Introduction

Here's a question for all you England fans: In an all-time ODI top six batting lineup, how many spots would be taken up by the current generation of players? Would an all-time England ODI batting lineup simply consist of Roy, Bairstow, Root, Morgan, Stokes and Buttler, or would past players make the cut? It might seem ridiculous to suggest that all of England's current batsmen would walk into the all-time XI, but I think it's a serious possibility. Let's investigate.

Methodology

For ODI batsmen, there are really two metrics to consider: Batting average and strike rate. To assign a 'batting rating' (BatRat), the simplest thing to do would be to take the geometric mean of those two values (i.e. the square root of the product of these values). This should work fine for our purposes because in an ODI, the two main goals of the batting team are to score runs and to score them quickly. It may be the case that a method that weighs one of these metrics more than the other would be more suitable, but the one I'm using for this analysis is probably the simplest one available while still retaining some degree of credibility.

There are two caveats to consider, though. One is that both batting averages and strike rates in ODIs have increased over time. Once upon a time, a strike rate of 70 would have been considered decent, but now it'd be considered too sluggish for a specialist batsman. I'll thus be adjusting both values according to the aggregate stats of the era in which a particular batsman played, excluding that batsman's own stats; this post scales these stats according to a hypothetical era where the average is 30 and the strike rate is 80, so hopefully, that post's creator won't mind if I use that same benchmark for this analysis.

The second caveat is that different positions in the batting lineup have different expectations. Joe Root and Jos Buttler, for instance, do not play the same role at all, with the former being an anchor and the latter being an explosive finisher. Thus, rather than simply selecting the six best batsmen according to their BatRat, I'll be breaking the stats down per position in the lineup to account for these expectations. Hopefully, by the end of this analysis, we'll be able to determine six spots in an England all-time ODI XI.

Openers

In this post, I will only be considering batsmen who have at least twenty dismissals in ODIs for England. Openers are listed from highest batting rating to lowest.

Player	Batting average	Strike rate	Era average	Era SR	AdjAverage	AdjSR	BatRat
Jonny Bairstow	49.25	110.82	36.55	83.23	40.42	106.52	65.62
Jason Roy	41.17	107.08	36.43	84.31	33.90	101.61	58.69
Graham Gooch	40.29	62.12	31.25	59.84	38.68	83.05	56.68
Marcus Trescothick	37.37	85.21	32.12	74.24	34.90	91.82	56.61
Ian Bell	42.49	79.50	32.52	79.04	39.20	80.47	56.16
Andrew Strauss	38.16	83.46	31.87	77.66	35.92	85.97	55.57
Alex Hales	38.70	96.29	35.98	85.56	32.27	90.03	53.90
Nick Knight	40.30	73.16	33.35	74.06	36.25	79.03	53.52
Alastair Cook	36.40	77.13	32.57	78.98	33.53	78.13	51.18
Craig Kieswetter	29.96	94.17	33.36	79.66	26.94	94.57	50.48
Moeen Ali	31.33	99.84	35.45	83.73	26.51	95.39	50.29
Geoffrey Boycott	36.06	53.56	32.40	57.00	33.39	75.17	50.10
Michael Atherton	38.34	59.68	32.57	67.37	35.31	70.87	50.03
Ian Botham	26.60	73.29	31.40	60.18	25.41	97.43	49.76
Graeme Fowler	31.00	56.32	29.45	57.50	31.58	78.36	49.74
Chris Broad	40.02	55.61	33.40	65.09	35.95	68.35	49.57
Alec Stewart	33.58	68.14	32.69	70.38	30.82	77.45	48.86
Vikram Solanki	28.45	76.99	31.96	71.89	26.71	85.68	47.83
Matt Prior	23.81	78.55	32.25	78.68	22.15	79.87	42.06
Chris Tavaré	26.82	47.38	30.75	57.36	26.17	66.08	41.58
Michael Vaughan	19.28	67.72	30.76	74.60	18.80	72.62	36.95

That's a lot of data to sift through, so I won't go through every batsman on the list (feel free to have a look yourself if you're curious). There are some observations for me to make, however.

