A good economy rate is often a bowler hiding

Containment is easy to achieve by declining to attack, which is why economy alone is a poor way to judge a bowler.

Bowl six balls wide of off stump to a deep-set field and you will go for four. Do it every over and you will finish a career with an economy rate that looks excellent and a wicket column that never explains where the pressure came from. The batter was never in danger. He simply chose not to take the risk, which suited both parties.

I do not think this is cynicism so much as a response to incentives. Economy rate is the number quoted about limited-overs bowlers, it is easy to understand, and it is used in selection conversations. A bowler who tries to take wickets will occasionally be hit, and being hit is visible in a way that a passive over is not.

The problem is that wickets are the only mechanism that resets an innings. Runs conceded is a flow variable; a wicket is a structural one, because it removes a set batter, brings in someone who has to start again, and slows the scoring for several overs afterwards without those saved runs being credited to anyone. A bowler who takes two wickets for thirty has often done more for his side's total defence than one who conceded twenty-two and never threatened.

The attacking option also changes what the batter can do. A ball that might get you out has to be respected, and respect costs tempo. So an aggressive line has a containment effect of its own that never appears in the economy column, while a safe line hands the batter a free choice about when to accelerate.

The honest complication is phase. In the middle overs of a long chase, holding a rate genuinely is the job, and a bowler who leaks trying to be a hero is a liability. Nobody sensible attacks every ball. What I object to is judging across phases with one number, which is what most public discussion does.

Look instead at how many false shots a bowler produced. Edges, misses, mistimed strokes. That is closer to the skill, and it is stable in a way that wickets are not, because wickets depend on where the edge went.

An economy rate tells you what the batter decided. It barely tells you what the bowler did.