South Africa's fightback, Pope's 196, and Hartley's seven-for: the best of WTC 2023-25

A lowdown on all the top performers and performances from the last recently concluded cycle

28-Jun-2025

Ollie Pope also used the scoop from his array of strokes, India vs England, 1st Test, Hyderabad, 4th day, January 28, 2024

A compact two-year WTC tournament ended with a terrific final, concluding a topsy-turvy cycle. ESPNcricinfo published excellent review of the WTC 2023-25 cycle before the final. However, that review was more about teams and trends, while this one concentrates on players and is based on the measures I have developed.

With many neutral followers supporting them, South Africa finally took the monkey off their back: some compensation indeed for Bridgetown 2024, Kolkata 2023, Eden Park 2015, Mirpur 2011, Headingley 1999, and finally, SCG 1992. For once, they did not freeze and secured a magnificent win, possibly from a 10% winning situation at the beginning of the fourth innings, against arguably the greatest bowling attack. Let us tip our hats to the magnificent South African team, led by the grossly underrated and under-recognised Temba Bavuma.

First, an update.

Last week, I published an article on the greatest Test for each team. For South Africa, I had zeroed in on the Johannesburg Test against England in 1906 - a magnificent one-wicket win. I am glad to share with the readers that I have changed that selection to this equally magnificent win, inarguably the most important match in South Africa's cricket history. They will be known as the team that beat Australia, against all odds, at the revered Lord's.

Let us now look at the way in which the last few months of this WTC unfolded.

This graph runs from October 15, 2024, after the end of the India-Bangladesh series, to February 8, 2025, the last day of the WTC-25 cycle (excluding the final). Sixteen out of the 24 qualifying WTC Tests are covered in this period, featuring Australia (seven Tests), South Africa (six), and India (eight) - the three teams that finished in the top three positions of the table. On October 15, 2024, England and Sri Lanka had better figures than South Africa. However, these two teams fell off and I have featured only the three teams that mattered at the end. Let us look at the way the TPI (Team Performance Index) values for the three teams moved during the last quarter of the WTC cycle.

The TPI values that I will be referring to are explained in the supporting document to my recent article on the Test Championship across the history of the game. This is somewhat similar to the ICC's WTC methodology, except that it addresses the shortcomings in the ICC system, like ignoring the away performances, treating all draws the same, treating all results the same, and the unfair points deductions for poor over rates.

At the beginning of this period, India were at the top of the table with a TPI of 7.09 (75% in the ICC table). They had a home series against New Zealand, which they would have expected to win, by a margin of at least 2-0. Then they had a tour to Australia where they had won the previous two series and would have expected to at least draw the series. They were odds-on to finish at the top of the table. What happened actually was one of the most remarkable upsets in the history of Test cricket.

India chose to bat first in Bangalore, were dismissed for 46, and never recovered - both in the Test and the series. Their TPI value dropped to 6.53 after the Test. The refrain was: "We will still sweep the series 2-1". Then they went to Pune, Santner happened, and India lost, falling to 6.05. The talk was: "1-2 is not bad". Then Mumbai did not work in India's favour and they dropped further to 5.65. Things looked shaky. Surprisingly, India recovered in Perth, despite many things going against them, and moved up to 5.92. However, Australia were like a wounded tiger and won three of the next four Tests, drawing the fourth. India dropped like a stone and finished their campaign at a TPI of 4.93, a few rungs behind the top two teams.

Australia started this period at a TPI of 6.51, and despite the loss in Perth dropping them to 6.03, steadily increased their index through wins in five of the next six Tests - the two against Sri Lanka being creditable away wins. They finished with a TPI value of 6.76. They were first in the WTC table in this calculation, although they were second in the ICC's WTC table.

South Africa were in the doldrums on October 15, 2024, indexing at just below 4.0. Then they had a golden run. They won the away series against Bangladesh 2-0 and registered the same win margins in their two home series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan respectively. The highlight was their completely unexpected two-wicket win against Pakistan in Centurion - Rabada and Jansen adding 51 for the ninth wicket. Granted they had a favourable draw. But they took their chances well, something India did not do, and finished with a TPI value of 6.56. They were second in this table, although they finished first in ICC table.

Let us speculate about what would have happened if India had beaten New Zealand 3-0 and all other results remained the same. I will do this based on my TPI values. This could very well be the case in the ICC table as well. In the three-Test series, India secured 1.15 points and New Zealand, 28.38 points. The difference is 27.23 points. Let us say that India won the series by a 3-0 margin and got the same point spread. That means that India would be ahead by 27.23 points. Their TPI will increase by 1.43 (27.23/19), moving from 4.93 to 6.36.

