While I know all most of us care about is the test cricket result, this analysis would be best adopted in a T20 scenario where less variables are in place.

One of the variables of baseball advanced stats is measuring the variances stadium by stadium to pitching and hitting. It’s much easier to do given how static and comparable the rest of the information is. The cricket comparison probably doesn’t hold as well given the lower volume of games and the higher variability a venue can produce from game to game. A baseball venue has two fixed variables, size and altitude.

For T20 you should be able to get to a par score/strike rate at the start of each batters innings and be able to calculate a variance to par from there. The inverse should hold true for bowlers with runs conceded and wickets expected. This way the batter who comes in with 2 overs to go isn’t unfairly treated statistically as the opener or first drop based on batting position.

Purely from a specators POV.

1) The average result occurs between lunchtime and tea on day 5. This allows for performances in both directions to have all possible results in play for the majority of the match and indicates a fair contest between bat and ball.

2) Variations that are in line with the local conditions. I really liked the differences an Australian summer used to present. This is unique to Australia given the size of the country producing so many different climates and consequently pitches.

Going to the subcontinent was always the great challenge for the differences the pitches provided yet there were still enough subtle variation from venue to venue that you never were fully comfortable knowing what would be presented.

3) Something that allows for skills to be displayed, the “life” in the pitch. The slow pitches that seem to be more present don’t allow for attacking bowling or batting and are more a game of attrittion, this is fine for hours, or sometimes sessions; a whole game or series is too much.

First though was GDP when reading this – I can’t remember which book it was what I was reading (either Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell or similar) where it was posited that you need to meet certain thresholds before the 10,000 hour rule applies. One of these was a GPD or average income minimum of $20,000 USD per household. Basically you need to have your money situation sorted before you can focus on elite performance.

Looking though the bottom 15 teams you see a lot of countries with a reputation of being low wealth countries. Your final list is made up of medium and high wealth countries. The outliers you eliminated were low population countries where the methodology produces outliers.

I would suggest that this is a list of countries who are able to afford to bask in the global adulation of sporting results as opposed to being any measure of prowess.

1) I don’t know the answer on this, the rule was bought in because the refs didn’t want to blow a penalty and slow the game down all the time (ie the indiscretion not worthy of a penalty) but now you see more blown and it leads to good teams scoring more points. Add in the increased use of the sin bin to further exacerbate the fitness and pace issues and you get bigger momentum swings and more blowouts.

I like the look of the game more but prefer the penalty and it just needs to be blow, eventually the players will stop infringing when the probable penalty outweighs the potential benefit of getting away with it.

I would also like to add an advantage similar to union on the tackle where the penalty occurs – this would only apply until the tackle is complete to would be for offsides and marker infringements.

2) If a penalty goal is worth 2 and a try 3 you would just take every penalty goal kick. If you remove 6 again there will be more opportunity for penalty kicks. Don’t like this one.

3) Don’t care for this at all, should just leave it at 1 point for all field goals.

4) I would feel like the bomb is being used less as an attacking option, when the team makes it to the 20m they tend to go through the hands or grubber to force a drop-out. The situation you have described makes the whole thing a lottery with the chasers and blockers playing a game of who can con the ref. Again I don’t know how to legislate to improve this but an option of knocking the ball dead doesn’t seem like a good one.

I would be trying to clean up all the blocking first and maybe trying to remove the defensive knock on to clean up the adjudication. The rule would be something like “a defender will not be rule to knock on when they are attempting to catch a kick on the full and are being challenged by an attacking player, an attacker is deemed to be challenging if they are within 5m of the defender when the catch is attempted”.

5) Either score a golden point win differently or scrap it. I like the NHL way of 3 pts for a regular time win, 2 for overtime win, 1 for overtime loss and 0 for a regular time loss. I don’t see this rule really changing any motivations during the game.

Some other things I would like to see are:
A) Amend the 18th man rule to allow replacement for any injury with a mandatory 1 week stand down period for a replaced player – it is a duty of care rule so encompass all injuries, not just HIA.

