord’s final was slipping away from her grasp.Related

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Farrant ended with 4 for 10 from her 19 balls after Kirstie Gordon slapped a cut to Marizanne Kapp to seal Invincibles’ win, taking her to the top of the wicket-taking charts for the competition – and crucially, taking her to Lord’s on Saturday. She led the team on a lap of honour around the boundary ahead of the men’s eliminator as the dust settled.”I felt quite emotional actually after the game, knowing that I’m going to play a final at Lord’s,” she said. “I was at that game watching in the crowd and knew that it was somewhere I wanted to be and somewhere I wanted to play on the big stage. The atmosphere is going to be electric but we’ve already played in front of some really vibrant crowds and hopefully that’s the same again tomorrow.”I was potentially quite one-dimensional before: if the ball was swinging I was good, but if it stopped, I didn’t have the tricks up my sleeve to deal with that. I’ve really worked on my death bowling – my slower balls and bowling yorkers – and I want to be one of the best death bowlers in the world. I’m also keeping it really simple and making sure I execute what I want to bowl every single ball.”It has not been a smooth journey for Farrant since she made an England debut as a teenager, with the loss of her central contract in early 2019 a particularly low moment. She has forced her way back into the set-up through weight of performances in domestic cricket and now, four years after she had hoped, she has the chance to win the Lord’s final she had dreamed of.

Also: four openers, four runs, and other eye-popping stats from New Zealand’s capitulation in Dhaka

Sampath Bandarupalli01-Sep-20211 – Bangladesh, on Wednesday, registered their first-ever T20I win against New Zealand. New Zealand had got the better of Bangladesh in each of their 10 T20I meetings before this match – New Zealand’s 10-0 record against Bangladesh was the best unbeaten head-to-head for any team in this format.60 – New Zealand’s total of 60 all out in this game is their joint-lowest total in the T20I format. New Zealand were also bundled out for 60 in Chattogram against Sri Lanka during the 2014 World T20.60 – Their 60 all out is also the lowest by any side in men’s T20Is against Bangladesh. The previous lowest total against Bangladesh was 62 all-out last month by Australia, also in Dhaka. Only one team has got a lower total in men’s T20Is in Bangladesh – 39 by Netherlands, against Sri Lanka, in 2014 in Chattogram.1 – Number of men’s T20I totals by Full Member nations that were lower than New Zealand’s 60. West Indies’ 45 all out against England in 2019 is still the lowest. New Zealand’s 60 is also the lowest total by any Full Member team in men’s T20Is while batting first; West Indies’ 71 all out was the previous such lowest total, scored against England in 2019.122 – Runs conceded by Bangladesh across their last two T20Is – they had rolled Australia over for 62 in their previous T20I appearance. These are the second-fewest runs conceded by a Full Member team in successive matches in men’s T20Is. The fewest is 116 by England in 2019, when they had West Indies for 45 and 71 in consecutive games.4 – Runs scored overall by opening batters in this match, the joint-lowest in a men’s T20I where all four batted. A game between Argentina and Brazil in 2019 also had an aggregate of just four runs from the openers.Related

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3.83 – Combined run rate of the two teams in the first T20I, the fourth-lowest in any completed men’s T20I and the lowest in a match between two Full Member teams. The previous lowest between two Full Members was 4.61 during a T20I in Port of Spain between West Indies and Zimbabwe in 2010.7 – Runs conceded by Ajaz Patel in his four-over spell, the second-fewest for New Zealand in a men’s T20I. The most economical four-over effort for New Zealand came from Daniel Vettori, who gave away just six runs against Bangladesh in 2010.2 – Cole McConchie became only the second New Zealand man to take a wicket with the first ball of his T20I career. Lockie Ferguson was the first to do so during his debut against Bangladesh in 2017. McConchie is also the fourth man from New Zealand to take a wicket with the first ball of his international career, joining Dennis Smith, Matt Henderson and Andrew Mathieson.

Only after a cold, clinical, devastating first spell did Anderson let his emotions flow

