Correct me if I’m wrong, but Cricket Australia is a not for profit and therefore gets tax exemptions. That means that Australians underwrite it and therefore it should be written into it’s charter that all cricket that it oversees is free to air. How else can it hope to promote the game to the widest possible audience?

There’s the pedestal and then there’s the person. The pedestal is his tennis achievements. These are without question in the upper echelon of the sport. The person is A selfish person who reuses to acknowledge the expertise of others on a topic he knows diddly squat about.

The person does not deserve respect just because of the pedestal.

Why? Would you speak up after a project is finished or during in order to hopefully rectify problems that you can see? Cricket isn’t sacred. It’s just a sport played by people and run by people. Placing all these notions about the right and wrong time to speak up is what lets bad things go unchecked for too long. How one goes about speaking up is definitely something to consider and is another topic to whether one should.

The thing is, he’s not wrong. Speak up or the idiots will just keep idioting. And if they keep on idioting then at least he can say he tried.

If you feel like data mining you could just grab all the test results and then do an analysis of what % of result was win/lose/draw for the different size leads after the second innings is done. It still won’t be perfect but it would be something to point to. And if you really feel like it you can do team by team analysis.
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Even if that was done all anyone would be able to say is that when team X was y runs in the lead we could say that there was a Z likelihood that they would win based in this set of previous results. Anything beyond that is just opinion and speculation, regardless if how clever and qualified the reasoning is.

Not sending someone an unsolicited pic of your engorged member is not unreasonable pressure, it is basic decency. And Paine wasn’t a foolish teenager, he was an adult with a wife and kids. He didn’t bring held up to unreasonable standards, he’s been held accountable for his actions. As Jacqui Lambie so wonderfully put it, “It’s called being an adult.”

Exactly, Don.

The “Boys will be boys.” line the gets trotted out does not cut it. They are adults that should meet expectations and responsibilities of other adults. Especially, as you point out, if they are professionals.

To 7 and 8, I got to have a chat with a group of ladies that had all worked in health and education for 30 to 40 years each. A lot of there work was with the Indigenous community in northern QLD. I asked them what they’d seen that had worked and what they think might work in the future regarding bridging the gap and building trust on both sides. They said that they’ve spoken about that before and they don’t know. All they know is that there isn’t a simple solution and that whatever ends up working will take time and a lot of effort from both sides.
Not relating to your comment, IMHO social issues are ones that we all instinctively have opinions on. However they often require greater empathy and perspective than we can muster, as well as a lot of historical and cultural knowledge that very few of us have.
That’s not to dismiss anyone, it is just that we are only human. I know that it is beyond me to add anything of true worth to the discussion. Stats and averages I can talk about. I get paid to deal with stats everyday. On climate change and energy I am literate enough in the science to pass comment. On this topic. Nope. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just keep abreast of what is happening and only comment when you are able to contribute something useful.
Before the objections appear that I am suggesting passivity and apathy, I am not. I am suggesting a reflection on one’s limits and engagement relative to that limit. Especially when it is a topic that inflames easily with real world consequences. Which is very different to the capping and meaningless runs scandal that is occurring on other pages on this site. On that, it would be nice to be able to conclusively say that player A was better than player B yet it really doesn’t matter. Learning to live well with other does.

This seems to cover this comments section.

.

(Though I don’t think that daft opinion is limited to one group of people, as the pic suggests.)

The onus of proof is on you. You’re making claims about meaningless runs and decisive points in matches. Below you admit to selectors discretion in choosing which innings make the cut. If I use my discretion to add or subtract then we have a disagreement of opinion. However you’re making claims that your analysis is unbiased. Your foundations just aren’t strong enough.

If you like the method you could just tone down the strength of your claims about player superiority and meaningless runs.

4. Discretion? Who’s discretion? Your discretion. Right there you’ve gone and given everyone an easy way to say “Nope. Nonsense discretion in that instance. Their whims differ to mine.” And that’s where the objections lay. Forget about Mark and focus on the fundamentals.

