Key Takeaways from the ICC World Cup 2023 Group Stage
As the group stage of this year’s 2023 ICC ODI World Cup draws to a close, with nothing but a few dead rubber group stage matches left, it seems that our final four is sorted; India will play New Zealand while Australia will play South Africa.
All of the semi-finalists strategies are pretty clear. Either India or New Zealand will hope to bat first to set a good total, whilst trying to use the swing of the new ball under the lights at Wankhede. Both India and Afghanistan showed that when bowling second at the Wankhede, there’s enough for the seamers to work with. On the other hand, South Africa vs Australia will be played in Kolkata at Eden Gardens. The difference between South Africa batting first vs fielding first is two completely different sides, and if Australia loses the toss, well, they’ll have to do their best to limit the South African side to a modest total.
The pitch at Eden Gardens will have plenty for the spinners to work with, so it’s just a matter of who wins the toss and whether the side batting first can reach at least par score.
Either way, 6 teams failed to make it for the knockouts, with a few surprise exits like Pakistan’s and England’s. Although both teams were the finalists in last year’s t20 World Cup final, the difference in quality of certain players across both formats is quite staggering. Shadab Khan, for example, who’s been excellent in the t20 format with his bowling, failed to impress completely during this World Cup. Furthermore, other bowlers you expected more from, such as Haris Rauf, consistently underperformed and left devoid of ideas.
The same can be said with England, but to be honest, to quote Ben Stokes, “we’ve been crap”. A team who have spent majority of the World Cup trying to find some sort of form with the bat, falling well short of what they were expected to do.
We’ll get into more details with the underperformers and overperformers later.
India have been REALLY REALLY GOOD
As the famous saying goes, batting wins you matches, and bowling wins you tournaments. In the 2015 semi-final against Australia, India simply didn’t pick up enough wickets and in 2019, they simply lost too many wickets and couldn’t gain momentum throughout the innings.
However, the difference is this time, they’ve combatted both of those issues and are also playing at home! Australia gave them a scare when India were 2–3, however, Kohli and KL Rahul were able to steady the ship and steer India to a 6 wicket victory. Whilst it’s clear with the other teams like South Africa and Australia that both of them are much stronger batting then chasing, India are stronger regardless.
If the opposition bats first, India can come and put the squeeze on with their spinners; that’s what happened in the earlier group stage matches when India were fielding first. On the other hand, even if you restrict India to a small total, the seamers can just come in and absolutely pick you apart.
That has what’s made not only everyone impressed with India, but also the favourites for this World Cup. I think most cricket fans knew India would be the favourites, but perhaps not quite to this extent. And while of course knockout games are essentially one-offs, it’s hard to ignore the sheer dominance India have shown throughout the World Cup.
In fact, I had a look at the Indian bowler’s bowling averages and economy rates and see how those compared to the rest of the bowlers in the World Cup.
As seen from the table above, Indian bowlers on average are performing at a significantly more efficient rate then the rest of the World Cup bowlers. Not only is there a staggering drop of 15 or so from the world cup 2023 average, but they’ve always managed to remain economical. In fact, if we looked at specific bowlers that India have used, the story becomes even more telling:
- Since starting, Mohammed Shami hasn’t gone 2 overs in a row without taking a wicket. He also has taken 16 wickets in 4 games, average a staggering 4 wickets per game.
- Apart from Ashwin, who only played one game, Bumrah has been the most economical bowler in this year’s World Cup, with an economy rate of 3.65 runs per over!
- Mohammed Siraj has recently become the no.1 ranked ODI bowler in the world
It’s clear that the Indian seamers are playing as team; Bumrah begins and not only bowls incredibly well but dots up the batters. Siraj and Shami then comes in to take the wickets. Even though Siraj and Shami have taken more wickets then Bumrah, Bumrah sets up the batters such that the other seamers are able to come in and reap the rewards.
Even if the seamers are kept at bay, the spinners can come in apply the squeeze. On a turning pitch in Kolkata, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja were able to work wonders with the ball, with Jadeja picking up 5/33. The Indian cricket team has found multiple ways to pick up wickets, and that’s what’s made their bowling performances even more impressive.
