Keiron Pollard and the World Cup activity ratings

Last night we saw an amazing innings for Keiron Pollard. When he arrived at the wicket, West Indies were in trouble. It was 130/3 off 32 overs. Devon Smith was looking about as comfortable as a penguin in the Sahara, and Ireland had the sniff of blood.

Pollard hit 5 sixes and 8 fours, and scored 94 off 55 balls. But interestingly he scored 62 runs in boundaries, off 13 balls, meaning that off the rest of his innings, he scored 32 off 42. Even if you remove the boundaries he scored at a strike rate better than 75.

His running between wickets had an effect on Devon Smith also. When Pollard arrived at the wicket Smith had a strike rate of 72.2 During the time that they were batting together Smith scored 29 runs off 25 balls. Pollard took the pressure off Smith, and he responded by batting a lot better. (Obviously he had got his eye in also, but the change in his attitude was quite evident watching the game.)

We all know how powerful Pollard can be. We think of the big sixes that he has hit. But the subtlety that he showed last night showed us that he is capable of being much more than a big hitting circus performer.

In his whirlwind 60 against the Netherlands, there were only 18 balls that he didn't hit to the boundary, and he managed to get 16 off those. The next step for him will be to repeat this against a test playing nation.

His activity rate (runs per ball not hit for a boundary) is far above anyone in the World Cup, but there are a couple of other interesting names in the list:

Name	Runs	Balls	Runs from boundaries	Activity rate
KA Pollard	154	83	106	0.787
DPMD Jayawardene	134	123	58	0.697
V Sehwag	254	195	146	0.667
AB de Villiers	266	247	120	0.664
Younis Khan	128	159	28	0.658
HM Amla	169	196	48	0.658
IR Bell	193	227	60	0.624
KC Sangakkara	252	281	92	0.618
AJ Strauss	298	299	136	0.609
IJL Trott	289	369	76	0.609
Tamim Iqbal	152	158	66	0.606
Misbah-ul-Haq	192	259	44	0.594
V Kohli	154	161	68	0.593
G Gambhir	128	143	52	0.585
RN ten Doeschate	148	165	62	0.57
T Taibu	117	140	44	0.566
BRM Taylor	140	154	62	0.561
KJ O'Brien	164	125	110	0.535
SR Watson	141	153	68	0.533
RS Bopara	106	140	36	0.53
Shakib Al Hasan	111	144	40	0.53
TM Dilshan	283	279	158	0.521
Umar Akmal	167	193	76	0.52
CR Ervine	113	133	52	0.504

The three players who have been near the top of a lot of the activity rate charts are Sehwag, Dilshan and Tamim Iqbal. All are in this list, although Dilshan is a lot lower down than usual.

The bottom of the list features a number of players from associate nations, but there are a couple of very good batsmen who have made it into the list also.

Sorted from lowest to highest

Name	Runs	Balls	Runs from boundaries	Activity rate
AS Hansra	142	264	72	0.282
W Barresi	99	154	52	0.333
A Bagai	102	180	44	0.343
CO Obuya	144	212	72	0.367
WTS Porterfield	106	169	46	0.38
BJ Haddin	84	116	44	0.381
MJ Guptill	192	251	104	0.388
DM Bravo	112	149	58	0.397
TLW Cooper	140	213	60	0.404
Imrul Kayes	111	149	56	0.407
CH Gayle	119	149	64	0.41
Kamran Akmal	118	169	52	0.423
P Utseya	86	150	24	0.431
EC Joyce	136	207	52	0.433
KP Pietersen	131	136	80	0.436
DS Smith	202	253	102	0.439
WU Tharanga	258	292	144	0.445
SR Tendulkar	213	222	126	0.451
GC Smith	87	151	20	0.459
PW Borren	86	101	44	0.462

Haddin has managed to feature in the bottom list for other formats also, showing that he is very reliant on hitting boundaries for his usually good strike rate. Also at the wrong end of the table is Martin Guptill. Watching Guptill he doesn't seem to have a reliable single scoring shot against spin bowlers. Accordingly the more that spin bowlers bowl against him, the lower his activity rate falls.

It wil be interesting to see if Pollard manages to keep up his extrodinary rate as the competition heats up, and also if the likes of Tendulkar, Smith and Gayle can get their rating up towards 0.5.