You may like your method and what it brings forth but it currently doesn’t stand up to the tiniest bit of scrutiny as being an objective view if a a player’s career.

Some may not like the results yet I’d say there’s more than a handful of us who have pointed out that we think the idea is interesting, and your innings selection criteria is flawed.

Until you have an algorithm your argument won’t carry weight. Your making your own bouquet and then telling us that this is what Gaia bought forth. Until then you’re better off sticking to prose and rhetoric to bring attention to what you think are the overlooked aspects of M. Waugh’s career.

It’ll be interesting to see how it’s applied. Slack runs is a similar idea.

“A team that wins by a certain number of runs has a buffer of that number minus one runs. In other words, a team that wins by 100 runs has scored at least 99 runs in excess of their need. Theoretically, if this team had scored 95 runs fewer, they would have still won, albeit by five runs. These 99 runs are what I call slack runs. The teams that win by an innings and 100 runs has 100 runs to spare – and an innings. They could have scored 95 runs fewer and still won by an innings. These 100 runs are slack runs. The above table explains this concept very nicely.

The teams that won by runs, scored 608 runs in their two innings on average, and their average win was by 166 runs – which is a slack runs percentage of 27.2. The median win was by 158 runs, very close to the mean.

The teams that won by an innings, scored 483 runs in their single innings on average and their average win was by 97 runs, which is 20.1% slack runs. The median was a win by an innings and 78 runs.

I define slack runs as runs that are in the bank, so to say, but are not really needed. They are, simplistically speaking, superfluous. However, the winning team’s batters have scored these runs, so we cannot question the validity of these slack runs, only the value.”

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/anantha-narayanan-what-have-been-the-most-significant-batting-bowling-and-all-round-contributions-in-test-history-1276814

Chris Martin then daylight.

Williamson is wonderful. And he vs. Crowe really does highlight how circumstances allow different rare talents to be appreciated. What would Crowe had been like with the support and professionalism of the current Black Caps set up? What would Williamson been like playing when Crowe did? All we can say is that they were two special players. At gunpoint I’d choose Williamson if I could only have one. But if Wasim Akram says Crowe’s the best batter he’s ever bowled to then then Crowe must be in the conversation.

“This analysis of clutch situations does not prove that Waugh was an all-time great, nor does it prove that he was a better batsman than his brother. However, what is does suggest is that Mark Waugh had the capacity to reach a level of performance that was beyond the reach of peers.”

To quibble, which is what the internet is all about, really:
“However, what is does suggest is that Mark Waugh had the capacity to reach a level of performance in the above circumstance that was beyond the reach of peers.”

For it appears that many of his peers had the ability to reach a level of performance that is beyond him in other circumstances.

Another thing that irks me about this type of analysis is that if M. Waugh had already played two series against the Windies and he possessed this ability to switch gears why did it take us three series to beat them? To be very pointlessly specific, he scored 0 and 26 when we lost by 1 run. A few more runs on the board in that test would have been standing up to the occasion.

Against each team or against the sum of his games against the all the teams? Because a quick check on Stats Guru has him 0.6 lower against the Windies when compared to his overall test average. Well below Steve for both overall and Windies. He has played the third most games against them, tied with Healy and behind Border and his brother. He’s well behind Ponting in average. Though I understand the difficulty of doing a like for like. It’s almost as if each game and team throws up its own challenges that the players can only deal with on the day.

A great performance is a great performance. Astle’s innnings was sublime. An outlier and a fluke, but I don’t think it should be diminished just because it happened to come when it did.
I’m not suggesting Kallis is the greatest all rounder of all time. I’m suggesting that his achievements are diminished due to their consistency. Border called Boon his Rock of Gibraltar. Perhaps having such a stodgy consistent performer like Kallis in the S.A. team gave more freedom to A.B.D. and others knowing that good old Jaques was going show up and do what he does.
Two players that has been in my mind since meaningful runs popped up are Chanderpaul and Sangakkara. It would be interesting to see how great players in weak teams who aren’t given the breadth of opportunity to play the big guys would end up. I’d hazzard to guess that it wouldn’t be nice to them yet they can only play who they get put up against with the other 10 best players from their countries.
Edit:
On consistency I remembered that Anantha Narayanan added that measure to his all rounder ratings. It was what lifted Sobers above Al Hasan. It also lifted Kallis up 2 spots. Another beneficiary was Kahn who shot up the charts to 3 from 7.
https://www.espn.com.au/cricket/story/_/id/32364040/anantha-narayanan-why-garry-sobers-top-allrounder-tests-shakib-al-hasan-odis
(This is the recomputed result. It has a link to the original where Sobers was second.)

