Peter Moores: Vindicated?
Peter Moores was variously criticised, laughed at and ridiculed when he suggested that the English team had to look at the data after the 2015 World Cup exit. However, four years down the line, the very same data-driven strategy has worked wonders for them. Abhishek Mukherjee analyses.
The England team were trolled by all after their premature exit from the 2015 World Cup.
"We thought 275 was chaseable. We'll have to look at the data," commented Peter Moores, when asked by the media to explain.
The England team management was trolled again despite Moores complaining that his quote had been misinterpreted.
Consider this, from none other than Geoffrey Boycott: "Moores depends too much on facts and figures and data analysis."
John Etheridge: "The England management is obsessed by stats, par totals and historical data."
Kevin Pietersen: England are "too interested in stats".
Graeme Swann: "I've sat in these meetings for the last five years. It was a statistics-based game. There was this crazy stat where if we get 239 – this was before the fielding restrictions changed a bit so it would be more now, I assume – we will win 72% of matches. The whole game was built upon having this many runs after this many overs, this many partnerships, doing this in the middle, working at 4.5 an over."
Some big media houses ridiculed them, pointing out what sort of data Moores should have looked at (England's World Cup attempts: 11; won: 0; etc etc).
I read a blog published on the SAS Institute site on the same topic roughly at this time (thank goodness I found this four years down the line):
https://blogs.sas.com/…/so-what-should-the-data-have-told-…/
"Put simply, to be confident of scoring a total that wins three-quarters of your matches required a total of 273 for the period up to 2013. From 2013 to date, the total needed to achieve the same win rate becomes significantly higher – 307. So, Moores was right to say 275 was 'chaseable'."
A crude approximation, but not too crude.
It is not known exactly what they did in the build-up to the English summer, but they revamped the side entirely. They hatched a not-too-obvious plan, which led them to take several swift, drastic decisions.
Years later, Morgan revealed that the realisation had come during the New Zealand match, not after their unceremonious exit.
They dropped Ian Bell (their leading run-scorer at that point), James Anderson (still their leading wicket-taker) and Stuart Broad (third-highest). Of them, only Broad played again, that too in South Africa after he bowled brilliantly in the Johannesburg Test.
The Indian equivalents would have been meant dropping Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, and Ajit Agarkar in one go. For Pakistan, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Wasim Akram, and Shahid Afridi. For Sri Lanka, Kumar Sangakkara, Muttiah Muralitharan , and Lasith Malinga.
Think about it. It might have led to riots in India or Pakistan.
Gone were Garry Ballance, Ravi Bopara, and James Tredwell, and shortly afterwards, Trim Bresnan and Steven Finn. None of them fit into the role of 100ish strike rate at any position of the batting order.
That year's ODI debutants included Zafar Ansari, Jason Roy, James Vince,David Willey, Mark Wood, Sam Billings, and Reece Topley. Liam Dawson, Jake Ball, and Ben Duckett were drafted in next year. Alex Hales was already there, as was Jos Buttler, but these six-monsters were retained.
And they did something unthinkable by picking two spinners consistently on flat pitches – not a common occurrence in the England team in ODIs on English soil till then. Of course, Moeen Ali can bat at 100 and Adil Rashid as easily the world's best #11.
Some time later, Johnny Bairstow arrived as opener. So good did he turn out that they had a problem of plenty at the top.
Meanwhile, Moores was sacked.
Their planning, I presume, ran on these lines.
1. There was no point in hanging around. You have to keep hitting throughout 50 overs. So pick only the hardest hitters, if needed, hardcore sloggers. Barring Joe Root, all their batsmen struck at over 90, even 95, between 2015 and 2016-17.
2. Ten batters can pull off a more sustained attack than six. So sacrifice bowling, if needed, for batting. Everyone, or at least ten of them, could bat at this point.
3. Focus on flat pitches. You may lose a match or two if the pitch wasn't flat, but bowling-friendly pitches were exceptions, not the norm.
4. Create a nucleus and back it to the hilt.
Despite drafting in so many debutants, England used the least number of different players per match *over this period* (32 matches, 23 players, 0.72). The next best was South Africa's 0.89.
England also scored at 6.25 over this phase, the most *at this phase*. They also went for 5.73, the second-most, but the difference (0.52) was also the most.
England's *bottom four* had an average of 22.33 *over the same period of time* despite scoring at a strike rate of 96. These are phenomenal numbers.
That was in end-2016. They have struck to the same plan since then. They did lose a match here and one there, but won more than others.
They ensured they had about nine men who could slog (not merely bat) – specialists, all-rounders, wicketkeepers – and let them play enough matches
Bowling came into focus, slowly, but never at the cost of slogging prowess. As a final move, they fast-tracked Archer.
They have lost three matches in the World Cup, but really, only one of them – the Pakistan match – came on a flat pitch (and Pakistan has shown properties of outliers too frequently for anyone's comfort).
As mentioned, difficult wickets are the exception, not the norm.
I wonder whether they are still trolling Moores for that "data" statement.