POTW: LordEddardStark

[MenInG]

For his very detailed analysis of the issues that Pakistan face in their middle-order, this week's POTW winner is @LordEddardStark

Congratulations!

You can read his award-winning post at:

https://ppforum.pakpassion.net/threads/pakistan-odi-middle-order-dilemma.310410/post-11892646

Hi everyone,

So, there have been a lot of discussion on this forum and elsewhere about the best middle order for ongoing World cup. There was a lot of debate about possible inclusion of Saud Shakeel in place of Salman Agha, which eventually led him joining the ranks for Pak vs Netherlands match. However, knowing his record since his domestic days, it never felt right to have him start at Number 5 position. I thought therefore to get his numbers and compare them with his two middle-order companions; Rizwan and Iftikhar, and see which one of them has better record at what position. Following is a snapshot of that analysis.

So about data first: I have obtained record of last 46 ODI & List A matches of Rizwan, Iftikhar and Saud. The number is purely arbitrary but my choice of this number has more to do with availability of data than anything else. Especially in case of Saud, the data problem is too acute as he has only played 6 ODI innings and not all his List A matches have proper record. Nevertheless, I have gone backward from most recent inning for all of them to the last, and have not missed any innings in between. A breakdown of their analysed innings is as below:

Rizwan: 40 ODI matches and 6 List A matches
Iftikhar: 17 ODI matches and 29 List A matches
Saud: 6 ODI matches and 40 List A matches

ANALYSIS:

Firstly, a side by side comparison of all three over this period.

View attachment 137292

Second comparison is of their performance batting first and second. I am not including S/Rs because they are virtually the same over two periods.

View attachment 137304

Third parameter is their respective performance at different positions, which is the one that I did all of this for. Now, Saud plays mostly at number 3 in domestic, Rizwan at 4 and Iftikhar at 4 as well. Ironically, when Saud and Rizwan play together, Saud comes ahead of Rizwan, which would not be the case in international matches.

However, to me more interesting would be to see how each player performs with respect of stage of match they come in. Both Rizwan and Saud came within first 10 0vers against Netherlands, however their time of entry and subsequently their style of play would change if they come in say after 30 0vers. So here is a side-by-side comparison of all three both at their respective positions as well as at the match stage when they started their innings.

View attachment 137294
Last analysis is a bit incomplete as I intended to do a phase wise analysis of all three. But there is very little data available in case of List A matches, so I had no choice to only take ODI innings into account. But since Saud has played only 6 of them yet, I had to exclude him from the comparison.

This analysis is also two-part. First of this analysis is performance in terms of S/R for each five phases of the team innings. Second one is their S/R for every 20 balls they play. Second one is intended to show how each of them pace their innings.

View attachment 137299

Now everyone would have different interpretations for this analysis. But to me key takeaways are as below:

1. All three batters are proper middle-order players and have come in team on the basis of strong domestic performance in the similar positions.
2. Both Iftikhar and Rizwan have better record chasing as compared to batting first. Iftikhar's record actually was really surprising for me. Although there isn't much difference between S/Rs, there is a huge gap between averages (26.08 vs 88.15).
3. Batting position wise, best place for Saud Shakeel is number 3. Since that is not possible, the next best is number 4. 5th is actually his worst position in terms of historical performance, but the numbers still are really good.
4. However, best batting position for Rizwan is 4th as well, and there is a significant gap in his record at that position vs his record at 5th position.
5. Best batting position for Iftikhar for bat is 6th, where he is batting right now. Close second is 4th, where he bats mostly in domestics. Actually I have found him really dynamic as to how he has batted really well despite not playing at his ideal position.
6. Iftikhar is much better in pacing his innings if compared to Rizwan. Rizwan's S/R still remains in the same bracket even though he has faced more than 40-60 balls. Ironically, the data suggests that he slows down after he has faced 80 balls and only increases the tempo when he has faced 120 balls. I am not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here but its such a strange time to slow down.
7. Most importantly what this analysis tells us is that best way to play our middle-order to their strength is to send them according to match position.
   1. If its overs 1-10, best person to go in is Saud Shakil.
   2. If its overs 11-20, either Muhammad Rizwan or Saud Shakil can go in.
   3. If its overs 21-30, Iftikhar has the best numbers. Saud does not have enough good numbers to suggest he can come in after 20 overs and can still pace his innings perfectly. Rizwan's numbers are better than Saud still.
   4. For 31-40, Rizwan has the best performance in terms of both S/R and Average.
   5. If all three are still there for 41-50, Iftikhar has absolutely phenomenal numbers in this bracket.

So there it goes. Feel free to add more points to this analysis.

 

[mominsaigol]

Finished reading. @LordEddardStark Killer post and my favourite POTW yet.

Great job.

 

[LordEddardStark]

Thank you @MenInG and @mominsaigol!

 

[sweep_shot]

Congratulations.

 

[BouncerGuy]

Congratulations man. That was some detail you wrote. Good one. Keep it up and give us more detailed analysis in the future as well.

 

[Ali T]

That was awesome. Well done.

 

[PakPremi]

Excellent Analysis based on good research. Pity the team think tank is too rigid to try any of the suggestions no matter what the match situation is, they only know to change Nawaz batting position based on one success he had.

 

[Caved12]

Congratulations

 

[W63L35]

@LordEddardStark
Congratulation! Excellent post. Well deserved POTW award!

Just be careful that a few fans may accuse you of manipulating the stats!

 

[Kriketer]

Excellent post, good pick

 

[Saj]

Well done.