The ongoing data revolution in cricket has changed the game forever. Teams now have all the statistics and analysis they need to come up with smarter on-field plans – and Telegraph Sport looks at how data could play a crucial role in the upcoming Ashes series.

Players improving themselves

Before the 2019 Ashes series, Stuart Broad was short of his best form. And so he turned to a very modern tool in Test cricket: the analyst.

Nottinghamshire’s analyst, Kunal Manek, showed that, when Broad was at his best, batsmen left under 15 per cent of deliveries. But the figure had almost doubled in some County Championship games in 2019.

The findings led Broad to focus on making the batsmen play more. “I judge myself now on how much I make a batsman play in a day,” Broad explained in 2020. “If I am bowling badly, my leave percentage will be 30 per cent – I am getting left 30 per cent of the time. If I am bowling brilliantly, it will be 16 per cent or 17 per cent.” In 2016, 29 per cent of Broad’s deliveries in the first 30 overs were left alone; this year, that has fallen to 22 per cent.

It was a window into how data is changing Test cricket. For all the focus on data in T20 – and the truth that its impact is more conspicuous in the shortest international format, where the game is easier to map – data will also have a profound impact on the Ashes series.

The use of data in team meetings tends to be made as simple and accessible as possible – and is seldom prescriptive. But for the curious modern player, data offers a tool for them to self-analyse their games and, just as Broad did, identify specific areas to improve. 

“I’ve got massive admiration for the way that the modern players break things down and use a lot of information about certain bowlers,” says Mark Butcher, who played 71 Tests for England from 1997-2004. “That wasn’t really something that I did, and it would have been handy to have done so, particularly playing away from home.”

Before the tours to Sri Lanka and India last winter, Joe Root analysed his game against spin. He found that the simplest way to improve was to reduce the number of deliveries he faced in the ‘danger zone’ – neither decisively forward to hit the ball before it spins, nor well enough back to react to the turn. In England’s first three Tests of the year, Root avoided the ‘danger zone’ and unfurled scores of 228, 186 and 218.

Selecting smarter

During his international career from 1994-2003, John Crawley averaged 74 against spin, the second highest figure of any Englishman with 20 Test caps. England played 14 Tests in Asia from 2000 until 2003, yet Crawley did not play a single one. But he played nine in Australia, where he performed modestly.

The tools used in selection today means that a player with Crawley’s attributes would be used more wisely now. “I would certainly have loved a subcontinent tour,” Crawley reflects. “Then, selection was very much based on how current incumbents were doing and how you were doing in domestic cricket at the time so there was very little strategic thinking.”

Dawid Malan embodies how thinking on selection has evolved. When Malan was dropped in 2018, Ed Smith, then the national selector, said that “it may be that his game is better suited to overseas conditions”.

It was an insensitive comment to make publicly, yet a window into England’s thinking. Malan’s recall last summer, and selection at No 3 for this Ashes tour, was informed by his fine Ashes tour four years ago and his average of 44.8 against short balls in Test cricket.