Many petty minded people would gloat because Australia lost to Zimbabwe, which is an intrinsically hilarious event. I am above such things.I am not above saying I TOLD YOU SO, however. Let’s quote yesterday’s post:
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zimbabwe beat the Aussies. Or even won the World Bloody Championship.And so it was. Australia, the mighty World Cup holding, Ashes Urn bearing monsters of the Antipodes were slain by teeny-weeny Zimbabwe.
Australia didn't lose because I made them, my Predictoron powers don't really apply in the twenty20 world, but because the randomness of the format did its thing. There was some skill shown by the Zimmers, but, you know, so what? Yeah?
Many people having been asking where The Predictoron went. Maybe I should bring it back for the new World Cup, they asked.
But, as stated elsewhere, you can’t actually predict the outcome of twenty20 matches. What you really need is a random number generator, and get that to crunch some stochastic statistics.
Of course, it would be absurd to say that the twenty20 was a ridiculous waste of time, where a bunch of blokes mess about on a field where strange, unexpected events emerge from tiny cricket vortexes to produce previously shocking results. It would be more correct to say: twenty20 is rubbish.
In other news, the terrifying Bangladesh knocked out the West Indies from the World Championship. Was that because the West Indies are terrible at batting? No, they’re pretty good at that. Awful at bowling? No, they’re ok. Dreadful fielders? Well, yes, but that really isn’t a decisive issue.
No, they simply received a bad role of the dice. They lost through bad luck.
3 comments:
chinaman, what's so holy about 50-50 then? maybe a team gets a little more time to recover after a false start, but in the one-day world cup too india and pakistan got knocked out in the first round and bangladesh and ireland got thru. so what's the difference? it's the same rubbish. by your reckoning, there should only be test cricket. there i can agree. but t20 i now prefer to 50 overs of that crap shoot. more here... I spoke too soon!
Sumit, if it was financially possible for test cricket to survive without one-day cricket, I'd be happy to see it vanish.
One-day cricket has a place, I suppose. It's a necessary evil to bring more people into the game, but also to allow test cricket to right-fully take its place at the top of the international pecking order. Although, I understand that, in the sub-continent, the one-day format is more popular than tests - is this true?
Sumit, I think that the longer length of 50 over cricket allows a smoothing of skill over random error. Sure, there are up-sets, but much less than in twenty20. (Convsersely in test cricket, there are hardly any upsets. The better side almost always win.)
Post a Comment