Data reveals the Big Bash League's best fielders

Fielding guru Neil Buszard still remembers the moment cricket's lax record-keeping when it comes to fielding, and the need to do something about it, materialised in his mind.

A legend of Melbourne club cricket and a former Australia representative in baseball, Buszard was trying to find out how many run outs Ricky Ponting had affected in his international career and, to his dismay, an extensive search of statistical databases around the world yielded no clear answer.

That was until he discovered an obscure Indian website that claimed Ponting had affected at least 80 runs outs in his career, a number that had never been noted in official record books and had effectively been wiped from history.

"It's a disgrace to cricket," Buszard tells cricket.com.au. "Because those 80 wickets he's got are just as good as someone getting them as a bowler.

"That got me going."

It's long been the great anomaly in cricket that while runs, wickets and catches have been diligently recorded for centuries, run outs have not. And while batting and bowling averages and strike rates are spoken about in reverential terms – think Bradman's 99.94 – cricketers have never had anything resembling a fielding average.

Since 2016, Buszard has been a consultant for Cricket Australia's High Performance department as they implemented a unique system of data collection for fielding for all male and female professional players in Australia, and retrospectively applied to all competitions since 2011.

The starting point was to simply expand the collection of raw data; run outs are now finally added to a player's record, while catch assists and run out assists are now also credited to a player (meaning Ben Laughlin gets some statistical reward for his role in his famous catch with Jake Weatherald in 2018, widely regarded as the best in Big Bash history).

Running alongside these raw numbers is a Fielding Average and Strike Rate (explained below), which are combined to produce a player's Impact Rating, which CA's team believes is the best statistical reflection of a player's efficiency and influence in the field.

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Fielding Average = Dismissals / (Dismissals + Grade 1 errors). For example, a player who completed 18 dismissals and had two Grade 1 errors would have a Fielding Average of 0.9 … 18 / (18+2) = 0.9

Fielding Strike Rate = Dismissals / Innings played. For example, a player who completed 18 dismissals in 25 games would have a Fielding Strike Rate of 0.72 … 18/25 = 0.72

Impact Rating = Fielding Average x Fielding Strike Rate

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Buszard concedes their methods are far from perfect and are evolving every year, but the fact those who are subjectively considered to be the best fielders generally rise to the top of their statistics gives a level of validation.

Over the past three completed seasons of the BBL, the outfield player with the highest Impact Rating was Englishman Chris Jordan, regarded as one of the best fielders in the world, who made 19 dismissals in the field in just 20 matches, missing only one chance.

The top 10 of outfield players featuring in this season's BBL is headed by Englishman Phil Salt (who did not miss any of the 11 chances he was offered in 15 games last season) and includes the likes of Glenn Maxwell, Sean Abbott and Jordan Silk, all regarded subjectively as elite fielders.

Similar to how fielding errors have been measured and recorded in baseball for decades, CA's Fielding Average highlights opportunities missed rather than those taken.

Each dismissal in the field – a catch, run out, stumping or assist – is given a subjective grading by CA's team of data analysts; Grade 1 chances are those that should be taken at a professional level, while those rated Grade 2 or Grade 3 are more difficult. Grade 2 and Grade 3 errors are not counted in the Fielding Average, meaning a player isn't punished for dropping a catch when they've dived full length and just got their fingertips to the ball.

But the Fielding Average doesn't always tell the full story; a player who takes one simple catch from one attempt in an entire BBL tournament would have an average of 1.00, while a player who fields in a key part of the ground and takes nine catches and drops one would have an average of 0.9. This isn't a fair reflection of the fielding impact those two players have had on the tournament, so the Strike Rate and Impact Rating were introduced.

"The fielding average gives the player's efficiency, and the strike rate measures the effectiveness in every game they play," Buszard says.

Image Id: 57D13F8F0A584A50B4580BDAA388EF45 Image Caption: Jake Weatherald takes a sharp catch // Getty

"People might argue that's determined by where they field ... but teams put the good fielders in those (important) positions. If a guy has an average of 1.00, if you think he's good, put him in the positions where he'll get a lot of catches and see what happens."

The subjective nature of the analysis means that while Grade 1 dropped catches are normally clear cut – Buszard jokes that you only have to listen to the commentators to know which ones should have been taken – the grading of missed run outs can often be debated at length as it's a much harder skill to master.

Dismissals that are rated Grade 2 or Grade 3 can also highlight players who create and take what are commonly referred as 'half-chances', a difficult run out or classic catch that can change the course of a match. In the past five years of the BBL, Nic Maddinson (six), Alex Ross, George Bailey, Jake Lehmann and Laughlin (five each) lead the way amongst outfielders when it comes to taking chances that are rated Grade 2 or Grade 3.

