WI Domestic Season

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JHunter
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Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Inspired by cricket_22001's Bangla Domestic Season thread and aydee's Franchise stats thread, and in continuation of an observation I noted in the Don't let Zimbabwe slip further thread and the Grow the Franchise thread, I've done up an analysis of the West Indian domestic season since the reintroduction of the home-and-away (or double round robin format). The last time WI domestic teams played double round robin first-class cricket was in 2009 (and then that attempt only lasted for the season as in 2008 and 2010 the format was single round robin).

As has been noted elsewhere, the pitches for first-class cricket in the Caribbean have been problematic for some time (and this is something the WICB has recently stated it wants to address) and there has tended to be some fairly low scores at times. Indeed, much like Zimbabwe's last first-class season, this West Indian first-class season has seen scores of 250 or more being racked up in only about a third of all the innings played. However, there seems to have possibly been an effect of the extended season in the penultimate round of matches in the Caribbean as in that round scores of 250 or more occured in a healthy 58% of the total innings and the final round of matches is currently underway with 4 scores currently being 250 or more already in 6 innings (3 of them unfinished still) so far.

Note I include all the innings played including successful chases (even if the targets are small) and fourth innings in drawn matches:


Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----2-----10-----20%-----2072-----207.2-----360-----2-----0
2-----1-----10-----10%-----1622-----162.2-----291-----0-----0
3-----3-----12-----25%-----2246-----187.16-----334-----2-----0
4-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2706-----246-----492/8d-----2-----1

BREAK between December and February for List A tournament

5-----3-----10-----30%-----2201-----220.1-----406/6d-----1-----2
6-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2197-----199.72-----328-----1-----0
7-----3-----12-----25%-----2640-----220-----335/6-----2-----0
8-----4-----12-----33.33%-----2549-----212.41-----353-----2-----0
9-----7-----12-----58.33%-----3062-----255.16-----480-----1-----2

Final round is ongoing but here are the stats so far:

10-----4-----6-----66.67%-----1640-----273.33-----310-----1-----0

It will be interesting to see what the scores are next season if:

1. the home-and-away format is maintained

2. the WICB continues to be able to offer retainer contracts to the 90-odd domestic players in the Professional Cricket League and these players get to focus on cricket year round, meaning they can focus on training for and preparing themselves during the rest of the year for the next first-class season and beyond.

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

So to update the stats now that the first-class league has come to an end (with Guyana winning the title with 8 wins from 10 matches):

Once again note I include all the innings played including successful chases (even if the targets are small) and fourth innings in drawn matches:


Round-----Total scores of 250 or more-----Total Innings-----% of 250+ scores-----Total Runs-----Runs/innings-----Highest score-----300+ scores-----400+ scores

1-----2-----10-----20%-----2072-----207.2-----360-----2-----0
2-----1-----10-----10%-----1622-----162.2-----291-----0-----0
3-----3-----12-----25%-----2246-----187.16-----334-----2-----0
4-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2706-----246-----492/8d-----2-----1

BREAK between December (Round 4) and February (Round 5) for List A tournament

5-----3-----10-----30%-----2201-----220.1-----406/6d-----1-----2
6-----4-----11-----36.36%-----2197-----199.72-----328-----1-----0
7-----3-----12-----25%-----2640-----220-----335/6-----2-----0
8-----4-----12-----33.33%-----2549-----212.41-----353-----2-----0
9-----7-----12-----58.33%-----3062-----255.16-----480-----1-----2
10-----6-----10-----60%-----2724-----272.4-----427-----2-----1

So it can definitely be noticed that the final two rounds saw significant improvements in the batting performances of the teams with over 58% of the innings seeing 250 runs or more in each of the final two rounds. Had the old format been retained there would have been only 5 rounds and by way of proxy we can estimate/guess that the Rounds 1-5 that we saw in this season would be a fair approximation of what we might have seen had this season been played under the old format. In the first 5 rounds scores of 250 or more occurred in only 24.5% of the innings. In the second 5 rounds the scores of 250 or more occurred in 42.1% of the innings.

