One of the criticisms that is sometimes leveled at some batsmen in test cricket is that they can't convert a start. They do the hard part of the innings, get to 25 and then get out, without going on to score a hundred.
On the suggestion of Jamie Lloyd, from
The Heavy Roller, I decided to have a look at the conversion rates for current batsmen.
I defined a start as 25 runs, and so I looked at how many times a batsman got out between 25 and 99 and how many times they got past 100. I did not count not outs between 25 and 99. I only looked at innings in the top 7 and at batsmen who had passed 25 more than 10 times. I also only looked at innings in the last 10 years, as the conditions have changed quite a lot between the 90's and now, so it was better to restrict it to this time frame. I also ignored any batsmen who hadn't played an innings in the past 4 years.
Here's the top of the list:
| Name | Dismissals 25 - 99 | 100s | Conversion rate |
| JH Kallis | 58 | 34 | 37.0% |
| AG Prince | 22 | 11 | 33.3% |
| RR Sarwan | 32 | 15 | 31.9% |
| Mohammad Yousuf | 33 | 15 | 31.3% |
| KC Sangakkara | 59 | 26 | 30.6% |
| MJ Clarke | 44 | 19 | 30.2% |
| RT Ponting | 72 | 31 | 30.1% |
| AN Cook | 51 | 20 | 28.2% |
| R Dravid | 67 | 26 | 28.0% |
| DPMD Jayawardene | 58 | 22 | 27.5% |
| HM Amla | 40 | 15 | 27.3% |
| S Chanderpaul | 54 | 20 | 27.0% |
| IR Bell | 44 | 16 | 26.7% |
| SR Tendulkar | 61 | 22 | 26.5% |
| Younis Khan | 43 | 15 | 25.9% |
| GC Smith | 72 | 25 | 25.8% |
| KP Pietersen | 60 | 20 | 25.0% |
| IJL Trott | 21 | 7 | 25.0% |
| JDP Oram | 15 | 5 | 25.0% |
| Shahid Afridi | 9 | 3 | 25.0% |
We see a list of some of the best modern batsmen there, headed by the incomparable Jacques Kallis. There is also a distinct lack of current New Zealand batsmen there, with only Jacob Oram (who retired from tests 3 years ago) in the list.
At the other end of the table are a lot of wicket-keepers and bowling all-rounders.
Here it is sorted from worst rate.
| Name | Dismissals 25 - 99 | 100s | Conversion rate |
| MV Boucher | 50 | 2 | 3.8% |
| Mushfiqur Rahim | 22 | 1 | 4.3% |
| DS Smith | 21 | 1 | 4.5% |
| T Taibu | 20 | 1 | 4.8% |
| AD Mathews | 18 | 1 | 5.3% |
| SCJ Broad | 18 | 1 | 5.3% |
| Shahriar Nafees | 18 | 1 | 5.3% |
| SR Watson | 34 | 2 | 5.6% |
| DJG Sammy | 15 | 1 | 6.3% |
| Junaid Siddique | 14 | 1 | 6.7% |
| MG Johnson | 13 | 1 | 7.1% |
| Umar Akmal | 13 | 1 | 7.1% |
| KD Karthik | 12 | 1 | 7.7% |
| NT Paranavitana | 23 | 2 | 8.0% |
| Harbhajan Singh | 22 | 2 | 8.3% |
| Faisal Iqbal | 11 | 1 | 8.3% |
| DJ Bravo | 32 | 3 | 8.6% |
| Shoaib Malik | 21 | 2 | 8.7% |
| D Ramdin | 21 | 2 | 8.7% |
| Shakib Al Hasan | 21 | 2 | 8.7% |
| BJ Haddin | 27 | 3 | 10.0% |
| Imran Farhat | 27 | 3 | 10.0% |
| AB Barath | 9 | 1 | 10.0% |
| Salman Butt | 25 | 3 | 10.7% |
| Yasir Hameed | 16 | 2 | 11.1% |
| Misbah-ul-Haq | 23 | 3 | 11.5% |
| MS Dhoni | 36 | 5 | 12.2% |
| BB McCullum | 42 | 6 | 12.5% |
| MJ Guptill | 14 | 2 | 12.5% |
| Mahmudullah | 7 | 1 | 12.5% |
It makes me wonder why there are so many keepers there. Perhaps the temperament that makes someone a good keeper is not suited to getting big scores, alternatively it could be that keepers are more likely to get off to a start, as they tend to have a good eye, and are also more likely to be batting with the tail, hence are more likely to hit out. Alternatively it could be that keepers are more likely to get tired, as they have a lot of work to do in the field. For more, see
Does keeping influence batting.