B) Sin bin becomes more like a power play where either a time limit or a score limit applies before the player can return. You could have varying levels or score limit depending on the offence, eg 8 points for professional foul and 12 points for dangerous play.

The coverage feels like a big step in the right direction of comprehensive and knowledgeable coverage.

Some improvements that I would like to see are:
1) Use the main channel as a highlights, updates and cross to significant events channel. This can be where you have your presenters mixing it with the experts for the colour, athlete interviews and nationalistic cheering
2) Use the secondary channel (7mate) to show events in full, no leaving of the event to go somewhere else and use the half time (or other built in) breaks to advertise the upcoming schedule. This channel should be able to schedule itself for a full days events and if there are over-runs advertise what will be happening with the scheduling (eg, basketball coverage will commence at the end of this event, but we are showing the start on channelX)
3) Add in a third channel (7two) in HD performing a similar function of showing full events.

I really like the ability to access all the other sports on the app, however find it a bit clunky to use. An interface with notifications of when events are starting and full day scheduling would help make it easier to not miss something that you would like to see.

As mentioned in the article, the actual commentators are down to personal taste but getting the former Olympian experts in has seen more hits than misses. That said, there are many times where the more subdued neutral commentary provided on the app has been a welcome relief.

Should have played the AFL Grand Final at Stadium Australia in Sydney in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 when it had a capacity of 110,000? I don’t think so.

The total number of people you can get in is really important, but the whole package of revenue is the deciding factor. This includes the amount of corporate attendees, available advertising space, hiring agreements with the stadium (who pays for the MCG members?) and state government contributions. That the MCG can consistently get crowds of over 90,000 is testament to why they get major long term contracts.

None of what I am saying is trying to take away from the amazing support that many of the AFL teams receive, this support is what makes the expansion talk possible.

Adam, do you believe that a Hobart or Launceston team would capture the hearts and minds of all of Tasmania or do you need both to truly engage the whole state?

I am not sure where I have said the AFL as a governing body nor individual teams are obsessed with attendance figures (so I agree with your there). As you point out the examples of their creations in Giants/Suns and selling of games to lower attended locations this metric is not key, it is the revenue that is generated.
I believe that the commentary from the AFL following community, especially in the heartlands are obsessed with crowds because it is the easiest way to demonstrate how much better AFL is than the NRL, Super Rugby or A-League. My point is that the worst performing AFL teams are equal to or out-perform the rival codes in their respective markets, making the argument for more teams more palatable.

The obsession with crowd numbers is the real point of differentiation between AFL and the other football codes in Australia.

To me, it feels like it causes more arguments within the community that from the other codes, especially as a point to bash the poorer attended teams.

As a current Sydney resident GWS aren’t as bad when compared to every other NRL/Super Rugby/A-League team in Sydney, as opposed to the AFL teams in the heartlands. Swans are a long way ahead of every other team in Sydney in both attendance and membership. According to 2020 data GWS had 30,841 members and the best Sydney NRL team (Rabbitohs) had 29,445 and Wests Tigers, the median club, had 17,912 (different sources so I don’t know how many pet memberships these include).

If you could add 2-4 teams over a 20 year period you are probably going to get memberships/attendances closer to Giants/Suns numbers. What you are hoping for is that more games per week means more TV and advertising revenue, especially when you are going to the new markets that aren’t saturated.

Of the proposed options I would look at, in order of what I would perceive to be most beneficial:
1) Hobart
2) Canberra
3) Launceston
4/5/6) Adelaide/Perth/Sydney third team
7) Bendigo regional team
8) Darwin
9) Cairns/Townsville team (Cowboys membership approx 17,000)
10) Albury regional team

The first three are looking at rewarding existing markets with their own teams – you might be taking the residents here from 1-2 games watched per week to 3-4 games watched per week or from casual viewing to 1-2 games. I don’t know how much the interstate Tasmanian rivalry would hurt a stand alone Tasmanian team.

The next three options are adding to the existing markets to build on the rivalries. I can’t speak on the demographics of Adelaide or Perth as to how you would add in this team but would assume that the Adelaide Oval/Optus Stadium would be the home grounds (i.e greater utilization of current infrastructure). A Sydney team would just be capitalising on the population growth. Everyone here seems to want a de-centeralised stadium model and don’t have a large travel culture so I see this as a minimum 20 year away idea.

