Two separate incidents motivated me to write this article. When Ishant Sharma removed the WI tail in the 2nd test of the 2011 series cheaply (3 wickets fell for 4 runs), I wondered if Ishant Sharma was a specialist in removing the tail. That is, are most of Ishant Sharma's wickets, tail batsmen? Apparently not, as my analysis will show. My second motivation was when Broad and Swann saved England the blushes in the 2nd test of Ind-Eng 2011 series. How important is removing the tail? I think, you still have a chance to pull back things if you allow the tail to wag in the 1st innings. But, in the last innings of the test match, especially if the opposition is trailing? You have until then got 19 wickets in the match. How heart breaking would it be, if you do not remove the last man? Yes, surprisingly it has happened on 20 occasions in 2000 test matches. A perfect 1% as I write! Two of them against India (both against WI, one away (2006) and one home (1978)). India have managed to do it twice too (both against England in England in 1946 and 2007). England and WI have done it 6 times, Australia 4, Pak and NZ once, to complete the list.
So, here I analyze if there are any specialists in removing these tail batsmen among the 'great' bowlers. I define 'tail' by batsmen from No. 8 to No. 11. The keeper mostly comes in at No.7, unless you have 5 bowlers, and sometimes an all-rounder might also come at No.8. So balancing both, No.8 seems to be an ideal place to start the 'tail'. Of course with Broad at No.9 and Swann at No.10, the definition of 'tail' by sheer batting order does not make complete sense, but then all keepers are also not batsmen. So, no analysis can be done if we fret too much on defining the tail.
What % of a bowler's total wickets were from batsmen batting at No. 8 to No.11? The fast bowlers typically start the innings and hence a high % of their wickets will be the openers or positions 1-3/4. The spinners come in the middle and hence a high % of their wickets might come from the middle order 4/5-7. But, the tail enders are equally likely to get out to pace and spin. Of course, you must bring in the nature of the pitch into consideration. Keeping all these aside and purely involving in number crunching, we can expect each bowler to have about 33% (=1/3rd split of the batting line-up) of their wickets by getting the 'tail' out. Here is the actual percentages of the leading wicket takers and a few contemporaries.
The numbers speak for themselves. For Zaheer, only 20% of his wickets were from the tail. You could interpret this in a number of ways. The bowlers are sometimes too good for the tail or the bowler is just not interested in picking the low hanging fruits. They want a more challenging task. I will dare not get into this argument :P
To answer my question, few of the top bowlers are good/interested in removing the tail (< 33%), except Shane Warne and Wasim Akram. So, maybe captains should turn to their second and third best bowlers when the tail is on? And Dhoni should turn to Harbhajan!! Open for a discussion.
Courtesy - Cricinfo
So, here I analyze if there are any specialists in removing these tail batsmen among the 'great' bowlers. I define 'tail' by batsmen from No. 8 to No. 11. The keeper mostly comes in at No.7, unless you have 5 bowlers, and sometimes an all-rounder might also come at No.8. So balancing both, No.8 seems to be an ideal place to start the 'tail'. Of course with Broad at No.9 and Swann at No.10, the definition of 'tail' by sheer batting order does not make complete sense, but then all keepers are also not batsmen. So, no analysis can be done if we fret too much on defining the tail.
What % of a bowler's total wickets were from batsmen batting at No. 8 to No.11? The fast bowlers typically start the innings and hence a high % of their wickets will be the openers or positions 1-3/4. The spinners come in the middle and hence a high % of their wickets might come from the middle order 4/5-7. But, the tail enders are equally likely to get out to pace and spin. Of course, you must bring in the nature of the pitch into consideration. Keeping all these aside and purely involving in number crunching, we can expect each bowler to have about 33% (=1/3rd split of the batting line-up) of their wickets by getting the 'tail' out. Here is the actual percentages of the leading wicket takers and a few contemporaries.
Wickets 8-11 | Total wickets | % | |
M Muralitharan | 260 | 800 | 32.50 |
S Warne | 263 | 708 | 37.15 |
A Kumble | 201 | 619 | 32.47 |
G McGrath | 142 | 563 | 25.22 |
C Walsh | 163 | 519 | 31.41 |
K Dev | 123 | 434 | 28.34 |
R Hadlee | 129 | 431 | 29.93 |
S Pollock | 124 | 421 | 29.45 |
W Akram | 145 | 414 | 35.02 |
H Singh | 145 | 406 | 35.71 |
C Ambrose | 112 | 405 | 27.65 |
I Botham | 118 | 383 | 30.81 |
M Marshall | 99 | 376 | 26.33 |
W Younis | 109 | 373 | 29.22 |
I Khan | 104 | 362 | 28.73 |
D Lillee | 97 | 355 | 27.32 |
A Donald | 86 | 330 | 26.06 |
B Lee | 83 | 310 | 26.77 |
L Gibbs | 111 | 309 | 35.92 |
F Trueman | 97 | 307 | 31.60 |
D Underwood | 70 | 297 | 23.57 |
Z Khan | 55 | 273 | 20.15 |
J Garner | 87 | 259 | 33.59 |
M Holding | 69 | 249 | 27.71 |
D Steyn | 79 | 238 | 33.19 |
I Sharma | 34 | 120 | 28.33 |
The numbers speak for themselves. For Zaheer, only 20% of his wickets were from the tail. You could interpret this in a number of ways. The bowlers are sometimes too good for the tail or the bowler is just not interested in picking the low hanging fruits. They want a more challenging task. I will dare not get into this argument :P
To answer my question, few of the top bowlers are good/interested in removing the tail (< 33%), except Shane Warne and Wasim Akram. So, maybe captains should turn to their second and third best bowlers when the tail is on? And Dhoni should turn to Harbhajan!! Open for a discussion.
Courtesy - Cricinfo
