ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats uses Pressure Index values to decode the two half-centuries in India’s first T20I win
ESPNcricinfo Stats team25-Jan-2020Shreyas Iyer has undoubtedly, and deservedly, sealed his claim as India’s new No. 4 in limited-overs cricket with his composed innings under pressure in the first T20I of the series against New Zealand. He walked out to bat at 115 for 2, with 89 to get from 60 balls but was to lose the senior batsman in Virat Kohli soon after. India had to get 83 off 53 balls when Kohli got out, and those kind of chases have been iffy when one of their top-three batsmen aren’t around. So there was pressure on Iyer alright.Iyer was awarded the Man-of-the-Match prize for his 29-ball 58*. But was Iyer’s the most impactful innings from India’s batsmen in the match? ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats reckons otherwise, and puts KL Rahul’s 56 as more valuable than Iyer’s knock, given the context of the chase.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe Pressure Index and Impact
ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats uses an intelligent algorithm that quantifies the pressure a batting team or a batsman faces at every ball in the innings. It takes into consideration the runs to get, overs remaining, the value of batsmen’s wicket, the quality of bowling with overs left taken into account, and the quality of the batsmen yet to come among other things, to arrive at a specific Pressure Index value for each ball. This value is always between 0 and 1. The closer this value is to 1, the more the pressure on the batting team and the batsman. Based on the Pressure Index and the batsman’s performance under those circumstances, Impact % is calculated.
According to ESPNcricinfo’s Pressure Index algorithm, Rahul’s innings came during a passage of the chase when the scoreboard pressure was higher, quantified by the algorithm with the average Pressure Index value of 0.61. The average Pressure Index value when Iyer was at the crease was 0.48. Therefore, Rahul’s innings had a higher Impact value, 22.3%, as compared to Iyer’s (16.4%).Popular opinion might lean towards Iyer’s innings as being the one of more value because it came under greater perceived pressure, but let’s do some digging to see if it’s backed by numbers that aren’t hidden inside the black box of a capable, yet admittedly complex algorithm.