Chris Gayle, Shane Watson are prime examples of the best batsmen at the top in T20

By Vincent Sunder 

 

The two games that were witnessed on Friday in the ICC World T20 makes interesting read. Umar Gul walked into bat for Pakistan with the score at 76 for six in the middle of the 15th over. 58 runs were needed off 33 legal deliveries at that stage. It looked a losing battle for Pakistan when Gul, with no pretensions with the bat, joined Umar Akmal in the middle.

By Vincent Sunder 

 

The two games that were witnessed on Friday in the ICC World T20 makes interesting read. Umar Gul walked into bat for Pakistan with the score at 76 for six in the middle of the 15th over. 58 runs were needed off 33 legal deliveries at that stage. It looked a losing battle for Pakistan when Gul, with no pretensions with the bat, joined Umar Akmal in the middle. But Gul upset all calculations and expectations by hitting three sixes and two boundaries in a 17-ball blitz that altered the course of the game and the eventual result. His unconquered 32 came with an astonishing strike-rate of 188.23!

 

In the game where Australia decimated India, Watson and Warner together amassed 96 runs off 19 hits that were either fours or sixes for a strike rate of 505.26. Their non-boundary statistics is 39 runs from 64 balls, which is at a strike rate of just 60.94.  They probably would have gone to win even if the target was 200. Australia did not beat India; they annihilated them.

 

It makes sense for the side’s best batsman to play at the top – an area where South Africa and India bungled. The decision of AB de Villiers to come in at the fall of the fourth wicket with 12.3 overs gone, meant that he had just a maximum of 6.3 legal overs to bat. The combined efforts of de Villiers and JP Duminy for South Africa makes interesting read. They scored 73 runs off 56 deliveries; their boundary hits fetched 34 runs off seven deliveries in a total of 133 from 120 legal deliveries. Put in another way, just 99 runs came of 113 deliveries!

 

Much as the cameos of de Villiers and Duminy are impressive, they do not impact the game unless they go on to make a big score and either provide a good platform for the bowlers to win the game, or help in case they are chasing a target.

 

India opted to open with a non-regular batsman. Irfan Pathan at the top of the order consumed 30 deliveries – 25% of the innings – for just 31 runs and perished as well. Rohit Sharma, a talented stroke-maker with the ability to clear the ropes came in when the side had less than half the overs for the innings.

 

Player	ROB	ROB SR	ODR	ODR SR
Umar Gul	26	520.00	6	50.00
JP Duminy	20	500.00	28	82.35
AB de Villiers	14	466.67	11	73.33
JP Duminy + AB de Villiers	34	966.67	39	79.59
Shane Watson	50	555.56	22	66.67
David Warner	46	460.00	17	54.84
Shane Watson + David Warner	96	505.26	39	60.94
Irfan Pathan	14	466.67	17	62.96

 

ROB: Runs off boundaries – 4s and 6s

 

ROB SR: Strike Rate – Runs off boundaries

 

ODR: Other Delivery (non 4’s 6’s) Runs

 

ODR SR – Other delivery runs Strike Rate

 

The most feared T20 batsman could easily be Chris Gayle.  His last four innings makes for interesting reading. Gayle has not looked to smash the ball out of the park all the while. He has just waited for the right ball to hit, and built an innings in all these four games.

The table below makes interesting read:

 

Gayle	ROB	ROB – SR	ODR	ODR – SR
WT20 – Eng	48	480.00	10	40.00
WT20 – Aus	44	488.89	10	41.67
T20I – NZ	36	514.29	17	53.13
T20I – NZ	58	483.33	27	67.50

 

Australia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have a settled top order. South Africa, India and New Zealand could be suffering owing to wrong personnel at the top of the order. England may have paid the price for using Eoin Morgan lower in the order against West Indies, whilst West Indian experimentation is cushioned by that man Chris Gayle.

 

If this version of the game is about runs, the best batsmen need to maximize using the 120 legal deliveries this format allows. And, run scoring is just not trying to smash every ball out of the ground. Such a method is bound to be fraught with danger, and Shahid Afridi is one of the best examples to explain that.

 

Quite simply, put your best batsmen up front and if they make the most, your chances of winning are greater!

 

(Vincent Sunder aspired to play Test cricket, but had to struggle to play ‘gully’ cricket! He managed a league side to title triumph in the KSCA tournaments. He was debarred from umpiring in the gully games after he once appealed vociferously for a caught-behind decision when officiating as an umpire! After two decades in the corporate sector, he became an entrepreneur with the objective of being able to see cricket matches on working days as well. Vincent gets his ‘high’ from cricket books and cricket videos and discussing cricket)

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