And now that the season is over, some of the top performers have been included in the twenty man training squad for the upcoming test series against England including batsmen Shai Hope (628 runs @44.85 from 15 innings (1 not out) with a top score of 211 and two centuries and three fifties) and Shane Dowrich (a wicketkeeper; 615 runs @ 51.25 from 15 innings (3 not outs) with a top score of 131* and two centuries and three fifties) and spinners Versammy Permaul (67 wickets @ 14.07) and Devendra Bishoo (61 wickets @ 17.06). Had there only been 5 rounds though the stats for these 4 players would have looked like this:

Shai Hope - 120 runs @ 20 from 6 innings with a top score of 50 and no centuries and one fifty

Shane Dowrich - 293 runs @ 58.6 from 6 innings (one not out) with a top score of 131* and one century and two fifties

Versammy Permaul - 36 wickets @ 10.61

Devendra Bishoo - 24 wickets @ 21.75

As we can see Shai Hope ended up improving vastly (and was probably the find of the tournament) scoring 508 runs in his next 9 innings at an average of 63.5 and getting a double hundred, another score of 111 not out and two fifties. Shane Dowrich's average declined somewhat but he still maintained an above 50 average scoring 322 runs from his next 9 innings at an average of 46 and scoring another century and another fifty.

Had the old format been kept there is little doubt that Shai Hope would have been nowhere near being selected even for the 20 man training squad, much less for a possible A team stint. As it is now, he is possibly on the cusp of a maiden test cap. Dowrich would have possibly gotten a look in, but with only 6 innings to assess from one couldn't be certain that would have been consistent.

Out of the 20 man training squad about 9 or 10 players can be considered as not "current" international players (either new players or players coming back after being dropped) and of these 7 come from the two teams at the top of the league this year (Guyana and Barbados). These two teams in general have provided 12 out of the 20 players in the current training squad and for the most part these are either seasoned and/or proven current international performers (Chanderpaul, Kraigg Brathwaite) or players who did really well in the just concluded first-class series (Shai Hope, Dowrich, Permaul, Bishoo).

IF the WICB can continue to provide the contracts to the 90 contracted domestic players for the year and the players really focus on cricket in a professional way as such retainers should allow them to do, then it might well be that come next season we will see 250+ scores occurring in over 50% of the innings from the beginning of the season rather than in the last two rounds and perhaps we might see a scaling up of the averages with players who now get 45-55 getting 50-60 and players now getting 35-44 getting 40-49. At that point it could be said that the format is producing results and perhaps in a few seasons we might see more consistent performances by West Indian players internationally even if WI doesn't shift a lot in the rankings.

Grzyby15
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Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 12:01 pm

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by Grzyby15 »

Cool, thanks for the update:)

JHunter
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Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

And so, a new season of the Professional Cricket League (PCL) has started in the West Indies.

This is now the first time the teams are going to be playing after what is supposed to have been a year as a professional outfit (with year round training etc).

Minor changes to the League this season have been a new rule by the WICB (for which the regional integration body, CARICOM, through its Cricket Review Panel of the Prime-Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket, has called for the dissolution of and its replacement by an Interim Committee until a new body can be established):

- all teams must now pick at least two players from other territories within the WICB-system as part of their draft picks for the season

This will enable players to get used to other territories and other players long before being picked for a West Indies representative team like West Indies A, the President's XI or the senior West Indies team itself. As all the territories involved (Barbados, Leeward Islands, Jamaica, Windward Islands, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago) are a part of CARICOM's Single Market and Economy or CSME (with the exception of some of the islands in the Leewards such as the US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Sint Maarten - but they rarely produce players that make it beyond the Leewards tournament level anyway; and conversely there are two territories that are a part of the CSME but not a part of the WICB-system: Belize and Suriname ) then this should present little difficulty anyway as the CSME allows for the free movement of "skilled labour" which in the relevant laws includes sportspersons.



