Introduction

Hello, so today I am going to be diving deeper into my analysis of players in twenty20 cricket. If you didn’t check out the previous blogs go check them out. One of the key findings from that work was how much strike rates differ depending on the ball in the innings that was faced and what ground/competition they were playing in. Therefore in this blog I’m going to look at adjusting a players strike rate based on those factors. As previously mentioned i’m using white ball analytics huge twenty20 data set

Non Adjusted Strike Rates

So first things first lets look at the top twenty20 batsmen for strike rates in the data. These are batsmen who have faced at least 100 balls.

The highest strike rate belongs to Pollock, being honest I have never heard of him however a quick google shows he plays for Warwickshire ans has played 23 twenty20 games in England. There are plenty of names I do recognise though like Andre Russell and Ronchi. As previously mentioned though these strike rates depend a lot when the player is batting. First thing I am going to look at, is the effect of when in the innings the player has batted.

Ball No. Adjustment

To do the adjustment I’m going to calculate the average strike rate for each ball of a twenty20 innings. I am then going to take the average strike rate in all of twenty20 and work out the difference for each ball. That difference can then be used to adjust the batsmen strike rate for each ball faced by that factor. The high strike rates towards the end of an innings will then be reduced and the lower strike rates at the end of an innings increased.

Above you can see a summary of what the strike rate at each ball will be adjusted by. Calculating that by batsmen and looking at the top 40 from previous shows this:

Above you can see the difference in batting strike rates when the adjustment is applied based on what balls in the innings they faced. Now I have controlled for the ball in the innings the batsmen has faced we make more of a judgement who are the batsmen with better strike rates. Very impressive that EJ Pollock still comes out on top. However this does not take into account the ground it has been played on which also plays a big part in a batsman strike rate.

Ground Adjustment

This is a similar method to the ball faced. I am getting the average strike rate for across all ground and the difference between that and the ground strike rate is what each batsmen strike rate adjusted

Finally we see the new rank of the batsmen based on the time they bat and the place they bat. I’m hoping that any effect of competition is taking into account by controlling for the ground. Looking at the adjusted strike rates Pollock comes out really well. He look to a really promising player I’m going to watch out for him going forward. Hastings however has not fared well after controlling for the two variables and is now well down.

Overall by doing this adjustment it allows a fairer comparison between players. Let me know your thoughts.