George Dobell25-Aug-2021It’s hard to say what the most impressive aspect of James Anderson’s career is. The longevity is incredible, of course. The range of skills is remarkable. But perhaps the most outstanding aspect of Anderson’s career is his ability to keep learning.We saw that in action on the first morning in Leeds. Anderson’s first spell – a spell of 8-5-6-3 – was a masterclass in controlled swing bowling. He not only removed the cream of India’s batting within the space of 31 balls, but demonstrated a greatest-hits package of skills picked up over almost two decades in the game. This is what it must have been like to watch Picasso paint or Hemingway write. This was a master at work.At the heart of this spell was Anderson’s outswinger. It’s his primary skill, really. It was picked up in his early days as a teenager at Lancashire from Mike Watkinson. It remains a key part of his armoury; he bowled 21 of them in this spell. But it became far more potent once he was able to combine it with the inswinger – a skill which he has said took “years” to master and which he delivered 20 times here – and more dangerous still when allied to the wobble-seam delivery, which he picked up having watched Mohammad Asif and Stuart Clark in action, and which he bowled only once or twice in this spell. In combination, they are devastating.But there was another aspect to this spell beyond the technical. It was that Anderson delivered his skills with cold, clinical precision. He didn’t just bowl fine deliveries, he set batters up like a poacher laying traps. He kept his cool. He stuck to his plans. He was relentless.It has not always been this way. Ahead of the third Test, Anderson admitted England had allowed their emotions to get the better of them at Lord’s. They had been upset by Jasprit Bumrah’s spell against Anderson – an excellent spell that interspersed a fair few short deliveries with some well-directed full ones – and then appeared set on revenge rather than Bumrah’s wicket when he came out to bat. The resultant partnership with Mohammed Shami changed the game. Anderson had learned his lesson.Related

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In isolation, some of these dismissals look as if they’re the result of loose strokes. A replay of KL Rahul’s wicket, for example, will show the batter drawn into pushing at one outside off stump. Cheteshwar Pujara, too, may reflect he could have left the one he edged. But just as the knock-out punch often doesn’t tell the full story of a boxing bout, the delivery that takes a wicket doesn’t paint the entire picture of a dismissal.Anderson only bowled four balls at Rahul. But the first three all swung back into him. And while the wicket-taking delivery did require Rahul to reach for it a little, it was also fuller and inviting the drive. That it left him just enough to take the edge was a plan perfectly executed. Sure, Rahul didn’t have to play. But a rabbit doesn’t have to wander into a snare, either.It was similar with Pujara. Anderson bowled eight deliveries at him in total. Four of them swung in to the batter, three of them left him and one went straight on. And remember: Anderson long-ago mastered the ability – a skill he picked-up after watching Zaheer Khan – to hide the ball with his left hand until the moment of release so batters are unable to pick-up any clues as to his plans.The result was a delivery to Pujara that was bowled from slightly wider on the crease, pitched in line and swung away wickedly late to take the edge. Yes, we now know the ball wouldn’t have hit the stumps (only six balls in the spell would have done) and might have been left. But there’s little way Pujara could have known that from the information he had before committing to a decision.The big wicket – whatever his recent struggles might suggest – remains that of Virat Kohli. While there is, no doubt, much respect between these two proud and magnificent cricketers, they sometimes give every impression of loathing one another on the pitch. Maybe that’s unfair: perhaps they just recognise in one another a dangerous opponent and know the outcome of their personal encounter could go a long way towards defining the result of the match. Either way, each time they face one another at present presents compelling viewing.At the start of the series Kohli had looked keen to assert his authority. He seemed determined to make a statement about his fearlessness in the face of England’s premier swing bowler. That led him into pushing at his first ball in Nottingham and an outside edge to the keeper.There was no room for such statements here. India were already two down, after all, with only four runs on the board. Instead, Kohli was determined to reassert himself as a batter and rebuild for his team. So, he left his first five balls – all of them outswingers from Anderson – before pushing his sixth (another Anderson outswinger) through mid-off for three.Anderson’s 11th ball to him was different. Instead of the traditional, swinging delivery, this one was bowled with a slightly scrambled seam. So while Kohli may have noted the seam angled into to him and thought the direction of the ball would follow, it instead pitched and left him. It was fuller, too, and inviting the drive. Kohli, having batted more than half an hour for his seven runs, fell for the bait.Then the emotion flowed. Then Anderson roared and leapt and allowed himself the uninhibited smile which spoke volumes for his joy and relief. He knew he had allowed the moment to get the better of him at Lord’s. He put it right here.

His statement, and the testimony of others at the social justice hearings, has shed light on historic systemic failures in South African cricket

