CRICLYTICS REVIEW
Follow UsThe IPL 2020 has seen 9463 runs already in 28 matches. While it has added to the glitz and glamour of leather being tonked by wood, some runs are more special than others. In this article we ask Criclytics to help us pick the top knocks in this edition of the IPL at the mid-way point of the tournament.
Criclytics has a rating scale for each match which looks at runs, boundaries and strike rate along with the impact that knock had in the win% of their team. In this edition, we only look at the win% impact. So a 18(6) could have an higher impact than a 76(61), since all that matters is the effect on win% those runs had.
#1- Mayank Agarwal (+76)
Mayank Agarwal’s brilliant knock in KXIP’s first game, almost took them to the altar of victory, until he holed out off a full-toss, put pressure on the next batsmen who could not manage that single run required to win.
When the 15th over started, KXIP were rebuilding after a bad start in the chase. 84/5 in 14 overs chasing 158. Mayank was batting on 35(37)* and then the deluge started and he finished with 89(60). The next 22 balls before he got out, yielded 54 runs. Mayank waited to take the game deep and started to hit when 42 were required off the last 18 balls. 2 sixes off Mohit Sharma in the 18th over, 2 boundaries off Kagiso Rabada in the 19th over and a 2+4+6 off the final Marcus Stoinis over was how Agarwal paced it, until his dismissal.
It’s been a great tournament for Mayank who also has 2 of his other knocks ranking at #17 and #22 on the impact scale.
#2 and #5 - Rahul Tewatia
From ‘Tewatia-Who?’ to ‘Can he do a Tewatia?’. That’s been the allrounder's impact on IPL 2020. Two of the Top 5 high impact innings have been played by him, resulting in 4 important points to his side Rajasthan Royals (who are yet to extract any meaningful wins on solo performances yet from their foreign recruits sans Jofra Archer).
Tewatia’s knock against SRH is rated as his best, while his knock against KXIP is rated at #5. The former knock’s impact is +46 while the latter’s impact is +37. Tewatia’s partner in that SRH chase was Riyan Parag whose supporting knock of 42(26) featured as the 8th highest impact knock with a +35 score.
#3 - KL Rahul
KL Rahul’s copped up a lot of flak, despite his top form with the bat. He holds the Orange cap, but it means little to the thinktank at KXIP, since they have been sitting on 2 points, for quite a while now. While KL’s strike rate has been on par with other top run-scorers, it seems to have a net negative impact during each of the games.
More than Rahul’s impact on loss of momentum, the blame is also on the rest of the team, who have not been able to build on the starts . But for the time, Rahul has spent in the innings, there has been a momentum drop associated with his knocks. The most notable one is the recent 74(58) scored against KKR. Here is someone who has scored 70+ runs in a T20 facing almost half the team’s resources at a strike rate of 128, and still has had a net negative impact to the team’s cause. Even another of Rahul’s innings against CSK, has had just a +6 impact to the team’s win probability, because of him slowing down.
What’s changed in Rahul’s game, from the last 2 IPLs?
First 10 Balls - Rahul’s first 10 balls this year has had lesser dot balls and he has not been dismissed. Earlier he used to play out a few more dot balls and had been dismissed 4 times. KL’s game is far tighter than before.
Balls 11-20 - This is where Rahul has considerably slowed down. In IPL 2018 and 2019, he used to score runs at a strike rate of 156 in this phase, while it has come at 118 SR in this edition of the IPL. Boundaries are hard to come by.
Balls 21-30 - This IPL, Rahul has been scoring runs at a run-a-ball, while in the earlier years this phase had a strike rate of 130. The time it has taken to find a boundary has nearly doubled to once in 13 balls this year.
Balls 30+ - Here KL has indeed improved marginally scoring at 170 SR compared to the 163 he was striking in IPL 2018+2019.
The middle phase of balls 11-30 has been where KL slows down, and is taking away momentum from the chase. Here is hoping KXIP find a way to support Rahul at the top. KL dropping anchor could also mean, that he does not trust the batting lineup to last the distance till the end, so he ends up batting to make sure they have a good decent total to defend, but even the bowlers have not quite come to the party!
But these are just a handful of players. What about your favourite player and knock and where does it feature? We ran a little twitter poll to ask which knocks did users perceive to be the top knocks.
Where is Stoinis on the list?
Since we have covered Tewatia’s twin knocks, above I will cut to the chase on Marcus Stoinis.
Stoinis started the season with his stunning assault on KXIP at the death. Since DC were struggling with a very low score when Stoinis came to the crease, and despite his batting their scores were still under par, the swing in win% impact was not as high as we would perceive it to be. He finished with a +16 in Win% impact. But taking that knock into consideration of the overall game, he was the second-best player in our Match Report Card (which looks into match relative performance and the win% impact together).
In the other game vs his previous owners (RCB), Stoinis brought out yet another top performance scoring a quickfire 53(26) and also moving win% impact by +22, which has so far been his best impact performance this IPL 2020 in the first half of the tournament. It also featured a perfect 10 in terms of being the best performance in the match.
Where is ABD on this list?
Having a look at AB de Villiers' knocks in the tournament, his most impactful knock by Win% has been against MI, where he took on Jasprit Bumrah at the death. It rates #19 on our overall list of Top knocks with an impact of +25. The question asked by Manoj Lingappan was of AB’s performance against KKR, which had an equally stunning 73(33). In the context of the match, it was the best performance as per our match report card, but in terms of moving just the win% impact it was ranked as #24 overall with an impact of +23.
Here are some of AB’s knocks, their ranks by impact and the impact scores, so far in the first half of the IPL.
If your player’s knock is not yet here, you can have a look at a few lists we have created, categorised by win% impact.
Most Impactful knocks and players
Let’s have a look at the first list.
List-A- +30 Batting Impact
List-B- 20+ to 29-Batting Impact
List-C- 10+ to 19-Batting Impact
Knocks that had ‘Minimal Impact’ on the Team’s Win%
List D- Knocks that had a negative impact on a team’s win%
This list is sorted by the absolute score accompanied by the batting impact. On top is Ishan Kishan. Wait! Here’s a guy who almost took them to a super over, and was the match’s top-scorer, and he created a negative impact? If that’s what your mind was getting to, let’s break this down a bit.
On our match report card, his was the 4th best performance that night. Then why did he rate so low? The answer lies in the fact that Ishan came into bat at the fall of the second wicket, MI’s win% was just 14% at the end of the 3rd over. Till the 16th over, MIs win% did not improve, and it in fact fell to a low of 6%. So till now, whatever Ishan had done, scoring 70(48)* was in negative territory for a large part of his innings. The win% jump to 44% largely happened in the 17th and 18th over, and was driven by Kieron Pollard, who batted for 10 off the 12 balls against the legspin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Adam Zampa. Ishan in the 19th over had 2 singles and a 6, when the required run rate as very high, and that over resulted in MI’s chances of winning drop from 44% to 31%. Keeping this in mind, Ishan has a negative win impact despite a knock that took MI to the doorsteps of victory.
Has this win% narrative helped you make sense of knocks and the impact it has on the game? Use #CricketLikeNeverBefore on Twitter and let’s continue the conversation there!
Keep Following the Criclytics MVP and Criclytics Final Four Probability Chart all season long this IPL. To keep track of the matches gone by and the schedule ahead, check our IPL series page for series stats, points table and news pertaining to the IPL 2020.
