My statistical goal is a theory of everything: expected averages for any situation. So far I’ve excluded the influence of match ups (specific bowler vs batsman) as being Very Difficult Indeed. That ends now: join me as I dip a toe into that field, starting with some analysis of leg spinners in Tests.
**Update 24/04/2020 – the methodology below was flawed: the Statsguru page I used reflects the score a batsman was on when dismissed, rather than the head-to-head score. Interestingly, after further work it looks like the conclusions were reasonably accurate, even if the workings weren’t.**
1. Leg spinners and favour right handers
The logic for it being more expensive to bowl leg spin (LS) against left handed batsmen (LHB) in white ball cricket is that the batsman can play with the spin, and minor errors in line provide opportunities for scoring. Here’s CricViz on that topic.
In longer format cricket, I expected leg spinners to be agnostic to the batsman’s stance. Against right handers (RHB) a straight line threatens every kind of dismissal apart from timed out, while for LHB a line well outside off can still threaten the stumps and both edges, while asking the batsman to play well away from their body.
What does the data show? At the highest level of Test Cricket, nine of the ten leg spin bowlers sampled favour right handers. Expect a leggie to average 22% more against left handers in Tests.
Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets at 25, yet against LHB he was average. Still, that makes him significantly better than his competitors – none of the other recent leg spin bowlers averaged under 35 against LHB. What’s the reason? I think it’s the required line against left handers making bowled and LBW less likely. Against right handers bowled and LBW make up 37% of dismissals. For left handers that drops to 31%.
2. Elite leg spinners come into their own against the tail
There’s a neat split between Warne, MacGill, Kumble, Ahmed and the rest. The top four took 1,742 wickets at 28, while the other six took their wickets at 39. Individually, there’s not enough data on the six lesser players – so I’ve lumped them together to compare their careers to the elite four.
The ratio of Elite vs Second Rate averages reveals the trend: Elite leg spinners bamboozle lower order batsmen (anyone with a career average under 20).
What does this mean for strategy? Captains will intuitively know that a strong leg spinner is an asset against the tail. If you have an inferior leg spinner, how should you deploy them? I would argue they are best used against the top order (once the ball is no longer new), in order to keep the best bowlers fresh. It’s a question of managing resources and getting the best out of the attack over a 90 over day.
3. Elite bowlers are flattered by bowling at weaker batsmen
The weaker leg spinners claimed 58% of their wickets against batsmen who average 30+. For the elite four that figure is just 51%.
The above impact can flatter averages; for instance Stuart MacGill (42% wickets against top order, career average 29) was not so much better than Devendra Bishoo (61% wickets against top order, career average 37).
A full system would include this when rating bowlers: a rough estimate says MacGill’s true rating was 31, whilst Bishoo’s true average was 35. A quick check shows these adjusted averages are more in line with FC averages, indicating there’s a ring of truth to this.
Methodology
I’ll level with you – there are some assumptions here. Cricinfo’s excellent and free data gives a bowler’s averages split by batsmen (here’s MacGill’s). However, this doesn’t cover how many runs were conceded against batsmen who they haven’t dismissed. I’ve attributed the unallocated runs to batsmen in proportion to their average and number of matches played against that bowler.
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That was fun! We’ve seen a hint of what matchups can do and I’m very late to the party. That said, I’ll stick to my guns: most patterns are just data mining and we need proper evidence (at the level of the above or better) before drawing conclusions. Those conclusions are best done at the “off spinner vs opening batsman” level rather than the “Moeen Ali to Dean Elgar” level.
Red Ball Data 