Osman Samiuddin28-Aug-2021Personally it was never easy to warm to Mark Boucher, in some small part because he didn’t seem to care whether he was liked or not. To like, or not, was not the point. It became a little easier to look past his bristling presence as South Africa grew into the side they became in the late 2000s, a champion team under the maturing leadership of Graeme Smith, and also more likable because of men such as Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn; in their reflected light, Boucher also found reprieve. The sad and unfortunate end to his playing career brought a little more grace.But for a long time there was undeniably something of the bully about him, captured note perfect in this sledging of Tatenda Taibu in a hopelessly mismatched Test against Zimbabwe in March 2005.”That’s a big shot, Tatenda,” he chirped as Taibu gently drove one to a short cover.”You wanna get out now because I think you might be averaging single figures on this tour,” before a pause, and some mocking magnanimity: “I’ll walk you to the changing room as well.”He then asked Taibu whether his average was 9 or 10 before deciding “maybe 9.5 so we’ll give you 10”.The substance itself was not offensive, but the idea that sledging that Zimbabwe side served any useful purpose was very . Taibu was leading a desperately weakened Zimbabwe, about to slide to a second three-day innings defeat. Moreover, Boucher was part of a South Africa side that, at that point, was not nearly as good as it thought it was. It was no contest, was never going to be, and here was Boucher sticking it into men defeated long before they stepped on to the field. Say what you want about karma, but Taibu and Boucher retired from Tests on the same day and Taibu ended with a batting average 0.01 higher than Boucher’s (30.31 to 30.30).People change, some not as much as we’d like, others not as little as we’d assume, but it is this old Boucher – or at least the whiff of him – that has been felt through Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings in recent weeks.How united were they really? South Africa after a Test win in March 2004.•William West/AFP/Getty ImagesThose hearings have primarily been a cleanse, a release of a lot that has felt pent up in South African cricket. Inadvertently and in some instances, they may become a kind of reckoning. It is entirely fitting not only that Dumisa Ntsebeza, the ombudsman presiding over it, began by quoting James Baldwin – “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced” – but that he was one of those who presided over South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the fall of apartheid.Testimonies have been equal parts harrowing, compelling and revealing. First came Omar Henry, South Africa’s first player of colour, and as wise as his years. His treatment at the 1992 World Cup can be seen as a foreshadowing of South Africa’s pained grappling with the selection of non-white players since. And his testimony set the tone for those that have followed.Player after player, black or of colour, has told stories of exclusion, of racist behaviour (imagine, as a black player, having your face painted white by a coach because you had dirty boots), of feeling unwelcome in predominantly white sides, of entire careers ruined. Perhaps in some cases valid cricketing reasons meant players who happened to be black missed out. But the weight of these testimonies cannot be borne by these exceptions. These accounts, angry and heartbreaking and essential, speak of a systemic failure.They are also reminders of the vexed challenges of transformation, often forgotten because South Africa have been, for much of the modern age, a winning side. There’s bound to be debris from juggling to ensure selection be merit-based and ticks transformation boxes. The debris is Ashwell Prince being called “quota player” by team-mates. The debris is Khaya Zondo’s stalled career. The debris is the regret the former selector Hussein Manack will have to live with, for not standing his ground on Zondo’s selection. If CSA has stumbled in handling these and other cases, it’s worth remembering that there aren’t precedents it can easily replicate. South African rugby perhaps, but – at the risk of stating the obvious – it is not a like-for-like comparison.Boucher’s name has come up repeatedly, in relation to him being part of the infamous white clique that ran the side, but also in incidents and tales that speak of the culture of exclusion of black and coloured players. One of the most appalling stories was of Paul Adams, nicknamed “brown s**t”, who in team meetings after wins, would be the subject of the team song: “Brown s**t in the ring, tra la la la la la.”Times change. Conversations about racism now are of a different nature – and necessarily so – than as recently as a decade ago. More enlightened for one. More divisive for another, though in being staunchly, proactively anti-racist it’s always worth remembering racists are not here as part of some debating society. But for all the change, for all the retrospective reassessments of racist behaviour, there could never have been a time when it was okay for a team to sing that song. Least of all a team representing South Africa, in the post-apartheid era.Ashwell Prince revealed at the social justice hearings that he was called a quota player by his team-mates around the time of his debut. “A person knows when they are welcome, and you know when you are unwelcome,” he said•Getty ImagesThink of the skewed dynamic here: power as a function of a society with a racist past and racism as a function of power. Adams is in this team of predominantly white players and naturally he wants to fit in because it is a team and he so badly wants to feel a part of it that it wasn’t until his wife (then his girlfriend) pointed out to him that it was not right that he twigged it.Boucher admitted he sang along. He apologised for it and has offered to meet players who felt excluded to mend those relationships. There is something to Boucher’s claim that the players were naïve and ill-equipped to deal with the environment they were in post-apartheid; today, nearly two decades on, it seems a gross dereliction of duty that CSA didn’t, as Boucher claims, conduct any awareness training, or culture workshops for players coming into the environment. Post-apartheid wasn’t just going to by itself. But at the time, sensitivity training, diversity and inclusion were not part of widespread public conversations.The fatalist counter to this is that if players need training workshops to learn to sing those songs, or to not use offensive terminology about South Africans of Indian heritage in front of Prince (whose wife is of Indian origin) or Goolam Rajah, the team’s long-time, much respected manager, then no amount of training will ever really be enough.Boucher acknowledging his role in that era’s culture does not absolve him. It is the first step: of how many and towards what is not clear in specific detail, but in broad outline, towards a better, more equal and transparent space.Those songs weren’t sung alone, and neither was Boucher the only one because of whom players felt discriminated against. Other names have cropped up during the hearings, many of them integral contributors to that great South Africa side. The legacy of that team is undergoing a revision as we speak, although maybe the optimistic way to see it is as a necessary correction. These hearings are the alternative history of that side, the alternative history of South African cricket as a whole, post-apartheid.Or, in the far more eloquent words of Zondo, from his testimony: “Privilege often makes equality seem like oppression. For equality to come into place, people need to strip themselves of privilege so they can see other people’s experiences.”

