As expected there is a clear correlation between balls faced and runs scored with similar numbers, and positional ordering, across the 10 teams included.
England’s left-handers have faced 84 balls in ODIs, scoring 58 of their 16,620 runs, with Bangladesh at 290 balls and 161 runs the next lowest.
It is a similar picture in T20s with England’s pair having only faced 82 balls, scoring 79 of their 8,641 runs. The next lowest is Ireland’s 272 balls faced and 207 runs scored.
Sri Lanka dominate both tables with left-handers scoring 73 times more ODI runs than England (4,281 of 7,080) by left-handers, and 38 times more T20 runs (2,992 of 5,928).
In the women’s game we are starting to see a big three – England, Australia and India – dominate, and England sit well behind both in terms of balls faced and runs scored.
In ODIs, Australia’s left-handers have faced 6,197 deliveries (73 times more), with India’s coming in at 6,721 (80 times more). It is a similar picture in T20s with 2,479 and 3,050 (30 and 37 times more) respectively.
Perhaps the best comparison is with New Zealand, who have also only fielded two left-handers in the time period, but they are both recognised batters in Amy Satterthwaite and Brooke Halliday.
In ODIs that pair have faced more than 43 times as many balls as England’s pair (3,613 to 84), and scored almost 51 times as many runs (2,945 to 58).
It is similar in T20s with the Kiwi pair facing 10.5 times as many balls (861 to 82), and scoring almost 12 times as many runs (941 to 79).
While England are comparable with some nations in terms of players involved, they are not producing top-six batters, where the bulk of the scoring is done, particularly in the white-ball formats which dominate the women’s game.