Warner in Perth

I have written before about how impressed I am with David Warner's running between wickets. I genuinely believe that he is one of the best at judging a run that I've seen.

Accordingly I was surprised to see that he had scored the same number of singles as boundaries in the second innings at Perth. I also heard the commentators describe it as a typical innings from Warner. It made me wonder if it actually was a typical innings.

First of all I looked at how Warner compared to other batsmen.  The method I chose to look at was to compare the boundary percentage (boundaries per delivery) and the activity rate (runs scored per non-boundary delivery). I filtered out any batsman who hadn't faced more than 650 deliveries since 2000, hadn't hit more than 50 fours and hadn't played in the past 2 years. I then put the rest of the batsmen on a single graph.

I divided up the batsmen into 4 categories. Aggressive, Block Bash, Pushers and Defensive. Close to the extremes of each group were players who have been reasonably successful.

In the defensive group are players like Rahul Dravid, Peter Fulton, Tino Mawoyo, Ed Cowan and JP Duminy.
Block Bash contains Angelo Mathews, Shane Watson, Chris Gayle and Yuvraj Singh.
Pushers includes Kane Williamson, Shiv Chanderpaul, Jonathan Trott and Thilan Samaraweera.
Aggressive include Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Darren Sammy and David Warner.

Warner has a higher activity rate than anyone in the list. But he also hits more boundaries than most batsmen.

 

Warner's activity rate for his career is 0.353 and his boundary rate is 9.3%. His innings in Perth lasted 140 deliveries. We would expect 13 boundaries, perhaps 12 fours and 1 six. Off the other 127 deliveries we would expect him to score 45 runs. Overall we would expect that he would be on about 99, rather than 112, so he scored slightly faster than we would expect, but the big difference was the make up of the innings.

Warner scored 80 runs in boundaries. That's about 40% more than we would normally expect him to get.

I used the same graph as above, to analyse Warner's other innings. I've included every innings where Warner has scored more than 30. I've drawn in lines to show which group the innings would have fit in.

We can see that Warner's innings does fit in with some of his other innings, but really is closer to the Block Bash quadrant than almost any of his other innings.

It was an interesting innings, because of the context and the opponent, but also because of the way that he scored the runs.

A Risk Analysis of David Warner's Running Between Wickets

David Warner - photo courtesy of Flickr user Paddynapper

I enjoy watching David Warner bat. I think he approaches the game in the right way: when he's batting, he tries to score runs. He is famous for his big hits, and his unorthodox shots, but I think that an under-rated part of his game is his ability to find runs in the field.

He has a phenomenally high activity rate in test matches. (for a description of activity rate, click here) The rest of the opening batsmen in the world have a collective activity rate of 0.248 over the past 2 years. Warner has an activity rate of 0.381.

This means that he is effectively about 54% better than the average opener at finding runs in the field. This is a massive difference.

However it seems to have come at a cost. In recent matches he has been run out, and has also been involved in a run out for his partner.

It's difficult to quantify the effects of a run out. They are often worth more than a normal wicket, because they come against the normal run of play. I wrote an article about this last July in relation to One Day Internationals.

Warner has run 488 runs, with one run out (to him). The rest of the test openers in the same period have run 8808 runs with 13 run outs, or 677.5 runs per run out. (I only look at run outs for the batsman, rather than their partners, as it avoids double ups. To make the comparison fair I had to do the same with Warner.) On the face of it, it seems that Warner's approach is too risky. However there is another way to look at it.

A batsman gets out eventually, and they have a number of balls to use to score runs between dismissals. A run out is different from other dismissals in that it's not really related to the skill at hitting the ball. As a result a simple batting average isn't the best way to assess it. Instead we need to look at how a batsman uses both the resources that they have, namely their wicket and their deliveries between getting out in some other method.

The average opening innings lasts 68.7 balls, and includes slightly under 16 run runs. Warner only lasts 59.2 balls on average, but includes just over 20 run runs.

