Preview – Red Ball Data

Preview – England vs New Zealand June 2022

England 24%, New Zealand 46%, Draw 30% for Lord’s says my model. Here I’ll explore why I disagree with the bookmakers (who say 40%/25%/35%*), then give crusty crumbs of comfort to England supporters, and finally share what I think players would average if we played the series forever.

Advantage New Zealand

The visitors will have seven batters who have performed at Test level (Devon Conway came along just when needed, with 767 runs in his first seven Tests). Meanwhile England’s top three average in the twenties (Lees/Crawley/Pope). Yes, two of them are better than that, but you get the point.
New Zealand should have four front-line pace bowlers, well suited to early-summer in England. As a collective, their five possible quick bowlers have 105 wickets at 26 in blighty**. The hosts chose Jack Leach (which I see as a brave move at Lord’s). Pace tends to do well at Lord’s – 26 rpw vs 39 spin. I expect pace to dominate in early June.
Have an actual allrounder (Colin de Grandhomme). Contrast this with England who will probably gamble on Root to be fifth bowler. England may need to discount Stokes’ bowling (four wickets at 57 this summer, 11 at 43 in the last year of Tests). With Leach/Root as two of the five bowlers, England would have to field last if they won the toss, even if that’s not optimal. New Zealand can be more flexible.

Reasons to be cheerful (if you’re English)

New Zealand (World Test Champions, last two years W8 D2 L3) have an excellent record but may have peaked as a team. Ross Taylor and BJ Watling have retired. Trent Boult (32) is likely rested for the first Test, having only played four Tests since Jan 2021. Like all modern tourists, they’re undercooked. Being 70-8 last week against an attack featuring Ben Gibbon hints NZ aren’t in mid-season form. Don’t mention: England have W7 D7 L12 in the last two years.
James Anderson. Last three years averages 23. Yes he’s two months shy of his 40th birthday, but still has 12 wickets at 23 in the county championship this summer, which is strong in the context of the runfest we’ve seen. Don’t mention: Anderson’s strike rate is 69 this championship summer, and in the last 12 months averages 29 in Tests. If NZ can see him off, plenty of first innings overs against spin await.
Pope – averages 32 against pace, 22 against spin. Has a great chance to prove himself at number three. Similarly, Stokes (40/33) prefers pace. And Leach (37/6, tiny sample size) Don’t mention: Root (44/69), Bairstow (29/43) are the opposite. Or that Crawley averages 18 against Right-arm Medium in Tests.

Expect an even contest between bat and ball, with average scores just over 300.

And, in case my model is running in Garbage In Garbage Out mode, here’s the expected averages I fed it:

Summary of my expected averages for each team this series. No idea if I’ve got the NZ XI right, will re-run the models with the actual team at the toss.

Am all ears as to how England are favourites – find me @edmundbayliss on twitter, or comment here.

*I’m so far off-market here that this can’t be right. What could I be missing? Leach’s spin? Overrating Williamson? Is Potts the new Archer?

** Synonym for England / Great Britain. Note: must check how proper writers avoid saying “England” as every tenth word.

County Championship previews: 2022

I’ve put together previews for each county. Since I’m better at statistics than writing, I’ll let the charts speak for themselves. The only thing to add is that I did these before the first round of games (honest!)

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or find me on Twitter @edmundbayliss.

Now here’s Division 2:

Ashes 2021-22 Preview

Welcome. On average I think Australia are 79 runs per innings better than England, so a result like 3-0 is on the cards. Here I’ll rank the players and draw out some of the themes to expect.

Expected averages for each batsman this series. Starting lineups are estimated, though plausible changes don’t materially impact the analysis. Home advantage, bowling strength, matchups and hunches incorporated into the ratings.

It’s too easy to overanalyse. Let’s start simply. Two very good bowling attacks. Lots of OK batting. So without weather, expect results. In terms of the stronger batting, Warner/Smith/Labuschagne for Australia all average >70 at home in the last four years. As good as Root/Stokes are, England are outgunned. Australia are the better team, they are at home, and so they are favourites.