If we ignore the wicket-keepers and bowlers, there are a few players who are in there form Pakistan and also one each from New Zealand, Sri Lanka Bangladesh. The Pakistani batsmen have not played many home matches in this time, and I wondered if there was any significant difference for players at home and away.
Once I isolated out home and away performances there was a clear difference. I home matches players converted 21.1% of starts to hundreds, while away players only converted 17.6%
The next step was to look at who was the best at converting starts to hundreds away from home, as it is obviously a more difficult skill.
| Name | Dismissals 25 - 99 | 100s | Conversion rate |
| JA Rudolph | 9 | 5 | 35.7% |
| JH Kallis | 24 | 13 | 35.1% |
| AJ Strauss | 23 | 11 | 32.4% |
| AN Cook | 21 | 10 | 32.3% |
| TT Samaraweera | 14 | 6 | 30.0% |
| SR Tendulkar | 36 | 14 | 28.0% |
| R Dravid | 39 | 15 | 27.8% |
| MJ Clarke | 21 | 8 | 27.6% |
| GC Smith | 37 | 14 | 27.5% |
| AG Prince | 11 | 4 | 26.7% |
| TM Dilshan | 17 | 6 | 26.1% |
| RT Ponting | 33 | 11 | 25.0% |
The name at the top is surprising. Jacques Rudolph has scored 5 of his 6 hundreds away from South Africa. He's only converted 1 of his 14 starts at home. Once we remove the penalty for playing a lot of matches in England on difficult pitches, Strauss and Cook move up the list. Likewise once we take Sangakkara out of Sri Lanka his numbers don't look nearly as good.
At the bottom of the list, there are still a number of 'keepers and bowlers, but a couple of different batsmen appear.
| Name | Dismissals 25 - 99 | 100s | Conversion rate |
| MV Boucher | 27 | 0 | 0.0% |
| MS Dhoni | 20 | 1 | 4.8% |
| SR Watson | 18 | 1 | 5.3% |
| D Ramdin | 15 | 1 | 6.3% |
| Imran Farhat | 15 | 1 | 6.3% |
| LRPL Taylor | 12 | 1 | 7.7% |
| Mohammad Ashraful | 11 | 1 | 8.3% |
| Kamran Akmal | 19 | 2 | 9.5% |
Farhat, Taylor and Ashraful are all terrible at converting starts when they are away from home. Ashraful might not get to play much more test cricket, but the other two need to address this urgently.
The final question is which teams are best at converting starts.
These numbers are quite interesting.
| Team | Overall | Home | Away | Difference |
| South Africa | 23.7% | 24.0% | 23.4% | 0.7% |
| Australia | 23.5% | 25.5% | 21.5% | 4.0% |
| England | 21.8% | 24.7% | 18.4% | 6.4% |
| Sri Lanka | 21.2% | 21.6% | 20.7% | 0.9% |
| India | 19.7% | 20.9% | 18.9% | 2.0% |
| West Indies | 18.6% | 22.9% | 14.9% | 8.0% |
| Pakistan | 17.0% | 24.6% | 13.9% | 10.7% |
| New Zealand | 14.5% | 14.2% | 14.7% | -0.5% |
| Zimbabwe | 6.8% | 7.7% | 5.0% | 2.7% |
| Bangladesh | 6.0% | 5.8% | 6.2% | -0.3% |
Only New Zealand and Bangladesh do better away from home. It is not a massive surprise in the case of New Zealand as the New Zealand pitches tend to be bowler friendly, and a good ball that misbehaves off the pitch can unseat even the most set batsman. It's part of the reason why batsmen from round the world tend to have significantly lower averages playing against the Blackcaps in NZ than playing them at home. Bangladesh is a little more difficult to understand, but the number at home and away are both particularly poor for Bangladesh, so it might not really tell us anything.
The difference between the better sides over this period (South Africa, Australia, England) and the worst ones (Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) is fairly clear in this statistic, and so perhaps the ability to convert really is an important factor when assessing the quality or otherwise of a batsman.