Each team is also given a Fielding Average that is regularly updated and sent through to coaches during a competition, allowing them to track the progression of their side's fielding throughout the season and provide numbers that could confirm or challenge their impression of their side's recent performances (last BBL season, the Renegades on 0.95 had the highest fielding average and the Scorchers the lowest with 0.81).

And for the first time this season, total runs scored by a batter after they've been dropped is being recorded, and it's hoped that runs scored following run out errors will be added to this metric in the future. In the recent Rebel WBBL, Grade 1 dropped catches cost the Sydney Sixers a staggering total of 303 runs across the tournament (including missed chances offered by Sophie Devine and Lizelle Lee that cost 75 runs each) compared to just 57 for the Hobart Hurricanes.

There are still aspects of fielding that CA's team have a desire to measure but are yet to find an effective way to do so. Chief among them is runs saved in the field, which sounds simple in theory but has proven problematic. A diving save that prevents the ball from reaching the boundary while the batters run three could be counted as one run saved, but if a ball is struck firmly but directly to a fielder on the rope and the batsmen jog through for an easy single, crediting that player with saving three runs seems counter-intuitive.

"That would be our next step … but it is a difficult one to measure," Buszard says.

"If a guy hits a ball really hard but straight to a fielder at cover, does that count as saving for runs, or should he have stopped it anyway?

"That's even more subjective than determining (the grades of) dropped catches."

And Buszard concedes an ongoing challenge is to take players, coaches and even the media along for the ride, with the hope that players will one day take us much pride in their fielding average as they do their batting and bowling numbers.

Part of that process has been the recent focus on team fielding numbers, not just those of individual players, and it's hoped an eventual metric for runs saved in the field will add further credibility to a measure that Buszard hopes, particularly in T20 cricket, will one day be used as a key selection tool.

"It just takes time," he says. "My aim is to just at least get run outs and a fielding average in their career statistics ... and then young kids look at it, and then clubs look at it.

"But it's like all statistics. You don't just look at a number and say, 'we're going to pick him because he averages 40 with the bat'. You've got a look a bit deeper than that. But I think it could help to justify some selections."

Top 10 Fielders in the Big Bash League, BBL|07 – BBL|09

(Current players, outfielders only, minimum 15 games played)

1) Phil Salt (Adelaide Strikers)

Matches: 15 | Catches: 10 | Run Outs: 1 | Grade 1 misses: 0 | Average: 1.00 | Strike Rate: 0.73 | Impact Rating: 0.73

2) Chris Green (Sydney Thunder)

Matches: 32 | Catches: 20 | Run Outs: 3 | Grade 1 misses: 1 | Average: 0.96 | Strike Rate: 0.74 | Impact Rating: 0.71

3) Glenn Maxwell (Melbourne Stars)

Matches: 39 | Catches: 28 | Run Outs: 2 | Grade 1 misses: 4 | Average: 0.88 | Strike Rate: 0.77 | Impact Rating: 0.68

4) Nic Maddinson (Melbourne Stars)

Matches: 35 | Catches: 23 | Run Outs: 0 | Grade 1 misses: 1 | Average: 0.96 | Strike Rate: 0.66 | Impact Rating: 0.63

5) Sean Abbott (Sydney Sixers)

Matches: 32 | Catches: 20 | Run Outs: 1 | Grade 1 misses: 1 | Average: 0.95 | Strike Rate: 0.66 | Impact Rating: 0.63

6) Aaron Finch (Melbourne Renegades)

Matches: 23 | Catches: 14 | Run Outs: 0 | Grade 1 misses: 0 | Average: 1.00 | Strike Rate: 0.61 | Impact Rating: 0.61

7) Beau Webster (Melbourne Renegades)

Matches: 24 | Catches: 16 | Run Outs: 0 | Grade 1 misses: 0 | Average: 01.00 | Strike Rate: 0.59 | Impact Rating: 0.59

8) Moises Henriques (Sydney Sixers)

Matches: 34 | Catches: 19 | Run Outs: 2 | Grade 1 misses: 2 | Average: 0.91 | Strike Rate: 0.52 | Impact Rating: 0.56

9) Jordan Silk (Sydney Sixers)

Matches: 33 | Catches: 20 | Run Outs: 0 | Grade 1 misses: 1 | Average: 0.95 | Strike Rate: 0.59 | Impact Rating: 0.56

10) Alex Hales (Sydney Thunder)

Matches: 17 | Catches: 9 | Run Outs: 0 | Grade 1 misses: 0 | Average: 1.00 | Strike Rate: 0.53 | Impact Rating: 0.53