Optimal South Africa vs. England Twenty20 cricket line-ups revealed
The sixth ICC World Twenty20 tournament is scheduled to take place in India from 8 March to 3 April. The 16 teams have announced their squads, and warm-up games will provide a chance for teams to trial different line-ups. On Friday, South Africa and England will face each other in the first of two Twenty20 International fixtures. So who should the selectors pick?
A new study published in the Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation has provided an optimal team ordering algorithm consisting of three components: team selection, batting order and overs bowled. The research shows that an optimal Twenty20 line-up sometimes calls for non-traditional roles from players.
Below are the optimal line-ups for England and South Africa as given by the researchers’ algorithm, formulated after publication of the original research. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of overs bowled.
| Batting order | South Africa line-up vs. India | South Africa optimised | England line-up vs. Pakistan | England optimised |
| 1 | AB de Villiers† | AB de Villiers | JJ Roy | JM Vince |
| 2 | HM Amla | Q de Kock† | JM Vince | JE Root (3) |
| 3 | F du Plessis | HM Amla | JE Root | EJG Morgan* |
| 4 | JP Duminy* | F du Plessis (4) | MM Ali (4) | AD Hales |
| 5 | F Behardien | R Rossouw | EJG Morgan* | JC Buttler† |
| 6 | DA Miller | DA Miller | JC Buttler† | MM Ali |
| 7 | JA Morkel (4) | JP Duminy* (4) | SW Billings | CR Woakes (4) |
| 8 | CH Morris (2.2) | F Behardien | CR Woakes (4) | BA Stokes (3) |
| 9 | K Rabada (4) | M Morkel (4) | DJ Willey (4) | RJW Topley (2) |
| 10 | KJ Abbott (3) | CH Morris (4) | CJ Jordan (4) | DJ Willey (4) |
| 11 | I Tahir (4) | I Tahir (4) | AU Rashid (4) | CJ Jordan (4) |
| Average differential | +21 runs | +17 runs |
The optimised England line-up is based on data up to and including England’s most recent match against Pakistan on 30 November 2015. Joe Root has been assigned to bowl three overs, whilst players not selected include Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Sam Billings and Jason Roy. Author Tim B. Swartz writes: “This new line-up should be better in terms of run differential by 17 runs on average. There are other close line-ups that would give similar results to our optimal line-up”.
The optimised South Africa line-up is based on data up to and including South Africa’s most recent match against India on 5 October 2015. Jean-Paul Duminy has moved to No. 7 from No. 4, whilst Kagiso Rabada and Kyle Abbott have not been selected. Albie Morkel was omitted as he has not been selected for South Africa’s 16-man ICC World Twenty20 squad, despite being named as Player of the Match against India. The optimised line-up has an average run differential of 21 runs.
The authors conclude that: “This paper provides a powerful methodology for the joint problem of determining team selection, the optimal batting order and the optimal bowling order in Twenty20 cricket. No such work has been previously carried out on this significant problem. Moreover, the approach is based strictly on analytics, avoiding opinion, folklore and tradition.
“It is our hope that papers like this will help promote the adoption of analytics in cricket. Big money is now being spent in leagues such as the IPL, and it is only sensible to make use of the knowledge contained in data”.
Benjamin Hudson, Taylor & Francis
email: benjamin.hudson@tandf.co.uk
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