Ryan Rickelton's SA20 2024 Campaign
Let's tell the Ryan Rickelton story using numbers
Ryan Rickelton didn’t middle the delivery from Eathan Bosch, it was on a good length and around the off-stump line. The ball flew, beating the inner ring and raced to the boundary for the first of his three fours. It was a history-making boundary. Rickelton became the first batter to reach 500 runs in a single SA20 season.
He is the league's runaway leading run-scorer with 530 runs. But you don’t get to be the leading run-scorer with boundaries laced with a bit of luck, and Rickelton showed that on the next delivery that he faced. He middled the ball for a brilliant six. This has been his form this season. According to the stats that I could get my hands on, Rickelton has been in control of more than 71% of the shots he has made. That is very good.
334 of Rickelton’s runs came in his partnerships with Rassie van der Dussen. The pair averaged 65.5 in 10 matches, by far, the most productive opening partnership in the group stages. The prolific duo registered two partnerships of 100 runs or more and four opening stands worth 50 or more on their way to 655 runs.
They understand each other more than most opening pairs in the competition. In 2018, van der Dussen wasn't just Rickelton's teammate at the Lions, he was his batting Yoda. It was a match made in heaven, van der Dussen was scooping player of the match awards in domestic white ball cricket, the CPL and Canada Global T20 League, while Rickelton was unsure of his game.
A season or two earlier, he had considered walking away from the game after a frustrating dry patch where he was just unable to hit the ball off the square. As the season drew to a close, Rickelton asked his Gauteng Strikers to not pick him for more because he felt that he wasn’t adding value on the field. After the last match of the season, he packed away all of his gear and stored them away in the garage. He didn’t do anything cricket-related that winter.
The new season came with the move to the Lions. Upon arrival, Rickelton gravitated towards Rassie van der Dussen and in no time drew a template off van der Dussen's style as he made his way into professional cricket. Also, like van der Dussen, the left-hander realised immediately after he stepped up to the Lions that they had so many quality openers, he needed to develop the ability to bat in the middle order if he wanted to play regularly.
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Six years later, so much has changed. Rickelton has developed a style unique to him, though every now and then one can notice shades of van der Dussen’s influence in Rickelton’s game. With that background and context, the 334 runs he scored while batting with van der Dussen are something special. But more than that, those runs alone put him in the top 10 run-scorers of SA20 2024. Only four batters scored 334 or more runs in the group stage. And only one scored more than 400.
The nature of T20 cricket is such that openers are most likely to score more runs than other batters. They bat in the batter-friendly Powerplay and have the opportunity to face more balls than anyone else. This makes Heinrich Klaasen’s appearance in the top five all the more impressive, but, that’s an article for another day.
If we compare Rickelton to other openers, he is unmatched. Only three other openers have 300 or more runs, but none has an average above 45 or a strike rate north of 150. No other opener made use of the Powerplay in the same manner as Rickelton.
50.57% or 268 of his runs came in the Powerplay. He scored them at an average of 89.33, the second-best in the Powerplay, with a strike rate of 160.48. That is the most runs in the first six overs in the group stages of SA20. Rickelton has been on rare air. Only three batters have 200 or more runs in the Powerplay and only Rickelton has a tally north of 250.
The MI Cape Town opener has not just been outstanding in the Powerplay. When compared to other openers outside the first six overs, his numbers also look great.
Like many South African batters, spin was something he had issues with. Between 2020 and 2022, his go-to shot against spin was the sweep shot, which often led to his dismissal. He had a talk with Neil McKenzie, his long-time coach and confidant, and they went to work on upskilling him. It worked wonders.
Between 2018 and December 2023, Rickelton averaged 40 at a strike rate of 97.6 against spin with a dot ball percentage of 39. In 2024, he averages more than twice as much at almost double the strike rate - 88 at a strike rate of 164.5 and a dot ball percentage of 25.2. His improved ability against is one of the reasons Rickelton has excelled between the seventh and 20th overs.
In his 10 innings, he was dismissed in the Powerplay three times and scored 262 runs for an average of 43.67 at a strike rate of 189.86 from overs seven to 20 in seven outings. No other opener scored 200 or more runs in the post-Powerplay overs.
Jos Buttler, the leading run-scorer during the 2023 season maxed out at 391 runs in 11 matches for an average of 39.1 at a strike rate of 132.54. The Englishman looked otherworldly as he carved 36 fours and 13 sixes in the tournament. Rickelton has made those stats look like child’s play. The 26-year-old cackhander has 530 in 10 matches for an astronomical average of 58.88 at a strike rate of 173.77. He creamed 41 fours and 34 sixes and has five half-tons.
Rickelton’s 34 sixes are the most maximums by a country mile. Heinrich Klaasen’s 28 are the second-most. He has been destructive.
What makes Rickelton’s figures impressive is that they are not a reflection of the league’s batters dominating bowlers. There is a 132-run difference between him and Jos Buttler, the next-best batter. His average is the highest by some distance among batters with 300 or more runs. The next-best average is held by Jos Buttler, who is averaging 44.22 in nine. If we maintain the 300-run cut-off, Rickelton’s strike rate is second to Heinrich Klaasen’s 207.10. Will Jacks, who has a strike rate of 180.14 has scored a mere 245 runs in 10 outings.
The key to success in SA20 or any other franchise tournament is the ability of teams to turn their home ground into a fortress. Rickelton has done his best in trying to turn Newlands into one. He averages 62.7 at a strike rate of 170.9 there. He has also given them the best chance at victory away. The opener averages 61.4 at a strike rate of 157.66 on the road. His weak spot was Boland Park where he scored five runs against Paarl Royals at a strike rate of 83.3. Traditionally, he has played relatively well at the venue. From 2017 to the present, Rickelton has scored 131 runs in four T20s at Boland Park at an average of 32.75
But, all his effort has come to nought. MI Cape Town missed out on a top-four spot and is out of the competition. But even then, his record-setting tally of 530 runs still has a good chance of being one of the top five scores this season. By all accounts, Ryan Rickelton is in the running for the Player of the Season award, even with four games to go in the season.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS