Comparing the Waughs against Zimbabwe

Amen sheek! :thumbup:

I should have added, it all goes back to the Renato Carini principle that most tests reach their decisive point by not later than early in the 3rd innings of the match.

1. “Agree – analysis of the past can produce rules for the future. But are your techniques predictive (ie probability of X = Y)?” Only predictive, for example, third innings, only four teams have ever successfully chased down 400, highest 418, four times in 145 years, and only a further 8 times between 350 and 399 and only a further 26 between 300 and 349. Therefore, when the lead, even in good batting conditions, gets towards 300, the team that will bat last is fast losing the opportunity to lose the game. Lead by 400, then there is Buckley’s chance that any runs will be seriously needed after that. Predictive in that only six times has a team won after trailing by 200 or more on first innings, and I think very few more than 150, and even a 100 deficit to win is a great comeback win. Wins only get classified as a great comeback win because they happen so rarely. _______ 2.” Your rule of an innings or 100 runs win makes sense as proxies of a decisive victory. It is not clear though why 184 in 343 i(all out) is worth less than in 6/545. Setting that aside, I can’t detect a clear rule about “redistributing”. Your margin of 80 to 100 suggests a wide margin of error.” This was a real match example, the 184 not out was Dean Jones in Sydney 1987. All of those runs were needed and without them, Australia would have lost. He only makes 128 and England get home by 1 wicket. He only gets 84 and England get home by 3 or 4 wickets and so on. 184 in 6 for 545 means that there are three or four who were not needed to bat, so there was not pressure on that one batsman to make so many runs, especially if the victory margin is huge. In the 184 in 343 allout for a victory as narrow as 55 runs, every one of those 184 were needed. If someone makes 184 in 6 for 545 and they end up winning by an innings and 223 then that player could have got a duck and they still win by an innings. A good example is actually Mark Waugh’s 111 in Hobart against a very weak NZ team in late 1993. Batting first, he went to the crease at 2 for 300, Australia made 6 for 544 and New Zealand later totalled 161 and 161. This was a rarity for Mark on several levels, firstly ruthlessly beating up minnows and secondly, scoring lots of runs that had no impact on the result, but that’s not the point here. _________ 3. “Run chases comfortably achieved don’t count – do I understand this correctly”. No, you’ve greatly miss-understood that. I said run chases of 100 or less. No team is going to stuff that up, victory is assured, it’s just a matter of finishing them off, not doing the hard yards to get to that position – that’s already been done. Think of a boxer (stupid sport but doesn’t matter). Imagine, if in the sport of boxing, you knock your opponent down, and then are allowed to finish him off by kicking the living daylights out of him. That is what cricket is like in the event of chasing, say, 64 to win in 4th innings, ala 2nd Ashes test in 1998-99. Chasing down 164 losing just one wicket, then the same principle applies as in the 184 in 6 for 545 declared batting first. ________ 4. I don’t understand how what commenters say can affect “capping”. I said that to show that it is not entirely retrospective. So, if we are watching a test, and it’s the third innings and the commentators say “Anything over 220 or 230 will be very difficult to chase here” and the lead is already 250 at the time, then we can immediately know that any runs scored from here on in do not influence the result, only the victory margin and the victory margin of any test does not influence the series score line at the end.

There’s no issue there at all. In such a case, there would be reduced capping, but bear in mind conditions are also taken into account regardless. Obviously if a team reaches even 5 for 400, never mind 3 for 400, then conditions are pretty good for batting. These are the times when bowlers that fancy themselves with the bat are chomping at the bit to get out there. These are the conditions in which Dennis Lillee will get his once in a career 73, Merv Hughes his 72 or 67, or Geoff Lawson his 74 – hell even Glenn McGrath made 61 once.

Also think about four batsmen in a team that win the first two tests to close out an early victory in a three-test series. In the first test victory of an innings and 196 runs, Batsman A makes 214 off 421 Batsman B makes 160 off 366 and those two come in at 3 for 168 and 4 for 174 respectively in reply to 302. Batsman C makes 85 of 113, but he came in at 1 for 33 and was the one dismissed at 4 for 174. Batsman D makes 26 off 34 and is the one out at 3 for 168. Remember they easily account for two opposition innings in just one of their own, plus a surplus of 196. The second test is much closer and they only win by two wickets. This time Batsman A makes 13 and 7, Batsman B makes 8 and 18, Batsman C makes 23 (top score) and 44 (second top score). Batsman D makes 20 and 116 in the 8 for 271 run chase. After these two victories to take the series, their stats read as follows: Batsman A 234 runs at an average of 78, Batsman B 186 at 62, Batsman C 152 at 50.7 and Batsman D 162 at 54. Is this really a proper reflection of the impact they all had in attaining that series win?

And what if the score is 5 for 400 and the wicketkeeper is not a noted batsman and the bowlers are rank tailenders? Therein lies the issue.

They had a whole team to get those runs, so basically, for the first 80-100 runs in that situation, that batsman was under pressure. But by the time he reached 100, the score was, say, 3 for 400. Obviously, the pressure has now dissipated and they are going to pass 500 regardless – this is a very easy situation for a batsman to bloat his average, especially if he stays not out.

While there are some interesting points there, I remain to be convinced re capping on the basis that it seems to be a post-hoc exercise. The batter who posts 184 in a first innings of 550 does not know that his team will win by an innings and 200 runs (ignoring the question of eg whether the batter is an opener or comes in at no 7).

Oh, there is another instance I forgot: In the event of a 3rd innings looking to bat out the final day, with no chance of winning, runs retain their pricelessness up until the lead is too much for the opposition to subsequently chase down if and when they get bowled out. Think of a side 200 in front with 60 overs left in the match already allowing for a deduction of three for change of innings. They have 7 wickets left. Let’s say 10 overs later, they still have 7 wickets left and the lead is now 230. Think of the worst possible collapse scenario from that point – how many overs will it take the side to get those 7 wickets. Even if they got them within 10 overs, the team would probably score another 20 runs in that time, so the projected target will be 250 off 40 overs if such a worst case scenario eventuates. What would be the chances of a successful chase of those numbers. Just keep counting it down like that, over by over and you will reach a point where you know the match is safe and a draw assured. From that point, no more runs, wickets or umpiring decisions, or decisions to take a review or not have any impact on winning for the fielding team or losing for the team batting in the 3rd innings.

If they know the conditions as well as the expert commentators, then surely they do. Wherever the test is being played is surely the home ground of at least one player in the team? It can depend on the positivity of the captain. Mark Taylor would declare with a lead of 320 late on 4th day rather than risk a draw, whereas Border felt he always needed 500, even though to the end of his career only twice had 400 been successfully chased in 117 years to that point, and none higher than 406.

While the fact that the analysis is partly in hindsight may not entirely discredit the idea, the point I’m driving at is that the batters themselves do not know when the meaningful point is reached (or do they?).

You should be able to do that without me, but here are the main guidelines that I can think of: 1. Realise that it is part hindsight and part not – part of it being hindsight does not in itself discredit the idea. 2. First place to start is the victory margin. I leave a buffer of 100 runs, or a neat innings victory and knock off excess runs accordingly. For example, 35 years ago, a batsman scored 184 not out from a bowled-out total of 343, all 40 wickets fell and the victory margin was a mere 55 runs, so there is no capping to be done there. Had the 184 been in a total of 6 for 543 declared and a victory by an innings and 55 runs, then the 55 immediately gets culled and then redistribute the remaining 488 of their total, so the 184 would likely get capped at somewhere between 80 and 100. In the event of successful 4th innings run chases, then I wouldn’t cap when the victory margin is by 3 wickets or less. 3. When batting in the 2nd innings of the match, realise that once the lead reaches 150, the opposition is in lost cause territory, so a need for capping will already be looked at, but this might need to be adjusted at match end depending on how many the opposition end up making in the 3rd innings of the match. 4th innings targets of 100 or less, I just disregard all runs made in reaching the target, whether a duck or an opener hogging the strike for 75 not out. Victory targets in the 100-120 range, I would disregard all runs scored unless the team lost 7 or more wickets getting them, and this obviously also includes the extremely rare miracle win for the fielding team defending such a paltry elementary target. 4. When a team is bossing the game in the 3rd innings, in good batting conditions, a lead of 400 is enough, 420 if we want to be conservative. However, conditions may justify lowering this – listen carefully to the expert commentators on the television. If one that you rate says “Anything over 250 will be very difficult”, then conservatively up it to 300, and then if their opposition make 225 in the 4th innings then make another minor adjustment to 325 to finalise it at match end. Don’t forget to cull runs off individual batsmen in the event of declarations made in such 3rd innings circumstances, say 3 declared for 270, when they already took a 180 lead in – these are the type of soft easy circumstances that I can see Travis Head making an overrated unbeaten century in. 5. In the rare event of not actively chasing a 4th innings target and merely looking to bat out the final day, runs have absolutely no numerical value, every delivery a batsman faces that doesn’t get him out is absolutely priceless in the goal of avoiding defeat. Whether the team is successful or not in ultimately staving off defeat, I simply treat all innings in these situations as a meaningful innings played, but treat it as 0 not out from the perspective of any batsman’s impact in the phase of a match where they still actually have a chance of winning it. I hope that’s useful for you, just send me another message here if you need any more help. Cheers mate, and enjoy the Ashes.

