Shahid Afridi - eternal youngster, all-rounder and an enigma

Shahid Afridi has left the ODI crease. This time for good. Shahid Afridi retiring from ODI cricket didn’t come as a surprise to me (and if he overturns his decision again, it won’t be a surprise either).

Shahid Afridi's ODI Stats –

When you think of Afridi, the first thing that comes to mind is his 37-ball century. The impact of that innings was so profound that it becomes difficult for a neutral fan to think beyond that innings. But, believe it or not, there’s more to Afridi than that century. For a moment, stop thinking of Afridi as a batsmen and think of him as a bowler who can bat and you start analysing his ODI career stat in a different way!

Stats by batting position –

Stats by bowling position –

One look at the above stats reveal that he has been all over the place. Was he a pure batsmen? Not really sure since he has played in all positions (baring 11th) in the batting line-up with an average of 23.57. Was he a bowler? Yes, 395 wickets in ODI format is not a fluke. Was he a fielder? Someone who debuted in the 1990’s are usually not known to be as good as the fielders of today, but he wasn’t bad either. So, can we safely claim he’s an all-rounder? Statistically, he definitely is. Is he one of the best all-rounders? Debatable. 

Afridi started his career as a batsman who can bowl leg-breaks. He ended as a bowler who can bat a bit. His initial batting success raised expectations from him (more so being from Asia where Cricket is the biggest religion) and he never stood up to those expectations vis-à-vis batting. But he was always a joker-in-the-pack. You never know when he makes a difference.

Personally, I have been a huge fan of Shahid Afridi. What makes Afridi special for me is the time he made his ODI debut. If we recollect, mid-1990’s was a time when ODI cricket was undergoing a paradigm shift. Some players, including Sanath Jayasuriya (predominantly a bowler who was given the responsibility to bat as an opener) and Shahid Afridi, were changing the way batsmen were batting. Risk taking, attacking the opposition in the first 15 overs during the fielding restriction were emerging as a key weapon to get a heads-up on the opposition. We remember Jayasuriya as the key proponent of that change. Very few remember Afridi for playing a key part. For a neutral fan, there’s never a dull moment when he’s batting. There are only two modes – boom boom or bust! And that’s the only thing that made me sit and watch his batting whenever I got the opportunity.

Only 3 players in ODI cricket have scored more than 8000 runs and taken more than 250 wickets…

… and Afridi is in that list, behind only Kallis and Jayasuriya!

For me, Afridi will remain an enigma. He was always the danger man when he’s at the crease – either to the opposition or sometimes to his own team. His last innings was testament of the latter. Five wickets down for 100-odd runs, Afridi arrived at the crease, Pakistan needed Afridi to apply himself, rotate strike, build a partnership and steady the ship. Afridi, however, played a typical “Afridi-sque” innings of 15-ball 23 and departed, much to the disappointment of Pakistani fans. But hey, that’s the only way he plays!

Shahid Afridi, thank you for entertaining 18 years. Cricketing world will surely miss an unpredictable and enigmatic character like you.

PS: all statistical data queried and taken from statsguru, courtesy espncricinfo,com.

CWC 2015: Were the group matches worth it?

We are now done with 42 group matches to decide the final 8 out of a total 14 teams that participated in this World Cup. And baring England, there were no surprises at all. Yes, we got to see some fantastic batting - AB De Villiers, Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan to name a few. We got some really close encounters too. And I must admit, there were some surprises in the order in which the top 4 teams finished in their respective group. But all's well that ends well. The real World Cup starts now. There are 7 matches remaining that will decide who will reign for the next 4 years.

Analysis of Group Stages - 

To analyze how the group stages went, I decided to add up all the results of the group stages on MS excel, categorized them according to some standard set of results (given below) and came up with a table for analysis.

Before I get to the table, here's what each set of result category means - 

For example, if a team batting first won the match by 45 runs, the result will be categorized as "3. Not a bad game". If a team bowling first wins the match by 6 wickets, the result will be categorized as "5. Was that even competitive?". Now, I understand that categorizing a result based on victory margin alone may not depict the whole picture and there will be exceptions (a team bowling first wins by 8 wickets but only 2 balls to spare is actually a competitive match). But such results have hardly happened in the group stages, so we can keep the exceptions aside.

Using the categories defined above, here's how the group stages fared -

What's strikingly obvious in my analysis is that 60% of the matches were largely one-sided. If you add category 4 to this list, more than 3/4th matches were easy for one team to win. Less than 1 in every four game had some element of competition and only 7% of games were actually nail-biting stuff. I can even mention those games - Afghanistan v/s Scotland (1 wicket), New Zealand v/s Australia (1 wicket) and Ireland v/s Zimbabwe (5 runs). Some matches promised a lot, but didn't go the distance (like Australia - Sri Lanka and India - Pakistan). And there were some that completely degraded the competitive game between bat and ball (like South Africa v/s West Indies, margin of victory 257 runs).This is hardly an advertisement of Cricket, let alone the World Cup. 

Were the Group matches worth it? 

Largely, the answer is No. But the problem is more deep than the superficially described "associate" problem. Before the World Cup began, there were concerns from a lot of Cricket followers regarding "associate" teams. Adding associate teams will dilute the competition in this World Cup. was one of the concern raised. Personally, I don't think their presence has diluted the competition. If you see the closest games in the competition so far, 2 (out of a possible 3) were played by associate teams. Loss to Zimbabwe was instrumental in England getting knocked out of the World Cup. Bangladesh (although not an associate) defeated England. Ireland defeated West Indies. If at all anything, the test playing nations - the so called better cricket playing teams - failed to play at a competitive level expected of them. Don't just blame the associates for this. The problem lies in the way different test playing teams approached this World Cup. And yes, its a sorry state of affairs and ICC will do themselves a world of good if they go back to the drawing board and plan for the next edition in England.

Solution -

One possible solution will be to allow all test playing teams to enter the qualifying rounds, the same route an associate team goes through and only the top 8 teams qualify for the World Cup. Then these 8 teams can be divided into 2 pools where they play each other twice (i.e. a total of 6 games per team). This will also allow some teams to make a comeback despite a bad start. The top 2 teams from each pool will qualify for semifinals. 

What's next for this World Cup? 

I predicted 4 teams to reach the semi-finals (Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa) and all 4 of them have qualified for the knock-outs. These 4 teams have lost only 3 matches between them. I must admit, I am surprised to see New Zealand and India topping their respective groups but these teams are in the form of their lives! However, all they carry to the knockout phase is their momentum, their points / position hardly matters now. One loss and they are out.

7 games to go | One team will remain standing | One champion. Let the real World Cup begin.