A case for data that goes beyond mere numbers

At 6 for 86, Pat Cummins came in to bat. Andre Russell, the Sydney Thunder's expensive T20 master, had just played an innings where his last three balls were a series of shots he was not in control of. The Thunder were falling apart, and Russell's wicket was followed by another one, meaning that Cummins had to bat in the 12th over.

Unlike Russell, Cummins supported the in-form Ryan Gibson, who had been starved of the strike by wickets at the other end. The two started to rebuild an innings that had very nearly lost the plot, and then, when they were back on solid ground, hit out. Cummins' batting choices were better than Russell's too: instead of trying to hit every ball for six, no matter where the ball was, he waited for deliveries that were in his strike zones.

When a slower ball entered his slot, he knocked it into the crowd. He cleared his front leg well to slog sweep for another six. One last one in the slot disappeared over midwicket. And when he was finally out, his original 8 off nine balls had ballooned to 30 off 20. Clint McKay got a couple away in his short innings as well, an accidental four and a muscled six.

So what you have is your No. 8 playing the role of your No 6, and your No. 9 playing the role of your No. 8. They totaled 44 from their 31 balls and were the difference between no score and a decent score for the Thunder.

The Sixers' chase was almost taken over by Jason Roy, on a one-man mission to see how far he could hit the ball. But when he was out, to a beautiful bit of deception from a Russell slower ball, Moises Henriques came to the crease for the last few deliveries of the Powerplay. Russell decided, even with the fine-leg up, that he was going to bowl very fast right at him straight away. He did, and Henriques was late on the hook and got only an edge, which ballooned very slowly towards leg slip.

McKay was the man on the end of it. He made superb ground to the ball, but when he got there, it was as if he wasn't sure how to complete the catch. The ball trickled away. Russell got a consolation high five from a fielder for producing the error. The game went on and so did the partnership.

Both batsmen were still together in the 13th over when McKay was bowling to Henriques. McKay went short at Henriques again, almost like it was a plan, and Henriques tried a big pull but just skied it towards the circle. Two fielders attacked the ball: Cummins from midwicket and Russell from long-on. The ball was in the air a long time; it always looked like Russell's catch, but it was Cummins who tried to take it by running back and looking over his shoulder. It was Cummins who didn't catch it.

It was Henriques who should have been out first ball, caught McKay, bowled Russell. It was Henriques who should have been out 25th ball for 28, caught Russell, bowled McKay. It was Henriques who was not out 76 off 41, hitting the winning runs for the Sixers.

You have four guys. Henriques makes a big score quickly and, in key overs where he attacks, he takes it from a potentially tricky chase to a stroll with controlled quality hitting. But he should have been out twice, both times a clear plan and a weakness showed up.

Then you have Cummins, who saved the innings with sensible batting and hit out well to pump the score up to something he and his bowlers could bowl at. His first over was quality, in his second Roy got after him as can happen in a Powerplay, and then his third over Henriques faced five balls and took him for 20.

Now with McKay, you have someone not expecting to bat facing far more balls than usual, batting with the No. 10 for the last over, and getting away two boundaries. His first over is taken for ten, but he starts his second over with the ball that should have dismissed Henriques. Instead he ends the over getting smashed for two more fours and not bowling again.

Finally we have Russell, who in his last three balls was crazy. One was an edge that was safe; one was a mis-hit that was safe and then one was an edge that was out. With the ball it was Russell who dismissed Roy, it was Russell who should have taken Henriques' wicket first ball and then his catch later on. Instead, he ended up with 1/27 off his four overs and the second-best economy rate of the night.

So here is the problem, I watched the game, I watched some highlights, and I read the scorecard, but I have no way of accurately saying with numbers how well any of these guys actually played. How much impact they made, positively or negatively for their side.

If you look at Cummins, he more than doubled his highest score, hit three sixes. Before today he had made 79 runs from 87 balls. So he is a weak No. 8, and he more than did his job and his runs were at least 25 more than you would expect from him. He went at 12.6 an over when he bowled, and the match average was 8.4. So that is 13 runs more than the average bowler. He also didn't take a wicket, or even produce a chance, so for a strike bowler, that is a negative of at least ten runs. But most importantly to the result of the match he dropped the catch, which officially cost 48 runs, and so his net total to the game is -46.

The problem with subtracting the amount of runs from a drop is that you can drop a player on nought with the most simple drop ever and if he still makes nought, you aren't penalised. If you drop Chris Gayle on nought from a tough chance, and he makes 288* from 49 balls, suddenly you are -288 before going out to bat. And if that was all we didn't know from the stats we have from this match, that would be one thing, but we have an ocean of unknowns, and very few of us who watch cricket all the time have tried to answer them.

And the problem with all my other numbers is I've just tried to use them to get an answer on how much impact each player made. If we are ever going to know a player's worth to a cricket side, the current stats and the way we think about cricket is simply not good enough. We need to evolve, think differently, open up data and move the game forward.

But for now, the best I can do from today is: Cummins was good and bad, McKay was good and bad, Russell was bad and good, Henriques was bad, bad and Man of the Match.