Which team in World Cup 2019 has the strongest batting tail-end?

The 10th match of the 2019 Cricket World Cup between Australia and West Indies was a great contest.5-time champions Australia came back from a horror start to beat West Indies who won the first two editions of the World Cup in 1975 and 1979.

Australia vs West Indies game did not go to the last over but the defending world champions won by 15 runs thanks to Nathan Coulter-Nile who scored 92 off 60 balls batting at No.8. His knock helped Australia post a formidable total after they had slipped to 38 for 4. Steve Smith was running out of partners till he found an able ally in Coulter-Nile.

The Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) of the India Today Group has analysed the performance of all 10 teams participating in the 2019 World Cup to understand which teams have a strong tail-end and which teams are heavily dependent on their top order batsmen to win them matches.

If we analyse the batting performance of these teams after the 2015 World Cup and before the starting of the 2019 World Cup, Afghanistan's tail-enders emerge as the strongest support for their teams, contributing 15 per cent of the team runs. Afghanistan is followed by Sri Lanka and West Indies, where the tail-enders contributed more than 11 per cent to the overall team scores.

The tail for the Indian cricket team has made the least contribution; only around 5 per cent to the overall runs scored by the team, came from the tailenders. The data also revealed that the Indian batting line-up is heavily dependent on their top-3 batsmen who scored more than 60 per cent of the total runs scored by the team, during the same period.

Having said that, Indian tailenders were exposed for the least number of matches which the team played during the study period. Indian batting went down to 7th wicket and beyond on 45 occasions out of 86 matches they played overall, where they scored at an average of around 21 runs per innings which is the least among all the teams.

The tail-enders of Afghanistan and England have the highest average of around 37 runs per innings where the team went down to 7 wickets or beyond.

The English tail-enders batsmen also have the highest strike - 97, followed by Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with a strike rate above 90.

Pakistan's tail-enders also scored eight 50+ scores during the study period. Pakistan is followed by Afghanistan and England with seven and six half-centuries each. Indian tail-enders scored a 50+ score only once during the same period while the tail-enders from West Indies didn't score any half-century.