Jarrod Kimber
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How do IPL batters score their runs? We know Andre Russell hits a lot of sixes and Virat Kohli finds gaps in the field better than anyone else. But just how much better? Here’s a deep-dive into how batters have done in different phases of the game, and against different bowling types. All figures are for the last five years of the IPL.
Powerplay – % of results from each ball (Minimum: 500 runs)
Kohli faces the fewest dot balls in the IPL’s powerplay. In fact, he is the only player who faces less than 40% of deliveries he cannot score from. This shows the incredible skill he has to find gaps even with players in the ring.
The powerplay does warp dot ball percentage, so it’s worth looking at, on its own. Kohli’s mark of 38% is the lowest, while Jos Buttler is up at over 50%. There isn’t much of a pattern here though. The top three like to bash and block. At the bottom, you have three guys who manipulate. In Prithvi Shaw you have a thrasher. In the middle of the table, you have KL Rahul, with a mid dot ball percentage, but who rotates the strike massively. Below him is Quinton de Kock, who hits the most sixes.
Middle Overs – % of runs from each scoring shot (Minimum: 600 runs)
Kohli scores the second most singles in the middle overs, but a massive amount of twos and threes, meaning he has the most ‘run’ runs. Over 60% of his total runs come from that. On almost every list I looked up, Kohli is a completely different kind of player.
Shikhar Dhawan is uninterested in hitting sixes. In his world, I think he’d prefer to just stay in the powerplay forever, guys on the boundary suck.
Shreyas Iyer is incredible at hitting singles, but he doesn’t find as many twos. You can see that Ambati Rayadu is another player like that. With their ability to find gaps, they should be able to get more twos as well. Especially if you are as good against spin as these two.
Or you could just hit sixes like Nicholas Pooran. His four ratio is actually the exact same as Iyer’s; it’s just that he scores 44% of his runs in the middle from sixes. You can string dot balls on him like a lot of West Indian batters, but he’s also getting closer to clearing the rope.
Suryakumar Yadav hits fours and not sixes in the middle. So like Pooran he can rack up some dots, but in the middle, he doesn’t clear the boundary as much.
Death Overs (Minimum: 400 runs)
At the death, Kohli is the player who scores the biggest percentage of twos and threes. His ability to dissect the field rather than slog is a testament to his intelligence and skill.
Suryakyumar really has a lot of dots and the same amount of runs from fours, but is still under par compared to other fast scorers when you look at sixes. But he’s not alone; Glenn Maxwell, Sam Curran, and Faf du Plessis have a similar profile. The difference is the other guys really run a lot of twos. In fact, there is a whole host of twos specialist players at the end. MS Dhoni is another obvious one, Rahul fits in as well, and Ravindra Jadeja.
Of course they are all nothing like Kohli, who many of us say he can score two a ball at the death when he needs to, but until now I didn’t realise he took it so literally.
But Russell is obviously the outlier here. He is probably the player most likely to knock back a single at the death, and he’s obviously making the right decision. Because he hits 56% of his runs from sixes, a long way ahead of Tim David in second place.
Batters with 1000 runs in the last five years
No one actually scores twos and threes at the percentage of Kohli: 14% of his runs come from his ability to find a gap and run like a greyhound. He is the king of the stolen two.
We know players score in different ways, sometimes the time of the match dictates it, often it is personal preference. Some dudes are just built different. This shows how much each batter in the league scores their runs in the IPL over the last five years.
Russell is clearly weird as hell compared to other guys, 55% of his runs in the IPL are from sixes. Where he bats in the order wouldn’t change that, he plays his way. But on the sixes guys, Shivam Dube is a very weird player as well. He has the fourth most sixes but also has the tenth most singles. And you can see he also scores quite a few twos and threes, so basically, what he has done is swap fours for sixes like none of these other single-heavy guys do.
Nitish Rana is a weird dude, it feels like he does not like to run. He has the fifth-highest dot ball percentage in the league; he dots up, or he hits a boundary. He has the eighth-highest percentage of runs from the ropes in the IPL. Hitting the ropes is not really his reputation, due to his strike rate.
Wriddiman Saha has the lowest amount of sixes of anyone in the league, which is weird because of his last few years of pinch-hitting. But that also means he is well suited to the powerplay, just knocking the ball over the head of the ring, not the sweeper.
Powerplay batting (Minimum: 500 runs)
In the powerplay you can see just how different Kohli is. The man refuses to hit sixes, he is above average on boundary fours and legged runs. A concoction of his own making.
But let’s look at the first six overs on their own. Let’s start with Yashasvi Jaiswal who just stands there and hits boundaries. He does not care for singles, running, or even sixes. He has 57% of his runs in fours. You can see his partner Buttler with a similar kind of pattern.
That partnership pattern comes up twice. David Warner and Shaw hit the second and third most boundary fours, though Warner still has a lot of twos in there, probably when Shaw is out.
There are three big six hitters up top, Jonny Bairstow, Rohit Sharma and de Kock. Traditionally, powerplay batters have been four hitters, but as power comes in more, it makes sense to clear the ropes while aiming over the ring.
Breakdown by each ball for the whole innings (Minimum: 1000 runs)
If you look at the result of each ball, rather than the scoring percentage. Dre Russ has the second-biggest dot ball percentage, and everyone else near him is an opener. He should not be in this company.
Talking about freaks, AB de Villiers really is a man apart; he is so complete. He is one of the best six-hitters and has the lowest dot ball percentage. He is the only player under 30% – which is the magic mark for unicorns. He could score off every ball and still launch you out of the stadium.
Batting outside the powerplay (Minimum: 750 runs)
Something weird about the overs outside the powerplay was that Aiden Markram was the best at avoiding dots. For years, I have said one of his issues was that he isn’t a good strike rotator in terms of average. This might explain why. He doesn’t like facing dots and so is forcing the good balls away as well.
Outside the powerplay, Russell has the highest dot ball percentage; turning down singles is a huge part of that. But everything he does is different. You look at the way he hits sixes and fours, compared to everyone else, and you get it. Dhoni hits nearly as many boundaries overall as Russell does sixes.
Batters against pace bowling (Minimum: 750 runs)
Against pace, Russell just isn’t interested in singles, but why would he be? The new generation of West Indian hitters of pace score in different ways, with more ones and twos. He has been around for years, but still no one can copy his style.
Batters against spin bowling (Minimum: 600 runs)
But against spin, Pooran becomes a Russellish player. The least amount of singles and over 50% of his runs from sixes. You can see there are a few guys who just like to hit maximum off spinners, including Buttler, Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Hardik Pandya.
But you know what I am going to point out now. Kohli has 47% of his runs in singles, the most of any player, and he also has a huge amount of twos. At times, we lump players into categories, and anyone with a slow strike rate bats long is the anchor.
Looking at the profiles of certain players, and you realise that there are so many different kinds of players even within our normal categories. Andre Russell is not a normal kind of hitter, and VIrat Kohli is not like the other anchors.
