After our review of the 2019/20 Test season, it's now time to turn our attention to the One Day game. Once again we'll be looking at the period between 1st April 2019 and 31st March 2020, so this excludes last week's series between England and Ireland. As always, we'll be looking at the year through the lens of our own regression-based models, which we use for ranking both teams and players.
TEAM PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS OVERVIEW
The following table shows the Heavy Bail ODI rankings as of 31st March 2020, including a comparison to the same date in 2019. Also included are the ICC rankings as of 31st March 2020 - for more information on Heavy Bail's ranking system as well as how it differs from the ICC's method, please click here.
England's World Cup triumph - albeit by the barest of margins - was enough to ensure they remained as our number 1 ranked team at the end of the season. India follow closely behind, however, and they may very well have ended the year on top if it weren't for a 3-0 series defeat to New Zealand in February. In fact, in our most up to date rankings, India do indeed take the top spot - this is due to a combination of older results falling out of the qualifying period, as well as a damaging to defeat for England at the hands of Ireland.
Among the top sides there were no major movement in the rankings. New Zealand leapfrogged South Africa after a year of contrasting fortunes, and Sri Lanka jump two spots to 8th after they followed up a respectable World Cup campaign with series wins over Bangladesh and West Indies. They swapped positions with Afghanistan, who had a dreadful season - losing all 9 games at the World Cup before falling 3-0 to West Indies.
Ireland hold on to their position as "the best of the rest", but it's the emergence of Oman which is perhaps most exciting. They enjoyed consistently good results against their rival associates, and are perhaps positioning themselves as the next big associate breakthrough. They'll be hoping to maintain this trajectory to earn the chance to test themselves against tougher opposition in the not-so-distant future.
Finally on the rankings, in a somewhat rare occurrence, our ranking system agrees completely with that of the ICC for all of the top 11 ranked teams. Lower down we do start to see some differences - although these partly stem from differences in methodology, we also have more stringent qualification criteria that means a team like Netherlands, for example, doesn't earn a Heavy Bail ranking but does get onto the ICC table.
INDIVIDUAL PLAYER PERFORMANCE
Our player ranking system looks at every single delivery over the qualifying period and uses multiple regression models to generate a ranking for all the players. This takes into account their overall performance and is weighted against the strength of their opponent. More details can be found in the link above.
Batsmen
The following table shows the top 10 batsmen according to our model, with different versions based on alternate weightings between wickets and runs. To qualify, a batsman must have played a minimum of 10 innings in the qualifying period.
Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan is the pick of the bunch here. He had a superb World Cup with the bat, earning overdue plaudits from fans and pundits alike and there's no arguing with his raw figures - an average of 83 at a strike rate of 96.
As World Champions, it should be no surprise to see a number of England players make their way onto the list. Jason Roy is the standout opener of the year, with a number of superb individual performances during the World Cup. Buttler's superior strike rate of 133 sees him ranked at the top when we place more emphasis on scoring rates, and Eoin Morgan also earns a place in this list. Ben Stokes' general brilliance ensures he ranks highly in the first two columns, and Jonny Bairstow manages to creep in at the bottom. With such a high quality and varied batting lineup, it's not difficult to see how England have become such a formidable side.
Elsewhere in the list there are a few familiar names that you'd expect to see in any 'best of' lists. Sharma, Williamson and Babar Azam are all widely recognised as top class batsmen, and have delivered the performances to back up their reputation. Additionally, Glenn Maxwell's hyper-aggressive style ensures he makes it into the third column despite only averaging 22.
A couple of surprise names feature in the name of Pakistani pair Sarfraz Ahmed and Haris Sohail, both of whom our model ranks amongst the top 5 ODI batsmen of the year. At first glance there is little remarkable about their performances over the year - both average around 40 with strike rates in the mid 90s. For comparison, West Indian Sunil Ambris has near identical raw figures yet is ranked well outside the top 50 by our model. So how, exactly, have these two guys made it so far up our rankings?
Well, firstly it must be clarified what our model is attempting to measure - that being a measure of raw batting quality, weighted against the quality of bowling they have faced. With this in mind, it perhaps makes more sense to reframe the question and ask, "If these players are computed to be such high quality batsmen, then why are their raw numbers so underwhelming?"
