General Cricket Thread ...

[Kumar]

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/th ... 3549d17d16

Very interesting accusation about ball swapping controversy. Accusation that ball from different season was used , which behaves differently. In baseball, colorado rockies was accused of swapping balls as well few years back.

[prasen9]

So, Woakes got the Man of the Series Award. Yet, Wood gets the hype. As I said, we need bowlers. Wood is a good to great bowler. But, so is Woakes in home soil. Pace is over-rated. There are many ways to skin a cat. All it matters is you skin it. Or not if you are an animal lover and anti-environmentalist.

[Kumar]

Interesting article about how analytics shaped the end of Blue Jays season.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/m ... 064662007/

Another article that talks about manager salary being impacted by analytics.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/just-embar ... 32059.html

[prasen9]

Well the pace fetishists and their idea that extreme pace is all that is needed again went for a toss with Starc today even though he started very well. Starc and Wood will still fair well in this WC most possibly but because they can bowl well. Hazlewood showed pace is not that important. What is important is to bowl well, the whole package. With the dew, their spinners did go in for a toss but Starc and Cummins with their pace could do diddly squat.

But, don't worry, the pace fetishists will lie low as long as their favorites are geting tonked but wait for a match where they succeed and the whole gang will be out praising pace and fetishising it again. Pace helps but just because one is pacy if they are otherwise a wretched bowler, we should not include them.

This is the same with the Jadeja fans. He got three wickets and they are out from their holes. No mention that his average is still over 36, around 36.5 I believe, which in ODIs is pretty bad.

[Kumar]

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/icc- ... ce-1402262

I posted this article in other thread, but may be more appropriate in this thread

That control is becoming a valuable commodity once again. Most importantly captains are recognising the importance of spinners who can put the ball where they want because increasingly the point-of-difference bowlers are the quicks. That is why 0 for 58 is not unequivocally worse than 2 for 76, which would have been the belief three years ago.

Can a person who bowls economically result in wickets for another person with less control because they feel that they can get more runs off that bowler. Say for example… Thakur…

His SR is 29, and he bowls 7 overs (around 43 balls) on average . Meaning he will get 1.5 wickets an innings. Giving away around 45 runs in a game

Jadeja with SR of 49 bowls around 51 deliveries per game and will 1.05 wickets per innings giving away around 43 runs. This is from last 4 years.

Axar with SR of 45 bowls around 40 balls from game will take 0.92 wickets per game giving away 32-33 runs.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Extreme pace do matters but on instances. Pressure should be developed from other end also. Aussies & Lankans have given priority to their part time spinners more then their regular spinners as a result they have failed to create moments in the game. Sri Lanka should have played Kumara in that game, Pakistan batters always had an issue with short ball at pace. After worst Asia Cup final, Sri Lanka think tank is in worry in setting best Playing XI

[Atithee]

@kumar—did you also read the cricinfo article on resurgence of finger spin?

[prasen9]

Kumar did and posted it here. It does not say much except that finger spinners are bowling more these days and are being used more. This does not mean much. Thakur is being used more than Shami. Because he can bat a bit. These finger spinners are also better batsmen. The question is why are there more allrounders who are finger spinners and not so many wrist spinner allrounders. It would be nice to see the impact, i.e., how much does a team give up on its bowling by playing finger spinners if any, and how much do they gain from their batting.

Also, in order to figure out impact, how can we combine bowling average and economy rate to come up with a composite?

[Kumar]

Prasen, it would be an interesting project. Do any countries have data scientist working with cricket?

When a bowler with an economy rate much lower than others, do other bowlers that bowl with him get more wickets but also go for runs because they are taking more risks against other bowler ? Would u consider that this is an impact?

What should be difference in run rate of the opponent and bowlers ER that would make us discount bowlers less than average average

[prasen9]

There are some papers. I can collect them. I know of a paper by some Sri Lankans who did a great study. No definitive answers to the question but some interesting data. Will post later when I get hold of that.

BTW, Australia's batting imploded against India. It seems they lack solidity. You basically need 7 batters batting at 40+ average at about a run a ball or at least a SR of 95. Australia have very few solid bats. Warner, Smith, Labuschagne, and Green are the solid bats. But, they dropped Green for the dibbly dobblies. Head being injured cost them their 5th solid batter. Carey is fine as a keeper. They think they can manage that with the weaker batters such as Marsh, Maxwell, and Stoinis. That is not a smart idea. Maxwell is super hitter. But the other two are so so. Could do better. So, dropping Green to further weaken the weak batting was weird. Let us see. Maybe these dibbly dobblies will overperform.

[Atithee]

This must be a world record.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/chi ... -scorecard

[prasen9]

Why do cricketers wear caps even in sweltering hot, humid weather and even while fielding at night?

[arjun2761]

It generally helps reduce the glare from sun light during the day. I wonder if it does the same with respect to the lighting in the night matches.

[Atithee]

Also absorbs sweat and prevents it from running into the eyes. If it’s cold, it probably provides mild warmth as heat escapes from the head for humans, especially for bald players.

Upon checking, it confirmed the above and a few more reasons from the internet:

https://262.run/why-do-baseball-players ... -at-night/

https://baseballinsider.net/why-do-base ... -at-night/

[prasen9]

Thanks both Arjun and Atithee.