If we assume that if Warner had run between wickets like the other openers that he would not have been run out, then we can look at what his average would have been if he had been more careful with his running. Instead of 20.33 runs per innings from running, he would have got 13.24 runs per innings. He would have scored 170 less runs in his career to date. (892 rather than 1062) Also, instead of 24 dismissals, he would have only been out 23 times.

If everything else was the same, except for the running, and we assume that his innings where he was run out was a not out, his average would have dropped from the current 44.50 to 38.78.

While his running may seem risky, it is actually a big part of why he has made such a successful start to his career. As he is taking his running to the next level, his entire game is improving with it.

2012 Activity rates

A batsman's activity rate is the runs scored per delivery not hit to the fence.

For example two batsmen have 10 off 10. One has hit two 4's, two singles and faced out 6 dot balls. He would have an activity rate of 0.25 because he hit 2 runs off the 8 balls that he didn't hit a boundary off. The second batsman hit one 4, two 2's and two singles. He would have an activity rate of 0.67 because he hit 6 runs off 9 balls that didn't go to the fence.

Here are the batsmen with the highest activity rates:

Test Matches (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
NLTC Perera (SL)	2	54	56	0.434
MG Johnson (Aus)	2	28	74	0.416
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)	2	104	101	0.391
V Sehwag (India)	9	322	183	0.368
MA Starc (Aus)	4	88	56	0.364
RJ Harris (Aus)	4	46	83	0.362
MJ Clarke (Aus)	11	792	803	0.361
DA Warner (Aus)	11	446	342	0.361
Mahmudullah (Ban)	2	80	89	0.353
RT Ponting (Aus)	9	232	368	0.341

This year the trend is that there are lots of Australians in the list, and particularly a lot of Australia bowlers. Two names that might surprise a lot of people are Warner and Sehwag. Sehwag certainly doesn't have a reputation for speed between the wickets, and does seem rather loathe to try for a 3, but he and Gambhir have made a real effort to step up their quick singles in the last year. It has certainly been shown out in Sehwag's numbers. Likewise Warner has scored almost as many runs by running as by hitting boundaries. His 50 at the MCG was remarkable for both the speed, but also for how well he ran between wickets. His 50 came up in 34 balls, but it only included four 4's and one 6. It meant that he had scored 28 runs off the 29 balls he didn't hit to the fence.

One Day Internationals (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
AB de Villiers (SA)	13	276	369	0.695
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)	4	110	127	0.672
GJ Maxwell (Aus)	4	60	64	0.66
AD Mathews (SL)	27	180	354	0.659
V Kohli (India)	17	398	628	0.63
DJ Hussey (Aus)	25	264	464	0.629
SK Raina (India)	17	204	288	0.623
R Ashwin (India)	16	44	91	0.619
EJG Morgan (Eng)	15	164	200	0.599
Sarfraz Ahmed (Pak)	8	24	61	0.598

Last year almost the whole list was made up of spin bowlers (which is unsurprising, given that spin bowlers are generally smarter (and better looking) than most other players). This year the spinners still make their presence felt. Shakib is the only player on the Test and ODI list.

Twenty20 Internationals (min 100 balls faced, average of 15)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
AN Kervezee (Neth)	4	44	110	0.873
LRPL Taylor (NZ)	8	86	100	0.82
KC Sangakkara (SL)	10	94	103	0.78
DJ Bravo (WI)	10	128	132	0.776
JP Duminy (SA)	10	94	143	0.765
F du Plessis (SA)	7	102	90	0.763
SK Raina (India)	14	128	129	0.75
JC Buttler (Eng)	14	74	69	0.75
AD Hales (Eng)	10	188	155	0.745
MS Dhoni (India)	14	132	136	0.743

There was certainly a surprising name at the top of this list. Alex Kervezee was actually the highest averaging batsman in T20 Internationals too. Ross Taylor is also a surprise, as he had previously been someone who tended to score in multiples of 4. Suresh Raina is the only player in the top 10 for both ODI's and T20's.