Probabilities My model says the odds should be 64% Aus, 22% Eng, 14% Draw (at Brisbane, excluding weather). If anything, I think that’s a bit generous to England. Oddly the bookmakers give England a 19% chance in Brisbane, when that game is likely to be rain affected. I wouldn’t be backing England…

Home Advantage Australia have a great home record. If you’re thinking 5-0, that’s not outrageous. They’ve whitewashed their opponents in five of the last thirteen series of three or more Tests. And Australia have won all eight day/night Tests they’ve hosted, so even the possibility of two D/N matches might not help England (who have lost three of their four pink ball games).

Spin is generally ineffective in Australia. Lyon is freakishly good there though: (avg Lyon 32, others 60). Another edge to the hosts. Note Lyon averages 40 vs RHB, 24 vs LHB in the last four years. England are heavy on RHB, which makes sense. If I were picking the squad, I’d focus on picking RHB that are best against pace, and rely on their right-handedness to blunt Lyon a bit. Look for Lyon to be into the attack early if Burns (LHB, avg 27 vs OS) is still there after 20 overs.

PS. Good to see England went for Pope over Bairstow. Bairstow averages 29 vs pace, 43 vs spin (Pope 36 / 25). I’d want the better batting against pace. A spin specialist won’t help you after you’re bowled out for 210 on the first day.

Ground characteristics. Gabba / Adelaide are Australia’s best recent grounds, with 80% home wins. Others are more like 60% home win. Might be something to do with spinners struggling:

Conditions are favourable to pace bowling in Australia. There’s more variety for spinners: Perth and Melbourne relatively helpful, while runs flow at the Gabba

England’s attack vs LHB – might be overrated on the strength of Broad’s reputation. Anderson averages 10 more against LHB recently, Leach averages 56 against LHB. Lots of pressure on Broad as the specialist LHB muncher. With Warner, Head, Harris and Carey batting backwards, it will be interesting to see England’s plans.

Rotation – 25 days’ play out of 42. Rule of thumb: add 7% to a pace bowler’s average in back-to-back Tests. There are two ways rotation can impact a team through a series: bringing in weaker bowlers, and failing to rest tired ones. I think the latter is the bigger risk in this series.

Adelaide is the obvious game for a rest (there are reasonable gaps between the other Tests, so a pacer could play four out of five). Australia have four excellent pace bowlers for three slots, so can merrily rotate (though Cummins being favourite for leading wicket taker indicates that he’s expected to play himself into the ground). Would England dare rest Broad or Anderson while the series is alive? Maybe. Wood and Woakes are adequate replacements.

If Stokes looks peaky, England may have to play Bess ahead of Leach to rebalance the side. Then they’ll really be in trouble.

The Toss. Teams tend to bat. Note the increased chance of draw if Aus bat first. Just as Leamon/Jones suggested in Hitting Against the Spin – it’s harder to force a win batting first.

PS. Hope the above wasn’t too disjointed – the series starts a day earlier than I’d thought. As a reward for making it to the end, here’s the details on some bets I’ve made:

Australia to win 3-0 (decimal odds 14.0)
England not to win the first Test (lay 4.6)
Starc Australia leading Series wicket taker (5.5)
Pope England leading Series run scorer (13)

Appendices

Averages vs Lyon, Hazlewood, Starc & Cummins. Buttler & Bairstow are a cause for concern: five out all out?

Bowler stats, last 4 years. Note how good Cummins is vs RHB. 99 wickets at 18 over the last four years is remarkable.

India vs England Preview February 2021

Test probability: India 62%, England 24% Draw 12%.

Series probability: India 72%, England 11%, Draw 17%. India are more likely to win 4-0 than England are to win the series.

Or at least that’s what my model thinks. Betting markets have England as low as 18% for the first Test. That’s reflecting low expectations of England’s batsmen against spin, and higher home advantage that my reckoning.

Hereafter are some notes that inform my thinking:

Country – Spin takes 60% of wickets in India. For England, that means Root will probably bowl a bit to support Leach and Bess. However, since 2011 overseas spinners average 43 in India, for the hosts that figure is 25. India seems a tough place to crack.

