What CPL2023 means to Romario Shepherd
What Romario has to do to stamp his authority as a first choice selection for the 2024 T20 World Cup
Romario Shepherd and Odean Smith share three things in common: they’re both right-arm fast-medium bowling allrounders, warm the bench for their respective Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises, and play for the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) as starters with the same batting role.
And that’s where it ends.
When it comes to the West Indies T20I setup, things are quite different currently.
For starters, Romario finds himself clearly ahead of the pecking order of Odean, for the latter did not represent the West Indies in last year’s T20 World Cup, as well as the recently concluded World Cup Qualifier.
And while Romario played all 5 T20Is in the series against India completed this week, Odean played just one, all big indicators that Romario can expect himself to be in the 15-man squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup at home.
But there’s still work to be done in the upcoming CPL season to guarantee his place as a first-choice pace bowling allrounder alongside Jason Holder, that being to develop better consistency in the finisher role and as a fifth bowler.
Since the 2020 season, 15 finishers (including Romario) have batted at least 60 balls at the death (overs 17-20). Romario has averaged 20.6 in this phase, which is better than only Tim Seifert, Ashley Nurse, Fabian Allen, Raymon Reifer, and Imad Wasim.
Although Romario has a respectable strike rate of 158.46, it still falls fairly below the average strike rate of 177.13 in this sample, highlighting the importance of further bettering his intent in this phase given run-scoring is generally anticipated to be difficult most of the innings due to Caribbean pitches known to be more on the slower side.
With the ball in the CPL, his role is also at the death, where while he’s had a respectable record in this timeframe, it hasn’t exactly translated at the international level, particularly at home.
Out of 13 bowlers to have bowled at least 30 deliveries at the death in T20Is post-pandemic in the West Indies, his economy rate of 12.43 is only better than Chris Jordan’s 15, well above the average of 9.18, underlining Romario’s need to improve against international quality batters.
He has shown some improvement in over construction in recent times, but there’s more he can do.
Such as improving on his hard lengths and his slower variations.
He can bowl both the leg and offcutter currently, but bowling them with a noticeable pace differential to complement his typical yorker and hard length strategy at the death would be a great bonus, for its something that’s helped the likes of Haris Rauf and Nathan Ellis garner a reputation of being one of the best T20 death bowlers.
With his hard lengths, Romario should look to bang it into the pitch more to extract more grip off the surface to make it more difficult for the batters to time and get bat on, something that is especially important to do so in the Caribbean.
But in spite of the aforementioned areas for improvement, he has promising attributes to his game that make him a worthy contender for the 15-man squad next year.
He has a slingy yorker owing to his bowling action as well as a good powerhitting base against spin bowling and back of a length, with the former specifically being a great plus point to have for the West Indies given it can be largely expected that teams will look to stock up on spin options.
But how can we empirically prove Romario has a good powerhitting base against spin?
One of the key indicators of a good powerhitting base is how late they open up when going for slogs down the ground, which is what Romario does here against Imad towards long-off for six.
Notice how in this frame, the shoulders have stayed side-on and the hips have opened up towards Imad.
The later you open up, the easier it is to be differentiated from powerhitters who are not very good, as those who open up simultaneously lose power and increase their odds of getting out.
In Romario’s case, he opens up pretty late against spin as seen in this exhibit.
This also maximizes the X-Factor Stretch, which is the difference between the hip-shoulder separations at the point of downswing initiation and the point of contact, a quantity positively correlated with the range achieved.
However, as you’ll hear commentators often say on air during T20s whenever a batter gets out playing an unorthodox shot, Romario mustn’t get too overconfident and cocky despite having such attributes in his game.
Obviously.
But if he does, it wouldn’t be a surprise if come the time to announce the squad for 2024, Romario Shepherd is served a meaty Shepherd’s humble pie by the selectors.