The answer lies in the method of dismissal - specifically run outs. We consider running between the wickets to be independent of raw batting quality and, as such, run outs do not count against batsmen. Both of these players have had a tendency to get run out throughout the year. Sohail has been run out three times in 10 innings, and Sarfraz four in 14.
If you remove the run outs, both of these batsmen would be averaging in the 70s for the year. Add to that the fact that they played a 5 match series against top-ranked England, as well as a host of top sides in the World Cup, and their positions in our ranking system make a lot more sense. The model has identified some great underlying batting talent with this pair which has unfortunately been undermined by some poor running.
Finally on the batting - a shout out to Aqib Ilyas, Omani batsman, who comes in at 6th in the left hand column by virtue of an excellent average of 69. His relatively low strike rate (81) and the weak quality of his opposition (Nepal, USA, UAE, etc.) mean that he doesn't make more of an impact elsewhere in the table, but there is no doubt he has been a crucial factor in driving Oman upwards in the team rankings.
Bowlers
Next, we have the bowlers. To qualify, a bowler must have bowled at least 60 overs in the qualifying period.
Straight away we see that South African bowler, Lungi Ngidi - or to use his superb full name: Lungisani True-man Ngidi - dominates our rankings. He did the bulk of his bowling against recognised batsmen from high quality opposition, and still managed to come out towards the top of the averages.
Most impressive was the quality of his wickets - of the 19 that he took in the qualifying period, 7 of them were of batsmen who feature somewhere in our top 10 batsmen above, and that doesn't even include his dismissals of Australians Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Alex Carey. At just 24, South African fans can be very excited with the prospect they've got on their hands.
Just below Ngidi we see a couple of Pakistani bowlers, in Mohammad Amir and Shaheen Afridi. Amir put in consistently strong performances throughout the year against various high quality opponents, the pick of which being an impressive 5-30 in a World Cup match against Australia.
Shaheen Afridi had a poor start to the year, going for a total of 245 runs in just three games against England. This led to him being left out of Pakistan's early games in the World Cup, but he was spectacular upon being recalled. He took 16 wickets in 5 games during the tournament and, given how narrowly Pakistan missed out on the knockout stages, one wonders whether he might have made the difference had he been in the team from the start.
India's Mohammed Shami also had a strong World Cup, although like Afridi he struggled to maintain a place in the side. Despite taking 14 wickets in 4 games in the Group phase, he was left out of the semi-final match against New Zealand which India went on to lose. Since the World Cup he has continued his good form, with solid performances in series against both West Indies and Australia.
Elsewhere on the list we have New Zealand's Lockie Ferguson, who had an excellent World Cup and established himself as one of the best ODI fast bowlers out there, with teammate Jimmy Neesham also turning some impressive spells with the ball. Liam Plunkett's superb bowling in the middle overs makes him England's standout performer, and there are also places for South Africa's Chris Morris and India's Bhuvneshwar Kumar across the table. Mitchell Starc also earns a place in the top 10, although a tough tour of India saw him fall away from the top 3 spot he earned during the World Cup.
As with our Test rankings, there is a distinct lack of spinners on our list. We noted then that it merits discussion as to whether this represents a wider decline in the quality of spin bowling in general, and with international cricket starting to get back into full flow, it's certainly something to keep an eye on.
And finally, we have Saurabh Netravalkar, the Indian-born captain of the United States team. Over the year he's put in some excellent performances, leaving him with an incredible average of 16.68 and a perhaps even more impressive economy of 3.26. That these performances were against the relatively tame opposition of the likes of Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Scotland hasn't stopped him being catapulted to a brilliant 4th place in the right hand column of our rankings.
Heavy Bail's ODI 2019-20 World XI
And now for our 2019-20 World XI. These are the top performers according to the model, with additional discretion applied to ensure a balance between wicket-taking/preservation and run rate/economy. As with the Test World XI, there were some difficult decisions to make, so we've included some reserves to make up a squad of 18:
JJ Roy
RG Sharma
KS Williamson
Shakib Al Hasan
BA Stokes
JC Buttler
Sarfraz Ahmed (wk)
Mohammad Amir
LH Ferguson
Mohammed Shami
L Ngidi
Reserves: DA Warner, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, GJ Maxwell, JDS Neesham, Shaheen Shah Afridi, LE Plunkett
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