However, since there is no change to the Index values of Australia and South Africa, India would still not have qualified, according to my points system. A few more things would have needed to happen in addition for India to qualify: India would have needed to win a Test or two more in Australia; Australia to have lost a Test or two in Sri Lanka; or South Africa to have lost a Test or two in their home stretch. That will certainly put things in perspective. But it is clear that India were still in with a chance when they left for Australia. To have any chance, they needed to win that series by a comfortable margin.

It is now time to move on to the player-related tables.

It is not a surprise that Joe Root leads the runs-scored table. Once he resigned from captaincy, his batting blossomed and that is shown in the results. He scored nearly 2000 runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal showed the class he has by coming in second, around 200 runs behind, no doubt helped by those big hundreds. In a surprise placement, the quick-scoring Ben Duckett is in third place, scoring nearly 1500 runs. These positions were set in stone before the final at Lord's.

When it comes to the per cent of team runs scored, we have some surprises. Kane Williamson, being the backbone of New Zealand batting, is the only batter who has scored over 20% of his team's score. Afterwards, there is a real big surprise: a middle-order batter like Kamindu Mendis scoring nearly 20% of his team's aggregate runs. That is indeed something special. Then comes Jaiswal with a near 20% share. This is also surprising since the Indian batting has been quite strong recently. Or perhaps it's not so surprising since the reputed Indian batters have been failing often.

No South African batter is in the list since their regular batters did not play in the two-Test series against New Zealand, due to which a B team was sent. In fact, Bavuma played only eight Tests in the cycle, while Aiden Markram played 11. David Bedingham played all 13 and is the highest-scoring South African batter with 714, very closely followed by Bavuma (711) and Markram (708).

As most readers would know, the WBA (Weighted Batting Average) is a very effective method to remove the anomalies inherent in the traditional not-out-ignoring batting average. The batter with the highest WBA is another surprise indeed. Who would have thought that Mendis would have a higher value than Williamson and Root, the next two batters in the table? The WBA of Mendis is 56.8, and his traditional batting average is 62. That is a very impressive start to his career. In addition to Williamson and Root, Harry Brook and Jaiswal have WBA values exceeding 50.

When it comes to the useful Runs per Test measure, only two batters, Williamson and Mendis, have scored in excess of 100 RpT. This is a very tough mark to achieve over a longer span. To put this in context, among the 341 batters who have scored 2000-plus Test runs, only one - the incomparable Don Bradman - has achieved it.

With Test scoring rates on the up, and Bazball making its presence felt in many other Tests not involving England, I have created a table of high strike rates. Is it a surprise that the table is dominated by the English batters? Four of them - Duckett, Brook, Crawley, and Pope occupy four of the top five places, with Duckett leading the quintet with an ODI-like strike rate of 84. The odd batter out, not a surprise at all, is Travis Head, who splits the four Englishmen. A perusal of the table gives the impression that the more runs a batter scores, the faster he scores those runs. The last three batters not featured here (Williamson, Steven Smith, and Marnus Labuschagne) are middle-order batters from New Zealand and Australia, anchored in traditional, and still effective, batting methods.

The IPV (Innings Peer Value) is a powerful measure developed by me to measure how far ahead or behind a batter is in relation to his team members who played the Test. IPV is determined by dividing the batter score by the average of the other innings (max of 21) played by the players of his team. A high IPV figure indicates that the batter outperformed his compatriots by a big margin. This table is ordered by the average of the IPV values of all the batter scores. It indicates the level of over-performance.

Mendis outperformed his compatriots, on average, by more than 2.2 times. This is the average across the 20 innings he played. Readers should take the time to digest this fact to understand how good Mendis was. Williamson was close behind, by a hundredths of a decimal point. Saud Shakeel follows.

Duckett's 153 in Rajkot had a high IPV since the other 21 innings added up to only 251 runs and the average is 11.95. Duckett clocks in with a huge IPV of 12.80 (153/11.95). Shakeel's 208 and Jaiswal's 209 had IPV values greater than 10.0.

IPV for the Match, not featured here, is determined by dividing the batter score by the average of the other innings (max of 43) played by all the players. It is an overall indication of how the batter fared in relation to every other batter.

The next two tables are based on the BAT-100 performance analysis measure, which most readers should be familiar with. BAT-100 is a totally context-centric analysis of batting performances. It ensures that a score of 75 made in a low-scoring win would probably be rated higher than a 200 made in a high-scoring draw. There are two tables, one covering the best BAT-100 performances during the WTC cycle and the other, average BAT-100 points for the WTC cycle.

The best batting performance during the WTC cycle was Ollie Pope's monumental 196 in Hyderabad against India. Look at the context. England, 190 behind, were at 163 for 5 against Bumrah and Co. Pope scored 196 and helped them get past 400. Then Tom Hartley took over and England secured a narrow win. This, inarguably, greatest visiting batter performance in the sub-continent was placed in the 11th position in the BAT-100 list.

