Image source– (AB de Villiers image Rediff.com Chris Gayle image- Zap Cricket David Warner image- India.com)
Is there really the best batsman in the shortest format of the game?
The longest format of the game is the acme of cricket. The shortest format of the game was invented to instill more entertainment and attract a large amount of audience and also to globalize the game.
But have you ever given a thought that the shorter the format, the more difficult it is to judge the best batsman? While the parameters used to judge a batsman in the toughest format of the game are a handful with which a conclusion can be derived, are there any such parameters to conclude a batsman as “The best” in the shortest format of the game?
Here let me share a few thoughts sans fancy charts or numbers that bombard one to prove a case.
Let’s assume this as an old fashioned piece.
Advanced terminologies like Balls Per Boundaries (BPB), Runs Per Innings (RPI – commonly referred to as average), positive effects; Index, and many more can be used to claim that a batsman is superior to others. But is it really worth it?
Often, a good T20 player might not be the answer to the team’s needs. The England Test captain Joe Root is one classic example. The World Cup winner who played an immense role in 2016’s bittersweet T20 WC campaign is nowhere to be found in the England T20i setup at the moment.
Another pivotal question that needs to be asked while trying to find the best T20 batsman is the batter’s position in the team. This is when the conflict arises as all the aforementioned metrics like BPB, RPI will be blown out of proportion making them irrelevant.
A player with a bat in hand can make an impact at any position in tests. But the shortest format requires a properly structured team to get the best out of the player. This doesn’t mean that a team can win in tests even with messed up batting order. The basic aspect is that in T20s the best batsman may not be an automatic choice unlike in tests, as he might not satisfy the team’s desire just like in Joe Root’s case as pointed out earlier.
The role of the batsman is something that goes under the water amidst the average and the strike rate like a bar in T20s.
It is no rocket science that the batsman who opens for his side has access to full 120 balls with which he can pace his inning without much trouble.
A good batsman can make most of the fielding restrictions and can dig deep into the innings, which will obviously result in a good average. But is that all enough to declare the batsman supercilious?
A typical example would be Babar Azam, who also happens to be the #1 player in the T20I rankings. Being the most influential member of his team, he opens the batting and bears the weight of the batting line-up on his shoulders. He anchors the batting at the top of the order and plays at a fair clip but since there is little to no support for him down the order, his efforts at the top are ruined.
The same scenario happened for quite a number of times to KKR last season (2019) in IPL where their best batsman in Andre Russell was batting lower down the order and he did bail the team a few times but that wasn’t enough for them to qualify as he lacked substantial support from the top order.
I do understand that there is no point in bringing the results of the team when judging the best batsman but the thing that I want to highlight is, it is difficult to judge the best batsman for a simple reason below.
Assume a team consisting of Babar Azam and Andre Russell are chasing a target of 180 in 20 overs.
The opening batsman, Babar Azam sets the platform with a 42 ball 63 and perishes. Now, with the team needing 44 runs in the last 4 overs, Andre Russell takes the team across the line with an 18 ball 27 run knock and ends up as the 2nd highest run-getter for the team in the chase.
In this scenario, it’s difficult to judge the better batsman of these 2 as both have played according to the teams’ needs scoring 9 RPO. As the saying goes, cricket is a game of uncertainties; hence the result would have been different if not for either of these batsmen.
Now which of these batsmen’s knock was more significant is a debate for another day. There can also be another case where some other batsman in the chase could have changed the momentum with an impactful knock, yet might not have been in the top 3 scorers for the team. Hence it is a vague topic.
Another prevalent thing that is unambiguous is the quality of the bowlers that a batsman gets to face. This is a very important facet while deriving a better T20 batsman. To bring it into better light, the T20s and T20Is are in total contrast. The franchise cricket has taken over in this format of the game all over the world. The amount of franchise games played around the world in all probability is higher than the bilateral played per year. Hence deciding a best T20 batsman becomes all the more difficult in this case.
The quality of some of the international games are much less when compared to some leagues around the world, hence a player’s ability will be visible on how he fares in high quality leagues where top tier bowlers participate.
Hence different batsmen face different standards of bowling across the leagues. So it is never an easy job to put everything into same context to decide the best batsman.
