Josh Little and Anrich Nortje take the bowling honours, but it was a tournament to forget for Kagiso Rabada
S Rajesh07-Nov-2022In a World Cup Super 12s competition that has been tough on batters, only two have scored 150-plus runs at 150-plus strike rates – Glenn Phillips and Suryakumar Yadav. It’s not surprising, then, that they are also the most impactful batters of this stage of the tournament, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats. Phillips leads the way with a rating of 74.80 impact points per innings, and Suryakumar follows with a score of 71.63.ESPNcricinfo LtdSuryakumar has the higher strike rate in the tournament so far, 194 to 164, but Phillips is marginally ahead on impact rating because Smart Stats takes into account not just the runs scored and strike rate, but also context in terms of match situation and support from other batters. Phillips’ best – a stunning, matchwinning 104 off 64 balls against Sri Lanka – is also the tournament’s best so far, in terms of highest impact points for an innings. That knock fetched him 182.6 impact points, which is 48 points more than the next-best (Rilee Rossouw’s 109 against Bangladesh).How is Total Impact calculated?
Total Impact for a player in a match is a numerical value that is the sum of his Batting and Bowling Impacts. These Impacts are calculated based on the context of a batting/bowling performance.
The context is based on an algorithm that quantifies the pressure on the batter/bowler at every ball of an innings. The factors that go into calculating the pressure index include runs required, overs left, quality of batters at the crease and those to follow, quality of bowlers and number of overs left for each bowler, and pitch/conditions and how easy/tough it is for batters/bowlers.
That’s because Phillips’ innings came when New Zealand had slumped to 15 for 3 after four overs, and the next-best score in a total of 167 was Daryl Mitchell’s 22. The other batters collectively struggled to 53 from 56 balls, while Phillips singlehandedly took New Zealand to a total that they defended with some ease. The fact that Sri Lanka managed only 102 showed that none of the other batters got to grips with the conditions. (In fact, the next four highest scorers in the match collectively couldn’t match Phillips’ score.)Suryakumar’s best was his 68 off 40 against South Africa, which got him 128.6 impact points. Like Phillips’ century, this was a one-man act, as Suryakumar scored 68 out of a total of 133, with the next-highest team score being 15. His 61 off 25 against Zimbabwe fetched 92 points.The top run-scorer in the tournament, Virat Kohli, is in third place in the batting impact list, with a score of 52.1 rating points per innings. His standout performance was the sensational unbeaten 82 off 53 against Pakistan, which fetched him 116.1 points, the fourth-best among all innings in the Super 12.Rilee Rossouw and Colin Ackermann round off the top five. Rossouw’s 109 against Bangladesh remains the highest score of the tournament and is the only other century apart from Phillips’ knock. In terms of impact points it fetched 134.4 – a relatively lower value than Phillips’ century as Rossouw’s knock came in a team total of 205. Ackermann is the fifth-highest run-getter of the Super 12s, and his unbeaten 41 off 26 (63.5 impact points) had a huge role to play in Netherlands’ stunning upset win against South Africa.
While the tournament has been a prolific one for the batters listed above, the same can’t be said for ones in this next list. These are the batters with the worst impact ratings in the Super 12s. The big surprise is Babar Azam featuring here; you’d have expected him to be among the first list of batters, but Babar has had a horrid tournament, scoring only 39 runs off 63 balls. His last two innings – 6 off 15 against South Africa and 25 off 33 against Bangladesh – have been particularly troubling as he has spent some time at the crease without finding any fluency.
Among the bowlers, Ireland’s Josh Little leads the impact rating list in the Super 12s (calculated by dividing the total bowling impact by the number of innings bowled in). His seven wickets in this stage of the tournament include a hat-trick against New Zealand, but his best in terms of impact was his 2 for 16 in Ireland’s impressive win against England. His victims were Jos Buttler and Alex Hales, and those wickets, coupled with his economy rate of 5.33, went a long way in ensuring that England stayed behind the par score when the rain came down.Anrich Nortje shone brightly in what was eventually a bitterly disappointing campaign for South Africa. Nortje was the leading wicket-taker of the Super 12s with 11, and he had two four-wicket hauls, against Pakistan and Bangladesh, and went for more than six an over only once in five innings.Related
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Arshdeep Singh has been India’s go-to bowler in the powerplay and death overs, and he has performed both roles admirably: he has taken five wickets in the powerplay at an economy rate of 6.25, and three in the death overs at 9.4 runs per over. His 3 for 32 against Pakistan, when he picked up both Babar (0) and Mohammad Rizwan (4) won him 87.5 impact points, his best of the tournament. Taskin Ahmed and Mark Wood complete the top five. With a three-innings cut-off, only four batters have topped the rating mark of 40, compared to eight bowlers, again indicating that conditions haven’t been easy for batting in this tournament.Despite favourable bowling conditions, one bowler who struggled to make any impact was Kagiso Rabada. Among the 54 bowlers who sent down at least 10 overs in the Super 12 stage, Rabada’s economy rate of 9.43 was worse than all bowlers except Mark Adair of Ireland, and he struggled for wickets as well, taking only two at an average of 75.50. Rabada’s bowling impact rating was a measly 1.33, which was worse than all but one of the bowlers who bowled at least 10 overs: Zimbabwe’s Tendai Chatara, with figures of 0 for 97 in 12 overs, had an impact score of -0.94.