All the numbers – at once interesting and intriguing – from the T20 World Cup 2021

Sampath Bandarupalli15-Nov-2021Win toss and chase – the formula for success
The teams that won the toss had a win-loss ratio of 2.00, the highest in any edition of the men’s T20 World Cup, as 30 of the 45 matches were won by the sides that won the toss. The previous highest was 1.75 in 2016 – 21 out of 33 completed games.The tournament also favoured the chasing teams – the win-loss ratio was 1.81, the highest in any edition. The previous highest was 1.50 during the 2014 edition hosted by Bangladesh – 21 out of 35.Focus on the top three
The top-three batters did the majority of the scoring. Each of the top-four run-getters in the tournament were openers: Babar Azam, David Warner, Mohammad Rizwan and Jos Buttler. The top-three batters of New Zealand – Martin Guptill, Daryl Mitchell and Kane Williamson – all scored over 200 runs. A total of 54.38 % of the runs in the tournament were scored by the players batting in the top three, the highest ever in a men’s T20 World Cup.ESPNcricinfo LtdAustralia’s luck at the toss
Aaron Finch won six tosses in the tournament and Australia won all those matches while chasing. The only time they lost the toss – against England – they lost by eight wickets. Afghanistan won five tosses in their five matches – the only team with a better success rate at the coin toss than Australia in this edition.West Indies – six each in 2012 and 2016 – are the other instances of a team winning six or more coin tosses in an edition of the men’s T20 World Cup. Australia joined West Indies in winning the men’s T20 World Cup despite not defending a total even once. West Indies did not bat first at all during the triumph in 2016. However, in 2012, they won the title despite not winning a match while chasing, replicating what India had done in 2007.

The exploits of the eight Indian players at the Women’s Big Bash League this week

Annesha Ghosh29-Oct-20211:39

Sophie Molineux: ‘To have Harmanpreet Kaur standing at mid-off is pretty handy’

Jemimah Rodrigues
A new week brought two new opening partners and a maiden WBBL fifty for Melbourne Renegades opener Rodrigues, who smashed a scintillating 75 not out, the third-highest score of the season, to sink Sydney Thunder. Having made 33, 14, and 13 in her three previous appearances, Rodrigues reached her half-century in 37 balls, adding 84 for the opening stand with Josephine Dooley. Shuffling across her crease, sweeping with ease, and often making room to free her arms, Rodrigues struck nine fours in her 56-ball knock, propelling Renegades to a winning total of 142 in a fixture that saw four Indians locked in a battle of one-upmanship.Related

