Do we need bowlers?

So. Australia win their series. Coupled with Bangladesh’s recent triumph over Zimbabwe, this series will be remarked as one of the most memorable contests after the Punic Wars.

But it also fuels the argument for dividing the international game into two divisions: with the first division boasting teams like Australia and India and the second division housing everyone else.

This allows the ICC to sweep the deck of all non essential matches, enabling Australia to battle India in a continuous all year circus of fifty-over joy.

In any case, perhaps the most interesting issue in this series was Australia’s crock-ridden bowling attack. Even Clinton McKay (no relation to the famous general, although possibly connected to the infamous intern-fiddler) was called up, after only 18 first class games.

But this didn’t matter. Because bowling doesn’t matter any more.

Take the fifth match. Australia rack up 350. It should be enough. And was. It didn’t matter that the bowling was rubbish, and Sachin Tendulkar streaked his way to yet another fluky huge hundred. Because batsmen win games in the shorted format.

Indeed, because bowlers know that batsmen's time is limited, they know that pressure and aggression is unnecessary, even counter-productive. Best just picking three Chris Harrises and an Ashley Giles and do as you always do: trust in your batters.

Perhaps the more innocuous and the least enchanted by the delusion of wickets your bowlers are, the more successful your team? Can we have finally unearthed the mystery of Kiwi one success?

It's happening again

Remember the World Cup? Remember how we all enjoyed this vibrant international spectacle, and didn’t complain at all. From the very first, hesitant moment, to crescendo of well-organised joy at the tournament’s climax. Let me take you back to those times.

It was the heady days of 2007. Anything seemed possible. Religious fanatics controlled a superpower. An ex-superpower was killing spies on the street. And sub-prime mortgages were worth more than a stapler.

Throughout the course of the cricket World Cup, I spent my time talking about England (and dancing cricketers). I repeatedly made one point about their approach: OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE PLAYING AT?

Their approach was this: “See off the first few dangerous twenty overs, and then we’ll consolidate for the next twenty. Perhaps we’ll see where we are after that.”

Against South Africa, we scored four runs in ten overs.

Remember Jamie Dalrymple? Do you remember opening with Ed Joyce? ED JOYCE!

Not even the person that Ed Joyce murdered with an Ed Joyce name badge would remember who Ed Joyce is.*

But, poor old whathisface was subject to the ECB’s wonder strategy of playing for time. Obviously, we got completely humiliated. That goes without saying. We’re English. But there are degrees of loss.

And the inept, spineless, moronic, self-inflicted, thick-headed losses of the World Cup were particularly hard to endure. And now, once again, familiar concerns are returning. You look at the Englanders, and they look at you, blinking and red-skinned, clueless. Utterly clueless. There are, quite literally, without clue. Well, they might have one clue between them, but that’s a rubbish clue that erroneously leads them to Professor Plum.

AKA: Grauieame Swann.

*On further reflection, this victim might struggle to remember quite a few things.

(For those economists, stats geeks, and other bored people, check out the OECD’s new data mapping tool. It’s surprisingly fun. Now I know that New Zealand’s North Island is richer (in per capita terms) than all Australian states, whereas, the South Island is poorer than the lot of them. Interesting that. The IMF one is also worth a check out – although no where near as fun.)

(As another aside, I went to watch the football last night. I don’t normally do this, but England was playing Germany in Berlin, and I felt I should make an effort. So, off I went, with German in tow, to an “Irish” “pub” in central Berlin.

There, I found England.

England in all its glimmering glory. A mirror to the world’s best parts. The parts that sing about wars long since past, about enemies now crippled with anxiety. Parts that try to chat up German women with the worlds Spatch-chen zie Anglaise? Parts that, when you are amused by the loud sweary scousers and huge St. George’s Cross emblazoned with the words like “Darlington” will challenge you with a sharp “Wot yaw smilin’ at?” It’s astonishing how I could live without this cultural assurance, without these people that make us all feel so proud.)

We’re back in business baby

Some of you may have noticed a drop in post frequency recently. To those that did, please consider yourselves a proud owner of a gold star. To those that didn’t, consider yourself official Enemies Of The Glorious AYALAC Peoples.

You see, I now have the internet at home again. This, of course, is excellent because, despite having internet access at work, and despite being paid less than my previous position, I am still manically busy and unable to blog at the office.

So! Now, a new era of AYALAC-rest of the world relations begins. Rejoicing breaks out. Women swoon. Parrots die.

Much has changed since we spoke last.

England lost the rugby. England lost the cricket once. And then once more. An Irish fellah bought an election in the New World. And England will probably lose the football tonight. So, as we can see, the world continues to move as normal.

It’s really great having internet at home. I listened to Today Programme for the first time in ages this morning. I was surprised at the amount of slang British English they used. Shocking, really. But, I was also buoyed by hearing the dulcet tones of Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, and also Nick Clegg, leader of some other party. I forget which.

So! Yes. Cricket.

Well, it’s the usual depressing stock for us Englanders. You know that things are bad when you see headlines end in the word “again”. However, to make a series point about actual cricket, I will say this:

For ages, the test side has shown that stability in selection has resulted in improved results. Of course, illness and injury can and have taken their toll, but overall, it seems that England do better when England know who England is. Yet, conversely, the ODI side has been all over the shop.