The last 4 are highly speculative, either in size of population, attraction of new participants/spectators or complete lack of interest. FNQ is only there for a more nationalised competition. At this point you may be better off exploring a NZ market.

Is this a dynasty? Not yet, win next year and I would put it in that category.

Looking over the results, I would say the following dynasty’s exist in SOO:
1980-84: Qld win 5/5 series, although the first 2 were a single game.
1987-1991: Qld win 4/5 series, with 2 sweeps.
1990-1997: NSW win 6/8 series.
2006-2017: Qld win 12/13 series.

While all the different sports have different pacing and styles there are a few basic points to make most commentary teams efficient and informative:
– a main play by play caller to describe what has happened and be factual and informative
– a secondary analyst/colour commentator to fill in the gaps and provide insight
– special guests can occasionally be used, especially in the slower paced sports (cricket, cycling, basketball 2nd & 3rd quarters)

My biggest gripe at the moment is the number of commentators that are being used, AFL is probably the worst offenders with their line-up of 4-5 in the box plus boundary reporters all trying to get their 30 seconds of air time. If you want a big team then use them pre-game and half time, keep the game call simple.

Really good read and ideas. Some really simple solutions apply here as well.

The easiest one as you mentioned is allowing all foul play to be appropriately penalised, even if it is after another infringement occurs and advantage is being player (or an infringement later called by the bunker).

With the penalty try/no send off situation I have wondered if you borrow from ice hockey and slightly alter the yellow card to be the lesser of 10 minutes or two scoring plays. In the case of a penalty try, the penalty try is the first scoring play. If you reduce it to one scoring play (say following direct penalty try or kick) you might see the sin bin used more frequently for the professional fouls.

The third one you mention was potentially expanding the “8 point” try to include infringements leading up to a try. I think this is really good in theory but probably hard to watch in practice. I assume the same ref/bunker checks would go on and it would just lead to 20 replays to determine if a penalty occurred. The practicalities would need to be worked out to make this good idea work.

I am very interested in the David Warner conundrum.

In my own research for a test team 2010-2019 I started with the assumption that the team that I would be picking would be playing an away series against each nations respective best teams on the time period. On this basis I was looking for player who had shown performance all around the globe as opposed to very strong home form and weak away form as the player would only play on there home conditions 1/10 series.

I found myself questioning the stats in most of the ways that you have posed, it was very interesting to see them coherently written. Not being as good at getting into the detail as a real statistician I like to take the approach to these debates of excluding anything pre 1990. I didn’t see it or live it live so I can’t add a value judgement to the stats. When I can see what the stats offer then I can retro fit to the pre 1990’s players.

The interesting stats that I found while researching (not all specific to the David Warner conundrum):
– SA fast bowlers at home are amazing and just really good away
– Indian spinners are the same, Ashwin and Jadeaja share similar averages but Ashwin was mostly picked as the overseas spinner
– AB de Villiers is underrated as a keeper/batsman – his average while keeping was in line with career averages, his batting is top class. Sangakarra who was picked in many of these decade teams didn’t keep during the time period.
– Shakib was the standout all-rounder in the time period, he was also the best Bangladeshi batter and bowler for significant periods of his career. He rarely played outside of Asia which feeds into the David Warner conundrum.
– Why does the David Warner conundrum apply to his test career and not as strongly for his ODI or T20 career?

I am assuming that these ideas are being floated just to get shot down and allow a draw that is play everyone once and then make up another 7 rounds based on commercial reasons.

For anyone who wants to argue over teams that should be is 7th place instead of 9th because of an unfair fixture can step back and realise that it doesn’t really matter in determining the premiership, if your team is not good enough to make the finals regardless of the fixture, they surely are not going to win the premiership. Don’t shoot down good ideas with the only argument that the middling teams may be disadvantaged.

I feel like from a pure player protection stand point the rule change in AFL this year is better than the NRL.

