Save Martin Guptill A Seat At The Table Of The ODI Elite
Contrary to common media opinion, Martin Guptill does not go out and score ODI tons because he thinks it’ll get him back in the Test team… he scores ODI tons because he’s one of the finest ODI batsmen on the damn planet.
It’s a bit of an anomaly how average a Test player he’s been despite being genuinely world class in the fifty over stuff but that’s not a narrative that need to enter into this conversation. This is all about ODI Guppy and ODI Guppy is a sight to behold – anyone at Seddon Park last week knows that first hand.
See, Martin Guptill pretty famously tonned up at Eden Park on ODI debut. 122 not out against the Windies, with a couple of towering sixes in there. It was a sign of things to come but it’d actually be a while before we saw that from him again. A few scrapping fifties followed, the odd decent knock. The next year he helped the kiwis sweep Bangladesh at home but on the way to a man of the match award in the final game he holed out to long off for 91. In fact by the time he scored his second ODI century in Harare against Zimbabwe he’d batted 51 times with 12 half-tons. Really solid average of 36.57 but nothing overly special… yet.
If there was a point at which things changed for him it was probably the 2013 tour of England. Back to back One Day centuries, 103* at Lords and then 189* in Southampton, showed exactly what he could do. That second knock broke the record for the highest ODI score by a NZer as The Gup carried his bat on the way to a first innings total of 359/3, pretty much winning the series there and then for the Blackcaps (they made sure of it by bowling the Poms out for 273, thus taking a 2-0 lead in the three-match series).
But that was more a matter of setting the bar for himself and the real test of the world's best is consistency. Guptill then went through that notorious spell of form where it’d take him fifteen overs to find his timing. When he batted through that early grind he’d usually catch his strike rate up to something close to a run a ball but when he didn’t, that’s when we saw those 2 off 17, 8 off 23, 5 off 29 sorts of innings. He scored 111 against India at Eden Park in early 2014 but leading into the World Cup he didn’t exactly look a hundie. In a seven match preparation series against Sri Lanka he copped three ducks (he has 12 of those in his ODI career, always susceptible to the early loosie).
Then the World Cup began.
You already know the story there. Top run scorer at the competition, double century in the quarter final, etc. But how about these stats, measuring from the first game of the World Cup onwards until today. Hey, it’s a bit of a random start date but we used it for that wicket-keeping thing the other week and it works here too. It’s handy for Guppy coz of all the runs he scored at that tourney but then all the best players on the planet were there trying to match him so fair enough.
MOST ODI RUNS SINCE START OF 2015 WORLD CUP:
First thing that catches the eye on that list is you can make an extremely convincing argument that these are the ten best limited overs batsmen on the planet. That they’re the ones scoring all the runs shows those reputations are well earned. Virat Kohli would probably be higher had India put more of a focus on ODIs lately but with only 29 innings he's at a disadvantage. That average is top class though – there’s nobody with at least a dozen innings whose number is better than that who isn’t already on this list. (Btw, Ross Taylor averages 51.29 with five 100s in the timeframe – 1231 runs in 31 innings).
If you’re handing out a championship belt, it doesn’t go to Guptill. Nah, as much as any hot-blooded Aotearoa native hates to admit it, you cannot overlook what David “Davie” Warner has done lately. He tonned up twice in the Aussie leg of the Chappell-Hadlees and that’s only the beginning of it - he has seven centuries since September 2016 and he didn’t even play the CHs in New Zealand.
Warner's last 15 ODI scores:
106 (in SL), 48 (vs IRE), 40, 50, 117, 6, 173 (in SA), 24, 119, 156 (vs NZ), 7, 16, 35, 130, 179 (vs PAK)
That’s just bloody ridiculous. Plus he hasn’t scored a duck since November 2014, what kind of wizardry is that!? Not to mention that conversion rate. Only ten players have five or more tons since the start of the last World Cup and Warner has 10 of the buggers (the rest of them are all on the list except for Rossco).
But you can certainly make the case for Guptill as the next best, which is insane to think about, given the batting hierarchy amongst kiwi fans obviously favours Kane Williamson with Ross Taylor coming up a close second. Guptill’s not even considered one of the top two batters on his own team… which might be a point of view worth reconsidering, at least for the fiddies.
As far as hundreds go, Guptill’s seven are next best to Warner. Only du Plessis has more scores of 50+ (19), with Steve Smith tied next with Gup having topped 50 a total of 18 times… with fewer tons, one may add. Then of course there’s the strike-rates which are thoroughly dominated by ABDV but for an opener like Guptill to score that many runs at more than a run a ball is magnificent in its own right.
Oh and if you’re wondering, Guppy’s hit 76 sixes in that time which is way out beyond the second best of 55 from ABDV. Eoin Morgan’s hit 48 of them and Warner’s 41 are fourth, a full 35 fewer than the Gupmeister.
We already know that his stats fly with any New Zealander who’s played ODI cricket. Fifth in total runs with a good chunk of his career remaining. Third in centuries. He now famously has the three highest scores a New Zealander has ever managed. The point here is not that Martin Guptill is a great kiwi batsman though. The point is that he’s a great batsman, full stop. Right up there amongst the very best.
Just, you know, keep that in mind.