Mini-session Analysis, 2nd test, Zimbabwe vs Pakistan, Harare 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the second test between Zimbabwe and Pakistan at Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Have Australia's selectors selected the New Zealand squad

Earlier this year the Australian selectors picked Ashton Agar as their 13th player picked as a spin bowler in 5 years. Some of the names included in that list are the likes of Michael Beer, Xavier Doherty and Glenn Maxwell. The Australian selectors picked some of them despite a fairly ordinary domestic record.

During that same time New Zealand have picked 4 players as spin bowlers in test matches. Part of that is the presence of Daniel Vettori, probably the best New Zealand's ever spinner to have played for New Zealand. A couple of other players have been named in squads, or played short-form cricket, but Vettori, Patel, Martin and Todd Astle (one match) have been the only spinners used in the last 5 years.

Now in the squad for Bangladesh is the name Ish Sodhi. There's a chance that he's not going to get picked, and that New Zealand will continue to just use Williamson and Martin for the actual tests, but the decision to go with Sodhi is a strange one.

Sodhi looks like he could become a very good bowler. He's got a lot of people who know a thing or two about cricket talking, and genuinely turns the ball. However there's a difference between being able to turn a cricket ball and being a good spin bowler. The two are related, but they are not the same thing.

Sodhi has played 12 first class matches for 22 wickets at an average of 48.40. That's not a very encouraging record.

To be fair to the selectors, there are not many New Zealand spin bowlers with a great record recently, but Sodhi is the player with the worst record of the current crop.

Here are the records of all the potential rivals for the back-up role to Bruce Martin since 2012: (assuming Vettori is unfit)

Name	Wickets	Average
Sodhi	22	48.40
Nethula	37	45.32
Singh	13	39.15
Boult	9	23.44
Astle	41	44.68
McCullum	15	24.60
Patel	142	32.90

Jono Boult, Bhupinder Singh and Nathan McCullum have probably not played enough first class cricket in that time to really be able to read much into their records, but there is a name that stands out as a glaring omission: Jeetan Patel.

While I was one of the people who said things like "he should never play for New Zealand again" based on his somewhat insipid performance with the bat in South Africa, the selectors job is not to pick someone to face Steyn and Morkel, rather they should be picking the player who is the best equipped to take over if Bruce Martin gets injured. For me that's Jeetan Patel.

Bruce Edgar said that he picked Sodhi based on his good tour of India with New Zealand A. A tour where he took 2 wickets at 84.5. Astle ended with better figures in each innings that both bowled in. If Sodhi was being taken as a third spinner, then that would be a little more understandable. He's there to get experience, to get exposed to some quality coaching etc. But the risk of Martin getting sick or injured and having to thrust a player who has not yet earned his spot into a test match (against a team that is good against spin) is too great.

Cricket is littered with stories of young players who are picked too early, and either never recover, or take much too long to do so. It is one thing to pick a young player who (like was the case with Vettori) has put sufficient performances on the board to suggest that they deserve their spot. It is another thing to pick a young player who has yet to do that. It sometimes works (Doug Bracewell is a good example) but often doesn't. Martin Crowe has said repeatedly that he should not have been picked so young, as he hadn't yet convinced himself that he was ready to step up. Spin bowling (and legspin bowling in particular) takes a certain psychological strength. You have to be prepared to be hit, relying on your own ability to beat the batsman in the end. If a player doesn't believe in themselves, then the best laid plans are often irrelevant.

I believe this is a bad decision by New Zealand cricket. It is a big gamble with a promising young player's career, and also a gamble with a potential banana-skin test series.

Mini-session Analysis, 1st test Zimbabwe vs Pakistan, Harare, 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between Zimbabwe and Pakistan at Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-session Analysis 5th Ashes test - The Oval, 2013

Here is the mini-session analysis for the Fifth test between England and Australia at The Oval, London, England

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

When was the Ashes won?

The important old ball

England retained the Ashes by securing a draw in the 3rd match at Old Trafford, and then won the series by winning the 4th match at Chester-le-Street.

An interesting question, however, is what parts of the games did England win? It's hard not to recognise the efforts of Ian Bell, who has been immense for England with the bat, often on quite difficult surfaces. Despite his efforts, I think there has been another factor that has been equally influential. England's pace bowlers have bowled well with the old ball.

For the purpose of this article, I've defined the ball as being new if it is less than 20 overs old, and old if it's more than 20 overs.

Here are the difference between the two sets of pace bowlers:

Average	Australia	England
less than 20 overs	22.78	32.32
more than 20 overs	35.28	28.78

Australia are significantly better with the new ball, but England are better with the old ball. While those 7 runs per wicket doesn't seem like a big difference, it is because there have been just over twice the number of overs bowled with the old ball as with the new ball.