The fact that Prior, Vaughan and Tavaré (the former two being rubbish at scoring runs and the latter being far too slow for a format where speed is required) all got extended runs in the team as openers says it all about our options over the years
The difference between Bairstow and second-place is greater than the difference between second-place and eighth-place
Not only is Bairstow the GOAT English ODI opener by a country mile (even when adjusted for era, he smashes everyone in both departments) but he's arguably a candidate for the GOAT ODI opener in general (although I haven't compared other countries to check this)
Jason Roy is a solid candidate for England's second-greatest ODI opener; his average is nothing exceptional, but his high SR more than makes up for it
Alex Hales is really nothing special; in fact, when adjusted for era, Trescothick beats him in both average and strike rate
Speaking of Trescothick, he and Gooch were our best ODI openers prior to Roy and Bairstow despite their contrasting styles: The former batted aggressively but had a middle-of-the-road average whereas the latter had a very good average (third-best of all time when adjusted for era) but an average SR
The decision to drop Bell was the right one in retrospect, but let us not forget that he was actually a solid opener who still has the second-highest adjusted average behind only Bairstow
Ian Botham and Craig Kieswetter were both ahead of their time in the sense that they foreshadowed England's current strategy of batting aggressively in the opening overs, but both of them were inconsistent when it came to scoring runs and so got dropped

I think it's clear that Bairstow walks straight into England's best XI, and Roy gets the other opening spot. In other words, our two current ODI openers are the best ODI openers that England have ever had, so remember that next time you criticise either of them after a poor innings. Will it be the same with the #3 spot? Let's find out!

No. 3 Batsmen

From now on, the lists of batsmen shouldn't be nearly as long as now we're only considering a single position (whereas with openers, we're essentially considering two positions). Once again, the minimum cutoff is twenty ODI dismissals for England.

Player	Batting average	Strike rate	Era average	Era SR	AdjAverage	AdjSR	BatRat
Joe Root	55.86	90.56	40.27	82.11	41.61	88.23	60.59
Graeme Hick	44.53	75.26	32.76	67.85	40.78	88.74	60.15
Jonathan Trott	49.71	77.97	35.38	75.92	42.15	82.16	58.85
Robin Smith	41.94	68.85	34.76	66.75	36.20	82.52	54.65
Nasser Hussain	39.84	72.95	34.86	71.41	34.29	81.73	52.93
David Gower	33.06	77.82	33.17	66.80	29.90	93.20	52.79
Ian Bell	35.91	74.15	34.28	75.96	31.43	78.09	49.54
Kevin Pietersen	28.85	81.31	33.57	74.32	25.78	87.52	47.50
Michael Vaughan	32.66	67.27	33.89	72.99	28.91	73.73	46.17

Since there are fewer names to get through, I'll be going through everyone on this list individually.

Once again, our current #3 (Joe Root) is England's greatest according to this metric, but he doesn't dominate to nearly the same extent as Bairstow does
Hick in particular was a superb #3 for England in ODIs and looking at his adjusted stats, he was basically the Joe Root equivalent of his time (in fact, he has a higher BatRat than Jason Roy)
Trott was also a fantastic #3 and his batting average is the best out of everyone on the list when eras are taken into account
Robin Smith was a pretty good batsman as well (his BatRat is better than Hales' for comparison)
Nasser and Gower were pretty decent, and like Trescothick and Gooch, they had two very different playstyles (Gower is the most aggressive #3 that England have ever had)
Bell, while a solid opener, was bang average as a #3
KP is much lower than I expected him to be; I can only predict that his middle-order numbers are much better
Vaughan is once again the worst of the lot, though not as bad has he was as opener

I think you could make an argument for any one of Root, Hick or Trott in an all-time XI, but Root just about edges it if we go by these metrics. Will this streak of our current batsmen being our GOAT batsmen continue into #4? Let's see.

