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Jack Fox

Jack Fox
@cricket_pig

Sep 23, 2022
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Brevis' T20 Batting [Thread] After his great recent CPL knock the other day I just wanted to share some (maybe not too joined up) reflections on Brevis as a T20 batter (it is quite long, sorry) (1/x)

On the 22nd of September Dewald Brevis hit 30* (6) for St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the CPL. This wouldn’t have surprised many - the 19-year-old is one of the most hyped young batters in world cricket and has already played in his domestic comp back in SA as well as the (2/x)
CPL and IPL. Brevis as actually had quite a strange start to his T20 career. In this thread I just want to give some quick detail of his profile as a batter (3/x)
So here are the basics. Brevis averages 23.5 and strikes at 137 accross 23 innings, mainly at number 3. For a young player, this represents a decent return. Brevis has a very decent boundary % of 18.9% but a weak non-boundary strike-rate of 53 (4/x)
Match-up wise, Brevis scores at roughly the same pace versus spin and pace but simply gets out more frequently to pace. It is worth noting that Brevis has a slightly unusual spin hitting profile - he strikes at a very poor 83 against off-spin, a decent 136 against SLA and (5/x)
an amazing 207 versus leg-spin. The samples here are small, but there is a big enough difference in efficacy to suggest there could be something in the numbers. Another interesting element of Brevis’ play is the frequency with which he plays hugely high impact innings (6/x)
Brevis has played 4 innings of 30+ runs with an SR of 180+ - 49 (25), 46 (25), 31 (13), 30* (5). These 4 knocks account for 32% of his runs and 40% of his boundaries in just 19% of his career balls faced. These sorts of innings are so valuable and can swing (7/x)
a team’s win % rapidly. One expects a player to score a disproportionate number of runs in their best innings, however this does feel extreme. This high high is off-set by a low low - in his 13 lowest scores he strikes at just 93 (he has only played 23 knocks remember) (8/x)
All Brevis’ top innings include a 1 over peak of hitting where he absolutely dominates a bowler. These peaks include 28 (5) off Rahul Chahar, 12 (3) off Matthew Arnold, 14 (4) of Chameera and then 18 (3) and 12 (2) off of Akeal Hosein and DuPavillion in the same match (9/x)
He even took 14 (5) off of Migael Pretorius in a very poor knock of 23 (25). He hits these clusters of boundaries with incredible frequency and seemingly regardless of how well he is seeing it. This is of course very encouraging - at a high level where good bowling will (10/x)
come at some point being able to fully exploit a situation in your favour is extremely important. Furthermore, these explosive overs come against a variety of bowling types (11/x)
The flip side of this, however, is that Brevis can be very easy to dot up. In his 49 (25) he faced 5 dots to open his innings and did on occasion in the IPL look shotless against quality spin (there was a good example of this with Kuldeep). However, it would be unfair to (12/x)
say Brevis always starts slow - in his 46 (25) he scored 28 in his 1st 10 balls. What is clear, however, is that Brevis’ overall dot ball percentage is high at 43% - this is only 6% better than the immobile Chris Gayle (since 2021) and Williamson in his horror IPL 2022, (13/x)
more than the famously/stereotypically stodgy Johnson Charles and the same as the one-man slogging machine Ed Pollock (both since 2021). In essence, in T20 he is not, at the moment, the fluent innings builder of the U19 World Cup but really a hitter (14/x)
Overall, Brevis is kind of weird; an unremarkable record hides the ability to play explosive or stodgy innings, make slow and rapid starts, hit plentiful 6s and dot balls and, perhaps most tantalisingly, lay into any given bowling type when he is in the mood (15/x)
All this begs the question of what role Brevis should have at the moment? As I have said, he is used mainly as a number 3 at the moment and has been reasonably good. I don’t think he should be any higher simply because you want to be able to test out whether his (16/x)
super-strength versus leg-spin persists over time which means you want him to be in past the powerplay often. This would, then, also discount sending him in at 3 after a very early wicket in most circumstances. Like most players, it is probably more about entry point (17/x)
Short of not coming in too early, however, it doesn’t seem that clear to me when you’d want him in - he has exploded vs pace and spin at various stages accross the innings. Given his inconsistency, I think the most important thing would be to treat him as (18/x)
a luxury - if you want to use him towards the death send him in before your recognised finisher, if you want him to slog through the middle hold back your spin hitter. Have a blanket for Brevis so you don't have to rely on him and assign him that pressure (19/x)
This way the pressure is kind of off you just hope for one of those short bursts (less responsibilities may even reduce dot balls if you just tell him to go from early on). Thanks for sticking with this, would like to hear people's thoughts :)
NB: I'm essentially just saying pick a non-opening role for Brevis and use him as the kind of forerunner to your role player for that job - high intent, high variance and perhaps stretch out that phase of attack whilst being happy to just get impactful cameos atm
Jack Fox

Jack Fox

@cricket_pig
Have written and/or podded for/with @scoutingcricket, @TheCricketPod, @TheCricketDraft, @CricInTheAir #Essex #PBKS 25 (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈 Blog bellow :)
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