Asia Cup 2016 - A statistical view on how fast bowlers have dominated the tournament
I had a very interesting conversation on Reddit few hours back. Somebody commented ‘What is happening in cricket – Australian venues are seeing high scoring games and sub-continent venues are witnessing low scoring games. The whole conversation shifted from there to the huge proportion of wickets that are taken by fast/medium bowlers in Asia Cup 2016.
There was one smart lad who said that the reason for the high number of wickets by fast bowlers is excellent bowling by spinners. They are bowling at a low economy rate and this is forcing batsmen to go at fast bowlers and losing wickets in the process.
We decided to find the exact numbers to support the cases. We first found out the total wickets taken in last 15 days at Mirpur by different bowling style. Here is the graph depicting it.
As you can see, fast and medium pacers have taken the majority of wickets. But finger spinners have a huge proportion of wickets as well. They are just second to medium bowlers.
As a statistics student, I had to see if this was the usual case at Mirpur(a good representation of sub-continent). The result wasn't surprising. The number of wickets taken by spinners are more than double than taken by fast/medium. See the graph below.
Now that it is pretty clear that pacers are taking more wickets than the usual in the tournament, but what about that smart chap who said that it is because of the low economy rate of spinners. Well, let’s check that out as well in the graph below.
So, that smart chap MIGHT be right. Look at the average economy rate of FS and WS(finger spinners and wrist spinners). They are bowling at lower economy rates and probably, that’s the reason batsmen are going after fast and medium pacers.
But, one person argued – fast bowlers are opening the spell and taking wickets even before spinners are in action. Let’s validate this as well. He is quite right. Only in one case, a spinner opened the innings.
But to completely validate this point, we need to check the bowlers who are taking early wickets. And well, things got solved. The openers are dominately taken by fast medium and medium bowlers.
After sharing these stats with each other, we concluded that we started with right premise. The Mirpur pitch is indeed supporting faster bowlers. The majority of wickets taken by finger spinners are coming from just two matches (Hong Kong vs Afghanistan and Oman vs UAE). With respect to economy rate, finger spinners might be helping pacers in the middle overs, but definitely, pacers are making their name even before the spinners are in action.
Disclaimer: Amir is exceptional to this whole discussion. With the form he is in, he isn't meant to be judged on stats right now.