Part of the difference has been that Australia seem to have worked hard to keep the shine on the ball, while England seem to have been trying to get the ball to reverse, and not been so worried about using the first new ball as a weapon. England have done much better with the second new ball than with the first (England average 4 runs per wicket more with the first new ball than with the second), while Australia have been the opposite (Australia average 5 runs per wicket more with the second new ball than with the first). Their bowlers almost seem to have run out of steam once the second ball comes along.

Here's how it works out as averages scores. After 20 overs Australia's average score is about 66/2. England is 58/3. However after 80 overs Australia average 180/9 while England are 225/7. Some of that difference is Graeme Swann, but some of that is just how much more effective England's quick bowlers have been with the older ball.

If we took spin bowlers out of the picture and just looked at the fast bowlers, After 20 overs Australia would still average 66/2 (Swann had been about as effective as the quicks with the new ball). England would have been 47/3. After 80 overs Australia would average 250/9 while England would still have 3 wickets in hand at 211/7.

There's a point, however, where these numbers are ridiculous, as the different batsmen are not equally capable, but they do paint a picture.

However they are ignoring the impact that Swann has on the bowlers that are bowling with him.

I believe that one of the reasons that England's quicks have been so effective with the old ball is the pressure created by Graeme Swann. To quantify this pressure, I looked at a statistic that I called Wicket Assists. A wicket assist is awarded to a bowler who bowls an over directly preceding the one where a wicket fell.

Wicket assists is a statistic that I keep note of when I'm coaching, as it's often a better indicator of how much pressure a bowler is exerting on the batsmen than wickets. An example of this is when I had two bowlers opening the bowling together. One bowled 6 overs, and took 0/8 (included 2 no balls, and a wide that just slipped down the leg side). The other bowled 7 overs and took 6/47. Most of the wickets for the second bowler were a result of the pressure that the first bowler built up. The second one got to keep the ball, and got the plaudits, however the one that I recommended for a higher team was the first bowler.

Graeme Swann has taken 23 wickets in this series, but he has also had 23 wicket assists. That's roughly one wicket every 9 overs while he's at the bowling crease. He creates pressure that allows the quick bowlers to take wickets. Compare his rate to Ashton Agar, who had 2 wickets and 5 assists in the two matches he played. That's a wicket roughly every 24 overs that he's at the crease. Nathan Lyon has been more successful than Agar at exerting pressure. 8 wickets and 6 assists, meaning that Australia pick up a wicket roughly every 11 overs that he's at the crease.

Overall I believe that one of the major differences between the two teams has been what their bowlers have done after 20 overs. England's quick bowlers have been better, and their spinners have been better too. Overall, I believe this is the time that this series has been won.

Another first innings spinner

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about Daniel Vettori, showing that he was much more effective in the first innings than in the second innings.

Among spin bowlers who have taken more than 250 wickets, Vettori is alone in this, but among bowlers who have taken less wickets there are a few others. Here's the list of regular spin bowlers who started their careers post 1978 and who have a second innings average higher than their first innings average.

Name	First innings wickets	First innings average	Second innings wickets	Second innings average	difference
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)	78	30.74	28	38.50	-7.76
SLV Raju (India)	57	28.50	36	34.22	-5.72
DL Vettori (ICC/NZ)	226	33.07	134	36.70	-3.63
Abdul Qadir (Pak)	151	32.19	85	33.88	-1.69
NM Lyon (Aus)	52	32.23	32	32.69	-0.46

It's a fairly short list, but the interesting thing is the last three names on it. Vettori and Qadir are two outstanding bowlers. But they both have quite similar records to Nathan Lyon.

I thought it would be interesting to look at the three bowlers together, after they had all played the same number of matches as Nathan Lyon has:

1st innings (24 matches)	Deliveries	Runs	Wickets	Avg	S/R	E/R
DL Vettori	3039	1317	35	37.63	86.8	2.6
Abdul Qadir	3895	1853	50	37.06	77.9	2.85
NM Lyon	3239	1676	52	32.23	62.3	3.1

2nd innings (24 matches)	Deliveries	Runs	Wickets	Avg	S/R	E/R
DL Vettori	3592	1452	47	30.89	76.4	2.43
Abdul Qadir	3338	1506	42	35.86	79.5	2.71
NM Lyon	2082	1046	32	32.69	65.1	3.01

We can see that Vettori started off his career more conventionally, being more effective in the second innings. But the thing that stands out to me is how much more effective Lyon is at taking wickets than either of the other two. His strike rate is remarkable. (To put his strike rate in context: at the same stage of his career Warne had a strike rate of 67.4) Lyon's overall average and strike rate is also better than Vettori's or Abdul Qadir's was after 24 matches.

It seems that the Australian selectors and public are still somewhat unconvinced by Lyon, but I think that if he can hold his own in a comparison with Vettori and Abdul Qadir, then he is probably a bowler worth persevering with.

Mini-session Analysis, 4th Ashes Test, Chester-le-Street, 2013

Here is the mini-session analysis for the fourth test between England and Australia at Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street, England

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.