The Block-Bash players:

At the other end of the spectrum are the players who specialise in blocking the good balls and cashing in on the bad ones. These players don't see a lot of value in singles, and prefer to get their runs in multiples of 4 or 6.

Test Matches (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
AB Fudadin (WI)	3	60	62	0.17
F du Plessis (SA)	2	178	115	0.171
JL Pattinson (Aus)	4	72	31	0.173
Mohammad Ayub (Pak)	1	16	31	0.189
Mushfiqur Rahim (Ban)	2	66	41	0.19
DR Flynn (NZ)	6	174	153	0.199
SR Tendulkar (India)	9	220	137	0.199
Taufeeq Umar (Pak)	6	164	82	0.2
N Deonarine (WI)	6	116	102	0.204
MJ Guptill (NZ)	10	306	261	0.208

Suprisingly, Martin Guptill makes this list again this year, despite improving his activity rate by quite a margin. Generally this is a list of batsmen who are not in great form, and with an average in the twenties despite his obvious talent, this is probably a fair reflection. Daniel Flynn is also on the list, but this possibly has more to do with the way that bowlers have often been trying to get him out playing at wide balls, so have been bowling a 7th stump line to him, trying to get him to give in and have a slash at one. It's hard to hit a single off a ball that you really shouldn't be playing at.

One Day Internationals (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
AB Barath (WI)	2	60	23	0.256
CH Gayle (WI)	11	252	93	0.279
CS Baugh (WI)	5	34	30	0.297
DM Bravo (WI)	11	104	113	0.298
MR Swart (Neth)	2	60	34	0.306
KJ O'Brien (Ire)	4	54	35	0.307
Anamul Haque (Ban)	5	110	85	0.343
Imran Farhat (Pak)	5	104	70	0.348
Mohammad Nabi (Afg)	5	62	67	0.358
MN Samuels (WI)	17	248	234	0.373

There are a lot of West Indians in this list. However, if I could hit the ball like Chris Gayle, I probably wouldn't bother running too much either.

Twenty20 Internationals (min 60 balls faced)

Player	Matches	Boundry Runs	Run Runs	Activity Rate
DR Smith (WI)	7	152	47	0.412
J Charles (WI)	11	176	75	0.434
C Kieswetter (Eng)	11	108	72	0.474
Imran Nazir (Pak)	9	126	50	0.476
CH Gayle (WI)	11	270	98	0.492
RE Levi (SA)	13	170	66	0.5
RJ Nicol (NZ)	17	194	121	0.515
WTS Porterfield (Ire)	13	148	64	0.516
Mohammad Ashraful (Ban)	6	60	58	0.527
KJ O'Brien (Ire)	13	78	64	0.533

It turns out that being a West Indian opener means that you are unlikely to be very good at running between wickets. Johnson Charles' numbers are even worse than last year when he had the lowest activity rate of any player. It's just that this year another West Indian has been even lazier than him. Rob Nicol is an interesting name there, because he's generally a very busy player in domestic cricket.

Jesse Ryder's comeback

In his comeback innings to first class cricket Jesse Ryder hit 117* off 113. That's pretty impressive. But it's how he scored them that was impressive.

He hit 13 boundaries. Which means that he hit 65 runs off the 100 balls that he didn't hit to the fence. This is a particularly easy to calculate activity rate of 0.65. Which is more like a t20 activity rate. In fact it's more than his actual t20 activity rate, which is closer to 0.55.

I believe that a high activity rate is one of the best signs of a batsman being in form. It shows that they are scoring off a lot of the deliveries they are facing, and therefore they are seeing the ball well.

117* off 113 with 10 sixes and 5 fours would possibly be more dramatic, but would be a lot less of a sign of a batsman who is really ready to return to international cricket.

While the opposition wasn't a full international line up, Doug Bracewell and Taran Nethula are international players and Kieran Noema-Barnett and Ben Wheeler are both capable bowlers. It was a fantastic innings, and one that if he continues to play like that, should see him return to international cricket soon.