The next best batting performance during the WTC cycle was Markram's "El Magnifico" at Lord's. A true match-winning innings, in the context of the match - a chase for the highest total of the match against an all-time great attack. This was placed in the 20th position in the all-time BAT-100 table. The third place goes to a sub-100 masterclass by Alex Carey. In Christchurch, Australia were set 279 to win and were struggling at 80 for 5. Mitchell Marsh and Carey added 140 and then Carey shepherded the chase with the late-order batters. This innings is in the top 30 of the BAT-100 list.

Markram is the only batter to have two 700-plus innings in the WTC-25 cycle.

Bavuma appeared in only eight Tests in this cycle but played quite a few important innings, including the invaluable 66 in the Lord's chase. He averages just over 570 ratings points per Test. Will Young, who filled Williamson's shoes so effectively in India, played some very important innings and finishes second in the table. He averages over 550 points per Test. That is quite impressive. The legend he replaced follows quite close behind, but across more matches.

Now we move onwards to the bowler tables.

The top three positions are as expected, although the order might have been different. Until the WTC final, Jasprit Bumrah led the table with his tally of 77 wickets. However, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc were quite close behind. In the WTC final, Cummins produced a superlative first-innings performance and leapfrogged Bumrah. Starc managed to draw level with Bumrah and moved to second place. Let us not forget that he got an additional wicket, was not given, and Australia had no reviews left. When you realise that Nathan Lyon is fourth, the overall potency of the Australian bowling attack is evident. However, it must be said that they faltered the one time when they needed to click as a group - on the third day at Lord's.

The bowling average is a function of the bowling strike rate and bowling accuracy (BowAvge = RpB * BpW). Still, I have presented all three tables to get different perspectives. The qualifying criteria are different.

Playing in mostly home matches, Pakistan's 38-year-old left-arm spinner, Noman Ali, has the best bowling average: 14.76. That is George Lohmann-esque. Very close behind is Bumrah, a diametrically opposite bowler, with an average of 15.09 - one could say that's Sydney Barnes-esque. Matt Henry follows some distance behind with an average of 18.58. Kagiso Rabada also clocks sub-20 bowling averages. The last entry in the table is interesting. R Ashwin finished his glittering career with an average of 24.5 in his last 14 Tests. Like the Gavaskar retirement, the question to be asked is "Why, Ashwin?"

Noman's WpT value is a stratospheric 7.7. Bumrah, Henry and Rabada clock in at over five wickets per Test.

Noman tops the strike-rate table as well. He captured a wicket every 28 balls, which is six balls fewer than the all-time-best career figures by Lohmann. Then comes the familiar name, Bumrah, who needed all of 30 balls per wicket. The same sequence then follows - Henry took a wicket every 34 balls. Ten bowlers clock in at fewer than 45 balls per wicket.

This table also has the WQI (Wicket Quality Index) values. Noman's average WQI value was 1.08 - that is nearly 10% better than par. Josh Hazlewood tops on that factor with a value of 1.11.

Keshav Maharaj was the most economical of bowlers - conceding only 2.78 runs per over. Just behind comes James Anderson. And then Bumrah and Chris Woakes, the only other bowlers who conceded below three runs per over. A special word of commendation for Lyon, who bowled nearly 550 overs at just above three runs per over.

The best bowling performances of the WTC cycle, based on the BOW-100 rating points, follow next. The best bowling performance was Hartley's match-winning 7 for 62 in Hyderabad. Defending a low target of 231, Hartley produced a memorable spell of left-arm spin bowling - top-order wickets to start with and late-order wickets as India seemed to recover. He secured over 880 points and his performance was the fourth-best in Test history. Ajaz Patel's match-winning performance in Mumbai comes in next, having secured 867 points. Patel's performance was the eighth-best in Test history. In ninth position in this exalted list, and in third position in the WTC cycle, lies Shamar Joseph's incredible match-winning spell against Australia. Though he was injured, he still managed figures of 7 for 68, ensuring Australia lost by eight runs when chasing a modest target of 216.

Noman is the only bowler to have two 750-plus spells in the WTC-25 cycle.

Sajid Khan, that show-boating offspinner from Pakistan, had an average of over 950 rating points per Test. Also above 950 stands Noman, Sajid's spin twin. The two of them were, for a few weeks, the best spin duo in the history of Test cricket. A surprise third-place bowler is Brydon Carse, whose 27 wickets at a sub-20 average gets him over 800 rating points per match.

The points columns only cover the league phase. Australia lead the points table with an average value of 6.76. They are narrowly ahead of South Africa, who have just over 6.5. Way behind in third place is India, with just below five points. This is slightly different to the ICC tables. There, South Africa are first with 69.44%, Australia second with 67.54% and India third with 50%. The main reason is that I give credit to the location of Test, the margin of the win and, more importantly, the margin of the draw. But I am fine with the ICC rankings.

