Percentage Cricket

samircreep · #1 May 24, 2005, 06:04 AM

Anyone who has followed Bangladeshi and WI batsmen over the years will have been frustrated not by their penchance for throwing their wicket away, but by their lack of understanding the concept of percentage cricket.

Although an understanding of it has been around for many years now, the term itself has only been recently coined (in the early 90s) by Gavaskar. Playing percentage cricket does not mean that batsmen have to abandon their flashy strokes. In fact, I would say that flamboyant bastmen like Laxman and Lara are all proponents of percentage cricket. All it entails is that you have an understanding of the odds being in your favour or not while going for a particular shot. The crux of the matter is, even a simple shot, like a forward defensive stroke requires playing the odds.

Here's an example on how Alok is actually a complete failiure when playing percentage cricket. Against India, in the first test, he comes in at BD 147/5. Harbajan is the bowler, and you're obviously going to have incoming deliveries at an acute angle. A battter playing with percentage cricket, and being aggressive at the same time in trying to impose his game on the off break bowler, will look at the vacant mid wicket position. He will wait for a delivery that is a little fullish, outside the off stump, and driveable through either mid-on or long leg. Instead, what does Alok do? he plays horizontal bat shots repeatedly, and by the fourth delivery, is out caught beind.

The moral of the story is: you don't need to curb your aggression, just hone your shot selection. Percentage cricket allows for playing big shots, but only when the odds are in your favour (in tests, they should be HEAVILY in your favour for you to play big shots). Thus, in Alok's case, even coming down the track and lofting Harbajan (something Inzy does to excellent effect consistently) early on was better percentage cricket than cut shots.

Anyways, you could probably get away not playing percentage cricket in south asian conditions since they are more forgiveable than early summer conditions in the UK. The question is, who in our camp plays percentage cricket?Only Pilot I think.

By the way, the same argument can be applied to bowlers but I really have to get back to work now....

Cricket46 · #2 May 24, 2005, 07:40 AM

Excellent point! I totally agree. This is particularly true in test matches, when you have to negotiate many overs and hours. There will be bad balls even by the best bowlers and as a test batsman one has to wait for those. Only problem is that the best bowlers will not provide too many bad deliveries so one has to wait for those moments.

And I guess percentage cricket also involves taking the ones and twos and running fast when the boundaries are not easy to come by. As Samir said, the same goes for our bowlers. They cannot stray too often in line and length.

Please don't think of this as defensive tactics. If anything, this is a smart approach.

Sham · #3 May 24, 2005, 08:45 AM

Fantastic point Samir! I think you are spot on about Pilot being the only person who plays percentage cricket consistently. He is always trying to figure out the best place to push the ball into, whether for boundaries or for ones and twos. Aftab played percentage shots to great effect against Zimbabwe in the fifth ODI, but we will have to wait longer to see if he can live up to his promise. Same with Mushfiqur Rahim, he hinted at being able to figure out the percentage shots, in the two hours that I saw him bat against Sussex. But I refuse to get all excited already, will have to take another couple of long hard looks at him.

I think one would have to look at Bashar's batting from when he gets to the crease to when he reaches about 20 to figure out what is not playing percentage cricket. But after he gets to about 20, he plays the percentage shots quite well, even though the hook shot he will play impulsively and in the air, even with 9 fielders at fine leg!

samircreep · #4 May 24, 2005, 11:14 AM

Another batsman I think who plays perfect percentage cricket is new boy de Viliers of South Africa. His strike rate is always in the low 80s in tests and he loves playing flush cover drives and square cuts the ball beautifully but he never seems to be taking undue risks. The fact is, the guy knows his strengths and plays to them consistently.

And this brings me to my final point. Someone who doesn't know his strength and stil tries to play percentage cricket is, as Sham mentioned, Shumon.Shumon routinely says that the hook shot is his favourite and he gets consistent runs through it. This might be somewhat true, but my point is that although Shumon might love hooking, it cannot be his most effective shot since he's really not that good at it (he might get 20 odd runs in an innings pulling but never more).Batsmen need to know the difference between their FAVORITE shot and their most EFFECTIVE shot (if there is a difference)in order to be percentage cricketers. If you're wondering, Shumon's most effective shot is his drive through deep mid wicket, a shot that he plays safely and when on song, gets him far more runs than hooking/pulling. And the most effective stat is that you're much more likely to get driveable deliveries pitched on middle and leg stump than genuinely hookeable deliveries.

It's all elimentary my dear Watson. Really.

pagol-chagol · #5 May 24, 2005, 11:47 AM

Good to see you back SameerCreep. Always insightful.

Now our another percentage batsman (Rajin) is about to lose his job.

Sham · #6 May 24, 2005, 11:42 PM

Michael Bevan had to have been the most amazing percentage cricketer. He could maintain a strike rate of over a 100 without ever looking like he was playing a shot too many or taking any risks. He just knew his game so well and could adopt it to any situation and any bowler in one-day cricket. Graham Thorpe falls within that category as well.

shovon13 · #7 May 25, 2005, 12:23 AM

bevan is one of my all time favorite batsmen. him, and klusener (for some time) were two batsmen with the rare ability to win the game from almost ANY situation.

FaltuRidwanBhai · #8 May 25, 2005, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pagol-chagol
Good to see you back SameerCreep. Always insightful.

Now our another percentage batsman (Rajin) is about to lose his job.

jaihok,
apni kintu thiki bolechen. shuruta jokhon korechilen tokhon kintu besh dekheshune khelten kintu hotat korai jeno shob kichu kemon hoye gelo. jeno baje shot khele out howa onekta jeno tar shobhabe porinoto hoyeche. dhannabad.

chyicarus · #9 July 9, 2005, 12:54 PM

I might be wrong here, but i recently watched Younis Khan's batting and to me it seemed like he plays quite a good percentage cricket. There's no flashy shots that he possesses but we can find the gaps and always working for ones and twos. I remember reading a report that he made Inzi run the hardest in the Test series against India, and you know what kinda record Inzi has of getting out runout(himself) as well as other(his partner on the other end).
Yes, he does sometimes gets out needlessly but recently he seems to have curbed that and hopefully in the days to come I'm hoping to see his average going up and up becoz he's a player who can average 50 in Tests and low mid-40s in ODIs, provided he bats around 3/4/5!