The live scorecard for the match is here.

World T20 Statistics

Here is a list of tables of some different statistics from the World T20. I have separate tables for the Group stage, the Super 8's and the overall data. Interestingly the batting numbers are reasonable similar, but the bowling numbers are significantly different. This is possibly a reflection on the strengths of the teams that missed out on the next stage, Bangladesh, Ireland and Afghanistan all have strong bowling line-ups and while Zimbabwe's strength is normally more about their batting, it didn't really fire in this tournament.

All of these are statistics that I have worked out previously, although I had to modify my DL partnership formula to reflect the nature of T20 cricket. I decided to use a score of 147 as an expected score as it's 56.6% of 260, and 56.5% is the resources left in an ODI match shortened to 20 overs.

I will try to update these regularly throughout the tournament.

Best innings:

For more info on how this is calculated see this post:

Group stage
Super 8's
Knockout Stage *
Overall Tournament

Best Partnerships:

Here I take into account the teams situation at the start and the teams situation at the end. Effectively these are the partnerships that have made the biggest contribution to their team's score. For more information see this post:

Group stage
Super 8's
Knockout Stage *
Overall Tournament

Contribution made by bowlers:

Every wicket is worth about 5 runs to a teams total. So I subtract 5 runs per wicket, and then work out the economy rate. For more info see this post:

Group stage
Super 8's
Knockout Stage *
Overall Tournament

Activity rates:

This is the runs a batsman scores per delivery that doesn't get hit to the boundary. I explain this in more detail in the glossary:

(minimum 10 balls faced)

Group stage
Super 8's
Knockout Stage
Overall Tournament

*I have reached my page limit on this platform, so these pages are in a different format.

Running between wickets

I have long been a believer that running between wickets is the most important thing in a limited overs cricket match.

More important than catching. More important than bowling, more important than hitting boundaries.

It is difficult to quantify this, but the focus on it has meant that when I look at statistics I look at them slightly differently sometimes.

One of the main things that I look at when assessing a batsman is their activity rate. This is the number of run runs (ie runs that did not come from boundaries) divided by the deliveries that they did not hit to the fence.

This statistic is a good guide to the form of a batsman. The ability to accumulate runs without really taking risks is really the sign of a classy batsman.

But I wanted to look at who was the best between wickets. This has in part been due to watching Azhar Mahmood playing for the Auckland Aces. He has batted very well, but his running between wickets (and fielding) has been awful. He scored a brilliant hundred against Canterbury, but there were about 6 or 7 times that he wasn't quick enough to get back for a second, and so the team missed out on a number of runs. (He also let in about 6 or 7 runs in the field).

He has been out run-out in about half of his innings in the HRV Cup, which got me thinking about accounting for a batsman's propensity to get run out when I'm assessing how good they are between wickets. It would be better again to check how often there is a run out when they are batting, because a bad call that runs your partner out is as bad as a bad call that runs yourself out. However that data is very hard to get, and so I have to use what I do have.

So I decided to work out a metric for running between wickets. I started with looking at who scored the most run runs per dismissal in ODI's (ignoring how they were out). A couple of the results were quite surprising:

(all figures here are over the last 5 years, in ODI cricket. I have only looked at batsmen who have faced more than 1000 deliveries in that time period)

Run runs per dismissal

Name	Matches	Runs	Run runs	Run runs per dismissal
RN ten Doeschate (Neth)	27	1282	750	41.67
S Chanderpaul (WI)	63	2549	1653	38.44
IJL Trott (Eng)	40	1798	1222	34.91
TLW Cooper (Neth)	18	864	540	33.75
MS Dhoni (Asia/India)	137	4762	2890	33.22
HM Amla (SA)	54	2705	1555	32.40
JH Kallis (SA)	77	3154	1904	31.21
MJ Clarke (Aus)	112	3871	2537	30.20
MEK Hussey (Aus)	115	3408	2274	29.92
JP Duminy (SA)	77	2273	1557	29.38

I had to look up Tom Cooper, as I really knew very little about him. It will be interesting to see if he can keep that up as the Netherlands start to play more matches. From a quick look there are a lot of players that learned to play their cricket in the Southern Hemisphere, Dhoni and Chanderpaul being the exceptions.

Next I looked at the activity rates:

Activity Rates

Name	Run runs	Non-boundary balls	Activity rate
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	857	1254	0.683
JP Duminy (SA)	1557	2520	0.618
MEK Hussey (Aus)	2274	3699	0.615
DL Vettori (NZ)	569	928	0.613
JR Hopes (Aus)	730	1194	0.611
HM Amla (SA)	1555	2665	0.583
DJ Hussey (Aus)	562	967	0.581
MV Boucher (Afr/SA)	636	1106	0.575
IJL Trott (Eng)	1222	2147	0.569
AB de Villiers (Afr/SA)	2156	3802	0.567

The name at the top of the list here was a big surprise. When you think of Shahid Afridi, running between wickets is certainly not one of the things that you think of. However he has scored extremely quickly from run runs. Looking at different time periods and in different forms of the game another couple of names that occur regularly are Prior, Pollard and Dilshan. All three are thought of more as big hitters, but are also very effective at turning over the scoreboard. (Although this may be partially due to opposition captains being happy to conceded a single to them.)

The next thing that I looked at was the runs per run out. There were a number of batsmen who were not run out once, so I couldn't provide an average. In the interest of comparison, I have counted them as having been run out once for the sake of the average.

Run runs per run out.

Name	Matches	Run runs	Run outs	Run runs per ro
AB de Villiers (Afr/SA)	97	2156	0	2156
Yuvraj Singh (Asia/India)	115	1689	0	1689
WU Tharanga (Asia/SL)	95	1477	0	1477
Mohammad Yousuf (Asia/Pak)	60	1332	0	1332
IJL Trott (Eng)	40	1222	1	1222
EJG Morgan (Eng/Ire)	70	1142	0	1142
V Sehwag (Asia/India)	77	1067	0	1067
E Chigumbura (Afr/Zim)	90	928	0	928
S Chanderpaul (WI)	63	1653	2	826.5
AD Mathews (SL)	62	799	1	799

There are a number of batsmen who have been very careful between the wickets. However I think it is probably stretching the truth a little to suggest that Yuvraj Singh is one of the best between the wickets in the world.

So I combined these results using a variety of formulations until I found one that seemed to give the right results. (I can provide it if anyone is interested, it basically multiplies the activity rate by a modified run runs per dismissals, giving a higher weight to run out dismissals). Here were the best runners using my scoring system:

Name	Matches	Average	Activity rate	Score
IJL Trott (Eng)	40	51.37	0.569	22.82
AB de Villiers (Afr/SA)	97	52.46	0.567	22.79
RN ten Doeschate (Neth)	27	71.22	0.542	22.41
Mohammad Yousuf (Asia/Pak)	60	43.1	0.537	20.94
S Chanderpaul (WI)	63	59.27	0.492	19.64
JP Duminy (SA)	77	42.88	0.618	17.94
A Symonds (Aus)	41	44.3	0.549	17.93
MEK Hussey (Aus)	115	44.84	0.615	17.46
MS Dhoni (Asia/India)	137	54.73	0.562	16.72
Misbah-ul-Haq (Pak)	77	44.26	0.529	16.28

So the top of the pile is Trott, de Villiers and ten Doeschate.

An extra statistic that I found interesting was who relied on run runs the most and the least. This is a list of the run run percentages for batsman, ie for every 100 runs they score, how many are not in boundaries. The two surprises there are how high Kandamby is (I've only seen him bat twice, and both times he seemed only interested in finding the rope) and how low Herschelle Gibbs is. Gibbs is so quick between the wickets it is unusual that he scores such a low percentage by running.

