Suryakumar Yadav's very tough luck

He'll play a long time before receiving three first balls as difficult to keep out as the three he received from Mitchell Starc and Ashton Agar in this ODI series.

Suryakumar Yadav was out first ball in all three matches of the ODI series against Australia recently. Australia won the series 2-1.

Since the record is available, it is worth recording for posterity what those three balls were. The first two were delivered by Mitchell Starc. The third by Ashton Agar. They’re recorded below. pit_x and pit_y gives the pitching point. 0.000, 0.000 is location of middle stump, the -ve x direction is the off-side for the right hander, movement from off to leg is +ve. The length of the delivery “pit_y” is given in metres as is the line “pit_x”. bee_x represents the line of the ball at the plane of the stumps, while bee_y represents the height of the ball at the plane of the stumps. The top of the stumps are at 0.7112m (with the bails and the diameter of the ball, to hit the stumps as bee_y has to be atmost 0.7603 for the ball to hit the stumps.

The two deliveries from Mitchell Starc are basically unplayable. Note that Starc bowls from over the wicket and pitches it just outside off stump (on March 17) and on middle-and-off stump (March 19). Yet, both deliveries crossed the plane of the stumps to the leg-side of where they pitched. At 144kph in each case. Both balls swung and then seamed off the pitch into the right-hander. The ball takes about 0.46 seconds to reach the batter. The batter has less than half of that to read the movement and adjust to it. It’s a feat at the very edge of human reflexes, if not beyond them.

The third ball from Ashton Agar drifted in and turned away from a 6m length. It hit the stump at a height of 0.503m. The average ball from slow-left-arm orthodox bowler on a 6m length crosses the plane of the stumps at a height of 0.72m. Essentially, the ball normally hits the top of the stumps. It’s also nearly always played on the back foot. So Yadav did nothing wrong in going back. The ball kept about 21cms lower than it would normally be expected to.

The other remarkable thing about the three deliveries bowled to Suryakumar Yadav in this series is that all three were hitting the stumps. Of the 54 batters who got a hit in this ODI series, 44 faced a first ball which was not hitting the stumps. Only 10 faced a first ball which was hitting the stumps. 3 out of those 10 came Suryakumar Yadav’s way.

Yadav will play a long time without have such a horrific run of fortune at the crease. He’ll probably survive a lot of very good balls before finding himself at the receiving end of a streak like this.