The AFL version is effectively if they fail HIA or the injury is diagnosed as being greater than 1 week then a player is removed from the game and substituted with another. While more liberal in its application and open to tactical abuse it is showing a greater duty of care to all injured players and not just those who failed HIA.

I disagree with the article stating the players aren’t helping themselves by asking for fresh replacements as opposed to addressing the cause of the concussions – one of the issues reduced numbers has through HIA is “forcing” players to continue to play while injured (Curtis Scott broken ribs is the example from the weekend) – a substitute lessens the impact of this issue.

One thing the NRL could do is see how the AFL goes this year – especially making changes this dramatic mid-season. What do the 18th and 19th players currently do? Do they get to play reserves that week or are they held back in case of injury in the warm-up?

For the uninformed the AFL introduced (during the week prior to the beginning of the season) a single injury replacement substitute where the doctor diagnoses that the injury is likely to keep the player out for a minimum 9 days. They also introduced a 12 day suspension period for players who failed the HIA. It only took one game for a player to be subbed and then selected the following week. They also reduced the number of interchanges along with increasing game time from 16 minute quarters to 20.

This is a good article showing that something that seems relatively simple on the face of it is very complicated and nuanced underneath.

What is the purpose of an interchange or injury replacement reserve trying to achieve?

Is this a duty of care to players (not allowing injured players to continue playing or feel obliged to continue due to numbers), a sense of fairness for teams to be able to continue to compete on more equal footing following injury or some other reason/consequences that need to be considered?

For me the biggest issue (across all sports) is the duty of care the the player and taking the decision making away from the player. The easiest way to do that is to reduce the impact of their absence with the allowance of a substitute.

The other side of the argument is around coaches using the “fresh” player as a tactical advantage. I am less concerned about how the next best player who wasn’t picked to pay is going to make a profound impact.

As Paul goes through in great detail, you need to have some limitations on using the substitute especially around foul play. I would have it work as follows:
1) Two substitutes are allowed from the named 21 (in line with cutting 2 players from the 21 man squad)
2) Any player substituted can not return to the match
3) If a player is injured from foul play (in a play that is penalised), they can be removed from the match and replaced
4) If a player is injured not from foul play, then two players must be removed for the substitute to be available, any subsequent injuries can be substituted immediately.

Point 4 is to try and avoid any tactical substitutions by making it necessary for the team to be a player short on the bench before it can be used but also allowing for injuries through foul play.

Fully agree that players should be looking to get overseas experience as much as possible, especially when they are trying to push into international honours.

I would be trying to set up a reciprocal arrangement with both the England and India to be able to ensure that a large number of players receive first class experience in each others conditions. Not fully appreciating the logistics this could be along the lines of one spot in the playing XI is for these designated overseas players in India and England while Australia adds in a combined team to play within its domestic competitions.

The more people who vote the greater chance that you get to a general consensus, thus reducing risk of an individual erroneous vote.

Any kind of expansion of the voting system would allow this. One of my favorite award voting is the AFL Coaches votes, submitted by the head coach on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis after each game, with a maximum score of 10.

I would favour a simple change of replicating this or moving to three voters per round on a 3-2-1 basis. Probably wont get all individual games right but should be more reflective over a full season.

Hi Gary – you definitely make a valid point about having to work in to the other nations schedules however I also feel a more stable and spread schedule to assist in national selection is warranted – any international tours or tournaments just mean that the selected squad are absent for that part of the domestic season.

I feel that most of us are on the same page where we want a schedule that prioritises looking after the test selection and allows all players to be available for a large part of the BBL.

Some of the tweaks that I would make is play both the domestic one day and four day tournaments concurrently in the October to pre Christmas December window and then recommence in the February and March window, leading in to an ODI series prior to the test series. This would have the benefit of four day cricket in the lead up to and during the start of the test series and additional selection games prior to any autumn/winter series.

I would overlap the Boxing Day/ New Years test with the start of the BBL – this would mean that players would only be around 10 days removed from domestic 4 day cricket if needed for the New Year test.

