Limited-overs cricket is increasingly becoming a batsman’s game. Team scores are going higher and higher, while bowlers are left to face the onslaught stemming from the face of the willow. Will this be the case too at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand? Or will the likes of Dale Steyn, Mitchell Starc and James Anderson be able to contain explosive batsmen like AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli?
International Cricket Council rankings pitch AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli as the best one-day batsmen in the world, and Saeed Ajmal and Sunil Narine as the world’s best bowlers.
Scroll.in too created a set of rankings of best batsmen and bowler after studying the individual career one-day international figures of each team’s chosen 15 players. For the batting parameter, the players’ strike rate and batting average were considered. For the bowling parameter, the factors looked at were runs conceded per over and runs conceded per wicket. The results, to say the least, were interesting.
Bowling
The Scroll.in ranking of bowlers who have played at least 20 innings threw up quite a few surprises. In it, Ireland player Alex Cusack was ranked third and his compatriot George Dockrell fifth, while Afghanistan’s Samiullah Shenwari came in at 11th place. Even Bangladesh, with the excellent all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, emerged with a good bowling line-up. In stark contrast, the first Indian on the list (Ravindra Jadeja) was at rank 34 and the first Pakistani (Mohammad Hafeez) at rank 17.
As it turned out, the list of top 10 was equally split between fast bowlers and spinners, though the spinners dominated the top half of that table. In the top 50, Sri Lanka had the strongest presence with seven bowlers, followed by West Indies with six bowlers and New Zealand with five. South Africa’s Imran Tahir emerged on top of the table.
Since what influenced the ranking was not just the ability to take wickets but also the ability to limit runs, some bowlers’ rankings got affected noticeably. So, Australian bowler Mitchell Starc, who takes a wicket every 22.5 runs, was let down by his economy rate of 5 runs per over and came 16th in the ranking. Same with New Zealand’s Mitchell McClenaghan, who takes a wicket every 25.2 runs but concedes 5.9 runs per over. He came 43rd in the list.
Batting
In the batting ranking, South African AB de Villiers – that powerhouse who recently scored the fastest one-day fifty and century – shared the top spot with Australia’s James Faulkner. After these two came India’s Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. At number 10 stood Paul Stirling of Ireland.
In the top 50, Australian had by far the most players, with 10 batsmen. India, Sri Lanka and South Africa came next, with six batsmen each. Even though India have a strong batting line-up, its collapse has hurt the team often. They would hope that during the World Cup at least they do not crumble so easily.
Like with bowlers, many batsmen’s rankings were hit because of their poor show in one of the two factors. Shahid Afridi, for instance, had the third highest strike rate of anyone going into the World Cup. But his batting average of 23.5, which is the 75th best, brought down his overall rank among batsmen to 38. Similarly, Australian batsman Michael Clarke has the sixth best batting average of 44.9, but his strike rate of 78.6 lowered his overall rank to 25.
International Cricket Council rankings pitch AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli as the best one-day batsmen in the world, and Saeed Ajmal and Sunil Narine as the world’s best bowlers.
Scroll.in too created a set of rankings of best batsmen and bowler after studying the individual career one-day international figures of each team’s chosen 15 players. For the batting parameter, the players’ strike rate and batting average were considered. For the bowling parameter, the factors looked at were runs conceded per over and runs conceded per wicket. The results, to say the least, were interesting.
Bowling
The Scroll.in ranking of bowlers who have played at least 20 innings threw up quite a few surprises. In it, Ireland player Alex Cusack was ranked third and his compatriot George Dockrell fifth, while Afghanistan’s Samiullah Shenwari came in at 11th place. Even Bangladesh, with the excellent all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, emerged with a good bowling line-up. In stark contrast, the first Indian on the list (Ravindra Jadeja) was at rank 34 and the first Pakistani (Mohammad Hafeez) at rank 17.
As it turned out, the list of top 10 was equally split between fast bowlers and spinners, though the spinners dominated the top half of that table. In the top 50, Sri Lanka had the strongest presence with seven bowlers, followed by West Indies with six bowlers and New Zealand with five. South Africa’s Imran Tahir emerged on top of the table.
Since what influenced the ranking was not just the ability to take wickets but also the ability to limit runs, some bowlers’ rankings got affected noticeably. So, Australian bowler Mitchell Starc, who takes a wicket every 22.5 runs, was let down by his economy rate of 5 runs per over and came 16th in the ranking. Same with New Zealand’s Mitchell McClenaghan, who takes a wicket every 25.2 runs but concedes 5.9 runs per over. He came 43rd in the list.
Batting
In the batting ranking, South African AB de Villiers – that powerhouse who recently scored the fastest one-day fifty and century – shared the top spot with Australia’s James Faulkner. After these two came India’s Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. At number 10 stood Paul Stirling of Ireland.
In the top 50, Australian had by far the most players, with 10 batsmen. India, Sri Lanka and South Africa came next, with six batsmen each. Even though India have a strong batting line-up, its collapse has hurt the team often. They would hope that during the World Cup at least they do not crumble so easily.
Like with bowlers, many batsmen’s rankings were hit because of their poor show in one of the two factors. Shahid Afridi, for instance, had the third highest strike rate of anyone going into the World Cup. But his batting average of 23.5, which is the 75th best, brought down his overall rank among batsmen to 38. Similarly, Australian batsman Michael Clarke has the sixth best batting average of 44.9, but his strike rate of 78.6 lowered his overall rank to 25.
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