Trends talk: Teams batting first undone by conservative approach at the top

In every big T20 tournament, one can spot trends and patterns on various facets of the game. One such pattern in the ongoing T20 World Cup is the way some of the teams have fielded playing XIs with a batting heavy approach at the expense of bowling.

We have seen some teams veering away from their bowler-heavy strategy (a bowling all-rounder at #7) during the build-up to the tournament to a more batting-heavy approach (a batting all-rounder at #7) in the World Cup. The tournament was initially supposed to take place in Australia and later in India before finally the UAE turned out to be the venue. Now that could be a key reason with regard to teams preferring an extra bowler in the build-up to the tournament, in the backdrop of the expected batting-friendly conditions in Australia and India. But with the conditions on offer varying vastly in the UAE, and the second half of IPL 2021 giving a glimpse of what could be in store for the World Cup, it probably forced teams in believing that they needed extra batting depth on these tracks which are slower in nature and coupled with big boundaries in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Batting > bowling

Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand have disposed one of their bowling all-rounders or a specialist bowler and have gone in with an additional batter/ batting all-rounder. Ashton Agar was Australia's leading wicket-taker in T20Is in the last two years, but they decided to leave him out and go in with both Steven Smith and Mitchell Marsh in their two games thus far. South Africa, meanwhile, have left out Lungi Ngidi, preferring all-rounder Dwaine Pretorius instead. New Zealand, for a long time, used Mitchell Santner at #7 in their five-pronged attack, but with Lockie Ferguson pulling out injured at the last minute, they replaced him with Daryll Mitchell. With their leading all-rounder(s) absent, both England (Ben Stokes & Sam Curran) and West Indies (Fabian Allen) have also opted for a batting-heavy approach with the fifth bowler's quota being shared by lesser bowlers.

With teams picking batting heavy XIs, what has been startling is the fact that teams haven't been as attacking as they probably should have in the backdrop of the cushion available in the form of an extra batter if they lose wickets upfront. This has been particularly evident for teams batting first, with a batsman dropping anchor and unable to tee off in the death overs. In most of the matches so far in the Super 12, we have seen a top order player trying to bat through the innings rather conservatively and unable to press the accelerator pedal in the death overs, resulting in teams finishing with under par totals. Goes without saying, in all the six instances listed below, the chasing side won.

Anchors and their middling impact

Another interesting aspect is the fact that sides batting first haven't often attacked the fifth bowler in order to to disrupt the opposition captain's plans. Glenn Maxwell bowled his four overs for 24 runs, picking up a wicket