India v Pakistan - The Data Behind Pakistan's Perfect Game Plan
Jack Hope reviews the India v Pakistan T20 World Cup match, taking a look at what really drove Pakistan to success
Hey y’all
This is the second of my sporadic series of data based articles on T20 World Cup matches, looking at how Pakistan pulled off their game plan to perfection, and how India fell into the trap!
Become a Patreon & Other Ads!
Do you like cricket data? You do! Well we’re making the processed ball-by-ball data from the entire history of the IPL available to anyone that signs up as a Patreon! Sortable by: bowler type, batter handedness, batting position, player name, venue, etc. (If you absolutely cannot afford to support us via Patreon, then happy to share this for free if you follow us here (@JackHope0) and here (@TheCricketPod) and drop me a DM).
What you use it for is up to you, but, as an example, a lot of the evidence presented in this article is sourced from this location.
And obviously, you should be listening to the podcast - which you can find here (or anywhere that plays podcasts really).
And, and, we’re sponsored by Woodstock Cricket. Use the code TCP25, for 25% off their merchandise!
Shaheen Afridi - The Prince of the Powerplay
One thing we all knew, for sure, going into yesterday’s match was that Shaheed Shah Afridi’s Powerplay bowling was likely to be the key battle of the match. Why did we know this? Because over the last 3 years, Shaheen Afridi is basically the god of this phase of the game.
Using ball-by-ball data from 2019-21, from the PSL, to demonstrate this. Shaheen is far and away the top Powerplay wicket taker in the league during this time, racking up 22 wickets in total. That impressive wickets total is backed up by other underlying stats. His Strike Rate is 17.18, which places him in the top 10% of Powerplay bowlers in this time, and he has only cost his team 1.15 Runs Per Ball, meaning he is within the top 25% of bowlers in terms of run prevention.
Ben Jones wrote an article for Cricviz diving into why he is so effective in this phase. The tldr is: he’s too fast, too full, and moves the ball too much. Couple that with an opposition who haven’t seen much of him, and it produces moments like this:
Beautiful stuff!
Working as his side-kick, upfront in yesterday’s contest, was another useful Powerplay operator, Hasan Ali. Without diving into his record in as much detail, it is worth noting he is second to Afridi, in terms of PSL Powerplay wickets since 2019, and has delivered those wickets with a lower economy rate. When he dismissed Suryakumar Yadav in the 6th over of the match, it was time to break out possibly the most well known T20 statistical nugget: “when teams end the Powerplay 3 wickets down, they lose around two-thirds of the time.”
Pakistan were on the way!
Virat Slohli
A full assessment of this match would not be complete without a look at the Indian rebuild, which, though decent, was flawed. They, as explained in the following section, set a total that conformed almost perfectly to the Pakistani gameplan, and were consequently punished. There are two points that contributed significantly to their underperformance after the Powerplay, the first culprit being their Captain, Virat Kohli.
Initially here we should give Kohli credit. In partnership with Rishabh Pant he was able to successfully rebuild the Indian innings, giving them a platform to launch. The launch, however, never came, as Kohli nudged and nurdled a score of 57 from 49 balls, hitting only 6 boundaries along the way. Displaying, once again, that he is not consistently able to balance risk with reward.
This plague on his performance is seen most clearly by looking at his performance against spin bowling. Here, looking at his performance since 2019 in the IPL, we can see how he is scoring excruciatingly slowly against spin, despite almost never getting out. This, in modern T20 cricket, is not good enough.
Perhaps most damningly, in this match, despite batting for longer than any other Indian player, he only achieved a strike rate of 116. This was 9 fewer than the average of other batters in the match. We saw Kohli deliver a brilliant lesson in pulling his team back from the brink, then follow it up with another on how to squander an opportunity.
The second contributory factor was the curious decision to send in Ravi Jadeja in the 13th over, instead of Hardik Pandya. This is probably a discussion for another article (using bell curves, standard deviations, and expected outcomes), but by sending in Jadeja, India selected a batter who is more stable (i.e. likely to last more balls), but will score more slowly than Hardik.
With just over a third of the innings remaining, when you are on course to post a sub-par score, this was a bad decision. It was an active choice to go down a path which made India more likely to remain below par at the close of the innings. Hardik may be more unpredictable than Jadeja (though it is close), but he also represented India’s best hope of achieving a total that would put pressure on Pakistan.
Introducing him with only 13 balls left in the innings is criminal.
Mohammed Rizwan and Babar Azam - The Terminators (version T-150)
At the halfway stage 151 probably felt okay for India, especially after the start they had. Sadly for them though, they were about to run into two players who have essentially built their careers on exactly the kind of innings they had been asked to play. By setting such a mediocre score, India had effectively pinned a target to their back and let loose a couple of Terminators.
It is rare, in cricket, that things work out as nearly as the two projected totals in the table above, so take a moment to savour that. Showing Rizwan and Azam’s career T20 performance you can see exactly how perfect this score was for them. Throw in a few extras and the table also illustrates how India’s total fell well within the comfort zone of the Pakitani openers.
Coupled with this, we can also see that both Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam are decent examples of match-up busting batters. This effectively means that they are effective operators against many different types of bowler, neutering the ability of the opposition Captain to orchestrate plans to target a weak area.
The possible exception to this is their performance against Left-arm Orthodox. However, due to the aforementioned “dew factor,” India’s Left-arm tweaker, Jadeja, struggled to control his line and length, nullifying his threat.
A 10 wicket win is obviously a slight outlier in terms of expected results, but setting such an average score against a side with two dependable, versatile, run scorers was always likely to leave India in trouble. Without any luck to help them turn things around, India could only watch as Pakistan coasted to victory.
Where next…
From a neutral point of view this leaves the group beautifully poised. With qualifying playing out the way it did, the top teams in this group should all achieve two easy victories, over Scotland and Namibia. This has the effect of reducing the group of 6 to a de facto group of 4.
This means Pakistan should make it through with a win against either Afghanistan or New Zealand, whilst India will probably need to beat both. Tantalisingly, looking further ahead, this also sets up the very real prospect of an India v England semi-final, and, the potential for a Pakistan v India rematch in the final.