There is one other simple computation I have done across teams. I have computed the scoring rate for each team - both the "for" and "against" values. This has been across the 70 Tests, including the final. As expected, England lead with a scoring rate of 4.47. They are way ahead of India and Australia. South African bowlers have been the most effective. When it comes to the differential, England are at +0.89 and South Africa, at 0.08. West Indies have the worst differential, at -0.57. Interestingly, Australia are at 0.02 - almost a perfect match.

Performances of the WTC Cycle

Until now, I have presented the numerical highlights of the WTC Cycle. But what were the defining and unforgettable batting, bowling, and team moments that will stay with us always? My take, possibly subjective, on this:

Batting performance of the cycle: Much as I admired Pope's and Carey's batting, I have to settle on the three hours of flawless, exhilarating, calculated, and purposeful batting of Markram and Bavuma on the third day at Lord's. Coming in at 73 for 2, they finished on 213 for 2. If the score had been even 213 for 3, the floodgates could have opened. But they stayed on and ensured that the next day was a formality.

Bowling performance of the cycle: Hartley was out of this world, Santner and Patel were also from another planet, but nothing could beat Joseph's inspired and once-in-a-lifetime bowling performance, that too against Australia at the Gabba. That this had no bearing on anything does not matter. On that day, Joseph stood ten feet tall.

Player of the cycle: It is very difficult to ignore Cummins - 80 wickets, useful runs, and flawless captaincy. And Bumrah - how can he not be considered? But I have to finally home in on that 63-inch giant, Bavuma. A captain extraordinaire, over 700 good-as-gold runs and, above all, a calm temperament and the ability to carry players from different backgrounds together in a difficult situation. A grossly underrated player and person. At least now let us hope that he gets the recognition.

Random thoughts on the WTC

The WTC concept is a very good one and has brought context to all contests. There are inherent flaws in the WTC structure and these inherent weaknesses in the WTC set-up have been well-documented. I will not repeat these. South Africa played 12 matches, and had a poor start, partly of their own making in prioritising T20 franchise cricket over the Test team. Fortunately, they had as few as eight matches to make a comeback. They won seven of these, and deservedly qualified. England played 22 Tests, and Australia and India, 19 Tests each. It is agreed that these three teams choose to play more Tests - among themselves. It is ultimately their choice.

However, it is true that a win for South Africa would bring them an average of more than 0.75 TPI points while a win for India and Australia would have secured them less than 0.5 TPI points. For England, this figure was a low 0.4 points. This is fundamentally and blatantly unfair. In the WTC cycle, this translates to similar percentage values. Interested readers can work this out themselves. And finally, the nonsensical slow-over-rate rule. The teams do not deserve the point-deduction penalty. It dilutes the qualification process severely.

Maybe the solution is for Australia, England, and India to give up their obsession with the need to play only five-Test series when they play each other. By all means, let them play in every cycle among themselves. But play these as three-Test series. Let us all agree that a three-Test Ashes series is not the end of the world. And it would free up some days from the cricket calendar. That means these three teams would have played six Tests among themselves.

Out of the other four series these teams play, two could have two Tests each, and two can have three Tests each. The total for each team would thus be 16 Tests. And let all teams play 16 Tests - the exact configuration is immaterial, and not very difficult to organise. The total number of matches would also be limited to 64, less than the current total of 70 Tests. Also, if warranted, the cycle can be extended to three years to get a more equitable matches-played situation.

I accept that the points calculations I use for each Test is quite complex. However, let the ICC at least make the home/away situations different and make draws more meaningful. A structure like the one outlined below can be used.

10 points for a home win
12 points for an away win
3 points for a home draw
4 points for an away draw
2 points for a first innings lead in any drawn match
1 point to both teams for a first innings tie in a drawn match
Impose heavy financial penalties for the teams for slow over rates. Maybe reduce their WTC prize money by $50,000 or $100,000 per over short or some such. But do not touch the points
Alternatively, immediately add penalty runs to the team score
Maybe play the WTC final towards the middle of the English summer, rather than at the beginning, which is virtually spring. Alternatively, play the final in other countries. While a three-Test final looks enticing, it is not practical in that it would take a month to conduct.
One possibility is to give the top team a direct entry into the final. Maybe play a semi-final Test between the second and third-placed teams with the winner moving on to the final. A draw in the semi-final would move the higher-ranked team into the final.

Simple changes, but effective ones.

Potpourri

This time the potpourri is a collection of Test innings in which one bowler outshone his compatriots by many a mile. The basis is the simple RpW value. The table is self-explanatory. In order to avoid the 1 for 1, 2 for 3 type of situations, I have only selected spells of four wickets or more.

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Anantha Narayanan has written for ESPNcricinfo and CastrolCricket and worked with a number of companies on their cricket performance ratings-related systems