The first round of matches started yesterday, November 6th and the scores at stumps were....quite interesting:

Barbados Pride 262/2 (K. Brathwaite 111*, Shamarh Brooks 49*, Shai Hope 77; John Campbell 1-36) v Jamaica Scorpions at Kensington Oval

Trinidad and Tobago Red Force 155/3 (Evin Lewis 66, Narsingh Deonarine 43*, Yannick Cariah 28*; Gavin Tonge 2-38) v Leeward Islands Hurricanes at Warner Park

Guyana Jaguars 287/4 (Rajindra Chandrika 140*, Vishaul Singh 48, Shiv Chanderpaul 34, Leon Johnson 29; Shane Shillingford 3-87) v Windward Islands Volcanoes at Providence


On resumption today Guyana are now 342/7 (Chandrika out for 146, Shillingford with 4-105), T&T are 239/5 (Deonarine out for 55, Cariah out for 50) and Barbados are now 315/5 with Brathwaite out for 119. Brathwaite's century and Shai Hope's half century in the very first innings of the PCL is interesting given how the West Indies test side struggled in Sri Lanka with these two players in the side. Perhaps they may do better in home tests over the next season or two, or perhaps they need to be picked in the West Indies A team for some more overseas experience. Another option of course is to try affording the drafting of overseas players (perhaps on a match-by-match basis) for involvement in the PCL since Brathwaite (and others like him) may be doing well against local bowling but struggling with the overseas bowling.

What is quite interesting is that these are just the first 3 out of a possible maximum of 12 innings in the first round and already we have 2 scores over 300 and another score only a few runs short of breaching the 250 mark. If there ends up being 12 innings and all the other scores are under 250, then this year's first round would resemble last year's third round (and seventh round) in terms of number of 300+ scores and percentage (and number) of innings of 250 runs or more. Which itself is an improvement on last year's first round. However, the way the teams have been scoring thus far it would not surprise me if all the teams batting first made scores of 300-350 and I would not be surprised if the Windwards and Jamaica made replies of 300+ and the Leewards might also reply with a score of 250+. I'll go out on a limb here and tentatively predict that there should be at least 4 scores of 300+ in this round and 5-6 scores of 250 or more overall. And we should get 10-12 innings, thus 40-60% of the scores should be 250 or more (and perhaps an average of 235-245 runs per innings) would be my prediction.

I may well turn out to be wrong of course, but the first day and half worth of play would seem to indicate that at the very least a good third of the scores should be 250 runs or more.

Additionally a woman, Jacqueline Williams became the first female umpire to officiate a men's first class game in the region when the round started.

A note on the names: Some of the names' origins are obvious (Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Jaguars). Some not so much. For T&T, the Red Force name is a moniker that had been used for T&T's cricket team in recent times, mainly for the limited overs cricket (and especially T20 cricket) and refers to the predominate colour on the T&T flag. For Barbados, the Pride moniker is supposed to be a reference both the national flower (the Pride of Barbados flower) and a faint allusion to a pride of lions. For Jamaica, the name is obviously a reference to scorpions but it's likely a name picked by force of circumstance and lack of imagination since Jamaica was the only outfit without a franchise team name in the first season after the franchises were allowed to pick their own names. This speaks poorly of the Jamaica Cricket Association since it should not have taken an entire year to come up with a team name and when such a name was picked it certainly should not have been a name like the Scorpions, since while Jamaica does have scorpions (like most places on the planets), Jamaica is not particularly associated with scorpions. They (the JCA) had apparently tried to get usage rights for the name "Tallawahs" (the name of the separately owned Jamaica outfit in the T20 Caribbean Premier League) but that went nowhere (Tallawah or Talawah by the way is a word used in Jamaica (and Belize) and refers to being full of fight or spirit (see: http://wiwords.com/word/talawah) with a common expression being "likkle but tal(l)awah" mean "short but strong/sturdy/feisty/full of fight"). A safe generic name like Hurricane was already taken by the Leewards, but Tallawah and Hurricane were not the only words available. They could have for instance picked something related to Jamaica's history (like the buccaneers) or its national symbols (an obvious choice being the crocodile (locally called "alligator") which is on the Jamaican coat of arms).

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

And a short update:

All three first innings ended with scores over 300. Guyana made 362, Barbados made 373 and T&T made 325. In reply Windwards are 127/2, Jamaica are 114/2 and Leewards are 55/4 respectively.

The going looks tough for the Leewards, but the Windwards and Jamaica both are in a good position to push on for a score of 250+.

