For the Handful of You Waiting for My Song on the Trent Bridge Test
… it’s coming soon :).
Edit: Here it is, at last.
Deep Backward Point
Blog against the machine.
August 4, 2011
August 1, 2011
Why India Lost, in short
It’s not because of lack of passion.
It’s not because of the IPL.
It’s not because they were undercooked.
It’s not because of an underperforming spinner.
It’s not because Bell was re-called.
It’s not because of Erasmus’ umpiring.
It’s not because India missed Sehwag.
Or Zaheer.
Or Gambhir.
It is because they were outplayed. England played better cricket.
Anyone who says otherwise is trying to evade the truth. Trying to avoid accepting reality. The reality that, at the moment, England are the better team.
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.
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 »
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 »
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:
- Jarrod Kimber (follower #5 on twitter) and Sana Kazmi (follow #4) for being the first people to send traffic my way, when I… umm… pointed out a software glitch in the ICC document generation tools…
- Subash Jayaraman, Samir Chopra, Shrikant Subramanian and Gaurav Sethi for hosting me on a two episodes of the Boredwaani podcast [episode 1] [episode 2].
- Faran Ghuman, an early and regular retweeter (follower #11) of what I wrote. Made me feel more witty than I actually am. During Pakistan matches, Faran’s twitter stream is the pulse of the game.
- Ducking Beamers for regularly linking to DBP and provoking thought.
- Thank you Sachin.
The Most Popular Posts:
Here are the most popular posts of the first 6 months:
- How Lalit Modi and the BCCI (Almost) Killed Willow TV
- Los Angeles Gangs Take Up Cricket
- #ShankarFacts: The Secret Life of Adrian Shankar
- The 2nd-Most Awesome Thing Ever Said About Javed Miandad
- The Day I Was Dhoni
- How to Read the Redacted ICC Pakistan Spot-Fixing Report
- 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:
- The Day I Was Dhoni
- We’re Arrogant
- How Lalit Modi and the BCCI (Almost) Killed Willow TV
- The History of One Day Cricket: Part I
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.
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.
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
Related articles
July 20, 2011
Couch Talk
Subash Jayaraman recently began a new podcast, and he’s on a roll. The podcast is called Couch Talk, and he’s already but out six top-notch episodes. My favorite episode so far is with Peter Della Penna, the American cricket writer, on a student in Oklahoma became a die-hard cricket fan and journalist. But the rest of the episodes have been really good as well.
One of the strange pleasures of the show is hearing the voices of people I’ve read in blogs and on Twitter:
- Sana Kazmi and Ant Sims did a show about women in cricket journalism
- A Cricketing View’s Kartikeya Date, whom I link to quite regularly, did a show about the Decision Review System in cricket
- Aatif Nawaz and Henna Khan on Pakistani cricket support in England
- And finally Dileep Premchandran and Gary Naylor on the upcoming India in England series
All episodes are here, and worth your time. (And I hear the next episode is with Jarrod Kimber of cricketwithballs and Spin magazine. Can’t wait.)
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, years before Dravid's debut
July 19, 2011
The Pakistani Fountain of Youth in Numbers: a Chart on Catching Talent Young
Recently Jarod Kimber was gushing over the new Pakistan quick Junaid Khan. In doing so, he said that in addition to flair and skill, it is the youth of new Pakistan bowlers that makes them so appealing. Of course, I’m paraphrasing. Jarrod never says anything so dull.
This got me thinking about how early Pakistan cricketers start in International cricket. Anecdotally, it seemed Pakistan had the most young debutants. This led me to StatsGuru. Which led to this chart (click the chart for an awesome large version)– the bars represent % of total debutants who were under 22, and there’s one bar per decade, per team:
Debuts Under Age 22 (as % of Total Debuts) by Decade in ODI cricket
I started by just getting the per team numbers for all 40 years of ODI cricket. This was great, and demonstrated the same trend (younger debuts in the sub-continent, older in England/Aus), but I wanted to see how these numbers changed over time. So I pulled the numbers separately for each decade of One Day cricket.
A few points that stand out for me:
- Pakistan and Sri Lanka have consistently favored youth. The remarkable thing is that their numbers remain high regardless of the fortunes of their team.
- English players have historically taken time to prove themselves worthy of an international cap, until the last decade. Perhaps this is a reason for their recent success?
- West Indies has oscillated dramatically between starting older and starting young.
- Do teams turn to youth when they are struggling? This is obviously the case with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe– I didn’t include their data here– but how about other teams? What I was trying to get at by splitting the data in to four decades.
- In countries like England, there is actually something going on at the other end of the spectrum. Andrew Strauss was effectively forced out of the side at age 34. A combination of the under-22 and over-34 problem is why the total centuries by the entire current English Test side is less than Tendulkar+Dravid*.
- Finally, it doesn’t help to compare 1970’s statistics to other decades. It was the first decade of ODI cricket, and most “debuts” were actually established players. It does make sense, however, to compare 1970’s numbers between teams. Even in that early decade, Pakistan is substantially ahead of the rest.
Starting players late means they have shorter shelf-lives. Not only that, it makes for poorer branding. The reason adjectives like exciting get thrown around a lot more for Pakistani bowlers and Indian batsmen is because at 19 they’re blowing top-notch opposition out of the water.
I also pulled overall (40 year) numbers for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but I don’t consider them interesting. They have such a poor record that they have no choice but to turn to the teenagers. If you’re interested, Bangladesh is 66% under 22 debuts, and Zimbabwe is 51%.
* And talent, of course.
Deep Backward Point 