Who is the most impactful bowler in T20s?

[rkt.india]

In the third article in our series using Smart Stats to analyse various aspects of cricket, we focus on wicket-taking bowlers, but with a difference: we look at not just the sheer number of wickets, but also the quality and impact of those dismissals. Smart Stats is a part of Superstats, a new set of metrics by ESPNcricinfo to tell more enriching and insightful numbers-based stories. To know more about Superstats.

 

 

It is common knowledge that all wickets are not the same in cricket and yet conventional stats gives a value of one to each. What if we do away with that convention and value each wicket as per its actual importance in the context of the game? In last week's column, we looked at economy rates in terms of match context; this time, we do the same with wickets.

 

Since the start of January 2019, across T20 leagues, Dale Steyn has taken the most impactful wickets per game. Although Steyn has taken only 26 wickets from 18 innings in this period, his wickets are worth 31 (this value is the Smart Wickets). Steyn's Smart Wickets per match is 1.73 - the most for any bowler in this period. Four of the top five names in the list are pace bowlers and there are only three spinners in the top 15. One of the reasons for this skew could be the fact that very few spinners bowl the difficult overs to get the early breakthroughs; the primary role for many of them is to provide control rather than take wickets.

 

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/29009825/who-most-impactful-bowler-t20s