The batting hasn’t been too shabby either. The team has shown a certain maturity in this edition of the world cup, with big partnerships between batters once early wickets fall. Throughout all of India’s matches, at least one of the top order batters have scored 50+, ensuring that even as the innings progresses, there’s usually a set top order batsmen to help rebuild the partnerships as wickets fall.
Here are some of the notable key partnerships in India’s matches:
Whereas in 2019, the issue was that the middle order didn’t have much batting to do before the semi-finals, everyone’s been able to have a go this time, and pretty much all of India’s top order + middle order batters have scored important runs.
Australia + South Africa’s conundrum
South Africa will play Australia in the semi-finals at Eden Gardens, however, both team’s fortunes have almost been identical. Despite Australia losing their first two games, both teams have clearly shown their strengths in the batting department when setting a target, but less so when chasing a target.
For context, Australia’s average score when batting first this tournament has been 327.8 runs, whereas when chasing it’s been 228.3 runs, a drop off of nearly 100 runs. For South Africa, on the other hand, the drop off is even more extreme. South Africa’s average score when batting first has been 375.4 runs, the highest average for batting first this tournament. On the other hand, South Africa’s average score when chasing has been 187 runs, a difference of 188.4 runs!
To visualise how disparaging these differences are, let’s compare them with the rest of the teams in the tournament:
South Africa’s t20/test divide
When looking at the difference between batting first scores and chasing scores for teams in this World Cup, South Africa and Pakistan essentially stand alone. Whilst Pakistan are likely to be out due to their lacklustre bowling, it’s evident that South African batters just don’t know how to fully pace themselves throughout a 50 over innings. Part of this is probably due to the rise of franchise cricket and t20 cricket. Out of South Africa’s top and middle order, Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma, and Russie van de Dussen are the only active South African test cricket players with some test experience. Ironically though, the captain, Temba Bavuma, who has the most test cricket experience out of the top and middle order batters, has been the batter who’s struggled most with runs this World Cup.
On the other hand, all of India’s top and middle order, have some test cricket experience and are constantly exposed to all formats of the game. Whilst much can be made of teams not playing many ODI matches in preparation for this World Cup, it’s clear that all 3 format players tend to fare better in this situation.
Australia’s middle order conundrum
In the earlier games, Australia really missed the presence of Travis Head, and despite that exceptional knock against New Zealand (108 runs), he hasn’t managed to score many runs since. Furthermore, with the re-introduction of Head, Marsh has moved down the order, followed by Smith and Labuschagne, and then the all-rounders. Australia bat deep, but it seems that after the openers are dismissed and/or Mitchell Marsh, Australia have 2 batters that come in with strike rates below 100 that aren’t really power hitters. It was clearly evident against New Zealand, where Smith and Labuschagne simply could not keep up the intensity that the openers had brought in the beginning. Thus, it feels like there’s a bit of a mixup in what strategy Australia want to go for. Obviously you want that fine balance of power hitting and stroke play, but the transition in between the openers to the power hitters of Stoinis and Maxwell seems far too abrupt. South Africa has batters throughout the order that can power hit, and that’s worked wonders for them when batting first, however, Australia still need to figure out what is their batting strategy.
It’s evidently clear that whoever wins the toss between South Africa and Australia will choose to bat first and will put themselves in a good position to win the game. Both teams have shown they’re able to grind out chases, but against inferior opposition and teams who perhaps didn’t take their chances. If Mujeeb hadn’t dropped a regulation catch, perhaps we’d be talking about Australia facing elimination from this World Cup.
New Zealand; what are they?
This New Zealand side certainly does not seem like the previous New Zealand world cup sides. Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell have had exceptional World Cups with the bat, however, Will Young has struggled to score runs and it had always felt that he would get out early, with all due respect. The return of the captain Kane Williamson was certainly a welcome return, especially considering that Tom Latham was suffering from the Temba Bavuma syndrome: He’s not doing his job as a batter, but he’s the captain so he can’t really be dropped. Kane certainly gives New Zealand that much more experience in the batting lineup and also allows them to become a better chasing side.