Grounds – Chennai has only had two Tests since 2011, Ahmedabad has been rebuilt since it last hosted a Test. So not as much to go on as usual. What I can tell you is that in the last seven FC games at Chennai only twice has a team gone past 350. If I’m awake, it’ll be interesting to see how the wicket plays (and how CricViz rate the batting conditions).

Batting Talent – India are 10% stronger than England. Add 15% home advantage that becomes 25%.

Bowling Talent – adds a further 9% advantage to India. There’s no area of the game where England are stronger than India in India. That doesn’t mean they can’t win, it would just be an upset.

Matchups –

India’s current lineup are really good against spin (Pujara averages 76, Kohli 71). England’s batsmen mostly have better stats against pace. Ashwin averages more batting against the twirlymen than Ben Stokes. Bairstow’s skills in this area will be missed (1,685 at 46). England may need someone to Make Things Happen with the old ball.
Ravi Jadeja is injured. Thus England’s right handers benefit from facing two off spinners (Ashwin and Sundar). Ashwin averages 31 against RHB (SR 60), 20 against LHB. So while England’s right handers might have a good series, expect to see Ashwin into the attack early when Stokes comes to the crease, and if Burns starts well.

Format – back-to-back Tests at Chennai, and back-to-back Tests at Ahmedabad. One silver lining for England is that Anderson and Stone can rotate in for Broad and Archer. Bumrah is harder to replace. England may benefit from the 7% increase in a bowler’s average playing back-to-back Tests.

Home advantage – 15% (lower than the usual 21%, might flatter England as they won in 2012 with peak Swann and Panesar, which distorts the stats). Maybe I’m being generous to England putting 15% into the model.

Sri Lanka vs England “Preview” January 2021

Here’s some brief notes written ahead of the first Test. I really should have put this up before the Test started. Anyway:

I give England only a 31% chance in the first Test. The betting markets say 39%. Why the difference? The toss is vital and England’s batting isn’t at full strength.

Batting first is key. SL are W7 L1 D1 batting first, W3 L4 D0 batting second recently. Batting first is worth 148 runs (runs per wicket by innings over the last 10 years: 40, 28, 29, 26). A 400 pitch becomes a 280 one after the successful tossers have had their fun with it.
- Note spin is no good in first innings (average 42, SR 77). If you field first and get nowhere in 20 overs, you are in very deep trouble.

England have a lot of right handers. A tasty matchup for a leg spinner or SLA bowler. There are two in the Sri Lanka squad: Lasith Embuldeniya averages five wickets per FC game, PWH de Silva is more an all rounder who averages two per game. Embuldeniya averages 40 after seven Tests, but with a FC average of 25 in Sri Lankan conditions, he has a great opportunity. Surprised to see Embuldeniya’s odds 25-1 for Man of the Match. Oh, and he’s Sri Lanka’s leading wicket taker over the last two years.

On the topic of Sri Lankan FC averages, there’s a gulf between Test Cricket and the Sri Lanka Premier League Tier A. It’s hard to estimate because there are few (if any) overseas players for calibration, but I make the increase in bowling average 70%: a 25 average in Tier A translates to a Test average of 43. Here’s the expected averages for Sri Lanka’s attack:

Expected averages for Sri Lanka’s attack. Lakmal will be missed in the first Test. Fernando looks useful.

Away teams pick too many spinners (over the last ten years away spinners average 35 at Galle) likely because teams pick more spinners than are Test standard. The relevant decision is “who will do better, our third spinner or our first change pace bowler”?
- In England’s case they that’s not a question of spinning ability, more the balance of the side. With Ali unavailable, England don’t have the batting depth to pick a third specialist spinner. Expect Curran+Bess+Leach+Two Pacers+Root. Sri Lanka will know this, so have an incentive to prepare a spinning pitch and nullify England’s pace attack. Unclear what the pitch will be like as has to be good enough to take back-to-back Tests.

Curran and Bess may not offer enough in either batting or bowling to balance the team. Maybe in a couple of years, but today England look beatable.

Put all that together, England have the better bowlers, but the toss is so important that it’s a great leveller. Win the toss, bat, win the game.

