Bazball And Sweeping Spin
Ball by ball records which provide shot classifications and control records show that ENG attempted 249 sweeps of various types - reverse, slog, paddle, conventional - against the IND spinners over 5 Tests. They scored 78 boundaries (62 fours and 16 sixes), and lost 26 wickets to it. The sweep shot brought ENG 10 runs per over, 16 runs per dismissal, and a dismissal every 9.6 sweep attempts. IND attempted 162 sweep shots in the series, and produced 406 runs from these. IND bats sweep shots cost them only 7 dismissals, and produce 87 boundaries. They lost a wicket to a sweep shot every 23 balls, for 58 runs.
IND swept more sparingly (they swept 3.8% of balls they faced from ENG’s spinners to ENG’s 8.9% of balls from IND’s spinners), and far more effectively than ENG did.
Broken down by Test match, the picture becomes more interesting. ENG had a lot of success with the sweep against the IND spinners in the 1st Test in Hyderabad. They played 92 sweep shots out of the 793 balls they faced from IND’s spinners there - one every 8.6 balls, and scored 26 singles out of 134 runs in all. ENG managed only 24 further singles from their sweep shots in the 157 sweep shots they attempted in the next four Tests combined. They also lost 24 wickets from those 157 sweep shots. IND adjusted their lines and field settings for their spinners after the first Test because they wanted to stop conceding singles to ENG's batters as often as they had in Hyderabad.
The productivity of ENG’s sweeping against spin collapsed in the last three Tests. The introduction of Kuldeep Yadav was a major factor in this. Kuldeep’s drift and turn, and his well disguised googly meant he was not as easy to line up as the finger spinners. Through out the series, the IND spinners turned the ball more and got more drift in the air than their ENG counterparts. They were harder to play, and also harder to sweep.
Ollie Pope and Ben Duckett swept more than any other batters in the whole series. Duckett’s record is especially remarkable. He swept (reverse, paddle, slog or traditional) 44 times, and produced 100 runs for 1 dismissal. He defended 47 balls and was dismissed 3 times! Overall, Duckett produced 7/184 against spin in the series (off 188 balls faced). Pope’s game against spin is more well rounded than Duckett’s. Pope produced 6/248 from 375 balls of spin. He swept only 47 balls.
Unlike Duckett, for whom the sweep was a productive choice, Joe Root (4/41), Zak Crawley (3/30), Ben Stokes (3/32) and Jonny Bairstow (2/30) did not benefit from the sweep shot. Root made 2/179 against the spinners when he wasn’t sweeping, while Crawley made 5/201 against spin when he wasn’t sweeping. Ben Stokes made 4/125 against spin when he wasn’t sweeping. Jonny Bairstow made 6/156 against spin when he wasn’t sweeping.
Root’s case is especially noteworthy. In 2016, he made 8/370 against 692 balls of spin in the Tests in India. Of those, he swept 41 times and made 4/97. Back then, he swept every 9th ball on average and did so productively. In the first 3 Tests of the 2024 series, Root swept 16 times out of 110 balls of spin, and made 3/24. All three of Root’s dismissals to spin where shots played across the line off the front foot to the spinner. In the final 2 Tests, Root made 3/160 in 376 balls of spin, in which he played only 15 sweep shots for 1/17.
When ENG’s batters were not sweeping, they made 1274/43 from 2549 balls of spin in the series - 29.8 runs per dismissal, and 3 runs per over in the 2024 series (as opposed to 16 runs per dismissal and 10 runs per over from the sweep). They did as well as the IND batters when playing the more conventional attacking shots - the drive, the cut, the pull, the flick, the glance and the push.
When the batters were in defense, the superior class, guile and accuracy of IND’s spinners told. ENG’s bats were dismissed twice as often in defense as IND’s. They played a false shot every 4.5 balls in defense, to one every 7.5 balls by IND’s bats.
The classic (pre-Bazball) method of accumulating runs in Test cricket is simply described - keep the good balls out by defending, and hit the bad balls (too full, too short, too wide, down leg) for runs. Against the superior IND spinners, ENG did reasonably well in defense and very well hitting balls which were either too full or too short or too wide. They produced about six boundaries per dismissal from such shots, the same as IND. ENG’s spinners were easier to defend for IND’s bats than vice versa (on account of the fact that IND’s spinners turn the ball harder than ENG’s and have better control), so IND’s bats received more bad balls as a whole. But they didn’t exploit those bad balls at a better rate than ENG (even though, in volume, they made 724 more runs for 12 more dismissals). When it came to the sweep, this was not the case. ENG produced 3 boundaries for every dismissal to the sweep shot. IND produced 11 boundaries for every dismissal to the sweep shot.
Putting away the sweep shot might not have saved ENG from losing the series. But it probably would have reduced their margins. Defending was more difficult for ENG than IND. But IND would have had to work harder for ENG’s wickets had ENG not conceded so many (26 out of the 69 ENG wickets which fell to spin) sweeping. The sweep was a good choice for Ben Duckett. It was a terrible choice for rest of ENG’s order (25/318 in 205 balls). The great Joe Root managed to put it away and prosper in the final two tests. The others could not escape the sweep.
Great article! Paints as romantic a picture of cricket as any.