With the bowling on the other side, it’s been a unfortunate situation for them, with multiple injuries picked up throughout the tournament. Whilst Santner has had an excellent tournament, I think South Africa may have found a way on how to play him, similarly to how the New Zealand batters targeted Kuldeep Yadav: target them.
New Zealand have made the previous 2 World Cup finals and they’ll always have a chance to win the whole tournament, but the inconsistencies in their bowling and fielding certainly does raise more questions then before.
That being said, Rachin Ravindra has had an exceptional debut World Cup tournament and is a certainly a bright spot of the Kiwis. He’ll most certainly go for a big price at the next IPL auction if he chooses to join.
Pakistan’s future
There’s a lot of questions for Pakistan to figure out from this tournament and going forward:
- Why wasn’t Imam Ul-Haq dropped earlier? Especially with the form of Fakhar Zaman
- Why have Pakistan’s spinners been so poor at taking wickets?
- Why have Pakistan’s bowlers been so expensive?
Probably the question for many Pakistani fans was why wasn’t Fakhar Zaman brought in earlier? Perhaps he would have scored more runs than Imam Ul-Haq against South Africa and would’ve helped Pakistan win that game. The same can be said about that game against Australia. Zaman clearly showed that he was comfortable chasing big targets at the Chinnaswamy, so perhaps Pakistan could’ve shoe-horned their way into 3rd place had those decision been made earlier.
However, something that simply is inexcusable is how poor Pakistan’s bowling has been during this World Cup. Let’s talk about their best bowlers: Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, and Shadab Khan. Obviously the injury of Naseem Shah is a big miss, but not to the point where all the bowlers are underperforming. It took until the Bangladesh game for Shaheen to arguably find the feet, and for a bowler who’s consistently shown his talent in white ball cricket, it’s been a dissapointing World Cup for him. The same criticism can be extended to Haris Rauf, who was just simply too expensive to keep bowling. Despite beating New Zealand, Pakistan’s bowling performance that game was a stark reminder of just how underwhelming they’ve been.
Obviously, the outside noise from the PCB has been far from helpful to the cricket team’s preparation and performances. Though, it’s clear that it’ll probably be the last ODI World Cup for some of these players as they invest more and more of their talents into the t20 format. The difference of these bowlers bowling 4 overs vs 10 overs is rather staggering.
In regards to the spinners, the data is is rather brutal. I generated a variable that calculated the difference in the bowling averages in this year’s World Cup and last year’s t20 World Cup, and whilst for some bowlers, the difference hasn’t been too big, the drop off is abnormally large for the spinners. Obviously, whilst it’s important to account that the World Cups were held in different countries and different venues, the Indian pitches are usually more favourable to spinners, which makes these differences even more surprising.
As mentioned, harsh decisions certainly need to be made, especially pertaining to the bowling lineup.
Afghanistan’s incredible World Cup performance
Perhaps Pakistan should take a lesson or two from the Afghanistan cricket team on how to take wickets on Indian tracks with spinners. Afghanistan have had an exceptional World Cup, and despite choking against Australia, there’s plenty of positives to be taken from this World Cup. Whilst the spinners and seamers have done a pretty decent job, Afghanistan’s batting whilst chasing has simply been exceptional.
Partially due to the credit of Jonathan Trott and Ajay Jadeja, Afghanistan have shown much maturity and quality in their batting when chasing. Ultimately, they’ll be dissapointed since they came so close to beating Australia, but these are the fine margins that the top teams can use to punish you. It’s evidently clear that Afghanistan need to work on their fielding for future, but for the moment, let’s just enjoy how good Afghanistan have been.
Most pundits probably expected Afghanistan to have picked up 4–6 points this tournament, but having picked up 8 and very close to picking up 10 really shows their growth as a side.
England
To be honest, England have been so poor this World Cup that the less said the better, especially when you consider that no one saw this coming. A side who had just won the 2022 t20 World Cup last year in Australia with a deep batting lineup all capable of power hitting, it’s quite alarming just how easy England were to beat following the New Zealand game.
