ANALYSING FIELDING IMPACT IN THE BIG BASH LEAGUE
At CricViz we record and rank every fielding moment of note by prescribing a run value and a difficulty to each incident. A full explanation of our methodology for our fielding rankings is included in our PlayViz definition.
Collecting this data allows us to rank every team and every player by adding together all of the separate fielding incidents. At the end of the regular Big Bash League season we’ve had a look at how the leaderboards for players and teams stack up.
Team Leaderboard
The team fielding impact leaderboard is very similar to the final league standings, indicating the importance of fielding to winning matches. Indeed, 23 of the 32 matches in the regular league were won by the team who scored a higher fielding impact rating in that match.
Interestingly Perth Scorchers’ dropped catches does not correlate with their fielding impact as clearly as the other seven teams. This is largely because they dropped four ‘easy’ chances ranked as likely to have been taken at least 70% of the time—harming their impact—while also dropping four ‘hard’ chances ranked as likely to have been taken less than 30% of the time—adding to the dropped catches count.
Fielding Ranking | Team | Fielding Impact | Dropped Catches | League Position |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Perth Scorchers | +25.40 | 9 | 1 |
2 | Brisbane Heat | +20.09 | 5 | 2 |
3 | Sydney Sixers | +17.45 | 6 | 3 |
4 | Melbourne Renegades | +6.05 | 4 | 5 |
5 | Melbourne Stars | -13.80 | 4 | 4 |
6 | Hobart Hurricanes | -23.45 | 10 | 7 |
7 | Sydney Thunder | -31.15 | 12 | 8 |
8 | Adelaide Strikers | -31.50 | 9 | 6 |
Player Leaderboard
To an extent the individual rankings are limited by sample size with no one player having played more than eight matches and each player having only a dozen fielding incidents at most. To facilitate for this, the individual rankings only include those players to have been involved in at least three fielding incidents. While this is still a small number it gives some indication of quality.
Seven of the top ten players did not record a single negative impact. Kurtis Patterson is the only top ten fielder who is not listed thanks largely to a single significant fielding moment (Chris Jordan, Ashton Agar, David Hussey, Clive Rose, Liam O’Connor and Ashton Turner all took a catch of at least +5 impact; George Bailey, Alex Ross and Marcus Harris all made a run out with a direct hit of at least +5 impact).
Player | Team | Fielding Impact |
---|---|---|
Chris Jordan | Adelaide Strikers | +14.30 |
Ashton Agar | Perth Scorchers | +13.65 |
David Hussey | Melbourne Stars | +11.65 |
Alex Ross | Brisbane Heat | +11.20 |
Clive Rose | Hobart Hurricanes | +10.90 |
Liam O'Connor | Adelaide Strikers | +10.30 |
Kurtis Patterson | Sydney Thunder | +9.35 |
George Bailey | Hobart Hurricanes | +8.90 |
Marcus Harris | Melbourne Renegades | +8.35 |
Ashton Turner | Perth Scorchers | +8.00 |
Lowest Ranked Fielders
Perhaps unsurprisingly three wicket-keepers, who are involved in the most incidents, populate the lowest ten ranked fielders, and perhaps less surprisingly still, Ben Dunk, Adelaide Strikers’ part-time keeper who was replaced behind the stumps by Tim Ludeman half way through the season, has the lowest ranking of the lot.
Some of the lowest ranked players are largely there due to one or two basic errors (Kieron Pollard, Luke Wright, Ian Bell) which are punished significantly because they should, and most of the time would, have been taken. Others are there due to a handful or errors (Ben Dunk, Peter Nevill and Travis Head) or at times a litany of errors (Andrew Tye, Ben Laughlin, Cameron Boyce and Brad Haddin). Despite having taken an excellent catch in Match 27, Laughlin makes the lowest ranked list having been involved in five negative incidents.
Player | Team | Fielding Impact |
---|---|---|
Ben Dunk | Adelaide Strikers | -20.10 |
Andrew Tye | Perth Scorchers | -16.80 |
Ben Laughlin | Adelaide Strikers | -15.30 |
Kieron Pollard | Adelaide Strikers | -14.25 |
Luke Wright | Melbourne Stars | -14.10 |
Cameron Boyce | Hobart Hurricanes | -13.75 |
Ian Bell | Perth Scorchers | -13.25 |
Brad Haddin | Sydney Sixers | -13.10 |
Peter Nevill | Melbourne Renegades | -11.75 |
Travis Head | Adelaide Strikers | -11.60 |
Freddie Wilde is an Editor and Analyst at CricViz. @fwildecricket.