Land of the long list of lefties

In a few hours New Zealand will take the field against South Africa. There are two players likely to be named in the team who's selection will be quite remarkable.

Corey Anderson is a big all rounder from Canterbury (originally) who hits a big ball and bowls left-arm medium fast. He was a prodigious talent at youth level, making the Canterbury side at age 16, while still at school.

Mitchell McClenaghan is a left-arm fast bowler who is a little erratic and injury prone, but who has a tendency to take wickets. Lots of wickets. Think of him as a New Zealand version of Mitchell Johnson. Not always on target, but capable of occasionally bowling a ball that could get through Rahul Dravid or Brian Lara.

While their selections are not in themselves particularly notable, there is one thing that is: they are both left-arm pace bowlers, adding to a very long list of NZ left-armers.

This year New Zealand has used Trent Boult, Niel Wagner, Andy McKay, James Franklin and Michael Bates at the bowling crease. There is only one other year in history when a team has selected 5 left-arm pace bowlers to play international cricket. In 2007 Sri Lanka actually picked 6 (although Zoysa didn't actually bowl in the one match he was selected for).

And New Zealand are probably against the best team to bowl left-arm pace against. South Africa's batsmen have done well against every type of bowling, but they have done less well against left-arm pace than any other type. In the last 4 years they average about 41 against right arm spin, 39 against left-arm spin or right arm pace but only 35 against left-arm pace. An average of 35 suggest that left-arm pace isn't a silver bullet, but it is a significant difference, and one that New Zealand might be aware of.

So far this year most of the South African batsmen have been dismissed at least once by a left-armer, despite many of them having only faced a couple of innings from a left-armer. Here are the stats for everyone who has faced a left-arm pace bowler at least 5 times:

Name	Total Runs	Total Dismissals	Average
Smith	122	1	122
A Petersen	66	4	16.5
Amla	162	2	81
Kallis	100	4	25
de Villiers	142	1	142
Levi	34	2	17
Duminy	21	0	-
du Plessis	96	1	96

The New Zealand bowlers are likely to be eagerly waiting to bowl to Petersen and Kallis. The battle between the South African batsmen and the New Zealand left-armers is certainly one aspect of the tour that I'm going to be looking forward to watching immensely.

Right players, wrong formats?

I was pleased to see that Michael Bates was picked for the New Zealand ODI and T20 teams. I was especially pleased to see that the selection manager commented that he had played well in pressure situations, mirroring my thoughts.

I was also pleased that two other Auckland players, and one former Auckland player that I have enjoyed watching: Colin de Grandhomme, Roneel Hira and Taran Nethula, were also picked. However I have some concerns about the role that de Grandhomme is likely to be asked to perform.

I'll give some background to this. I used to really enjoy watching Craig Spearman play cricket. Particularly the longer form. He had the ability to score runs, and could do it quickly, but had a good temperament and played responsibly when he needed to. Unfortunately he got branded a one day specialist, and got frustrated and left our shores for England.

He only got to play in 19 tests, and averaged about 26 in them (which is not great) but a lot of those matches were played on green-tops and of the players that played in 10 of those tests with him, only 3 averaged over 30. Craig McMillan averaged 28, so there were 4 that averaged more than him. During the same time he played 51 ODI's for an average of 18.72. This is the second lowest average of any batsman who batted more than 40 times in the top 6. Only Alok Kapali stands between him and the title of worst ODI batsman ever. He was in the top 5 in his country for tests, and played only 19, but was a terrible ODI player and played 51. Gloucestershire were not so foolish. They gave him a chance to play a lot of first class cricket, and he rewarded them scoring 19 centuries for them between 2003 and 2007, including their record score of 341.

The New Zealand selectors then repeated the dose. They picked Andre Adams as an ODI specialist also. Now it's not that Adams was a bad ODI player. A bowling average of 31 and a bowling average of 5.22, combined with a batting average of 17.45 and a strike rate over 100 suggests that he was a useful contributor. However he only got to play one test. He took 3/44 in the first innings and 3/61 in the second, helping lead New Zealand to a victory over England. For some reason he was never again selected to play a test match, and has remained with an average of 17.5. He was never selected despite having a first class average of about 23 and repeatedly taking truck loads of wickets in first class matches for Auckland and Notts. (He took the third most first class wickets in the world in 2010 and 2011, and also took more than 50 wickets in 2005, 2006 and 2007). But he was pigeon-hoed as a one day player, so he wasn't picked for any more test cricket. As a result Adams made use of his Vincentian ancestry and is now eligible for the West Indies instead of New Zealand.