Changing conditions

I hadn’t noticed this change – it used to be that the 2^nd innings was the time to bat in Sri Lanka. Now it’s the 1^st innings. See below the difference in runs per wicket from batting first/third versus second/fourth. A big advantage to winning the toss and batting.

Why should that change happen? Different groundsmen? Different grass? Playing at a different time of year? Either way it shows the importance of “live” queries feeding models rather than fixed assumptions.

PS. Reflecting after the first day’s play I need to think about specific matchups. Bairstow and Root are good against spin, even when it turns away from them.
PPS. There’s a lot of Test series happening right now – will December/January become the annual window of international red ball cricket?
PPPS. The comments about the importance of the toss look silly when spin took 6-85 in the first innings. Was I wrong or were Sri Lanka’s batsmen wrong? Hard to gauge without xW data.

England vs Pakistan Preview – August 2020

An impressive batting unit supported by an exciting bowling attack versus an impressive batting unit supported by an exciting bowling attack.

What will decide the series? Here’s my usual pre-series ramble, with stats on the Pakistan squad at the bottom.

All rounders. England are running out fast. Debateable whether England will even have an all rounder for the first Test. Some names to mull: Ben Stokes (is he fit to bowl?), Joe Denly (dropped), Moeen Ali (dropped), Chris Woakes (struggling with the bat), Sam Curran (is he good enough at either discipline)? As for Pakistan, Shadab Khan averages 34 with the bat from five Tests, but only 27 in First Class – more a number seven than a six. Pakistan will be gambling either way: a five man attack lengthens the tail, an inexperienced four man attack has nowhere to hide.
Pitch preparation. England would be stronger if they could confidently not pick a spinner (Bess didn’t contribute a lot with the ball against West Indies). Pakistan are itching to play two spinners. Why would the Old Trafford groundsman produce a deck that turns? Worth noting in the two Manchester Tests this summer, spin averaged 52 while pace was around half that at 27.
Naseem Shah and Kashif Bhatti. Pakistan’s batting is solid, enough talent that they can cover if any one of them goes full Shai Hope. For all the excitement, I’m uncertain about their bowling. Mohammad Abbas is a banker (Test average 21, and the same average in two devastating seasons at Leicestershire). Shaheen Shah Afridi has 30 Test wickets, so has some track record. Yasir Shah has a proven record – it’s just a bit mediocre (averaging 34 in the last four years). One of Naseem Shah or Bhatti thus has to step up. The signs are good – both average 17 in domestic cricket in the last four years (Bhatti has 125 wickets, the younger N. Shah has only 26).
Rest. West Indies clearly don’t read this blog (or The Daily Telegraph), else they wouldn’t have knackered their bowlers playing three back-to-back Tests. A three Test BTB series is more like a tournament than a traditional Test series: you’ve got to manage bowler workload. The easiest way to do that is to pick the best team for the first game, then half the pace bowlers miss the second Test, and the others miss the third. Sohail Khan is good enough to rotate in – but are the other Pakistan squad bowlers Test standard? With England’s squad depth, their edge will get bigger as the series goes on.
England’s Ashes tunnel vision. Picking Crawley and Bess with an eye on December 2021 is silly. When the West Indies series got real, Crawley was dropped and Bess didn’t get a chance to bowl. Pakistan will be only too happy if England’s team sheet has a number three with a First Class average of 31, and an off spinner for Pakistan’s right handed middle order to milk. Bess isn’t a bad player, it’s just that England would have a better chance of winning playing an extra pacer.

England start as favourites. Burns, Sibley, Root, Stokes are a fine core of a batting order, and there’s healthy bowling options. If Stokes can bowl, a balanced England team playing on increasingly familiar territory should be too strong.

Get to know the Pakistan squad: Stats

Batting:

Note through this lens Babar Azam isn’t the standout batsman.

Bowling:

Note the domestic four year averages of Abbas, N.Shah and Bhatti.

Bob Willis Trophy preview: part two

It’s the evening before the county season starts, and the squads have been announced. That means I can tell you which teams have the best chance of success.

Here’s a unique preview – data driven, based on each player’s red ball performances in the last four years. Most previews name a couple of stars, “one to watch”, and throw in some juicy facts and interviews. Redballdata.com sadly has none of this.