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Harmanpreet Kaur
A batter historically susceptible to lbw owing to the iffy nature of her front-foot defense, Renegades’ in-form No. 4, Harmanpreet, was trapped in front in a copybook dismissal, having added just three in a 14-run stand with Rodrigues against Thunder. Failure with the bat, however, didn’t deter the allrounder from making an impact on the game, for she knocked the wind out of Thunder’s innings by bowling set batter Smriti Mandhana in a critical phase of their chase and also helped effect the run-out of the middle-order batter Anika Learoyd.That Renegades had won their previous game was also down to Harmanpreet’s all-round brilliance. Her 4-0-17-2 against Sydney Sixers included the wickets of Ashleigh Gardner and Alyssa Healy. She was involved in the dismissal of Shafali Verma as well. And when it was her turn to bat, she capitalised on a lifeline received when she was 20 and pummeled back-to-back sixes in the 17th over to seal Renegades’ 119 chase.Player of the Match Harmanpreet Kaur has a light moment with her India team-mates Radha Yadav (L) and Jemimah Rodrigues (R)•Sarah Reed/Getty ImagesSmriti Mandhana
Three single-digit scores preceded a maiden half-century in Thunder colours for Mandhana even as the defending champions remained winless after five matches this season. Early dismissals to pace meant the opener had to depart for 9 and 3 in chases against Perth Scorchers and Melbourne Stars, before a change of personal fortunes came about, in Thunder’s quest of 143 against Renegades. Though her 44-ball 64 featured an array of trademark lofted shots and a deceptively effortless assortment of pulls, it wasn’t quite enough as her team fell short by nine runs.Deepti SharmaThunder shunted Deepti between Nos. 5 and 8, and she responded with a run-a-ball 20 against Scorchers, 44 not-out off 48 against Stars (a personal best at WBBL), and an unbeaten 10-ball 23 against Renegades. In all three innings, Deepti was either the side’s top-scorer or second most successful batter, but in the absence of sustained support at the other end, her efforts often went in vain. With the ball, the offspin-bowling allrounder picked up two wickets in her three outings this week.Richa Ghosh top-scored for Hobart Hurricanes•Getty ImagesRicha GhoshSlotted below her designated position throughout the opening week, Hurricanes batter Ghosh made 4 and 24 not out at No. 5 and 22 at No. 6. The highest of those scores came in a chase of 145 against Stars. Four fours, including the match-sealing one, underpinned her 16-ball innings. With 119 runs in six innings at an average of 23.80, she holds the eighth position on the highest run-scorers list, three places below Rodrigues.Ghosh also had her first brush with the gloves in the WBBL this week, stepping in for the injured Rachel Priest one over into Heat’s chase, and picking up a smart, low catch to dismiss opener Georgia Redmayne.Poonam Yadav
The wristspinner remained wicketless in her two outings this week. In the rain-curtailed 11-overs-a-side contest against Adelaide Strikers, she leaked 19 off just two overs, 13 of which were plundered by Dane van Niekerk alone. Two days later, Poonam, operating in two spells outside the powerplay, kept the leash on the Hurricanes with 11 dots in 3.4 overs that cost only 16. But the final two deliveries of her spell sullied her figures a touch as Ruth Johnston carted her for a six and a four.Radha Yadav
In Sixers’ only completed game of the week, against Renegades, Radha could have forced the opposition into a tough spot even in a chase of 119 if Healy had not botched a stumping. Harmanpreet, the eventual match-winner, was enticed out of her crease by a flighted delivery in the 16th over but the wicketkeeper failed to collect it cleanly. One ball later, Radha took a return catch to dismiss Courtney Webb and finished with 1 for 12 off two overs. She also helped effect the run out of Rodrigues with a throw from the deep.Shafali Verma
Sixers opener Shafali stumbled to a second straight duck in the WBBL as her oscillation between two extremes continued this week. Her scores so far in the tournament: 0, 0, 57 and 8.

Two of these players are more risk-averse now than you might think

Himanish Ganjoo24-Mar-2022In the 2018 IPL, KL Rahul averaged 56 at a strike rate of 139 in the first 16 overs of the innings. Since 2020, he averages 75, but his strike rate has dropped to 127. What is the source of this transition in Rahul’s scoring profile? An analysis of shot types can unearth the answers – in the process breaking up a batter’s record into a product of shot selection and execution.Run-scoring begins with intent – some batters show lower strike rates because they decide to be “anchors” or strike rotators in the middle overs, owing to team composition, while others decide to attack spin in the same phase. Virat Kohli and Nicholas Pooran are prime examples of the two extremes. Kohli’s hitting range against pace is exceptional, but like the more recent version of Rahul, he decides to play a sedate role for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the middle overs, milking the spinners, going at a strike rate of 114. Pooran, in contrast, goes at a strike rate of 180.3 in overs seven through 11 in the IPL. Data about shot types, recorded as part of ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary, can be used to measure these differences in attacking intent.The scatter plot below shows the runs-per-ball (RPB) and control percentage for all shot types, considering data since IPL 2018. The vertical line halfway down the X axis shows the average run rate in this time (1.29 runs per ball) and the horizontal line shows the average control percentage, 73%.Related

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A first glance at the plot confirms a well-known principle of batting: risk is roughly proportional to reward. Control percentages decrease in the general direction of increasing RPB, with some exceptions. Secondly, the lines of average RPB and average control neatly classify the different shot types into three kinds. Non-attacking (NA) shots have high control and low RPB. These are defensive or strike-rotating attempts. Then we have safe-attacking (SA) shots, which are high-scoring, without much compromise on control, like the various drives. Finally, risky-attacking (RA) shots like slogs and upper cuts are high-risk and high-reward. For the purposes of this analysis, we include cut shots in the RA category.