Shots and Edges - Paarl Royals and Durban Super Giants
Who did a good bit of business?
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Paarl Royals:
Dinesh Karthik
In 2018, Dinesh Karthik asked Abhishek Nayar, his long-time friend and coach - also current India national team assistant coach - for help. Karthik wanted to reprise his role in the Indian side, but he was 33 and competing with younger players coming through.
Nayar said Karthik could only compete for a spot if he became a specialist finisher. If he could be the guy who scores 150 to 200 runs off 80 to 100 deliveries in the length of an IPL season, 14 games, he would be a high-impact player and people would look at him differently.
So they tailored his training along those lines. His drills were split into 6-ball slots. Nayar asked Karthik to score 14 runs in an over. When they expanded that to four-over blocks, Karthik had to chase a total of 45 or 50 runs. The training wasn’t just focused on range hitting, they worked on how to plan the chase, what sort of positions to get into, and which bowlers to target.
Unsurprisingly, Karthik emerged as one of the best finishers in the game. From 2019, Karthik averaged 19.83 at a strike rate of 165.28 at the death in 20 T20I matches for a true average of 2.15 at a true strike rate of 19.72.
However, if we move over to the IPL where he has played a lot of matches since 2019, we find interesting stuff. Karthik is one of two batters to score more than 900 runs at the death in the past five years and no batter has scored as many runs as him. When you widen the net to include batters with 800 or more runs, Karthik has the second-highest strike rate.
The finisher has averaged 29.58 runs at a strike of 187.33 in the tournament. When you convert that to true stats, Karthik has a true average of 9.84 at a strike rate of 26.14. Simply put, Karthik is one of the most destructive batters in the death overs. He hits a boundary every 3.6 balls he faces. That is brutal. Karthik is unstoppable once he gets going, so much so that if you combine all his stats from T20Is and T20 cricket, he has a true average of 7.19 at a true strike rate of 31.47.
The Paarl Royals have made a couple of questionable calls (releasing Shamsi and signing Root) but on this one, they have struck gold. The Miller-Karthik combination at the death should send shivers down teams’ spines.
Shot.
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PSA on true stats:
True stats are a contextual metric. Because when you do something in T20 makes a huge difference.
Let’s start with the true average and true strike rate: If you are a middle-order batter you are expected to have a high average since you bat in the low-risk overs. But if you’re a finisher, you have to attack from ball one and can be dismissed more often. So we factor these things in to come up with a true average.
Likewise, if you bat in the middle overs, a strike rate of 140 is really good but the same strike rate at the death is seen as very poor. It’s this difference that we account for with true strike rate.
We do the same kind of thing with the bowlers. Being economical in the middle is easy, as is taking wickets at the death. Hence, we have true economy rate and true wickets per four overs.
Durban Super Giants
Kane Williamson
Nothing is ever quite it seems with DSG. When I saw that they had signed Brandon King, I thought I had an idea of what they were planning. A week later, I was certain that I had no idea. They had announced Kane Williamson as one of their pre-signings to add to what looks like an already bloated top order. Williamson now joins King, de Kock, de Zorzi, Breetzke, and Smuts in the top three/four.
Lance Klusener is not afraid to play around with his batting order. He is as dynamic as a coach as he was as a player. He is one of those rare players who batted in every position, from opening to number 11 in ODIs for South Africa. Wiaan Mulder and Dwaine Pretorius have had a look in in the top four - numerous times, I must add.
So, bringing King in suggested that he was going to partner with Breetzke at the top. Breetzke had an outstanding season at the top in 2023 and nothing suggests that he needs to be moved. That meant that de Kock would retain the number three spot, which he occupied at various times in the past two seasons. He also sometimes came in at three at his MLC franchise, Seattle Orcas. But, the addition of Williamson, a career number three points in a different direction.
Williamson comes in with an outstanding leadership record. They call him 'Steady the Ship' for a reason. He has an excellent leadership IQ and will be a great help to Keshav Maharaj and the rest of DSG's leadership group. But let's look at his T20 numbers for a bit.
Williamson has an average of 33.88 at a strike rate of 123.09 in T20Is, for a true average of 9.25 at a true strike rate of -2.54. He scores a lot of runs, way above average, but the issue is he does it slowly. The trend is the same in the IPL where he averages 35.47 at a strike rate of 125.62 for a true average of 9.14 at a true strike rate of -3.86. When you widen the net to include all the other leagues that he has played in, Williamson has a true average of 9.28 and a true strike rate of -0.97.
He is the ultimate anchor. I am not sure that he is a great pick for a T20 side.
Edge. Though there is a huge chance he might help his side navigate tricky situations.
Chris Woakes
In 2016, Paul Collingwood said facing Chris Woakes was like facing 90mph legbreaks. He was unplayable that year. That is also the year he took control of his career and performed in a way that showed that he was on the course to living up to his potential. Since then, England and his T20 sides have opted to use him as a new ball bowler.
The Englishman has delivered 69 powerplay overs in T20Is at an economy of 7.3 for an average of 26.5 at a strike rate of 21.8. When you turn your attention to his true powerplay stats, Woakes has conceded 3.82 runs less than expected with a true economy of 0.06 and has taken 2.63 wickets more than expected.
He has sent down 142.4 powerplay overs in T20s at an economy of 7.34 for an average of 30.8 at a strike rate of 25.2. However, I cannot provide true stats on that front, but on the surface, those figures look okay. His true stats in The Hundred are from 2023 and there, he has a true economy of 1.39, and -1.48 in true wickets.
Woakes is widely considered a bowling allrounder. He is useful with the bat down the order. He slots in perfectly with DSG's allroundery vibes. Like the late Bob Woolmer, Klusener likes his team to have plenty of bowling options and batting depth.
Shot.
True stats (true average and true strike rate) used in this article are provided by the good people at Good Areas, who have an outstanding algorithm that compares expected stats to achieved stats based on conditions.