Name	Matches	Runs	Run runs	Running %
GD Elliott (NZ)	37	716	500	69.8
JP Duminy (SA)	77	2273	1557	68.5
P Utseya (Zim)	82	849	579	68.2
IJL Trott (Eng)	40	1798	1222	68.0
AR White (Ire)	51	655	445	67.9
SHT Kandamby (SL)	34	847	571	67.4
MEK Hussey (Aus)	115	3408	2274	66.7
...	...	...	...	...
HH Gibbs (SA)	54	1752	728	41.6
JD Ryder (NZ)	37	1094	452	41.3
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	37	1127	457	40.6
PR Stirling (Ire)	34	1349	541	40.1
ST Jayasuriya (Asia/SL)	70	1988	756	38.0
CH Gayle (WI)	73	2454	898	36.6
V Sehwag (Asia/India)	77	3269	1067	32.6

2011 End of Year Activity Rates

A batsman's activity rate is the runs scored per delivery not hit to the fence.

For example two batsmen have 10 off 10. One has hit two 4's, two singles and faced out 6 dot balls. He would have an activity rate of 0.25 because he hit 2 runs off the 8 balls that he didn't hit a boundary off. The second batsman hit one 4, two 2's and two singles. He would have an activity rate of 0.67 because he hit 6 runs off 9 balls that didn't go to the fence.

Here are the batsmen with the highest activity rates:

Test Matches (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
MJ Prior (Eng)	8	234	285	0.544
GP Swann (Eng)	8	46	49	0.516
SCJ Broad (Eng)	7	140	99	0.452
DL Vettori (NZ)	4	120	178	0.401
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)	5	208	243	0.395
DA Warner (Aus)	3	94	101	0.388
BRM Taylor (Zim)	3	154	204	0.370
V Sehwag (India)	7	230	154	0.364
GC Smith (SA)	5	156	166	0.360
R Ashwin (India)	4	110	72	0.348
HMRKB Herath (SL)	10	140	154	0.347
IR Bell (Eng)	8	478	472	0.346

It's interesting to note the prevalence of spin bowlers in the list. Swann, Vettori, Shakib, Ashwin and Herath as specialist spinners and Warner, Sehwag and Smith as part timers. As a spinner (although not in their class) I normally liked it when batsmen tried to hit boundaries off me (particularly 6's) as it gave me a chance to get them out. I didn't like them milking singles off me (unless it was a really good batsman, in which case I didn't mind them being at the other end). If this is common among other (better) spinners, then this possibly translates into why they are so keen on running.

One Day Internationals (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
JP Duminy (SA)	15	152	411	0.688
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	27	250	212	0.688
KS Williamson (NZ)	9	100	170	0.669
AB de Villiers (SA)	10	208	259	0.652
MN Waller (Zim)	7	120	125	0.622
MG Johnson (Aus)	22	100	108	0.621
EJG Morgan (Eng)	16	176	267	0.611
DA Miller (SA)	5	48	69	0.611
MEK Hussey (Aus)	16	142	272	0.606
SK Raina (India)	29	332	390	0.601
F du Plessis (SA)	13	98	190	0.59
IJL Trott (Eng)	29	408	907	0.588
R Dravid (India)	5	36	88	0.583
IR Bell (Eng)	25	180	432	0.581
SPD Smith (Aus)	20	70	134	0.580

Again a number of spinners at the top of the list, with Swann, Botha and Ashwin all being in the unfiltered top 15, but missing out on not having a high enough average. This time the spinners and part timers at the top are Duminy, Shahid, Williamson and Waller.

