Tour Statistics So Far

Statistics are a bit like snakes: utterly fascinating, but need to be treated with a great deal of caution. With that in mind, I have been having a little peek at the figures from Kenya's tour to Zimbabwe so far.

In regards batting, there seems little between the teams when you look at the averages for the top 5 from each team (strike rate in brackets):
1. Taylor ZIM 53.5 (79.85)
2. Tikolo KEN 43.33 (105.69)
3. Odoyo KEN 33.66 (82.11)
4. K.Otieno KEN 33.33 (57.14)
5. Rinke ZIM 32 (102.12)
6. Kamande KEN 32 (72.72)
7. Masakadza ZIM 31 (59.61)
8. Meth ZIM 28.5 (63.33)
9. Mishra KEN 22.66 (66.01)
10. Duffin 21.33 (79.59)

Looking at the bowling however, the Kenyan figures look much better - I have included only bowlers that have taken 2 or more wickets, they are sorted by average:

(Player, wkts, avg, Strike rate, Economy)
Suji KEN 2, 8, 15, 3.2
Ongondo KEN 8, 9.62, 15.6, 3.69
Odoyo KEN 5, 16, 22.8, 4.21
Patel KEN 2, 17, 25, 4.08
Higgins ZIM 3, 21.66, 38, 3.42
Ireland ZIM 6, 21.16, 27, 4.7
Rainsford ZIM 4, 24.25, 39, 3.73
Utseya ZIM 3, 37, 58, 3.82

Added to this is the fact that the only Zimbabwean bowler to have dismissed a Kenyan batsman twice is Rainsford, who has has Maurice Ouma lbw each time. Kenya's selectors may want to take this into account when they announce the team for today's match. Obuya deserves a second chance after top scoring in the last match, and has opened before. Ouma could possible drop down a place to number 3. Kenya's bowlers have been much better at getting on top of the opposition batsmen. Odoyo has twice removed both Duffin and Masakadza, while Peter Ongondo, who so far has the most wickets in the series, has twice accounted for opener Rinke, and the other hard hitting batsman Strydom.

Kenya's worry could be that the majority of wickets have come from these two bowlers, whereas Zimbabwe's wickets are more spread out. That said, Odoyo and Ongondo have done such a good job, that they have hardly needed the other bowlers. It is difficult to see the pitch recovering sufficiently from Wednesday not to still be a tough one for the batters. Kenya will be all too happy for that to be the case.