No. 4 Batsmen

Morgan has batted for both England and Ireland in ODIs, but for the purposes of this analysis, I'm only considering his figures for England.

Player	Batting average	Strike rate	Era average	Era SR	AdjAverage	AdjSR	BatRat
Eoin Morgan	48.56	99.28	36.68	80.12	39.72	99.13	62.75
Kevin Pietersen	38.55	84.63	34.96	75.91	33.08	89.19	54.32
Allan Lamb	37.92	75.35	34.26	72.12	33.20	83.58	52.68
Joe Root	41.91	80.09	36.41	80.38	34.53	79.71	52.46
Graham Thorpe	41.42	70.62	35.37	73.24	35.13	77.14	52.06
Paul Collingwood	37.57	70.28	35.25	75.80	31.97	74.17	48.70
David Gower	29.65	72.87	32.41	70.74	27.45	82.41	47.56
Andrew Strauss	30.45	75.12	33.73	74.38	27.08	80.80	46.78
Graeme Hick	31.48	69.74	34.98	72.36	27.00	77.10	45.63
Nasser Hussain	23.23	63.84	35.22	72.90	19.79	70.06	37.23

So, what can we observe?

Morgan is criminally underrated as an ODI batsman; like Bairstow, he is the best in his position out of every Engand batsman by a wide margin (he also tops the list in both metrics)
KP fares much better at #4 than at #3, but his numbers still aren't as good as I expected
Lamb, Root and Thorpe are pretty much the same at #4 as far as BatRat goes: Above average, but nothing spectacular
Collingwood, Gower and Strauss were pretty mediocre at #4
It amazes me how much worse Hick was at #4 than he was at #3
Nasser was absolutely awful at #4

That's four in a row for our current batsmen, and our three best #4 batsmen in ODIs aren't even English! This analysis has reflected poorly so far on past England ODI teams, so let's hope that the #5 spot will restore some dignity.

No. 5 Batsmen

Once again, only Morgan's performances for England will be counted in his figures.

Player	Batting average	Strike rate	Era average	Era SR	AdjAverage	AdjSR	BatRat
Andrew Flintoff	46.02	94.33	32.11	77.74	43.00	97.07	64.60
Ben Stokes	49.76	92.20	32.63	83.94	45.75	87.87	63.40
Paul Collingwood	43.28	81.50	31.67	76.93	41.00	84.75	58.95
Neil Fairbrother	42.00	73.14	30.41	73.65	41.43	79.45	57.37
Eoin Morgan	37.13	90.08	32.57	82.10	34.20	87.78	54.79
Ian Botham	24.95	84.20	27.39	72.48	27.33	92.94	50.40
Alec Stewart	26.05	61.15	30.70	73.29	25.46	66.75	41.22
Mike Gatting	20.54	62.34	27.06	71.79	22.77	69.47	39.77

What's this? A retired England player tops the list? Is this some weird parallel universe? Anyway, let's draw some conclusions from this data.

Flintoff was an absolute beast at #5 in ODIs; in fact, of all the batsmen so far, only Bairstow has a higher BatRat than he does
This is to take nothing away from Stokes, though, who is also an absolute beast at #5 and who so far has the highest batting average of all the batsmen in this analysis when adjusting for position and era, which is an achievement in and of itself
Poor old Collingwood would probably be remembered as one of England's best ODI batsmen if he didn't have two generational talents above him
I had no idea who Neil Fairbrother was prior to making this post, but apparently, he was a superb #5 batsman for England in ODIs
Morgan actually does decently well here, but it's clear that #4 is his best position
Botham was very aggressive (of all of England's #5 batsmen, only Freddie beats him in adjusted SR) but he also struggled to score runs consistently
Stewart and Gatting...weren't particularly good in this position

It's a straight toss-up between the blonde all-rounder and the ginger all-rounder, and I hear the argument that their bowling should also be considered when making an all-time XI, but going solely off of their batting for the purposes of this post, Flintoff makes it in ahead of Stokes (it's remarkable that the latter has the third-highest BatRat of all the players listed so far and still can't make it in). Unlike with the top four, it seems as if England have had some quality #5 batsmen over the years; it's just a shame that we couldn't back that quality up with a decent top order until now.

