The World Cup is coming to a close, and there have been some fantastic individual performances throughout the tournament. Mitchell Starc has been the star with the ball, taking 27 wickets, way ahead of the next best - Mustafizur Rahman on 20. With just the final to play, the runs chart is topped by Rohit Sharma, who scored an incredible 5 centuries on his way to 648 runs, just a single run ahead of Australian opener David Warner. Shakib Al-Hasan was the next best with the bat, and also picked up 11 wickets at 36 apiece, making him the standout all-round performer.
Our player rating system looks at the outcome of every ball bowled in the group stages of the tournament, and generates ratings based on a combination of two factors. For batters these are how well they preserve their wicket, and how quickly they score runs. For bowlers these are how well they keep the runs down, and how much of a wicket taking threat they have been.
These player ratings use regression modelling to account for the quality of their opposition, which means that, for example, the wicket of David Warner is worth more to the bowler than that of, say, Mark Wood, and that runs scored off Jasprit Bumrah are worth more than those scored off poor old Rashid Khan.
The model also allows us to adjust the weighting we place on run-scoring or wicket preservation. Here we look at the batters, using three different weighting values to assess their performance in the group stage.
We've also imposed a qualification criteria - a batter must have either faced 250 balls or scored 250 runs to qualify. In the below table we can see the rankings for a few different values for our weighting metrics. Note that in the first and third column, where we have weighted the ratings towards one of the two attributes respectively, the other attribute still has some influence. This means that, for example, someone like Hardik Pandya, who scored 226 runs with an impressive strike rate but didn't manage to preserve his wicket effectively, misses out on the top 10 even when we place emphasis on run scoring.
Let's take a look at the first column. New Zealand's Kane Williamson tops the list as being the hardest batsman to dislodge throughout the tournament. Looking at his stats, this is hardly surprising - with 91.3 he has the highest batting average of the tournament, and only David Warner faced more balls. Shakib being up there is also no surprise, having made over 600 runs in the tournament, only failing to pass 50 in one out of his eight innings. His rating is also boosted by scoring a wonderful century against England, including having had to face 26 deliveries from the deadly Jofra Archer. He also faced plenty of balls from high quality bowlers such as Amir and Ferguson.
Alex Carey is in at three. Whilst he initially caught attention for his quick runs down the order, he has also proved very difficult to get out, even by some of the stronger bowling attacks. In the group stage games against India and England, he finished not out on both occasions, and he produced a resolute 46 in the semi-final, all of which boosted his wicket-preservation rating.
At fifth we have Babar Azam, who scored an impressive 474 runs, but Rohit Sharma is an interesting case. One might have thought he would be closer to the top - he has the most runs after all. However, on closer inspection, we found that he didn't face as many high quality bowlers as some of his rivals - he piled on the runs against the weaker attacks of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and he only faced 8 balls from Mohammed Amir in his century against Pakistan. Also counting against him are the bowlers that got him out. That list includes Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Kasun Rajitha, and Nathan Coulter-Nile - none of whom had a great tournament with the ball otherwise. Losing his wickets to these weaker bowlers hurts his wicket-preservation a bit, but his sheer weight of runs keeps him up there as one of the standout performers.
Another interesting entry here is Ross Taylor. He only has 335 runs, and has seemed to have had a relatively quiet tournament. The last two of his eight dismissals, however, have been run outs. These were both against high quality opposition - England and India - which means that he has not been dismissed by any of their bowling attack. This is crucial as it indicates that - assuming he doesn't get run out again - he could prove very difficult to dismiss and could be one to watch in Sunday's final.
Moving onto the middle column, where we weight run-scoring and wicket-preservation equally, we can see a few changes. Sharma moved up to fourth, having scored his runs at nearly a run a ball, and Williamson drops to fifth - with his runs only coming at a strike rate of 76. This does mean, however, that we have a new leader - England's Jason Roy. Roy averages 71 with a formidable strike rate of 117. Whilst his huge century against Bangladesh has a big part to play here, his three rapid fifties against the very strong bowling attacks of India, New Zealand and Australia catapult him to the top.
Mushfiqur Rahim moves up to eighth, having been tenth in the first column. He has somewhat slipped under the radar during the tournament - with the focus largely on Shakib - but our model suggests that he's perhaps been underrated. He's dealt very well with a lot of high quality bowlers in games against South Africa, England and, most impressively, Australia, where he hit an unbeaten century which included 25 runs off 22 balls from Mitchell Starc.
With even more emphasis placed on run rate, it is little surprise to see Roy retain top spot in the third column, with Alex Carey not far behind. Shakib and Sharma slip down a bit but along with Roy and Carey, are the only batsman to reach the top ten in all three lists. Buttler, Morgan and Perera all enter here, all having strike rates of over 110 - Buttler's 130 is particularly impressive. Rounding out the list are Finch, Hetmyer and Pooran, all of whom made plenty of runs at over a run a ball.
Finally, it's worth taking a little look at a couple of surprising absentees from our list. Jonny Bairstow has been amongst the highest run scorers in this tournament, and has maintained an impressive strike rate of 96. A few things count against him in our list though; he was out in all 10 of his innings, which drops his average to 49.6 - whilst this is still impressive, it falls behind a lot of the other star performers in the tournament. He also scored many of his runs off the spinners who on the whole were poor throughout the tournament, and the bowlers that dismissed him include some particularly weak performers. As well as getting out to Gulbadin Naib, Wahab Riaz and Imran Tahir, he was also one of only two victims claimed by Shannon Gabriel and, most damningly, was the only victim all tournament of Mashrafe Mortaza, who ended with a tournament average of 361.
Another surprise omission is India captain and number one batsman in the world, Virat Kohli. He had a solid tournament and like Bairstow, had both a good average and strike rate, but it wasn't a spectacular one. Of his five fifties, two of them came from the weak attacks of Afghanistan and West Indies, and even against Australia and Pakistan he was picking up most of his runs from largely unthreatening bowlers such as Wahab Riaz, Hasan Ali, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Marcus Stoinis.
The bowler rankings will follow shortly - and once the final is played both rankings will be updated and we'll try to put together a 'World Cup XI'.
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