The next player to have suffered this fate at the hands of the New Zealand selectors was Neil Broom. (Now they still have time to redeem this one, as he is still available for selection.) Broom is an aggressive top/middle order batsman from Otago. He has scored 10 first class hundreds in 69 matches at an average of over 40. Normally batting at number 3 or 4. As a result the selectors picked him at number 6 and 7 for a few one day matches. He has also not been picked for a test yet. He's another good player who had performed much better in first class than in limited overs cricket, and yet has only been picked in the format that he's been the least successful in.

Now the selectors have picked de Grandhomme to play in the t20's and Cantabrian Andrew Ellis to play in the ODI matches. Both are big hitting batsmen, and reasonable medium/fast medium bowlers. However de Grandhomme has been amazing in the one day matches, and good in the t20's and Ellis has been a star in the t20's, but not quite as effective in the one day matches.

Here are their results this season:

.	De Grandhomme	Ellis
List A runs	117	106
List A average	58.50	26.50
List A strike rates	121.87	116.48
T20 runs	156	129
T20 average	22.28	21.50
T20 strike rates	160.82	186.95
List A batting effectiveness	71.29	30.87
T20 batting effectiveness	35.83	40.19
List A wickets	3	5
List A averages	32.66	32.60
List A economy	4.45	4.63
T20 wickets	2	7
T20 averages	17.00	37.28
T20 economy	8.50	8.41
List A bowling effectiveness	24.22	25.16
T20 bowling effectiveness	24.08	52.25

* de Grandhomme hardly bowled in T20 matches (only 4 overs), and as a results his averages for this form are not a good indication of his ability.

Effectiveness is runs per wicket x runs per ball. It is a good way of measuring players skills in limited overs matches.

We see that Ellis has had a worse season than de Grandhomme in the 50 over matches both with the bat and the ball, but performed better with the bat in the t20 matches than de Grandhomme and actually bowled a reasonable number of overs, rather than just filling in on occasion.

While this is a small sample, I feel that the two players are in the wrong teams. They are the right players, but if there is only room for one in each team then they have been picked in the wrong formats.

Big Occasion Bates

Yesterday the (mighty) Auckland Aces were playing in their third consecutive HRV Cup final. Auckland won convincingly. During the time between their first and third final they have also played Pakistan in a tour T20 match and played 2 Champions League matches.

Throughout these 6 big occasion matches one player has really been extraordinary: left arm quick bowler Michael Bates.

Here are his results:

Match	Opposition	Result	Figures
2009/10 HRV Cup final	Central Districts	Loss	4-0-61-3
Tour match	Pakistan	Win	3-0-11-4
2010/11 HRV Cup Final	Central Districts	Win	4-1-18-4
2011 Champions League T20	Kolkata Knight Riders	Loss	4-0-13-1
2011 Champions League T20	Somerset	Loss	4-1-13-2
2011/12 HRV Cup Final	Canterbury	Win	3-0-18-3
Overall			22-2-134-17

This gives him an average of 7.88, an economy rate of 6.09 and a strike rate of 7.64. If we just look at the last 2 years, removing the first final at the postage stamp sized Pukekura Park, his figures become 18-2-73-14. That is a breath-takingly low economy rate of 4.06, average of 5.2 and strike rate of 7.71.

How good are those numbers? Here are some comparisons: The best averaging bowler in the world is Krishmar Santoki from Jamaica who averages 8.56; the best economy rate is Samuel Badree from Trinidad and Tobago who's economy rate is 4.43; the best strike rate is also Santoki at 9.3. Bates's figures in the last 5 finals are better than all of these. Now it is true that 5 matches is a small sample size, but the results are still outstanding.

Given these numbers it is staggering that he hasn't been picked up by an overseas team of some variety. He hasn't even been picked for New Zealand A.

Now sometimes a bowler can get good figures by getting bad batsmen out. Not the case with Bates, here is the list of his dismissals:
Ross Taylor*
Kieran Noema-Barnett
Jacob Oram*
Mohammad Hafeez*
Shahid Afridi*
Ahmed Shezad*
Wahab Riaz
Peter Ingram*
Jamie How*
Ian Blackwell*
Doug Bracewell
Manvinder Bisla
Peter Trego
Nick Compton
Rob Nichol*
Andrew Ellis
Reece Young*
* - has batted in the top 6 in International Cricket

In his other T20 matches, when the stage is not so big, he has preformed reasonably well, but not nearly as well as he has on the big stage. Here are his stats excluding these matches: 86.5-1-755-25 Average 30.2, Economy Rate 8.73, Strike Rate 20.76.

Teams need consistent performers. But they also need players that can step up on the big occasions. So far Michael Bates has proved that he can do just that.