The batting average was barely above 27, the lowest it has been since last century
AMONG THE most frequent criticisms levelled by unseasoned spectators of cricket is that it can last so long and yet fail to produce a winner. This summer’s Ashes series between old foes England and Australia saw five matches played over 23 days, with 4,956 runs scored and 181 wickets taken—and still the contest ended with a 2-2 draw. In fact, this was the first Ashes stalemate since 1972. But few of the people who watched the games could claim to have been bored.
This can partly be attributed to the superb pace bowling on both sides. CricViz, an analytics firm, has a statistical model that can predict the probability of a ball taking a wicket or being hit for runs, based on its trajectory. The companythat England’s “expected” batting average, based on the quality of bowling it faced, ought to have been 26 runs per wicket. Australia’s was 28.
This often unplayable bowling made the performance of the series’ best batsman even more extraordinary. While nobody else mustered an average above 55, Steve Smith’s runs for Australia came at a rate of 110 per wicket. Of the seven times that he was eventually dismissed, three came when he was selflessly trying to accelerate the scoring rate towards the end of his team’s innings. CricVizthat a normal batsman would have been out at least 20 times in the 1,196 deliveries that he faced.
In all, Mr Smith received 12% of the total balls in the series—and he missed nearly a third of the contest with a concussion, after Mr Archer struck him on the head. At the start of the summer, English fans booed him at every opportunity. These were his first Test matches in more than a year, after serving a suspension for his role in a ball-tampering scandal. By mid-September, the only noise that greeted his brave innings was polite applause.
Without Mr Smith’s presence, a couple of matches probably would have fizzled out on the third day. But in the end, the batsmen for both teams survived nearly 10,000 deliveries between them—almost exactly the number we would expect, given the
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