Stat Attack: Trent Boult, The Second-Innings Day-Time Slayer
It’s still funny to think that before the 2015 World Cup, Trent Boult could hardly get a run in the ODI team. He’d already stepped up as a Test match swing king but the shorter formats were a different story. His first ten ODIs were spread out across 27 months and at that point he averaged 39.60 with just ten wickets… although, to be fair, three of them were on tour in the West Indies, four were away in Sri Lanka and the other three were in Napier and Mount Maunganui – two pretty generous batting wickets.
But Trenty got an extended run against Sri Lanka in the lead in to that World Cup and, after going wicketless in the first two games he played, he very quickly figured it out with a forgotten 4/44 in the game that Luke Ronchi scored 170no in and it was all on from there, chief. 22 wickets at 16.86 in the World Cup, featuring 5/27 against Aussie at Eden Park.
After going without a wicket in five of his first 12 ODIs, he’s since taken at least one scalp in 43 of his subsequent 50 matches, including 21 in a row at one point. And when he unthinkably went three games in a row without on recently (last two games in India and the first vs West Indies), he responded with a brilliant 7/34 – the second best ODI bowling figures by a New Zealander in all history. He added another top tenner with his 5/17 against Pakistan a few weeks later.
Now seems an odd time to be highlighting Boultman’s contributions, right? He just got smashed in the fourth ODI against Pakistan, going for 22 in his final over on his way to 1/73 from ten. The game before that he took 5/17, dipping his career average down to 23.83 (it’s since popped up over 24 again), but backing that up proved a tough task. Having said that, he’s still taken nine wickets in four games and if he bags five in the last game then he ties Andre Adams for the most by a Blackcap in a bilateral series – Adams took 14 against India in 2002-03. That was a seven game series, although Adams only played in four of them. (UPDATE: In typical Lesson fashion, they're resting Boult for the fifth ODI so never mind).
The thing is, we shoulda known that the fourth ODI was gonna be a downer for him. All the evidence was there. For one thing, Boult’s average is more than seven runs better when New Zealand bats first. When he’s bowling in the first innings he’s taken 44 wickets at 28.95. Pretty solid… but when he’s bowling in the second: 69 wickets at 21.28.
He’s the goddamned Second Innings Slayer! That’s not only good… it’s all-time great. Filtered for players with at least 50 wickets in the second innings of games, Boult has the eighth-best second innings bowling average of all time – carrying on the tradition from a certain Sir Richard Hadlee before him. No active player is better, at least not within those qualifications. Even the great man Shane Bond is way back with a paltry 67 wickets at 23.92.
It seems silly to compare him to previous generations when the scoring rates in one day cricket have exploded over the last 10-15 years. Michael Holding never faced T20-educated batsmen in his prime. You couldn’t say Alan Donald, arguably even Murali, did either. And yet those stats stack up.
The other thing counting against Boult in the fourth ODI was that it was a day-nighter. That may sound weird at first, given his proclivities in the second innings of games, but his Day vs Day-Nighter stats are even more dramatically different than his first and second innings numbers. Day-Nighters he’s polished off 51 wickets at 30.74, Day games he’s torn through 62 of them at 18.95. That’s with five extra D/Ners too. Multiply those two trends and we’re in some crazy territory…
- Day Game & Batting First: 18 Gm | 50 Wkt | 14.20 Ave | 18.3 SR | 7/34 BBI
- Day Game & Bowling First: 10 Gm | 12 Wkt | 38.75 Ave | 46.5 SR | 3/34 BBI
- D/N Game & Batting First: 17 Gm | 19 Wkt | 39.94 Ave | 46.6 SR | 4/44 BBI
- D/N Game & Bowling First: 16 Gm | 32 Wkt | 25.28 Ave | 28.6 SR | 5/27 BBI
The trend kinda reverses itself in day-nighters, suggesting that Boult is at his peak somewhere between the hours of 2.00-5.30pm (although that wasn’t the case in that most recent one – 73 runs from his ten overs is tied-third most he’s ever conceded in a game), but then the stats in that first category are so immense that it makes up for everything else.
It’d be interesting to know how much he changes his approach when bowling to a total. Run-rate pressure helps create mistakes and the Blackcaps have made a focus of getting firepower into the top of their batting order to reach some lofty scores (the intention hasn’t always lived up to the outcome). Or whether there’s something more comfortable about getting into those day matches without having to waste a morning waiting and warming up. But when you filter every player that’s ever lobbed a ball down the wicket in anger during an ODI for second innings averages in day games with at least ten games played (to get rid of the fluke artists), the best bowler within those confines is… Lou Vincent. Who once took 1/0 from a single over against South Africa in Cape Town. Alrighty then.
However you change one of the criteria from ‘matches played’ to ‘innings bowled in’ and Trent Boult comes out atop the rest of humanity. 50 wickets at 14.20 will do that for ya. It’s almost too specific of a classification to be worth anything, especially when the next two blokes are Rashid Khan from Afghanistan and Alex Cusack from Ireland. Almost… but it’s more fun this way.
Time for one last little novelty. Trent Boult, as nobody will be surprised to hear, is very successful when bowling in Aotearoa. 81 wickets at 20.79 in NZ and 32 wickets at 33.09 outside of the motherland. Thanks to a home World Cup and the local propensity for ODI cricket he’s played 15 more games at home than elsewhere yet the averages do more than enough to dispel that. All four of his 5+ wicket hauls have come in New Zealand. Three of his five four-fors as well.
That much is predictable. Most seamers who can swing it a little enjoy the conditions down here. Shane Bond averaged 20.88 overall (legend) and took that down to 19.17 in Aotearoa. Alan Donald took 15 wickets at 22.20 here, Javagal Srinath took 43 at 17.44, Chaminda Vaas took 29 at 17.89, Waqar Younis took 29 at 21.34, Brett Lee took 19 at 22.57, Glen McGrath took 21 at 24.76… and then there was the devastating Wasim Akram who, in 20 games in New Zealand, took 37 wickets at 15.45.
Or how about Matt Henry who averages 17.88 in Aotearoa and 34.61 outside of it? Almost double. That’s not actually a trend that follows through most seamers from NZ, you don’t need to look any further than Boult’s new ball partner Tim Southee for proof of that – Timmy’s got 80 wickets at 36.17 in NZ and 94 at 29.91 elsewhere. Southee’s also better when fielding first and in day-nighters, so… a perfect opening combo then. Between them they’ve got every circumstance covered.
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