Deep Backward Point

Blog against the machine.

Category: Column

August 8, 2011

How to Win at Twenty20: A Statistical Analysis

As Sri Lanka beat Australia twice batting first, I began to wonder if there was an inherent bias in T20 towards sides batting first, batting second or winning the toss.

So I ran the numbers in StatsGuru, and as always, things aren’t as simple as they seem.

Win % in Twenty20 Internationals

Win % in Twenty20 Internationals

The blue bars are total win percentage of the team. Red bars are win percentage after winning the toss. Green is when batting first, purple is when batting second. These statistics are only for these eight teams when they play each other.

A few things stand out like a sore thumb:

  • Australia do significantly better when they win the toss.
  • India do worse when the win the toss.
  • India like to bat first.
  • Sri Lanka doesn’t care– win the toss, lose the toss, bat first, bat second, their win percentage remains the same.
  • South Africa like to win the toss. And bat first.

Overall, sides batting first seem to have a slight advantage. This was not true in the IPL, at least anecdotally. I’d love to run the numbers for each IPL, to see how they differ and how they have changed over time.

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August 7, 2011

The Return of Zimbabwe

Former captain Taibu and current captain Taylor

Zim Braintrust: Taibu and Taylor

Meanwhile, in Harare-

Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are playing a full-blooded, evenly matched, positive game of Test cricket. Zimbabwe, playing their first Test match in a while, have made a sporting declaration towards the end of day four. Every single player in their side has justified their spot, and their captain has played to win.

That declaration at tea on day four was one that neither Strauss nor Dhoni would have made. Regardless of what happens on day five, Zimbabwe have made a solid announcement of their presence. Pakistan visit Zimbabwe later this month, and then Zimbabwe tour New Zealand in January. Their bowling seems up to the task.

Bangladesh have fought back more than once in the game. The straight-talking Tamim Iqbal said at the end of day four: “The wicket is flat so if we don’t make mistakes or do anything silly, we should win.” Which is a confident statement, considering they need 263 runs on the final day with 7 wickets in hand.

If ever there was an example of the spirit of cricket, it is not an English batsman being gifted a second chance because he lost his wicket on account of being stupid. The spirit of cricket is alive and well, at the Harare Sports Club.

 

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August 5, 2011

The Trent Bridge Test, in Song

As you know, I’m writing and performing a song about each Test in the India v. England series. Here is the one for the Lord’s Test. Without further ado, here is song two:

That’s a digital banjo and funk beats. And here are the lyrics (though I improvized to match the beat, so they are not precise):

Sreesanth and Ishant, having tea for two
Praveen joined in while the bounce was still true
By tea, they got England on a plate
How you gonna win a game from 120 for 8?

Hey Stewie Broad, you might not be aware
They call you Barbie on Twitter, that just don’t seem fair
‘Cause your batting like Beefy and bowling like him too
Though India’s chasing really well at 117 for two.

Hey Mr. Dravid, show a little rage
That you’re payin bills at your advanced age
VVS and Yuvraj tried to do their part
But that swinging ball from Stewie Broad was rippin’ it apart.

Let’s get that run out, out of the way
Bell was an idiot, to walk away
Dhoni held up the spirit of the game
Was he a sucker for Flower mind games.

Ian Bell batted on, and on and on
And on and on and on and on
India went on to promptly collapse
Maybe ’cause they wanted day 5 to relax

Hey Mr. Dhoni, what you gonna do?
You and your boys look like you haven’t got a clue
Tell you the truth, you don’t look like #1
Cause your team’s out there playing like it’s 1991

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August 4, 2011

What Ganguly Said

A lot of people were #outraged by what Ganguly said. Apparently there are many things he said– about Dravid, about VVS, about Gavaskar, about Dhoni and about himself. I’m not going to list them here, you can Google them yourself.

Many people question why Ganguly had to say what he said. To those people, I’d like to say that Ganguly is now a paid cricket pundit. He makes his money by opining on cricket. This means his professional obligation is to the following:

  1. To comment on current events in cricket.
  2. When asked a specific question, he is obligated to answer.
  3. If he evades an answer, he becomes less employable as a pundit.
  4. Even worse, if he gives uninteresting answers over time, he becomes immensely less employable over time.

This is his career path. These are his responsibilities.

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July 27, 2011

The Lord’s Test in Song

About 12 hours ago, I had the idea for writing a song for each Test match in the England v. India series. Kind of crazy, I know. But here is the first one.

The Lord’s Test, in song (lyrics below):

Sehwag needed surgery
but chose the Indian Premier League
Consequently Lord’s missed out
on Sehwagology

Alastair Cook failed to score
When Zak let out a great big roar
Cricketing gods took their revenge
When Zak fell in a heap

KP got out to left arm spin
I’m just kidding, no he didn’t
Praveen got a fiver and
then KP scored a double

India kept on losing wickets
Broad pitched up and got his chickens
Dravid was rock solid but the
Champions were in trouble

Second innings started well
For Ishant and his joyful hair
After lunch though, Prior grasped
the Match in England’s claws

Sachin had a nasty virus
Gambhir had his elbow smashed up
India had to bat four sessions
Escape with a draw

India kept on losing wickets
Same old story, same old chickens
England won since on the day
They were better at cricket.

One more thing, ‘fore I forget
A little thing called D R S
Must be mentioned in this song
for the English press.

