Alviro Patterson wrote:sussexpob wrote:A players batting average in ODIs means almost nothing in Moeens situation. Its easy to look at the figures and be shocked at how little production he is making, but the fact is you need to put this into context.
All the more reason to find a more effective player. Bowling all-rounders are capable of hitting business end innings, heck i'd play Dave Willey/Chris Woakes at 7 and go with two frontline spinners for India 2023. Dawson coming at 8 won't weaken the batting, if anything it will enhance the bowling
How would that work in a statistical model? As demonstrated above, teams like India and England who are now regularly capable of having a top 6 that bats through an innings, only leave a tiny amount of time for a number 7 to impact. On average Indias 7 gets 12 balls a game over the last 5 years, and is left not out or not batted 60 percent of the time. England is less because they bat quicker to get to the 5th wicket drop point, but in the last 2-3 years that point is pushed back now to only around 18 balls for an impact. You can argue that this is a statistical average that may not take into account huge scores and low scores, but in actuality the fact Indias 7 only gets out in 40 percent of matches and Englands around 50-55 percent of games, it does the statistical average plays out in reality a lot.
So lets take England. On average there is 6 overs left and Buttler just got out. The score is 250/5 in the 44th over. Out comes your chosen 7....
If its Moeen, on average he hits 20 in 18 balls.
Willey or Woakes its 16 in 18
Your choice of number 7 just left 4 runs out on the field based on quite a lot of provable performance data spread over about 300 ODIs worth of evidence. Worth noting as well that Woakes and Willey bat below 7, so the expected SR should be higher, as they are coming into even more slogfest times.
The batting average or form averages really dont matter. You are left with an equation where 6 batters only have to cover 36 balls, and one or two of the batters left is a specialist, with Englands case having batters who have regularly batted as all rounders in county top 6s coming in at 10 or 11. It would take a disaster to get bowled out most of the time, so the key stat at this point is solely SR. If each of my batters goes over 100SR and lasts just 6 balls, the score is getting big.Willey and Woakes average SR 88 to 90. Putting them at 7 on the understanding they might score more runs average wise (which they dont anyway, their averages are inferior to Moeens, and as they come in later its a more false average as their not outs are huge in comparison) is not optimal.
Its a bit like saying youd pick the Mobot for a 4 x 100m relay on the basis that hes a multiple olympic champion and has a better pedigree, then watch him finish 20 meters behind the 1000th fastest sprinter in the world. Yeah, so if the race continued for another 200ms, hed catch and pass the other guy as he tires, but this isnt a distance race.....its a sprint. Batting in the last 5 overs with SRs in the high 80s is like turning up to a gun fight with a bow and arrow. Its sub-optimal.
dan08 wrote:Moeen Ali has the worst List A bowling average of all time of all bowlers who have taken more than 100 wickets.
He also has the lowest economy rate of all England players to have played more than a handful of matches since he debuted. ODIs is about not conceding runs in a given amount of time, dropping the person who for the last 6 years has proven to be the most consistent person in stopping the scoreboard rolling over doesnt seem sensible. If for instance we dropped Moeen, and put Willey in as the slot 7 allrounder after not making the world cup squad, you instantly lose 5 runs to the economy rate through relative expense.
But remember we are already sacrificing an average of 4 runs to Willey's batting. So the actual loss is now 9 runs. If we put Woakes up into 7, drop Moeen and Willey, and pick a specialist bowler who comes in at 11 and is hidden for his awful batting ability, hes hardly ever going to have to bat (as an example, Mark wood faces something ridiculous like 1 ball per ODI in over 55 ODIS on average, so your 11 hardly bats ever), but you are still elevating another inferior player to 7, so you still lose those runs scored on average.
So you need a player that makes up 4 runs on a 5.2 economy...... a player capable of 4.8.
Who in the modern day is managing that over any length of time for England? Zero people. If England have people capable of bowling even sub 5.4, let alone sub 4.8, they would be walking into the team anyway. List A figures in England for bowlers have become staggeringly expensive, hardly anyone gets near this capability.
You either need to replace him with a number seven capable of 5.2 econ rate to mirror him and a SR105, or for every run over 5.2 economy (Englands next best bowler to have played more than one series is 5.5) find a seven who adds that to his strike rate to gain parity.
So a 5.5 economy bowler at next best needs to ADD 3 runs to his batting to be Moeen.....an average of 23 in 18 balls, or 127SR.... which is actually larger than the best SR ever recorded in the game over any number of matches to form a proper career (as defined by cricinfos top SR ever).
Alviro Patterson wrote:Dawson coming at 8 won't weaken the batting, if anything it will enhance the bowling.
Dawsons gone for nearly 7 an over in his 3 games, and while his record in counties is exceptional on econ rates, his little exposure in the side didnt end well. He should get a run or a try out again, I dont want to write him off, but its asking a lot to expect him to improve the team