Twenty20 Internationals (min 60 balls faced)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
Misbah-ul-Haq (Pak)	5	26	58	0.879
KC Sangakkara (SL)	4	46	60	0.800
Umar Akmal (Pak)	5	44	67	0.761
TM Dilshan (SL)	3	94	42	0.737
SPD Smith (Aus)	6	12	57	0.722
LD Chandimal (SL)	3	40	40	0.714
CL White (Aus)	6	58	61	0.709
RG Sharma (India)	3	44	36	0.706
BB McCullum (NZ)	2	100	45	0.703
MJ Guptill (NZ)	2	60	47	0.681
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	5	86	77	0.664

There are not many t20 internationals, so there were a much smaller number of players face 100 deliveries. Misbah-ul-Haq is an interesting person to be at the top of the list, as he is not someone that I think of as being quick between the wickets. Likewise Sangakkara. Although both of them have made a test career out of eeking out runs and managing to release pressure. In the t20 game they have obviously found ways of doing this faster. Players like this are actually remarkably useful.

The Block-Bash players:

At the other end of the spectrum are the players who specialise in blocking the good balls and cashing in on the bad ones. These players don't see a lot of value in singles, and prefer to get their runs in multiples of 4 or 6.

Test Matches (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
Nazimuddin (Ban)	2	76	45	0.153
MJ Guptill (NZ)	5	182	134	0.172
Naeem Islam (Ban)	2	38	46	0.174
Yuvraj Singh (India)	3	92	44	0.184
TMK Mawoyo (Zim)	3	156	154	0.190
BJ Watling (NZ)	1	20	22	0.195
Asad Shafiq (Pak)	9	208	201	0.197
SR Watson (Aus)	6	184	81	0.198
Tanvir Ahmed (Pak)	3	60	26	0.203
JL Pattinson (Aus)	3	44	44	0.206
Nasir Hossain (Ban)	4	122	87	0.208
CR Ervine (Zim)	2	56	40	0.211
NT Paranavitana (SL)	11	246	334	0.212

A surprising member of this list is Martin Guptill, in that he is probably the quickest between the wickets in world cricket. If he was to ever bat with Inzamam-Ul-Haq he could be turning for the third before Inzy was even thinking about the second. But he has tended to get bogged down in test matches recently, and he really needs to add an extra quick single finding shot.

One Day Internationals (min 100 balls faced, average of 20)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
W Barresi (Neth)	10	126	123	0.339
R Rampaul (WI)	15	84	46	0.341
TM Odoyo (Kenya)	5	56	46	0.354
Ahmed Shehzad (Pak)	15	208	163	0.357
Imrul Kayes (Ban)	18	206	215	0.358
S Randiv (SL)	7	50	33	0.359
Shahriar Nafees (Ban)	11	96	129	0.365
AS Hansra (Can)	10	116	176	0.367
CH Gayle (WI)	8	132	70	0.368
BJ Haddin (Aus)	24	350	284	0.377
Usman Limbada (Can)	4	50	51	0.378
CO Obuya (Kenya)	8	138	166	0.384
V Sibanda (Zim)	13	262	216	0.385
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	32	578	497	0.391

Both of the West Indians in this list, Gayle and Rampaul, score their runs at a strike rate over 80, and yet are poor at taking singles. To be fair, when Chris Gayle is on strike, it's probably better for him to see as much ball as possible, so a quick single is often not as good an idea as blocking one and hitting the next ball for 6.

Twenty20 Internationals (min 60 balls faced)

Player	Matches	Boundary runs	Run runs	Activity Rate
J Charles (WI)	2	28	29	0.475
DM Bravo (WI)	3	54	36	0.529
AD Hales (Eng)	4	38	37	0.536
SR Watson (Aus)	5	150	45	0.549
DA Warner (Aus)	6	76	53	0.558
SK Raina (India)	4	80	35	0.574
CJ Chibhabha (Zim)	4	70	42	0.583
DJ Hussey (Aus)	6	28	53	0.596
EJG Morgan (Eng)	4	98	55	0.604
LMP Simmons (WI)	3	58	39	0.609
Asad Shafiq (Pak)	5	68	56	0.629

The name that surprised me this time was David Hussey. He seems like a busy player who is always looking for runs. On closer inspection, he was still scoring a large proportion of his runs in singles, but was generally having a bad run. Still some of his knocks were vital. His 25 off 27, with an activity rate of 0.6 actually carried Australia home for a win.