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July 26, 2011

How to Lose Like a Champion

In professional sport, there is only one measure of “better”– it’s not who got more points, or got more yards, or carried themselves with more dignity, or who was “winning” for the majority of the game. Ironically, being “a good sport” usually means you’re losing.

The only measure of “better” is who won. The best teams in history are known for the number in the Wins column. Cricket– and especially Test cricket– expends significant effort to obscure this fact.

So you lost. Too bad. Makes that #1 tag feel a little heavier to carry around. This is your gift. This is your curse.

Admit it, you got outplayed. However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s better to lose by being outplayed than to lose by acts of god [1]. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it’s better to win.

But you lost.

Of course, if you’re smart and you’re good, all of this talk about winning is to your advantage. Because nobody remembers the margin of victory, as long as you win more than you lose and you win when it matters.

England were better on the day. And this is okay, as long as it’s usually qualified with “on the day”. And it will always be qualified, as long as you win more than you lose and you win when it matters.

This is how you build a dynasty.

You know this. You’re playing the long game, nine-dimensional chess. You lose when you can afford to lose, but you win when you must. You know this because this is how you got here. This is how you won the World Cup.

[1] It is also better to win by outplaying your opponent than by acts of god. Unless the gods are members of your playing eleven. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 25, 2011

The Long Game

Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!

— Mel Gibson as William Wallace in Braveheart

Shut up, William Wallace. You never played a Test series. You, Mr. Wallace, are playing Twenty20. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is playing a Test series. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is playing the long game. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 25, 2011

Deep Backward Point at 6 Months

The blog completes 6 months this week. Thank you all for reading. Six months is a long time– if the blog were an infant, at six months she would start sitting up, teething and perhaps solid food. She would also demonstrate the beginnings of real-person-like behavior. I think that accurately describes my blog.

The blog is at 121 posts, which is a much faster pace than I had originally anticipated. I also post a lot less articles with a statistical bent than I had originally planned.

Thanks

First of all, a big thanks to anyone who read anything here. A really big thanks to the large number of people who have sent traffic my way:

The Most Popular Posts:

Here are the most popular posts of the first 6 months:

  1. How Lalit Modi and the BCCI (Almost) Killed Willow TV
  2. Los Angeles Gangs Take Up Cricket
  3. #ShankarFacts: The Secret Life of Adrian Shankar
  4. The 2nd-Most Awesome Thing Ever Said About Javed Miandad
  5. The Day I Was Dhoni
  6. How to Read the Redacted ICC Pakistan Spot-Fixing Report
  7. The History of One Day Cricket: Part I
I am glad that many of the most popular posts are also ones I enjoyed writing the most.

What I Got Right

Here are the posts I am most proud of:

What I Got Wrong

I oversold the Willow story. When barely a dozen people read your blog a day, you don’t take yourself too seriously. My reporting was accurate, but I sensationalized the headline. Never again.

Also, the first half of this is the worst piece I wrote: The Case Against Minnows in the World Cup. Let’s never mention it again.

Twitter

If it isn’t clear yet, Twitter has turned out to be a huge part of Deep Backward Point– much bigger than I had originally imagined. The conversations, links, re-tweets and rebuttals are the fuel that fire the columns on this site. If you read this blog, and don’t follow me on Twitter, you’re missing part of the story.

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July 22, 2011

We’re Arrogant

Dear James Lawton,

We are arrogant, but we’re not tourists. We own this place. The home of cricket? Yeah, it’s been moved. It may have once been this patch of grass on Saint John’s Wood Road in London, but these days, the home of cricket is a side-street in Ranchi that you haven’t even heard of.

Hell yeah, we’re arrogant. We were arrogant in 1981 in Australia, and not because Sunil Gavaskar walked off the field with Chetan Chauhan at the MCG. We were arrogant because we bowled Australia out for under a hundred.

We’re arrogant. Venkatesh Prasad was arrogant in 1996 in Bangalore, not because he stared down a Pakistani opener. He was arrogant because he’d just uprooted his off-stump.

No kidding, we’re arrogant. We were arrogant at Lords, and not because Ganguly screamed shirtless for the members in red and gold jackets. We were arrogant because two 20-year olds had just chased down 326 in your backyard. In the erstwhile home of cricket.

We’re not arrogant because we’re jerks. We’re not arrogant because we bought this place. We own this place. And we own it because we win.

Mr. Lawton, we’re arrogant, but we’re not tourists. Our arrogant king, Saurav Ganguly, and his wall-in-chief, Rahul Dravid, practically grew up here. Zaheer honed his skills here. Even Anil Kumble scored a century last time we were here. Hell yeah, we’re arrogant.

Finally, to the meat of your article– the specific case of arrogance through the rejection of ball-tracking. Let me offer up a quote I found:

The Indians say that the predictive capacity of Hawk-Eye is less than infallible and, scientifically and practically, they may have a point.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. You know who wrote that? You did, Mr. Lawton. In the same article.

We’ll be arrogant in England, Mr. Lawton. But it won’t be because we undermine umpires or reject technology. It will be because we win.

Signed,

Indian Cricket

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July 19, 2011

1989: The Year of Tendulkar in Pictures

Some facts, to help you gain an appreciation for just how long Tendulkar has been at this (see also: India Since Tendulkar):

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Fall of the Berlin Wall, years before Dravid's debut

Read the rest of this entry »

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