The BBL would be reduced to 6 weeks, concluding at the end of January with the aim to attract higher quality international stars, all domestic players and place more importance on each game for the fans.

With the International tournaments, I would like to see training camps / selective tournaments to aide is selections.

Just to reiterate, I wouldn’t expect our international players to be playing all domestic competition games, but I want our domestic competition to provide a timely competition for when our biggest priorities across an Australian summer.

While I don’t know where to find the data publicly, I understand that with ball by ball statistics most of what you are proposing can be achieved. I remember seeing on the coverage a batsmans particular average against a bowler and type of bowler (left arm spin etc).

If you had the data set you could conceivable use a bowlers ICC ranking/rating at the beginning of a test match to assess a batsman against strength of bowler – maybe this is partly how the ICC ranking already works. With any statistic, the more granular you look, the noisier the data is due to sample size.

I also have no idea how to deal with not-outs in calculating how good a batsman is. It is unfair to call it a completed innings because their team mates put them in a position to not complete an innings (declaration, winning a match or all-out) and I feel that the times a batsman is dismissed chasing runs probably offsets the not outs.

Does the reverse also need to be considered? A bowlers average against strength of batsman?

Pretty close. They do a checker board style seating map for the tickets on sale process. If you are in a group of 4, all seats in front and behind will be empty. They then limit you to certain parts based on how many you want in your group.

All free tickets and members will have to redeem a ticket to be allocated a specific seat.

With the way seats are allocated it is really hard to sell up to the 50%.

This is how it all worked in Sydney for various capacity crowds.

They should be included in the discussion, but I would have them topping out in my second tier of all-time athletes, not GOAT athletes.

In the last 20 years you have 4 great motor sport achievers in Hamilton (7 F1 championships), Rossi (7 Moto GP championships), Marquez (6 Moto GP championships in 7 seasons) and Loeb (9 consecutive World Rally Championships) in the main disciplines, maybe more in some lesser known types of racing. These people should be in these types of conversations the same way that Tom Brady is because he can “drive” his team to success.

I am 100% with you on the Bolt love.

Hey Nick – this is close to how I view the debate. The degree of difficulty needs to be taken in to account to how much more dominant a particular athlete is over a sport.

As you noted, Phelps and Bolt are so dominant compared to their peers in an individual sport that is widely accessible and are the top two in my lifetime of critical thinking (the 2000’s).

I would say that soccer is the most widely played sport but also it is vary rare to have a player be significantly better over a long period – Ronaldo and Messi are this for the last 15 years but there is two of them so it is hard to say one is the GOAT if there is a really strong argument that they aren’t even the best of generation.

With team sports I also have issue calling the sports best an all-sport GOAT as the success is more often measured as a team and then attributed to the individual and situation matters more than an individual sport. Take Jordan for example, he had a coach that changed teams and won, a second best player that in the 2 years Jordan was absent was a top 5 player and the 6 championship years was top 15 (based on all-NBA teams). This isn’t to knock Jordan or say he isn’t the GOAT basketball player, but it is hard to judge that success against individual sports.

For me it is Phelps and Bolt for their unprecedented dominance at Olympic level. As mentioned in the comments Kelly Slater should also be included here but is one that I often overlook.

I have a whole swath of athletes on my second tier, many I add in and can easily forget when compiling lists (I probably need a big chart on my wall to keep track). My main criteria here is that they are in the probable GOAT for a regional sport or the generational or in GOAT conversation of an international sport. I also have the bar much higher for a participant in a team sport than an individual sport given the variables that team situation provides.

My non-comprehensive list for the 2000’s by sport, I would have my 2nd tier as:
Tennis – Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Williams
Golf – Williams, Sorrenston
Motorsport – Hamilton, Rossi, Marquez
Surfing: Beachley, Gilmore
Hockey: Dwyer, Aymar
Football: Messi, Ronaldo
NFL: Brady
NBA/WNBA: James, Duncan, Bryant, O’Neil, Durant, Jackson, Leslie

I am sure there are many other sports that I have missed and everyone will have an argument as to why their choice should be in the top tier and not second. Let me know who I missed and how much I am wrong.