CHARLIE PETERS speaks to Will Smeed and analyst Dan Weston about the men's team's aggressive tactics and dedication to boundary percentage, as they aim to better last season's runners-up finish
It is, of course, entirely a coincidence that BP happens to stand for both Birmingham Phoenix and boundary percentage. Yet it could not be a more apt one.
In last year’s inaugural edition of the men’s Hundred, the Edgbaston-based side were arguably the first out the blocks to establish an identity for themselves, namely as a hard-hitting, all-out-attacking batting unit.
Captain Moeen Ali and talismanic all-rounder Liam Livingstone alone hit 77 boundaries between them, with scarcely a strike rate below 150 in sight. And while this approach wasn’t quite enough to lead Phoenix to glory in 2021 – they fell at the final hurdle to Southern Brave at Lord's – it was undoubtedly a highly entertaining formula.
A key figure in assembling this enviable array of ball-striking riches was team data and insights manager Dan Weston. The analyst is well-known in more tactically-oriented cricketing circles for his focus on aggressive batting: it's no surprise to learn that this approach had been in the plan as far back as 2019.
"It was always the way we wanted to play," he explains. "Having that clear identity going into year one was so important because sometimes you see teams almost 10 years into a franchise league and you still don't know what they stand for.
"Everyone knew what the Phoenix were going to be about and what our brand and identity were going to be – that brave attacking style of cricket that leaves everything out there and never dies wondering."
Selecting Livingstone in round one of the initial 2019 draft set the tone for what was to come, locking in their domestic linchpin and middle-order six-hitter with their very first pick.
Moeen Ali unleashed 28 boundaries during the 2021 competition (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
But Weston’s uber-attacking approach is about far more than the big guns at the top of the draft grid. Arguably, the player who most encapsulates the Phoenix’s 'go big or go home' mantra wouldn’t have even made it onto the squad list were it not for a season-ending injury to Warwickshire seamer Henry Brookes.
Then just 19, top-order batter Will Smeed was a relative unknown on the county circuit.
He had played a handful of games for Somerset but would have been far from the lips of the majority of pundits. When the call came that he was wanted for Phoenix duty, it was such a surprise that even his mum didn’t believe it. It wasn’t something that he understood either at first.
"I wasn't really sure why [they had selected me]," he admits, candidly. "Then I got to training and got chatting with Dan Weston. He explained it was down to me having quite a high boundary percentage – that was something that Phoenix were big on."
It was, in many regards, the happiest of accidents. This was never something he had planned for.
"I wouldn’t say that I've worked on it specifically, but I also wouldn’t say that growing up I was a naturally aggressive batter. I think it's just something that’s happened over time. I can’t really put my finger on when or why it happened. I used to love just batting for ages and that sort of turned into me really enjoying trying to smack the ball."
As far as Weston and the rest of Phoenix’s backroom staff were concerned, however, the selection made itself.
"From a data-driven perspective, he was so far ahead of the other players in his age group. It was evident, to me anyway, that he was the best player available prior to the tournament as a replacement.
Birmingham Phoenix men in The Hundred 2021
Runs: 1,338
Highest team score: 184 for 5
Top individual score: Liam Livingstone (92 not out)
Balls faced: 823
Strike rate: 162.5
Fours: 102
Sixes: 66
"You look at his numbers when he was 19, for example, and you compare them to some current England players' numbers when they were 19, and he’s miles ahead of them. That situation was a great example of using data and age-curve analysis to find a player."
Twenty boundaries from just six matches later, it rapidly became clear that the think-tank were onto something. One hundred and sixty-six runs at a strike rate of a shade under 173 heralded Smeed's arrival onto the scene and marked him out to the wider public as one of the breakout stars of the men’s competition. But it’s also clear just how much of an impression the Phoenix strategy has made on him and the rest of the squad.
Weston frequently tells of the importance of winning the boundary count – "roughly 85 per cent of T20 matches are won by the side with the highest boundary percentage", he says. When speaking to Smeed a few days later, he repeats this almost verbatim, without prompting, as if it were a mantra.
Smeed adds: "As long as we stick to our plan, that’s the main thing. If it goes wrong, it doesn’t matter. We can bounce straight back. Everyone’s bought into that mindset, and I think that’s the main thing.
"If all the players believe this is the best way to go, and the coaches do as well, then more often than not it will come off, especially with the calibre of players that we’ve got in our team. Sometimes teams will win batting more sensibly, but that’s not the way we’re going to go.
Steven Finn celebrates on the way to Manchester Originals dismissing Phoenix for 87 (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
"You can’t afford those 25 off 25 balls-type of innings that are likely to be match-losing in this format,"
Weston agrees. "You've got to have that consistent intent. I think the boundary percentage in the men's Hundred was just over 18 per cent last year, and the Blast is just under 17 per cent. What good is it to you to recruit someone who’s got a four per cent boundary percentage? They're stopping you from reaching your objective, not helping you."
As much as the data is the backbone of this team, it isn’t necessarily in the forefront of the player’s minds. "I don't really look at it too much," Smeed admits.
"Dan’s a great person to go and speak to if you want to know something to work on. All the information is there at your disposal and then it's just down to the individual. Some players love knowing everything and some not so much. I'm probably somewhere towards the not so much, but I do like to know a little bit."
Even the analyst himself doesn’t feel that it's especially important for the players to engage with his numbers. "We've already recruited the players who naturally play in the style that we want them to play. We’re not asking them to do something different to what they're already very good at.
"If you use data for recruitment then that's pretty much all you need, because if you've used the data well and you've recruited well then you've got the players there who can do the job you want them to do already."
That job is often a selfless one. Phoenix were skittled for just 87 by Manchester Originals in their second game of the 2021 campaign, as batter after batter holed out attempting to hoist deliveries out of the park. This is a by-product of aggressive batting – it is, by its nature, a high-variance approach, and as Smeed recognises "there will be some times where we get rolled".
Smeed fell 10 short of three figures against South Africa (Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)
There have also been times – plenty, in the opener’s case – when potentially career-defining moments have been sacrificed in favour of reaching for more boundaries.
He has posted scores of 99, 98, 97, 94* and, most recently, 90 for England Lions against a near-full strength South Africa. But the big 100 is yet to be reached, almost entirely due to his determination to put the team ethos first.
"I've never played the game for personal milestones. I've always played it because I want to win. Every time I’ve been in the 90s, the best thing for the team has been to try and hit more boundaries. If I knocked it around to get a century and the team lost I'd never forgive myself, but if I get out in the 90s and we win I’m happy."
Surely there's a part of him that’s frustrated to have fallen so close to the landmark, so often?
"Other people are more frustrated than me about it!" he chuckles. "I’m really not bothered at all."
This could so easily be disregarded as an example of a player simply saying the right thing to the press. But Smeed is both a humble man and an utterly unselfish cricketer. From him, it is entirely on brand, and very endearing.
It's these qualities that has made both he and his Phoenix side so likeable. "After our games last year, I would go through Twitter and search for Birmingham Phoenix," Weston recounts, "and the number of families and people who would say 'we loved tonight’s game, our whole family are now new fans of cricket', stuff like that, was unbelievable. Hopefully, they’ll always be Birmingham fans, and they’ll always be cricket fans as well.”
In a competition that, on paper, appears to have levelled the playing field somewhat from last season, it’s not easy to pick a winner for the 2022 campaign. But one thing feels safe to predict: the intent merchants that are Birmingham Phoenix’s men will be swinging for the fences once again.
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