So how can I help you? Without the Test and overseas players, we’ll see lots of talent emerge from the 2nd XI. You and I may not know the names, but I’ve rated those players. The database uses the last four years’ data for Test, county, and 2^nd XI Cricket, adjusted for difficulty. For each group, I’ve ranked teams in order of strength, and below the commentary you can zoom into each squad to see the individual rankings.

The North Group

Lancashire (Favourites): Have the bowling to force results. Livingstone, Vilas are two of the best batsmen in county cricket.
Yorkshire: Challengers, can they win their first game without the ODI players? Will Olivier come to the party? So far he hasn’t shone in the County game. Excellent top order, but will they miss Bresnan’s batting?
Durham: Raine & Rushworth are an effective pair. Deep batting line up covers the lack of stars. Having four home games helps. I’ve put a couple of pounds on Durham at 33-1 (Ladbrokes), if that sort of thing is of interest to you.
Notts: Best batting in the division: I’m baffled at how that unit struggled so badly last year. Worried about the bowling, especially if Fletcher is out for a while. Ball can’t do it on his own. Mullaney might bowl a lot this year, which is no bad thing.
Derbyshire: Hard to see this very raw attack winning the group. Batting’s not too bad mind (Godleman, Reece, du Plooy).
Leicestershire: On paper the weakest team. Maybe one of the younger bowlers will surprise us, otherwise 20 wickets is a tall order. Competitive top three batsmen (Azad, Slater, Ackermann) but not much after that.

The Central Group

Somerset (Favourites): Best attack of the 18 counties. Should win the weakest division.
Warwickshire: Will the batsmen let down the bowlers? Much depends on the ageing Bell, Bresnan and Patel. Better reserves than most.
Worcestershire: A couple of batsmen light. Moeen Ali and Ed Barnard are fine all rounders which help balance the side out. Banana skin vs Gloucestershire first up as Worcestershire won’t have Ali (England duty).
Northants: About three bowlers light. Can Sanderson repeat the magic of 2019 (60 wkts at 20)? If not, “definitely viewing it as a squad competition” might make for some weak teams by late August.
Gloucestershire: This campaign may be an awkward reminder that overseas talent is needed for Gloucestershire to survive in Division 1 next year. Dent and Higgins are clearly talented, but there are stronger squads out there.
Glamorgan: Cooke will need to deliver for Glamorgan to get enough runs on the board. The injury to Timm van der Gugten is unfortunate – Glamorgan are the weakest attack in the Central Division without him. This year could be valuable experience for the core of a fine future team- Selman (age 24), Carlson (22), Douthwaite (23), Carey (23), Bull (25).

The South Group

Essex (Favourites) are good. The best team in a tough league. Expect Harmer to deliver with the ball, supported by Porter & Cook. Sir A. N. Cook is the best batsman on show in county cricket.
Surrey … Imagine what they could do at full strength. Can hardly blame them if this year is a struggle. Adding Jamie Overton helps, an unexpected development.
Middlesex are my kind of team – enough batting and bowling to compete, maybe slightly under the radar. Lack of spin options may be exposed in their three away matches, if groundsmen play their cards right.
Hampshire: Ditto. No Abbott. No Edwards. Need to get through the games without the ODI players (Vince & Dawson), and see what happens. Mason Crane has an opportunity – there’s lots of right handers out there.
Kent: May do OK against Hampshire and Sussex’s attacks. The other three sides will take some withstanding though. Could do with Denly making an appearance.
Always up against it, Sussex have given a chance to lesser known players this year. A shame. Not sure where Wiese, Wells, Bopara and Beer are. I’ll give anyone sitting this tournament out the benefit of the doubt: I’m not playing cricket in a pandemic, so can’t expect them to.

Anyone can win. Don’t expect it to be the best team – it’s only a five match series. The bookmakers know this – there are 11 teams with more than a five percent chance of winning, yet no team has a greater than fifteen percent chance.

Tomorrow I’ll be following Durham-Yorkshire. A Durham win would make the North group so much more interesting.

