It Almost Feels Like Duckett Should Take Some Credit
Ben Duckett hates international hundreds. Ben Duckett hates furniture. Ben Duckett hates standing between Crawley and Broad during the anthems. Do you know what he loves?
He loves the gap. He loves smashing the cricket ball through the gap. By now it’s well known that Duckett doesn’t believe in the concept of leaving balls. In the Bazball era, for every 100 balls he faces in Test cricket, he leaves just about 2.
Duckett absolutely loves scoring and that probably explains why he has the best strike rate in Test cricket since 2022.
And obviously, that means he must be hitting a lot of fours and sixes to maintain such a high strike rate, right?
Well, yes and no. His four-hitting is elite - since 2022, Duckett comfortably has the best balls-per-four ratio, taking one fewer ball per four than the second-best. But he ranks 53rd in balls-per-six. He uniquely maintains a high strike rate by hitting plenty of fours but very few sixes.
This is a direct result of the types of shots he plays - shots that are more likely to produce fours than sixes. One such important shot and also the one he is most famous for, is the sweep, which brings us to his spin game.
Duckett boasts an impressive strike rate of 100 against spin. Only madman Pant is ahead of him. Nobody except these two have a strike rate above 90.
And as you would expect, these two also stand out from the rest in terms of balls-per-four ratio.
What sets them apart is that Pant is a proper boundary hitter who also hits plenty of sixes whereas Duckett doesn’t. Pant hits a six every 18 balls against spin while Duckett hits one every 18 overs. And as we touched upon earlier, this comes down to Duckett’s shot selection.
Shot type data records four different types of sweeps. Duckett plays all of them. Three of these sweeps - the conventional sweep, reverse sweep and paddle sweep - are primarily four-hitting shots. Even when he plays the more aggressive slog sweep, he hits fewer sixes and more fours than the average batter does with that shot. This obsession with the sweep explains his unique ability to achieve a high strike rate primarily through fours.
He doesn’t just play all four types of sweeps, he plays them at a higher frequency than the average batter. His obsession with sweeps is so much that he plays them 3.2 times more often than the average player.
He isn’t spamming the sweep just because it is his favourite shot, he is simply too good at it.
And that doesn't mean he's a dud against pace. He’s equally proficient, having the second-best strike rate and balls-per-four ratio against pace as well.
The other standout feature of his pace game is his low dot ball percentage - the lowest, in fact. Once again, this comes down to his shot selection.
Duckett loves playing off the back foot. He plays a higher proportion of cuts and pulls which helps minimise dot balls. He plays nearly three times as many cuts and twice as many pulls against pace as the average batter.
He also plays a slightly higher percentage of cover drives which contributes to his four hitting.
His tendency to play more sweeps and backfoot shots is clearly represented in his wagon wheel, which shows that he has scored majority of his runs square of the wicket.
Duckett is a unique and interesting character, both on and off the field. Off field, he’s seen as someone who provides meme-worthy entertaining content. But don’t let that overshadow his equally entertaining on-field play. “It almost feels like we should take some credit” is what Duckett said when Yashasvi Jaiswal played an aggressive knock against his team. Perhaps Duckett should take some credit – not for others’ performances, but for his own unique and captivating batsmanship.
All stats presented in this article are accurate as of October 14, 2024.
Stats credit: Himanish Ganjoo