Notes on Lungi Ngidi Going Wicketless
Lungi Ngidi was probably the best bowler of the innings, but couldn't buy a wicket.
At one point last year Dom Bess had taken 17 wickets for 22 runs in three Tests. It was an incredible run. Phenomenal.
However, what these numbers don't say, though, is how Dom Bess took some of those wickets. I mean, in that period, some of his wicket-taking deliveries were not the best, either too full or too short.
Throughout the series, Bess was never quite in control of his length. He was rather messy. Jarrod Kimber did a piece on this.
Here is a brief summary of some of his lucky wickets. On day one he got an early wicket, a reverse sweep to slip. His next wicket was from a very short ball cut straight to point. Then a batsman smashed a sweep shot into Jonny Bairstow's arse. (Jarrod's words, not mine.) It bounces up in the air and a catch was taken. And then there was the half volley that was completely missed by the batsman.
Against India he took two wickets from amazingly lucky circumstances: Rahane’s dismissal was freakish. Bess served up a low full toss, and somehow Rahane scooped it up. The odds of that happening are pretty low, but it happened.
Pujara's wicket was even worse. Bess bowled a short one to Pujara. Pujara middled it, but unluckily for him, it collided with Ollie Pope's back. From there it reared off towards mid-wicket where Rory Burns took an easy catch.
Six of Bess' 17 wickets were more lucky than skilful. This happens a lot in cricket. Sometimes you just get lucky. Marnus Labuschagne knows quite a bit about this. Since his debut, no other Test batsman has been dropped as much as him. According to CricViz, no Test batsman has seen a higher proportion of catching chances of their batting dropped.
Their data says that when Marnus gives up a catching chance, which is not often, it’s dropped 58% of the time. That’s lucky.
At other times you don’t get lucky. For the batter, it doesn’t matter what they do, they just somehow fail to get the ball out of the square, they fall on their wicket and leave through other incredulous dismissals. For the bowler, edges go for fours, top edges for sixes, balls fail to dislodge the bails and catches are dropped.
I was thinking of Lungi Ngidi when I thought of Dom Bess and his spells in Sri Lanka and India. Lungi Ngidi was the only seamer to not have a wicket after India’s batting innings. He wasn’t bowling badly, he was bowling excellently, but he also just couldn’t buy a wicket. These things happen sometimes.
If I can remember correctly there was a delivery that Rahul edged and fell short of third slip. A few times he beat Rahul’s edge. Then there was the dropped catch. Bavuma at point.
11 overs, 4 maidens, 26 runs, 0 wickets, economy 2.36. No wides and no no-balls. That’s how Ngidi's numbers read after India's batting innings. Rabada, Olivier and Jansen all bowled no-balls. Ngidi was tidier. Only Marco Jansen had a better economy, 1.82 from 17 overs.
Jansen had an outstanding outing. He is yet to get his five-wicket haul, but you have to think that it is on the horizon. Two consecutive 4-wicket hauls make a strong case for that assumption.
Lungi Ngidi also had an outstanding outing in the first innings. One of Jansen's wickets was a result of a great bowling partnership between the two. They both did the right things and the result was a wicket for Jansen. That's Test cricket, teamwork brings results. Allan Donald recalls his partnership with Brett Schultz as one of the best because of the pressure Schultz put on batters. He capitalized on it.
There is an endless list of very productive bowling pairs. Cricket is a strange sport, so individual and yet also so team-oriented.
These numbers, the empty wickets column, do not do justice to how Lungi Ngidi bowled. At the end of the day, that is what many people are interested in, the wickets column. A bowler’s currency is wickets, just as runs are a batter’s currency.
Anyone who will later look at Ngidi’s wickets column on Cricinfo or any other site that collects stats will not know of this. Stats don’t come with accompanying notes. Anyone who will only see the scorecard will not see what the people who watched the match saw: outstanding bowling from Lungi Ngidi.
It reminded me of something Neil McKenzie said, “It can get tough out there especially as a batsman. You can go 0, 5, 3, 2 and next day social media and the papers are writing about your form. But, they didn't see you get run out twice or get a bad decision.”
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