The problem is Bernie, I was really looking forward to you identifying the 'meaningful point' in the upcoming Ashes tests beyond which runs no longer matter. This would have helped to move your analysis beyond the realms of post hoc reasoning. Shame for all concerned.

Nope. You'll get mocked and criticised because your premises and methodology deserve it.

That's the gig right there!

Thanks Micko – I think?? :laughing: :laughing: Apart from the ‘obnoxious’ and ‘attitude leaving to be desired’ et el … actually fair comment to be balanced, hopefully I’m not the provocateur too much more than 50% of the time … I have struggled at times to cope with being unable to break down certain stereotypes, but enough of that for now. But yeah, I think the mocking pieces you mention were completely uncalled for, and there was a third less than an hour after this one – the one about runs from a batsman versus catches in the slips inferring that Mark Waugh was somehow the ultimate under performing batsman for goodness sake. What these three satires have done is not only mock me but also grossly disrespect one of the two only mainstays of our batting line-up during the Taylor years (1994-99). Hayden, Elliott, Slater, Blewett, Bevan, Langer, Martyn, and even Ponting all came, and went, then came and went again with half of them never fully developing and the other half not maturing until beyond 2000. People are oblivious as to just how heavily dependant on both Waughs we were during the 1994-99 period in which we were the acknowledged undisputed test champions. Taylor himself had already had his best years with the bat by 1996. I am aiming this at the same people you aimed your comment at, but people accuse me of claiming Mark Waugh was better than Bradman or Mark Waugh was the best batsman in history and nothing I have ever said could be interpreted this way. All I have ever said was that 1. I no longer go along with the idea that Bradman was indisputably the best, 2. Mark was not inferior to Steve, 3. Mark and Steve were right up there with Lara and Tendulkar from their own era, 4. Mark possessed some of the delightful attributes of Trumper in general outlook to batting and knowing when to switch on etc and 5. Mark belongs among the top 10-12 Australian test batsman of the first 145 years of test cricket. But people got nasty and twisted around what shouldn’t have been twisted. Finally, when a certain roarer who I won’t embarrass by mentioning by name wrote an article attacking what I had recently written talking emotionally about how Mark Taylor had written in his autobiography about how he had felt completely in the zone during his 334 in Peschawar 1998 and that same roarer asked rhetorically if any of us had ever felt that way and how he had at club level once etc, I was all set to write a satirical article about how as a 12 year old I had once felt completely in the zone during 175 not out in the back yard with a tennis ball against my younger non-sporty school friend and his younger sister, but I pulled back completely before I got anywhere near the keyboard because I felt that it would have been a very grubby thing to do – even if I sometimes find that particular roarer to be egotistical and full of himself a lot of the time. Anyway, I had an article that the roar were set to publish last night, but as soon as I saw those two grubby ones last night, I emailed Ben Conkey immediately and requested he didn’t publish it because I had had enough of such nonsense. It was to be a sensible pragmatic comparison between Paine and Healy as batsmen. I’m actually thinking about getting it published as a final innings, but no doubt I will get attacked on account of the very pertinent statistical observations made.

All the best to you too Bernie.

Nothing could concern me less than what you think, Roseville. More accurate to say that I ran into an impregnable wall of stubborn ignorance and that is where the damn shame lay. The feeling of missing is not mutual.