Why the Proteas need to drop Morkel for the 5th bowler

I was listing to Ravi Shastri debate on SuperSport this evening about South African’s problem with big match temperament (BMT), Ravi noted a few very interesting points.

He firstly noted that South Africa stick to ‘the book’ too often in the crunch games, what he was referring to was the batting order. Ravi feels that the South African team should promote their ‘big hitter’ up the order, so that he can take the pressure off the established batsmen. This would change things up a bit and put some doubt in the mind of the bowling attack.

That’s an interesting theory, backed by many comments that I’ve heard recently. Having been critical of Albie Morkel’s batting and bowling, many have said that it’s an unfair comment as Morkel has not been given the opportunity to establish himself up the order before he has to play big shots.

The other option as a big hitter goes is Roelof van der Merwe, but his batting is not mature enough in my opinion, perhaps Boucher could fill that role at number 4.

Ravi further noted that South Africa often lose their way when they field first, specifically when the opposition knocks up a decent total. He said that South Africa lose 90% of their games when they field first in tournaments, so off I went to CricInfo the greatest cricket statistics site on the internet, and this is what I found.

Since 1992:

• South Africa has played in 5 matches in tournament semi-finals where we have fielded first, we’ve lost 4 of those matches and tied 1.
• South Africa has played in 3 matches in tournament quarter-finals where we have fielded first, we’ve won 2 of those matches and lost 1.
• South Africa has played in 1 match in tournament final where we have fielded first, we won that 1 match.

In summary South Africa has played 9 finals (semi/quarter/final) matches, lost 5, won 3 and tied 1. If we consider the tie a loss (because you know Allan should have run!), then we’ve lost 66% of the finals that we’ve played in, batting second.

I agree mostly with Ravi Shastri’s perspective on the issue, the only problem that I have is that South Africa lost their place in the Champions Trophy 2009, due to poor bowling rather than their batting.

The stats don’t lie

Our batting statistics over the three games: 724 runs, from 128.5 overs, at an average of 5.63 per over. To put that in perspective if you bat at 5.63 per overs for 50 overs your total would be 281 runs.

Bowling: 856 runs, 147.5 overs, average of 5.8 per over. (5.80 per over X 50 overs =  290 runs)

If you look at the games we lost against Sri Lanka and England, we conceded 642 runs, from 100 overs, at an average 6.42 which is not acceptable. (6.42 per over X 50 overs = 320 runs)

Looking at our pace attack, Wayne Parnell was very expensive over the three games: 28 overs, 196 runs at an average of 7.0 per over. The problem is compounded by Albie Morkel’s expensive figures: 13 overs, 97 runs at an average of 7.46 per over. If your 6^th bowler is consistently expensive it then puts pressure on the other 5 to perform, but if your 6^th bowler is effective and economical then it becomes a strength for the captain to use.

Albie Morkel’s poor bowling, compounded by Parnell’s expensive run rate is why I would drop Morkel. As the stats show above our batting over the past three games was excellent, it’s the bowling that cost us.

We can spare a part-time batsman for a 5^th specialist bowler while we use Kallis as the 6^th.

South Africa needs Albie Morkel to sort out his bowling, or South African need to find the real replacement to fill the void left by Shaun Pollock.