The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is less than four months away to begin. Every team is preparing to fulfil their all requirements to put a stiff challenge in the tournament. Many experts believe that the two-time World Cup winner India is one of the strong favourite sides for the upcoming competition.
Though the in-form India has enough strength in every important position, we have seen the essential no.4 batting position is very volatile since the last World Cup. Here we are going to discuss the stats of India’s no.4 batting position in recent ODI cricket. We have considered all the stats from the post-2015 ICC Cricket World Cup to the end of the current New Zealand tour (30 March 2015 to 3 February 2019).
MS Dhoni has scored more runs, but Ambati Rayudu has the highest average
Since 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, India has widely experimented the no.4 ODI batting line-up. In fact, since the previous World Cup, India has used the joint-most number of players (11) in this particular place.
The former World Cup-winning Indian skipper and wicketkeeper-batsman, MS Dhoni has played most number of innings at no.4 (12 innings) and also he has scored most runs (448 runs) too. However, Ambati Rayudu, who is very close to chasing MS Dhoni in both aspects, has the highest batting average (53.87) among the all other Indian no.4 batsmen.
Also, Dinesh Karthik (52.80), Ajinkya Rahane (46.66) and Yuvraj Singh (44.75) have better averages than MS Dhoni. Since the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, a total of 11 different players have batted at no.4 for India in the ODI format. Out of them, five players have played more than seven innings in that particular spot. Details on this we can see at the below graph and the subsequent table.
India’s no.4 batting line-up performances in ODI format (Since 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup) – updated till on 3 February 2019
| Player | Innings | Runs scored | Highest score | Average | Strike-rate | 100s/50s |
| MS Dhoni | 12 | 448 | 87* | 40.72 | 76.84 | 0/3 |
| Ambati Rayudu | 11 | 431 | 100 | 53.87 | 89.23 | 1/2 |
| Ajinkya Rahane | 10 | 420 | 89 | 46.66 | 92.71 | 0/4 |
| Dinesh Karthik | 9 | 264 | 64* | 52.80 | 71.35 | 0/2 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 9 | 358 | 150 | 44.75 | 97.54 | 1/1 |
| Manish Pandey | 7 | 183 | 104* | 36.60 | 92.89 | 1/0 |
| Hardik Pandey | 5 | 150 | 78 | 30.00 | 106.38 | 0/1 |
| Kedar Jadhav | 3 | 18 | 12 | 9.00 | 50.00 | 0/0 |
| KL Rahul | 3 | 26 | 17 | 13.00 | 59.09 | 0/0 |
| Manoj Tiwary | 3 | 34 | 22 | 11.33 | 46.57 | 0/0 |
| Virat Kohli | 2 | 23 | 12 | 11.50 | 63.88 | 0/0 |
Less volatility brings mostly the better result.
Now, we will briefly look at the broader stats as of how the other top cricket teams are performing at the no.4 batting. In this list, we have considered only ten teams who are set to feature in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Analysing the list, we can observe that the less volatile sides have put a better impact in this position. New Zealand has the highest averages (59.98) while the English ODI side is the less volatile in the no.4 batting position and also has the second-best average (48.60) in this place. Apart from them, only South Africa (47.60) and Bangladesh (41.53) have the 40+ averages, and they have also maintained less volatility in this spot.
India, Australia, Sri Lanka all have used the joint-most number of players (11) in this particular place. While Sri Lanka (39.39) and India (39.25) have the averages of just lower 40, Australia (32.79) has the most disappointing average.
Afghanistan (26.16) and Windies (27.37) have two lowest averages, and Pakistan has an average of 36.54.
Teams’ overall averages at no.4 batting position (Since 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup) – updated till on 3 February 2019
| Team | No.of players | Innings | Runs scored | Average | Strike-rate | 100s/50s |
| Australia | 11 | 63 | 1935 | 32.79 | 83.65 | 2/14 |
| India | 11 | 74 | 2355 | 39.25 | 84.62 | 3/13 |
| Sri Lanka | 11 | 75 | 2521 | 39.39 | 80.13 | 3/19 |
| Windies | 10 | 54 | 1478 | 27.37 | 73.20 | 3/6 |
| Afghanistan | 9 | 53 | 1282 | 26.16 | 67.72 | 2/8 |
| New Zealand | 9 | 70 | 3359 | 59.98 | 86.26 | 9/20 |
| Pakistan | 9 | 66 | 2083 | 36.54 | 83.45 | 0/17 |
| South Africa | 9 | 67 | 2618 | 47.60 | 99.61 | 6/14 |
| Bangladesh | 7 | 53 | 1869 | 41.53 | 82.73 | 4/13 |
| England | 5 | 72 | 2965 | 48.60 | 97.79 | 6/20 |