Before you go, here are some trends we might see this year:

0fers – there are bowlers that just aren’t ready for this level. They’ll go wicketless, and heap pressure onto captain and opening bowlers. Canny batsmen will get after them.
Clusters of wickets – inevitable when the standard is this variable.
The league won’t be won by stars – it’ll be won by the deepest batting lineups, and the bowling attacks that never let up. Hence Lancashire, Yorkshire, Somerset, Essex being favoured. Many won’t see it that way – they’ll talk of centuries and five-fors, but it’ll be “Not Collapsing” and “9-2-30-1” wot won it.

Bob Willis Trophy preview: part one

Strange times. This year’s County Championship makes the best of a bad situation by fitting in a five-match group stage across August and September. Here’s what I think will happen, based on the Playing Conditions; disrupted squads; and the weather. Part two of this post will look at which players and teams I expect to do well.

Playing conditions

A reduction from a minimum of 96 overs to a minimum of 90 overs in a day’s play.
Each county’s first innings of a match can last no longer than 120 overs
The follow-on will increase from 150 to 200 runs
The new ball will be available after 90 overs rather than 80 overs
Eight points for a draw
Three regional groups of six. Two group winners with the most points contest the final.

Impacts

Perversely, more draws. Fewer overs per day removes up to 24 overs from a match. Capping an innings at 120 overs limits a team’s ability to go big batting once. Add to that the increased points on offer for a draw, and canny captains (once behind in the match) may change focus to points accumulation. While there is need to win the group and outscore one of the other group winners, a defeat makes qualification very unlikely – so conservative cricket may dominate the first two rounds. The last thing you want to do is give your rivals a 20 point head start.

Mismatches – all 18 counties together for the first time since 1999 gives an opportunity for the stronger players in the second division to prove themselves. However, there is the potential for some mismatches. Gary Ballance against some of the weaker attacks in the North group, for example.

Lopsided groups. The South group is toughest, and thus we are obliged to tag it the “group of death”. Sussex and Middlesex are the second division teams in that group, but are better than that. It will be difficult to win the South group, and the winner may not even qualify for the final if their victories don’t yield sufficient points.

Nothing to play for. After two defeats, a team is almost certainly out of contention. With no relegation, I hope teams do the decent thing and give 100 percent. This will be difficult. “Come on lads, let’s do it for the fans streaming this whilst working from home!” Hopefully something resembling the best possible team is selected, though it would be totally understandable if this weren’t the case: players may have other priorities in a pandemic.

Spinners to the fore. A new ball after 90 overs favours spinners (who will have the ball in their hands more) and lower middle order batsmen (who get easier conditions for longer). Win the toss and bat, surely.

Timing and weather

August / early September matches should slightly favour the bowlers. Last year’s first innings scores were 20 runs lower in August/September than the rest of the season. The Test matches have offered turn, indicating what pitches might do given the dry summer we’ve had.

The long range forecast from the Met Office is understandably vague, though hints at more weather disruption in the north than the south.

Confidence is low, but the second week of August is likely to see a mixture of dry and settled conditions, interspersed with occasional bouts of wetter and windier weather. The majority of the unsettled weather will most likely be in the north and west, though it may spread further south and east from time to time. Temperatures are likely to be around the average for this time of year, with any particularly warm weather being short-lived and generally towards the south or southeast. Looking further ahead into late-August, there are some tentative signs that conditions could become more widely dry and settled, particularly in the southeast.

Availability

These aren’t the county sides you’re used to. No overseas players. No England Test players. Won’t see much of the England white ball crew either. That means ignore the 2019 league positions and look at who will actually be playing. Are Hampshire a credible force without Vince, Dawson, Edwards and Abbott?

This is a great opportunity for the 200-250th best cricketers in England & Wales to get a run of five games. Let’s see how many of them can translate second XI success to First Class.

I’d normally end with a proper conclusion- but without analysing the squads that would be a mistake. Will save that for next time- once the teams announce their squads, I can pull in the ratings from my database to see who is best on paper.

For now- my hunch is that the Central group is the best one to be in. Can’t wait to run the numbers on Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset and see who is best placed.

Preview: England vs Ireland Test Match

Hot on the heels of the 10 team World Cup, Ireland get a chance to prove they deserve a place at the table by giving England a scare in a Test Match.

