Do Test batsmen need time to rediscover their art?

How scoring develops as a Test series unfolds…

Something’s been nagging away at me for some months now. And the abbreviated Lord’s Test match between England and New Zealand saw it surge to the surface once again.

What we witnessed at HQ was a series opener where both batting sides appeared to have forgotten what’s required for red-ball batting. Particularly leaving. And where both sides then calmed down to a panic in the third and fourth innings, and suddenly found that getting past 150 wasn’t so difficult after all. (Just ask centurion Daryl Mitchell, below)

Photo: New Zealand Cricket on Twitter (@blackcaps)

While the vagaries of the Lord’s conditions played their part, the question that’s been bugging me got a new lease of life from this game’s narrative. And here it is: In an era where so many players tumble out of jets hailing from lucrative white-ball leagues and plough straight into the cauldron of Test cricket, might what happened at Lord’s represent a pattern?

Consider: It’s also an era where tour matches are getting rarer and rarer – on top of a Test fixture list that can be very thin if you’re from a financial minnow like, say, South Africa. When at least some of these factors collide, could it be that batting ‘properly’ in the first couple of innings of a series is becoming an impossible challenge more often than not?

It seems a plausible enough hypothesis, on the face of it. Look at what happened to the aforementioned Proteas on their New Zealand trip earlier this year. Their dismissal for 95 in the first innings of the series had everything to do with the worst possible ‘preparation’. After that, they proved they weren’t that bad. Case in point?

Sure, bowlers also have to cope with a range of new demands as they enter a Test series in the 2020s (the decade, not the format), but their art is by nature far more forgiving. They can make mistakes and still hone their way to a better second spell. Not so the batters, who need to summon up a particular brand of muscle memory in a hurry – or risk an express ticket back to the sheds.

Stats stasis

Plausible enough though the theory might appear, I stumbled finding evidence in its favour.

With third and fourth innings so hard to compare, I began by comparing first/second innings average scores in the first Test of all multi-test series with the corresponding numbers in the subsequent Tests. And, working on the theory that the decline of civilisation (including Test cricket, obviously) took its next great leap with the arrival of the pandemic, I looked at Tests since the mighty global sport pause of early 2020 as my sample.

Discounting Lord’s (series incomplete) and one-match series (including the WTC final), that added up to 72 games. A decent enough set, I reckon.

Perhaps I don’t belong in the pantheon of masterful statisticians, but I could find no way of massaging the figures to suit my hypothesis. In first innings where sides were dismissed since July 2020, the average score was 295.63. In the corresponding innings for second tests and beyond, they actually averaged less: 290.94. And there was nothing subtle when it came to comparing the second innings of matches: 332.18 in first Tests plays 251.22 in the Tests that followed.

I tried looking at runs per wicket, so I could slightly widen the sample to include innings that were declared. But again, the only deviation worthy of mention was a sharp decline (from 34,78 to 26,35) in Tests beyond the series opener.

What if I just counted up sub-150 dismissals in the first two innings – in other words, the truly terrible days at the batting office? Well, I can tell you that since the initial pandemic break, it’s happened five times out of a possible 58 in opening Tests. And 13 times out of a possible 86 in subsequent contests. That’s 15.11% of the time later in a series, as opposed to 8.6% of the time in the opener.

Here’s a screenshot of those sub-150 dismissals since Round 1 of Covid. (Eng v NZ 2022 excluded from stats above. Source: espncricinfo)

If we take all this as a basis, batsmen have in fact been more likely to implode as a series goes on. Or, if you prefer, bowlers have worked them out and gotten into their strides as a series continues.

As we all know, cricket is not a test tube (although a Test tube would be St John’s Wood or Oval, surely…) and there are dozens of ifs and buts we could get into here: selections, playing conditions, fitness, etc. And, if I wanted to spend a week down this rabbit hole, I could break down the results by the amount of time off/T20 time involved for the batting unit in the lead-up to the first Test. Maybe, with a bigger sample, you might find a different pattern.

But given that I’ve got a golf tournament to pack for – I’m off to report from the controversial, divisive LIV event at Centurion on Thursday – I’m stopping at the limited scratching I’ve done so far. And that scratching forces me to temper any expectations that New Zealand or England will produce more convincing first innings displays in Nottingham from Friday.

But at least I’ve silenced that nagging voice for a while!

Random bonus extra

You know what rabbit holes are like: many’s the time you get drawn into a side warren.

And so it was that towards the end of this statistical journey, I found myself looking at sub-100 scores for the different innings of Test matches. And this time with a sample beginning in June 2008 – all Test cricket since the conclusion of the inaugural IPL, in other words.

In the first and second innings of a Test, you can expect a score of 100 or less roughly 2.5% of the time. There’s a tiny improvement from 2,56% to 2,41% from the first to second innings – perhaps because seeing your opposition collapse focuses the mind when it’s your turn. (Unless you’re England and it’s Thursday last week, of course.)

In the third innings, however, that number drops to 1,59%, giving some credence to the notion that most things are easier second time around. Even adjusting for the regularity with which sides bat without pressure as they knock it around for a lead in the third innings, that’s quite an improvement. After all, just as many teams go out there with an innings defeat hanging over their heads.

And the fourth innings? Here’s where conventional wisdom gets a nod: chances of a sub-100 dismissal rise to 6,41%. (Obviously, this percentage is only measured against successful

Chases over 100. It’s fine to score 34 when that’s the target.)

Not sure what any of that proves, but hey, I thought you might enjoy it!

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