Statistical analysis has become an important tool in the arsenal of those tasked with leading player acquisition in the T20 cricket leagues that now dominate the global playing calendar, and the recent SA20 player auction was a good example of what the teams rely on to determine the commercial value of each player and how much they’re prepared to bid.
If it sounds like ‘Moneyball’, that’s because it is, basically.
If you haven’t had the chance, check out the 2011 movie starring Brad Pitt. It’s a film based on the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team.
Beane and assistant general manager Peter Brand were faced with the franchise’s limited budget for players and built a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated ‘sabermetric’ approach to scouting and analysing players.
Sabermetrics “is the empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity” and the general approach and adoption of statistical analysis to inform selection and player acquisition across a range of sports has certainly taken off in the past decade, with cricket seemingly at the forefront.
“Every team these days does it, conducting extensive research on every player, where he fits in, and the different phases of the game,” says Prasanna Agoram, a technical and performance analyst who spent over 10 years with the Proteas and has worked with four different IPL teams. “We use extensive databases to get every single detail on a player and then pick players accordingly.”
But, whilst the layman may assume that batting strike rate is the go-to metric for teams looking for the types of big hitters who dominate the T20 leagues, there’s clearly a bit more science to it, with other, more specific skills in demand.
“With 87% of teams winning a T20 match when they hit a higher boundary percentage in a match than their opposition, players who can facilitate that achievement should be in high demand in auctions, be they boundary-hitters with the bat or boundary-preventers with the ball,” says Dan Weston, a well-travelled Senior Data Analyst with English county Kent, as well as the owner of Sports Analytics Advantage, which “provides player data and strategy services to cricket teams, agents and players to maximise their edge over the competition.”
Which leads us to the recent SA20 player auction, where Weston believes his theory on boundary hitting largely informed some of the high numbers that some of the top guys went for.
“Hitters were in huge demand,” says Weston. “Tristan Stubbs and Donavon Ferreira picked up the headlines, showing how ultra-attacking batters are becoming more and more valued by teams as they begin to understand quite how much value there is to be gained via being able to hit more boundaries than the opposition. Even several years ago, this dynamic was far less prevalent, with ‘anchor’ types still being hugely overvalued by teams. Very slowly, markets are getting slightly more efficient.”
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Incidentally, Stubbs went for R9.2m to the Sunrisers Eastern Cape – the highest bid at the auction – with the relatively unheralded Ferreira, a 24-year-old from Pretoria with limited top level cricket experience and a base price of R175 000, drawing the fifth-highest bid of R5.5m from the Johannesburg Super Kings.
Weston and Agoram agree that Ferreira was the SA20 player auction ‘bolter’, who’s key stats drove his surprisingly high value.
“He’s such a naturally talented batsmen who did very well in the last domestic T20 Challenge and in PE (Gqeberha – where the Sunrisers are based), and I think he’s the next Tristan Stubbs,” says Agoram.
Picking up on the “PE” reference, Agoram is of the opinion that it’s not just strike rate, boundary hitting etc that for him are key. Instead, he’s peddling a theory based on specific performance at specific venues.
“It’s all based on home conditions, where you play the most games,” he says. “Say, for example, PE is not a high-scoring venue, so then you might rather need specialist match-winning spinners and powerful finishers with the bat. The players who fit the bill based on the conditions they will be playing in the most are the ones the franchises will be keen to get in.”
One of the biggest talking points to emerge from the SA20 auction was the failure of Proteas limited overs captain Temba Bavuma to draw a bid, with some suggesting his base price – a figure apparently determined by the players themselves – of R850 000 was too high, chasing away initial interest.
“I think Bavuma would have been picked up if his base price was lower, but he’s not statistically strong either,” says Weston. “For example, in 2021 he averaged 23 with a strike rate of 115 in T20 internationals, with a significantly below-average boundary percentage of 12.7%. This year to date, his numbers have further worsened – he’s averaging 9 at a strike rate of 82 in T20 internationals, and an even worse boundary percentage of 10.3%. So, we can’t escape the fact that he’s been a below-average batter for South Africa over the last couple of years, and this combined with a high base price, looks like being a big factor as to why he wasn’t recruited in the auction.”
So, the science is not necessarily just the overall player value, but it’s in the auction itself, with players having the ability to price themselves out of the market, as seems to be the suggestion of Weston, as it relates to Bavuma, with Proteas all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo also going unsold, after listing himself at R850 000.
With all of that being said, who do Agoram and Weston believe represent the best SA20 value for money, besides Stubbs and Ferreira?
“Getting a guy like Kyle Verreynne (Super Kings) for a base price of R175 000 is a steal,” says Agoram. “People see him as a Test player, but I saw him bat in the Mzansi Super League and he is a top-quality player.”
“Lungi Ngidi at R3.4m (Paarl Royals) looks cheap compared to other similar players,” says Weston. “Of the mid-range players, I like Wiaan Mulder at R1.9m (Durban Super Giants), and of the ‘cheaper’ players, the big-hitting Marco Marais (Royals) at R175 000. He has a career boundary percentage of around 20% and has also hit a really good 6/4 ratio too, so he’s exactly the sort of low risk/high reward purchase that makes sense to me.”
It has to make sense to someone, and in this case, it’s the world’s top T20 teams, with the numbers telling a story and playing a huge role in the commercial value of the players involved.
Dylan Rogers