Here is one of the smallest statistics indicators.
Although it has no relevance in shorter format and most times in Test cricket, however if Test cricket is low scoring then there is trend for batsmen to score big or small. Hence i have used them to analyse the Ashes.
I call it as ‘marker’ – i.e Number of balls a batsman takes to get off the mark (apart from wide other extras are counted as ball faced).
In Test cricket a batsman often takes more time to get off the mark, sometimes he it can be more than one hour. So to make it more precise and simple let us count the number of balls a batsman takes to get off the mark – and find out if it is more than 6 or less than 4 – and how it effects their overall batting performance.
I have created four stats segment to find out the trend –
- Balls faced : 6 plus / scored 25+
- Balls faced 6 plus / scored less than 25
- Balls faced less than 6/ scored 25+
- Balls faced less than 6/ scored less than 25
- Balls faced less than 4/ scored 25+
- Balls faced less than 4/ scored less than 25
Interestingly batsmen from each team scored equal amount of 25+ scores – 16 times. Now using this above code let us look at how batsmen from both teams performed.
In 3-tests/6 Inns England batsmen totalled 66 innings. The more balls they take to get off the mark, the lesser the runs were scored (including 5 batsmen dismissed for duck facing 6+ balls). England had 13 ducks (zero)of 6 were of top batsmen. Those 13 ducks consumed 65 balls!.
So moving forward in the series, England batsmen need to get off the mark quickly, this can give them some confidence when building an innings.
Australia on the other hand had only 2 ducks so far (45 batting innings). They too like England take more balls to get off the mark but overall their balls per scoring shots is much less than England. On Average England would take 5 balls to score a run compare to Australia who would take less than 4(3.8) to score a run.
Here is a brief analysis of Marker for both teams in ongoing Ashes – (updated at end of 3rd Test)
So moving forward in the series, England batsmen need to get off the mark quickly, this can give them some confidence when building an innings.
Australia on the other hand had only 2 ducks so far (45 batting innings). They too like England take more balls to get off the mark but overall their balls per scoring shots is much less than England. On Average England would take 5 balls to score a run compare to Australia who would take less than 4(3.8) to score a run
Below table is a brief of all batsmen from both teams.
,Interestingly David Warner, Marnus Labuschagne and Alex Carey who took avg 6+ balls to get off the mark.
