Following on from our analysis on both England and India - links to which you can find at the end of this page - it's time to set our sights on the number 1 ranked team in the world, World Test Champions New Zealand.
As usual, let's start with the batting. Whilst they are probably strongest in the bowling department, you don't get to be world number one without some quality batting as well. The Black Caps have been blessed with a number of good batsmen over the course of their rise to the top of the world rankings, and can also boast the number one batsman in the world in captain Kane Williamson.
For our analysis we use ball by ball data from each of New Zealand's test matches starting with their tour of the Zimbabwe in 2016, and concluding with the World Test Championship final contested a couple of months ago. The data is then run through our regression based player ratings system which aims to give an indication of a player's quality whilst also controlling for the strength of the opposition - for batsmen this effectively means that batting well against someone like James Anderson is worth more than it would be for, say, a part-time bowler such as Joe Root.
This then gives us a summary of New Zealand's batting over the last 5 years, which we'll discuss in more detail below. For now there a few things to note. Firstly, our model has an adjustable weight that allows us to place more emphasis on either scoring runs or wicket preservation - we have chosen to order the players using a weight that puts a little more emphasis on wicket preservation to reflect the importance of retaining your wicket in test cricket, especially when compared to the shorter formats of the game. In the final column, however, we have included the rankings for when we weight towards run scoring. This adds some important context around some batsmen - often in the lower order - who are valued for the ability to score their runs quickly.
We have also included a 'Rating' column - which is a normalised version of the raw output we get from the model. Whilst the numbers themselves are arbitrary, they function well as a means to understand the relative strengths of the respective batsmen.
Lastly, we have imposed a minimum qualification criteria of 10 innings in the timeframe we are looking at. Here are the results:
As you might expect, Kane Williamson tops the list, and this is the case regardless of how we weight the ratings. His average of 61 over the qualifying speaks for itself, and there is no question that he stands as one of the best batsmen in the world at the moment, and one New Zealand's finest players of all time
Things get a little bit more unexpected when we look further down the list, however, initially with BJ Watling sitting in second place. There are a few factors at play here - firstly, it should be noted that our model does not place any weight on more recent games, so his poor recent form is not dragging him down as much as it might do for an alternative ranking system.
Secondly, we know that Watling - when in form - is notoriously difficult to dismiss, which makes him an extremely valuable asset in test cricket. The flipside of this is that he doesn't have as wide a range of shots as others on the list, which is reflected in the fact that he drops to 5th when we weight towards run-scoring.
Finally, Watling has generally spent his test career facing relatively high quality bowling when compared to some of those below him - the average ball Watling has faced has been from a bowler averaging 32 - and so on average he has had to deal with tougher bowling than the likes of Taylor (34), Nicholls (35) or Latham (36).
There is not a lot to separate Blundell, who sits in third, from Watling. Whilst they have similar averages, Blundell has faced slightly better bowling and Watling is better at protecting his wicket. If we weight towards run-scoring then we see Blundell leapfrog Watling into second. It's a little surprising to see Blundell to come in as high as he does here, but he has generaly spent his test career facing high quality bowling from the likes of Australia, India and England so he has done well to maintain an average as high as 38. That being said, more recent failures against West Indies and Pakistan mean that it is difficult to argue that he should be selected over more established members of the side.
Speaking of established players, from 4th to 6th we have Nicholls, Latham and Taylor - all solid player who average in the mid 40s. They have had more of a chance to face weaker bowling than the two names directly above them, but generally they have taken advantage and have all been vital in getting the team to where they are now. Whilst it's a little bit unexpected to see Taylor in 6th here, it is mainly down to the weighting we are using to assess the batsmen and if we weight towards run-scoring - which he excels at - we see him jump up to 3rd place.
Next we have Raval, who made his debut in 2016 and had a promising start to his career, but has struggled greatly since 2018 and it seems unlikely he'll win his place back any time soon. Similarly, we have Guptill a little lower down - the data only captures the very end of his test career but it does highlight just how poor he was in the latter days of his stint in the side.
Lastly, we round up the list with a note on the all-rounders at the bottom of the list - Santner, de Grandhomme and Southee. Santner comes out at the best batsman of the three, and de Grandhomme ridiculous strike rate of 81 pushes him up the list when we weight towards run-scoring. Obviously, as all-rounders, they also bring their skills with the ball to the table, so it feels harsh to judge them on this alone and we'll gain a clearer picture of their contribution once we have run the bowling analysis.
Thanks for reading! This article is part of a series in which we apply our player ratings system to each major test playing nation in turn in order to gain more of an understanding of their batting and bowling options respectively - please check out the other articles if you haven't already:
New Zealand - Batting | Bowling
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