This article is part of a series on cricket analysis at club, age group performance and school level. To see part one, click here.
Once we have expected runs, we can look at measuring performance in the first inning.
Runs Added (R+) is a fast way to accurately judge how a team or individual is doing in the first innings in limited overs cricket. It works both during games, after individual games and as an average for end of season analysis.
With the groundwork of finding xR done, R+ is a simple calculation:
R+ = Runs minus xR
On the team level this is useful for several reasons:
You can see during the match how far ahead or behind Par, predict final score, and adjust tactics appropriately. If using over-by-over scores, you can review the R+ after the game to find out how the innings fluctuated.
You can compare your bat first performance to other teams in the competition. Here’s the one for WDCU in 2019 (non-rain affected matches)
Additionally, You can see how R+ changes over games. Here is a graph showing how average R+ changed over the course of 10 matches for a single team in the WDCU. You can see how after a poor start, the team kept ahead of R+ to finish ahead of expected.
You can apply R+ to partnerships – if you have over by over R+ - and see how they performed. Here is the graph for a WDCU team:
In this example it’s easy to see the first five wickets outperformed the expected performance, although the opening partnership had six below par performances, rescued by a 46-run, +22 opening stand. Additionally, the 4th wicket was most volatile, with three 18+ scores and five below Par scores in 10 partnerships. These two points suggest looking at the team’s bat first method both against the new ball and when number six comes out to bat.
Individual batting and bowling
At a player level, R+ shows the value individuals are bringing to the team, compared to what is expected.
We all know when someone is averaging 50 with the bat they are contributing, but what if that 50 comes about through statistical anomaly (a few not outs or a big hundred followed by a duck)? Also, what about the bowler who consistently delivers a match winning performance that doesn’t show up in averages because they don’t take as many wickets?
R+ removes such anomalies.
We can do this on a game by game basis, to see who set up the victory (or who prevented the loss). This is useful post- and peri- matches because it gives unsung players credit, and reveals elements to work on.
For example, one team had a batsman this year who both opened and batted in the middle order. His R+ was -4 in the middle and +8 opening. This suggests he has potential as an opener more than a hitter down the order, and can spend the winter honing these skills if the captain decides he is going to have an opening slot.
It also gives us the ability to look at the big picture through average R+. We can quickly see how well a player contributed over the season, which often reveals more than the average alone.
One good example of this is a player for Western Warriors U16 who averaged 26 with the ball at fours. You might say this is a poor return considering the team bowling average was 12. However, R+ was just above zero, meaning when he bowled the team were “winning”. He can certainly work on improving this further but he can also take the knowledge that his performance was no worse than expected to win the match. If he was an IPL bowler he would doubtless be undervalued and could be picked up at auction at a low price yet give match winning contributions.
So, R+ works incredibly well at a variety of levels. It is not designed to replace either traditional averages or insights from experienced players and coaches, but it does throw up points for those players and coaches to build on either in practice or applying tactics. Additionally, once set up, it is easy to update even with simple scorecards to work from.
The sister of R+ is Win Percentage (Win%), which is applied in the second innings for batting and bowling. We will look at that in the next article.