IF either the Windwards or Jamaica make a score of 300 then this would be an improvement on the previous season in that for the entire previous season of the PCL there was never more than 3 scores of 300+ in any one round no matter how many scores of 250 or greater made. Not even in rounds 9 and 10 of last season when there 7 and 6 scores of 250+ respectively were there ever more than 3 scores of 300 or more. This naturally kept limiting the average number of runs per innings since greater scores and greater numbers of greater scores would lift the averages.

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Update:

So after the creditable performance by the teams batting first to all score 300 in the first innings, the batting of the other teams (and perhaps pitch deterioration in the Guyana v Windwards game) has resulted in the usual low scores seen at the start of the recent first-class seasons:

Barbados Pride 373 and 4/0 beat Jamaica Scorpions 189 and 187 by 10 wickets at Kensington Oval

Trinidad and Tobago Red Force 325 beat Leeward Islands Hurricanes 118 and 184 by an innings and 23 runs at Warner Park

Guyana Jaguars 362 and 95 lead Windward Islands Volcanoes 228/9 and 103/7 by 126 runs at Providence

Thus far the first round is shaping to be little different (though with some small improvements in some areas) than the first round of the previous season with a low average number of runs per innings (at the moment the average is about 197 but in the unlikely event that Windwards reach their target this will go up to around 208 which would be not much different than the 207 of last season). The total runs is better now (2168 and ongoing v 2072 of last season), the total scores of 250 or more is better than last season (3 scores of 300+ vs 2 scores of 300+ last season in the first round) and the percentage of 250+ scores is also better (27.27% v 20%) and the highest score of the round is also marginally better (373 v 360).

Train Driver
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by Train Driver »

Do you know if Dwayne Smith is playing this season, I'm not sure if I read he was retiring from 1st class or cricket altogether, watched him a number of times when he was at Sussex, brilliant one day and then lazy and poor the next, a frustrating player

sloandog
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Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by sloandog »

Train Driver wrote:Do you know if Dwayne Smith is playing this season, I'm not sure if I read he was retiring from 1st class or cricket altogether, watched him a number of times when he was at Sussex, brilliant one day and then lazy and poor the next, a frustrating player
But what an eye that man has/had

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

Train Driver wrote:Do you know if Dwayne Smith is playing this season, I'm not sure if I read he was retiring from 1st class or cricket altogether, watched him a number of times when he was at Sussex, brilliant one day and then lazy and poor the next, a frustrating player
He retired from first class cricket in December 2014. So no he is not playing.

And your description is bang on target. He can be a very frustrating player - brilliant today and then the complete opposite the next day. That describes a LOT of the current senior players of the West Indies really. Gayle, Smith, Pollard, Bravo, Sarwan....all of them are or were like that. Which has been a major problem for the WI because the consistent players (Chanderpaul with the bat, sammy with the fielding) have tended to be overburdened and meanwhile new players don't get a proper extended run (like what Bangladesh did with the team they now have that is finally gelling and producing results) because the inconsistent "flash in the pan" performers do just enough brilliance that they keep getting selected on either merit or due to popular pressure to do so (from the old ramnarine led wipa or even politicians and the fan base). Personally I'm cautiously optimistic that the selectors have stuck with the same squad from Sri Lanka for Australia. Will that squad be comprehensively beaten Down Under? Absolutely. But even great teams never just magically appear at the crease and it takes investment. I do hope though that they stop trying to make Shai Hope an opener. He doesn't even open for Barbados, so they should play him lower down. Open with Ramdin if they need to find a way to fit him in. Ramdin used to open sometimes and he can't do any worse than Hope in the opener's slot and it might well give Ramdin's batting a boost.

JHunter
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:12 am

Re: WI Domestic Season

Post by JHunter »

The second round has started and all teams batting first closed the first day on scores between 218 and 247. Hopefully all teams will push on to 250 or more.

The first round ended with Windwards losing to Guyana with a sub-150 score chasing 220+.

Will give a full update in a few days.

EDIT:

All the teams crossed the 250 threshold now with two reaching 300-runs..

Barbados 300 vs T&T (Brooks 111)

Jamaica 259 vs Windwards (McCarthy 92; Sebastien 7/58)

Guyana 306/7 vs Leewards (Singh 150, J Chanderpaul 65; Joseph 4 /65)

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