I’m not arguing that Astle was a great, I’m saying that he was great on that day. He had a few other great innings as well. But that was is sub 9 second when he normally ran the 100m a bit over 10.

M. Waugh was also was great on his day. Which I don’t think anyone has ever denied. The twist is now that he is great on days that count. The method of picking the days that count is what has me scratching my head and why I’m posing questions.

“The irony you’re missing is that the same way Mark Waugh is elevated here is the same way we’re downplaying Astle’s world record fastest double century.”

That’s actually why I bought that one up. By defining when we choose for an innings to be great outside of the context of the match we cheapen a lot of great innings. And also by choosing to be dismissive of consistency over time, say a Kallis, we cheapen the value of team bedrocks.

Having the goal of creating a refined method to judge innings of a particular type is interesting. Who it elevates and who it demotes would be fun to see. It doesn’t change that cricket is just an entertaining game with two teams of 11 on the field trying to win the match. The analysis and arguments and banter all come afterwards.

When the muse strikes them they perform well. You may not like the situation that the muse struck Astle. It may offend your cricketing palate. But it seems to fit in the broader theme I’m proposing. And maybe not all the players in the 11 would be greats. They’d still all have something in common.

Because, as said below in a reply to DaveJ, I don’t agree with your method of selecting innings to include in your analysis. Given that I don’t accept your assumptions then what’s the point of spending time on your conclusions?

Not that I think he didn’t have an impact. Nor that he wasn’t central to the games you’ve selected. You need to fix up your selection criteria. Run with it if you want. You be you. Tighten it up, make it clearer, and make it more rigorous and broadly applicable and I’ll start to take it more seriously.

And, to be repetitive, you are seeing this a lot across your articles. If you are going to go down the stats analysis path you just have to show that what you’re doing is solid. I hope that you do tighten it up because I like the meaningful runs idea.

Only in retrospect. In the live game it was very meaningful. That’s why I included the quote from Thorpe and mentioned the faces of the English players as it was occurring.

I don’t think he ever threw his wicket away. He just wasn’t a consistently great batsman in test cricket. You seem to be suggesting that he was, he just had such a keen sense of occasion that he produced a range of great innings when it counted and was a bit, well, “meh” on other days. Perhaps he did.

It makes me think that there could be a ‘When they could be bothered 11’. Or a ‘When the Muse Strikes Me 11’. Players that have a collection of innings that stand out against the rest of their career. A particular innings is Nathan Astle’s 222. You may dismiss it as being a 4th innings in a lost cause however the looks on the faces of the English as he was doing obscene things to their deliveries suggest that it was very much a live game with him at the crease.

Graham Thorpe: “I can remember thinking, even though we won by about 100 runs, literally if another 10 overs had gone by, New Zealand would have won,” he said. “I remember Nasser came up to me and said ‘I reckon we’ve got about eight overs to win this game’. I said ‘They still need 100.’ He said, ‘Yeah but they’re scoring at 16 an over.’ “Hoggard bowled him a slower ball and that was it, the game was over, but the relief, you wouldn’t believe it. We’d won the game by 100 runs and we were running around like we’d just won a nail-biter. That’s how we felt.”

“Anyway, happy to agree to disagree.” 👍

It’s the slippery players that get the most words out. The ones where talent seems to ooze from them but the cabinet seems strangely bereft of trophies.

Safin and Ivanisevic are two tennis players that jump to mind. Their small number of grand slam wins will diminish opinions of them. But on their day they appeared to be the best of the best.