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“Maxwell has really shown some intent since he came to the crease;”

“Smith’s looking really comfortable out there;”

“Cummins is really building up some pressure on the batsmen;”

“Starc’s looked a real threat in his second spell;”

These are phrases we’ve heard countless times from the commentary box, as the experts combine a) what they are seeing unfold, with b) their cricketing nous, to provide us with a subjective assessment to help paint a picture of where the current game is at.

So, we thought, why not see if we can use the data to provide an objective assessment of these popular clichés as a cricket match progresses to help you - the cricket fan - get a feel for the state of the game as it stands, and how the individual players are tracking.

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If you open one of Stats Insider's Big Bash match pages during a live matchyou'll notice we've now added live scores and match stats, in-game probabilities and dynamic, advanced predictive analytics to our BBL offering.

We now arrive at the four new metrics you may have come across on our live Big Bash widgets and match pages:

• Intent;
• Composure;
• Pressure, and;
• Threat

Now let’s take a more detailed look at each one.

INTENT

Put simply, ‘intent’ is a measure of how aggressive a batsman has been at the crease. The higher the intent rating, the more aggressive a batsman has been.

By looking at the number of deliveries a batsman has attacked and/or defended, we can develop a pretty good picture of what batting ‘mood’ they are in during their innings.

Whilst a batsman’s strike rate is the more traditional way this measure is portrayed, our Intent metric allows us to capture deliveries a batsman may have attacked, however, played and missed, or smashed straight to a fielder for no run– these would normally lower a batsman’s strike rate, without truly reflecting their current state of mind. 

Similarly, strike rate can be inflated by a delivery the batsman may have defended but ultimately edged for four - whilst they may have picked up some bonus runs, it’s difficult to say they intended to up the scoring rate - again our Intent rating is able to overcome this.

Essentially it is a measure of a batsman’s aggressiveness at the crease, ignoring the result of the delivery and it helps us paint a clearer picture of their current mindset.

COMPOSURE

"Steve Smith’s looking really comfortable out there," or "Steve Smith’s never really looked troubled by the bowlers." Both statements have been pretty common from the commentary box, particularly in recent times.

Our metric attempts to measure a batsman's composure at the crease, by looking at how ‘comfortable’ the batsman has been against the deliveries they have faced.

Somewhat opposite to our Threat metric (discussed below), a high Composure rating could indicate a batsman is seeing the ball well and looks set for a long stay at the crease.

PRESSURE

"He’s really building the pressure up here" is a statement I hear coming from my TV screen as a bowler strings together a few dot balls, particularly in a limited-overs match. 

Our Pressure metric attempts to measure this for individual bowlers by looking at things that contribute to a build-up of pressure (such as dot balls) and things that ‘release’ pressure (conceding a boundary, for example) to calculate an overall rating. 

The higher the rating, the higher the ‘pressure’.

The logic being, when the pressure is high something may be about to give – whether that is in the form of a wicket, or it could be a batsman ‘breaking the shackles’ with a boundary (particularly in short-form cricket).

The Pressure rating helps convey when that ‘give’ may be about to occur.

THREAT

"Starc’s looking a real threat here," "Cummins has really been on top of the batsmen since he’s come back on."

These are statements often used by commentators to convey whether the bowler is troubling the batsmen, which, in turn, may suggest a wicket is around the corner.

Our Threat metric attempts to measure the level of bother a bowler is causing, by looking at how many errors (such as edges and plays & misses) they have forced from opposition batsmen.

Again, bowling strike rate (average balls bowled per wicket taken) is the more traditional measure of a bowler’s wicket-taking ability. But a wicket is a pretty big event in a cricket innings, and sometimes doesn’t come around all that often – meaning strike rate can be of limited capacity for indicating when a wicket may be coming during a match.

Similarly, just because a bowler has taken a wicket, doesn’t necessarily mean they have been troubling the batsman. For example, a full toss that is lofted by the batsmen only to pick out the fielder on the mid-wicket fence may look the same in the scorebook as an in-swinger that has nipped away and caught the outside edge straight to first slip - but we would argue those wickets are caused by very different things - one being a peach of a delivery and the other a likely lapse in concentration from the batsman (maybe even as a result of a build-up of Pressure).

Our Threat metric helps overcome this by looking at some of the factors that suggest a bowler has the advantage in the contest between bat and ball – and a high rating may even indicate a wicket is on the cards. It’s also why a bowler’s Threat rating doesn’t necessarily increase when they take a wicket, as again, it attempts to divorce the final result of a delivery from a bowler's underlying performance to help paint a clearer picture of how the match is currently poised.

Everything we do here at Stats Insider is about bringing the audience closer to the action, digging deeper into the data to evolve the sports fan experience, making data-driven content to sports nuts like us.

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