Despite the strong bowling performances against India and Australia, it was the batting that ultimately let them down this tournament.
As you can see from the scatterplot above, it’s rather alarming that England’s tailenders actually had the best strike rate and some of the best bowling averages this World Cup. What’s even more concerning, though, is how many of England top order batters failed to even reach a batting average of 30. For context, when analysing all of the batting averages this World Cup, the average was around 42. Many of England’s batters fell well short of that average, and generally throughout the tournament, could not find much momentum until it was too late. Whilst England showed some promise against Australia, ultimately it was just a side waiting to be put out of its misery.
Even when you compare their World Cup 2023 batting averages to their overall ODI averages, most of them underperformed, most noticeably Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler, Johnny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, and Sam Curran, which is essentially to make up of England’s middle order.
Even though England hadn’t played many ODI’s between the 2019 and 2023 World Cup, the batting performances were simply subpar for a team who came into the tournament having ambitions to win the whole tournament.
Bangladesh
Batting wins you matches but bowling wins you tournaments, but Bangladesh have just been poor in all departments. After a decent performance in the 2019 World Cup and now playing on subcontinental conditions, the Tigers certainly weren’t expecting to finish this low in the table, especially when you consider their losses to the likes of Netherlands, or failing to compete against the top sides.
Bangladesh only had one batter (Mahmudullah) with a batting average above 30, and despite the promise that Tanzid shown in the earlier matches of the tournament, he failed to perform consistently, along with the rest of the batters.
Truthfully, this might be Shakib, Mushfiqur, and Mahmudullah’s last World Cup, so there’ll certainly be a different look to this side in the coming years.
Bangladesh were also equally tame with the ball, with the seamers and spinners
Netherlands
There’s not much to say about the Netherlands. They did well, and they were here for the ride. Their victories against South Africa and Bangladesh were particularly impressive but otherwise not much to write home about. The openers struggled to string any lengthy partnerships throughout the tournament and the middle order weren’t particularly great apart from the captain Scott Edwards and Sybrand Engelbrecht, the only batters who had a batting average above 30. The bowling was pretty decent, but ultimately, ti was the batting that let them down many times. There’s only so much you can blame the Netherlands for Glenn Maxwell’s incredible century off 39 balls.
Sri Lanka
Where to even begin with Sri Lanka; apart from a few positives like Pathum Nissanka’s batting throughout this tournament, or Dilshan Madushanka’s bowling, there isn’t many positives to take from the tournament.
Sri Lanka does have a young team, with some very raw players, however, some of the batting and bowling performances were simply not up to par. Experienced test batter and former ODI captain Dimuth Karunaratne barely made a splash when he started games, as well as most of the top order, apart from some inspired partnerships against Australia and England.
Of course it’s important to take their performances with a pinch of salt, as they’ve suffered many injuries throughout the tournament, but even the players that played most games, like Maheesh Theekshana, you expected more.
None of the bowlers, apart from Dilshan Madushanka, managed to pick up more then 10 wickets this World Cup, and while not of all them played many games, their bowling averages really don’t help much either.
In fact, Sri Lanka’s bowling performance has been so poor that you have more bowlers with an average above 40 then those below 40. While Pathirana and Mathews’ bowling figures certainly stand out as outliers in this data, the story is still rather telling. In fact, here’s the same data compared to India’s bowling averages.
Their performances have been so poor in fact that the Sri Lankan cricketing board have opened an investigation as to why the performances have been so poor in this year’s World Cup. Chris Silverwood hasn’t been particularly great as a head coach either, so some change is certainly needed and as well some trust. Who know how this World Cup would’ve gone if Dasun Shanaka and Wanindu Hasaranga were fully fit.
My team of the Group stage:
- Quinton de Kock (wk)
- Rohit Sharma
- Virat Kohli
- Rachin Ravindra
- Heinrich Klaasen
- Glenn Maxwell
- Marco Jansen
- Mitch Santner
- Mohammed Shami
- Dilshan Madushanka
- Adam Zampa
Bonus: Ranking vs performance
Bowlers
Batters
