Get Lefty - 2

My recent post on left-hand opening batsmen received plenty of intelligent feedback. Someone posed the question about whether left or right-hand openers were statistically more successful and it got me thinking.

Before I embarked on a long and painful date with Statsguru, my initial gut instinct was that the lefthanders would have better numbers. Let’s see what the results show.

I picked recent opening batsmen from each country (excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) and the minimum qualification was approximately 10 Tests. The selection of these batsmen relied upon my imperfect memory so please forgive me for any significant errors. I’ve stuck to just Test matches because I don’t have the resources to trawl through ODI history too.

I also concede that some of these batsmen did not spend their entire careers as openers so their final averages may not tell the full story about exactly how many runs they scored at the top of the order. Nonetheless, I’m sure it will give us some answers to the question.

AUSTRALIA (Average, home, away) Matthew Hayden: 51, 58, 42 Phil Jacques: 47, 49, 44 Justin Langer: 45, 49, 42 Michael Slater: 43, 53, 35 *Simon Katich: 52, 48, 49 *(Katich’s averages since he opened the batting in 2008)

ENGLAND (Average, home, away) Andrew Strauss: 44, 41, 48 Alastair Cook: 44, 47, 41 Marcus Trescothick: 44, 51, 36 Michael Vaughan: 41, 46, 37 Michael Atherton: 38, 39, 36

WEST INDIES (Average, home, away) Chris Gayle: 40, 38, 42 Devon Smith: 25, 28, 19 Daren Ganga: 26, 33, 23 Wavell Hinds: 33, 38, 28 Sherwin Campbell: 32, 30, 35

SOUTH AFRICA (Average, home, away) Graeme Smith: 50, 44, 56 Neil McKenzie: 38, 39, 38 Gary Kirsten: 45, 42, 48 Herschelle Gibbs: 42, 41, 43

INDIA (Average, home, away) Virender Sehwag: 51, 51, 51 Gautam Gambhir: 49, 44, 63 Wasim Jaffer: 34, 38, 32 Navjot Sidhu: 42, 54, 34

NEW ZEALAND (Average, home, away) Stephen Fleming: 40, 34, 46 Craig Cumming: 26, 25, 34 Mark Richardson: 45, 48, 43 Jamie How: 23, 24, 22 Lou Vincent: 34, 28, 43

SRI LANKA (Average, home, away) Sanath Jayasuriya: 40, 44, 36 Upul Tharanga: 29, 14, 38 Michael Vandort: 37, 44, 30 Marvan Atapattu: 39, 39, 40 Malinda Warnapura: 45, 54, 39

PAKISTAN (Average, home, away) Salman Butt: 29, 34, 25 Saeed Anwar: 46, 46, 45 Aamir Sohail: 35, 37, 34 Imran Nazir: 33, 46, 36 Taufeeq Umar: 39, 43, 45

The right-hand batsmen are listed in italics to differentiate them from their southpaw colleagues.

Just about every country, with the exception of India (Sehwag) and Sri Lanka (Atapattu) show us that left-hand batsmen do indeed average more than their right-hand counterparts in the last 10 years or so. Mind you, Sehwag and Atapattu don’t average much more than the next best left-hand batsman so the difference is hardly significant.

No surprises that most opening batsmen, left or right, tend to average more at home than away. Gambhir, Fleming, Vincent, Tharanga and Graeme Smith are players whose away averages are significantly better than their home records. Revealingly, just about every South African opener tends to average less on home pitches which may suggest that their country is a tough place to negotiate the new ball menace. This recent Cricinfo analysis by S Rajesh seems to bear that out.

The fact that there are proportionately more left-hand opening batsmen in the game tells its own story even though they are hugely outnumbered in sheer volume (ie: there are much fewer lefties in overall terms). Based on averages and total numbers, left-hand batsmen look more likely to succeed and therefore more likely to be selected to play more Tests. Survival of the fittest? Natural selection theory?

We’ve already dissected the reasons why we think lefties are more successful against the new ball. The most common theory put forward by our bloggers was that the majority of bowlers are right-arm trying to bowl outswing and this makes it easier for the lefties to work them through the leg side, especially with the lbw decisions being in their favour. It makes sense of course. How else can we explain why there seem to be so many left-hand openers and why they tend to average more than right-hand batsmen?

It will be fascinating to compare the averages of all batsmen, not just opening batsmen. Will that tell us a different story? Do right-handers come into their own in the middle order? If so, that might tell us that the new ball factor is a major reason why left-handers go so well at the top of the order.

Mind you, I haven’t got the patience to run those numbers past Statsguru. That’s an argument which will have to be left unanswered…..