I’ll admit, apart from the bigger names, I’m not all that familiar with the Ireland team. What does the Cricinfo preview say?

Nothing yet. I imagine that feed is automated and thrown by the lack of data.

How to appraise the Irish players who don’t have a Test track record yet? Will try two methods, and clumsily fuse them together to give a sense of how this Test might go. Firstly, there have been plenty of ODIs between Ireland and the World Cup teams. Secondly, most of the Irish players have some County experience. Many players have only played a handful of ODIs against the best teams, or county matches, so will take a weighted average of the two formats.

Now this is not a serious piece of work – it’s a one hour attempt to have some sense of what will happen in a one-off four day Test match. Hopefully it’s good enough for those purposes.

If these two squads competed in Division 1 of the County Championship in 2019, this is how I think they would fare:

Ireland squad for the Test vs England, 24th July 2019. Player descriptions are from Cricinfo.

Ireland have very little batting. This team would surely be the one to go down if they were playing in Division One. Note how Balbirnie and Stirling come out as the strongest batsmen – which wasn’t what I expected. I’d thought Porterfield / O’Brien / Wilson were the best they had. Good to know.

The middle overs should be a good time to bat for England. Beyond Murtagh and Rankin, Ireland will need to find 50 overs from the other bowlers. Might be some tough and wicketless spells, and a tough call for Porterfield about whether he can afford to let England pile the runs on before using his best bowlers when the second new ball is due at 80 overs.

If Ireland would average 220 odd playing in Division One, while conceding 360 when bowling, how would England get on?

Pretty much double the runs. Woakes is a better batsman than any of Ireland’s players. England can also call on seven competitive bowlers.

Roy vs Murtagh / Rankin would be a useful indicator of whether Roy can play Red Ball Test Cricket. It’s only one match, but it’s marginally better than a sample of no matches before the Ashes.

Here’s my conclusions:

Ireland are 55-1 on Betfair to win the Test. I’ve not run the above through the model, but a <2% chance sounds about right.
Before considering Ireland’s Test fixtures, this kind of analysis should be completed so we know what to expect. My personal view is that every effort should be made to give teams like Ireland more ODI matches against the best teams (they average four games per year against the best nine countries). Ireland might be better served playing the weaker Test nations until they have closed the gap with the top eight teams.

I don’t mean to belittle Ireland or come across as someone that’s against the development of Test Cricket – it’s just hard to expect a good contest based on the data.

Further Reading

Showing what a Phyrric victory gaining Test status was, there’s a piece in the Telegraph. It also has biographies of the Ireland team. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2019/07/23/irelands-test-status-has-failed-deliver-celebrations-promised/

Preview: RLODC 2019 Semi Final 1

Nottinghamshire vs Somerset 12th May 2019

redballdata.com modelling: Nottinghamshire 51% – Somerset 49%

At first glance Notts look unstoppable: W6 L1 NR1, NRR +0.6. Two days of rest and home advantage.

Their batting is excellent: Hales and Duckett over their careers averaging high 30s at a run a ball mean more often than not a solid platform with runs on the board and wickets in hand for Mullaney, Moores, Fletcher to work with at the end of the innings. During the group stages scored over 400 twice in seven innings (Somerset’s highest is 358).

However – Somerset’s strength is their bowling – specifically taking wickets.

This makes for a rather unusual range of first innings scores if Notts bat first. Remember that Trent Bridge is a high scoring ground.

Notts are just as likely to score 201-225 as they are 426-450! Such an even distribution is very rare. Nottinghamshire have a roughly 1500-1 chance of breaking the List A world record of 496.

Compare that to the more steady Somerset. Ali, Hildreth, Abell are dependable but not explosive batsmen. Batting deep means they can dig themselves out of trouble and find their way to a total. Thus Somerset have a 66% chance of scoring in the range 276-375.

These are two evenly matched teams.

If you want an even contest that bubbles up over time, hope that Somerset bat first – they will get a reasonable score. Personally, I’d like to see Notts bat first because *cliche* anything could happen. Yes, I appreciate that means a good chance of a low score that Somerset fly past, or a high score that the visitors will get nowhere near.