No. 6 Batsmen

It's the final category, and I think I already know who's going to top this list. Still, let's not get ahead of ourselves; let's see what the stats say.

Player	Batting average	Strike rate	Era average	Era SR	AdjAverage	AdjSR	BatRat
Jos Buttler	37.30	111.12	28.52	86.06	39.24	103.30	63.66
Ravi Bopara	31.00	84.93	28.86	81.53	32.22	83.34	51.82
Eoin Morgan	24.60	90.10	28.99	84.73	25.46	85.07	46.54
Andrew Flintoff	22.89	83.03	27.81	76.66	24.69	86.65	46.26
Paul Collingwood	27.42	71.59	28.50	77.71	28.86	73.70	46.12
Ian Botham	20.79	74.34	24.63	74.86	25.32	79.44	44.85

No surprises here, I think.

Buttler is pretty clearly England's greatest ever #6 batsman in ODIs and it's not even close
If anything, it could be argued that this methodology does Buttler a disservice due to him being a 'floating batsman' (his overall stats are actually better than his stats at just #6) but I have to be consistent here
Ravi Bopara of all people is England's second-greatest #6 ODI batsman of all time
Everyone else who has batted at #6 with some regularity hasn't done that good of a job at it
Then again, the fact that only six batsmen made the twenty-dismissals cutoff (and that all but two of those batsmen qualify for at least one other category as well) suggests that the #6 position is particularly volatile, at least as far as England is concerned

I think it's obvious who takes the #6 spot in our all-time XI. Arise, Sir Ravi Bopara.

...

Nah, of course it's Buttler.

Conclusion

Taking into account only the batting ratings as discussed in this analysis, and not considering bowling, captaincy, wicket-keeping, team balance or any other factors, here's an all-time England ODI Top Six:

Jason Roy

Jonny Bairstow

Joe Root

Eoin Morgan

Andrew Flintoff

Jos Buttler

Honourable mentions include Graeme Hick and Jonathan Trott (both at #3), as well as Ben Stokes, Paul Collingwood and Neil Fairbrother (all three at #5).

So, yeah, 5/6 of the all-time England ODI Top Six are still part of our current first team, and Ben Stokes narrowly missed out on that #5 spot. That...is mind-blowing. I'd be shocked if any other ODI team (apart from nations which only recently started playing ODIs) had most or all of their current Top Six form their all-time Top Six, and yet for England, I'm not even that surprised. We've had the occasional ODI talent, but they have generally played in teams consisting of average ODI players (and that's if they're lucky).

It's quite hard to express just how different England have become in ODIs since 2015. Our ODI record prior to then was nothing special and we had precisely zero trophies to our name. Within five years, however, we've assembled one of the finest ODI batting lineups of all time, bred players who have become generational greats (a couple of whom might even be considered to be all-time greats), reached #1 in the rankings and, most importantly, won a Men's ODI World Cup for the first time ever.

Trevor Bayliss gets a lot of stick for how he handled the Test team, and as I pointed out in my most recent post, that criticism is largely justified. Seriously, we were awful for those four years and won games almost purely through individual brilliance. However, we have to remember that Bayliss was brought in to rejuvenate the ODI side and win a World Cup, bearing in mind that prior to his arrival, the England ODI team had become a laughing stock following the disaster that was the 2015 World Cup. To turn that around in just four years is seriously impressive and if for nothing else, I think we England fans should at least be grateful to Bayliss for that.

submitted by /u/MightySilverWolf
[link] [comments]

from Cricket https://ift.tt/31Ms0hQ
via IFTTT

SK Sports

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

England's All-Time ODI Batting Lineup