Stuart Clark: Champion bowler in the Champions League
Let’s analyse the Australian bowler’s performance at the recently-concluded Champions League.
Some of the all-star player selections in the Champions League emphasized quantity against quality. How else can one explain the placing of Henriques and McKay above Nannes and Clark? From point of view of quality of wickets and bowling accuracy, these two bowlers stand way above the others, with Clark edging out Nannes comfortably. Here I am going to look at Clark’s bowling innspells* in general and three in particular. It is worth mentioning that these bowlers bowled a lot in Delhi.
Clark bowled 22.5 overs in 6 matches in the tournament, conceded 112 runs and captured 9 wickets. He had outstanding figures of a bowling average of 12.44 and RpO of 4.90. Let us not forget that there was no weak team in the tournament.
CL09-Match#2 against Cape Cobras
3 x Wkts = 0
12 x 0 = 0
6 x 1 = 6
3 x 2 = 6
The complete innspell is detailed below
| Over 4: |
W | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1-0-1-1 |
| Over 6: |
1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | W | 2-0-4-3 |
| Over 16: |
0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | W | 3-0-7-3 |
| Over 18: |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4-0-12-3 |
The three wickets were those of Van Wyk, Dippenaar and du Preez, all genuine batsmen. There were 15 score-less deliveries and not a single boundary was scored.
CL09-Match#18 against Somerset
3 x Wkts = 0
9 x 0 = 0
11 x 1 = 11
1 x 4 = 4
| Over 5: | 0 | W | 0 | W | 1 | 0 | 1-0-1-2 |
| Over 7: | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | W | r0 | 2-0-4-3 |
| Over 9: |
1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3-0-7-3 |
| Over 17: | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4-0-15-3 |
The three wickets were those of Kieswetter, Langer and Hildreth, all genuine batsmen. There were 12 score-less deliveries and a single boundary was scored, that too off the last ball of the innspell.
CL09-Match#23 against Trinidad & Tobago
3 x Wkts = 0
7 x 0 = 0
9 x 1 = 9
2 x 2 = 4
2 x 4 = 8
| Over 5: | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1-0-8-0 |
| Over 7: | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2-0-11-0 |
| Over 14: | W | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3-0-16-1 |
| Over 16: | 1 | 4 | 0 | W | W | 3 | 5-0-21-3 |
The three wickets were those of Ramdin, Stewart and Mohammad, all competent batsmen. There were 10 score-less deliveries.
In these three innspells, Clark had a wicket every 8 balls, a dot ball component of over 50% (37 out of 71), a four every 4 overs and conceded no extras, not even a leg bye. The hallmark of a great performance is the number of times consecutive dot balls are bowled. Clark achieved this an incredible 19 times in the 12 overs of these three spells.
The other three innspells were
3-0-20-0 vs Sussex
4-0-27-0 vs Trinidad & Tobago
4-0-17-0 vs Victoria (Semi final)
One outstanding, one middling and one average innspell. One could only fault the first innspell, despite an RpO of 6.67. The second spell was in the face of the Kieran Pollard blitzkrieg. This was more than made up by the tight spell in the semi final.
In summary, four outstanding spells and two acceptable ones. On this basis, there is no doubt that Stuart Clark was one of the bowling architects of the trophy success of New South Wales and the bowler of the tournament.
Mr. Hilditch, why is Clark not in the Australian ODI team? For that matter, Nannes?
*An ‘innspell’ is the complete bowling effort of a bowler in an innings.
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