Pick a player here. Pick a player there. Stick him in as an opener. Pick a team with three batsman. Put him at eight. Kill all the spinners. It has been a progressive, morphing chaos for years now. So, it seems eminently sensible to me that now, the ECB has decided to draw the line and let the “current” team settle for a bit. Enough, say they, is enough.

And you know what? Bugger me, if I don’t agree with the England management. Heck, give them all medals, say I. Nay, OBEs!

To all this talk of “Bell and Prior aren’t working” and “drop Collingwood, pick Smode” and the “let’s drop him to 10 and promote him to 5” and all the rest of it, to this I say this: Stop it. Just leave them alone. It’s the best of all possible worlds. It’s time to start pretending that we’re New Zealand.

We’re not in Kansas any more.

We're in Berlin. Where we're about to launch an attack on allied German-English hooligans. Come on you rioters!

Team England beat Indian galacticos

England strangled India by 42 runs in Edgbaston last night. (Edgbaston is the posh bit of Birmingham, in case you didn’t know.)

Ian Bell top-scored for England again for England – third time in a row. A lot of people have been muttering about the England clique, that the same people are selected despite strong performers at the county level. Bell’s recent success is surely due to the selectors backing his ability over the long term. Long live the exclusive England club!

Anyway, England won principally because they were the stronger team. Bell aside, England’s batsmen contributed small, punchy innings in a selfless contribution to the England effort. Moreover, their reasonably high score was only enabled through having batters well down the order – look at Chris Tremlett’s 19 off 9.

India lacked the same cohesion. England took this attitude onto the field, bowling and fielding as a tightly organised unit. Monty Panesar stunned us all with another run out, without even looking.

Sourav Ganguly (72) and Rahul Dravid (56) looked especially dangerous. And Yuvraj Singh (45 off 35) looked ominous towards the end of the Indian innings. But no one else chipped in. Although there were flashes of individual brilliance, it seemed the Indians struggled with the sharp England fielding and the restrictive formations that surrounded them.

Dougie Brown on TMS made an interesting comment. In his opinion England’s superior fielding earned them 30-40 run difference between the two sides. More or less the difference in runs. A genuine case of fielding winning the match?

India’s efforts on the field still look shoddy, but they also missed many run opportunities of turning singles into twos. It seems as though India lack the commitment.

However, in the true Ayalac spirit of taking negatives out of victory, there are still apparent weaknesses in the England set-up. They still lack the ability for sustained slogging. Both at the start and death of the innings, the 8-, 9-, or 10-run overs were wanting. England are still using the “playing is slow” tactic that was such a failure at the World Cup. Bell is building an innings, which is fine, but you need a few biffers around him.

Rampant canneries eat impotent springboks

The biggest anti-climax to hit the World Cup so far saw Australia thrash pretenders to the throne South Africa by seven wickets.

Useless Saffers totally misread the conditions and decided to go quickly onto the attack after they put themselves in to bat. Ignoring the swinging ball, Glen McGrath’s accurate bowling and all common sense, the South African top order swung merrily away only to lose their wickets repeatedly.

Just Herschelle Gibbs and Justin Kemp showed any steel against the Ozzies. Andre Nel provided some valiant resistance until the end.

Nel is a compulsive competitor. He tried to take the Ozzies on, at eight wickets down. There was slegding between himself and to the world in general. “Bring it on”, he said to the bowler. The Australians just laughed.

This was a pathetic performance and, to be honest, stupid. I think a combination of being labelled “chokers” and Ricky Ponting’s insistence that six-hitting is the way forward in modern cricket saw the end of the Proteas. They were at sea.

A more traditional, slower approach was needed in that innings. The slogging should have waited until the introduction of Shane Watson. There were still seven overs to spare and with a bit of upper-order nurdling, the SA’s could have posted a challenging score. But they were, it seems, totally incapable of changing their strategy.

This, like England's dodgy approach, was daft. One-day cricket is about adaptability and a lightness of foot. The South Africans seemed like a stodgy one-trick pony. And they paid the price.

Now I’m annoyed because only England have pushed the Australians. Let’s hope they get at least one game before they lift the trophy. This is bloody ridiculous. Bloody universe.

England trundle away into a dark hole

So, give or take 100 runs, I predicted the score almost perfectly. I also got Andrew Strauss’ and Paul Collingwood’s scores right. Unfortunately, some marmalade must have clogged inside the old Predictoron, as everything else was way off.

Fortunately, we in Ayalac are a fore-sighted bunch, and we adopted the prudent strategy of making Contradictory Predictions. That’s right, long ago doubts were expressed about the Go-Slow approach to the early innings. Let’s quote myself on the 8th March:

But, what happens when England lose their upper-order cheaply? The sloggers are exposed and, if they lose their wickets, an imperfect start turns into a disastrous end. ... Arguably, the insurance of consequence-free early hitting provides a greater buffer to a side wanting to “play it safe”; obtaining quickly the comfort of runs. Whereas nurdling singles can only succeed if executed over a long duration, and with wickets in hand. Pinning our hopes on preserving wickets might undermine confidence further, and place more pressure on the lower order to “catch up”.

This was exactly what happened. The openers did nothing with the many overs they faced, pressurising the exposed middle order to improve the 1.0 over rate, and this proved too much.

The first 45 balls of the England innings saw four scoring strokes. FOUR! You can’t expect to win a match like that. My original view of playing it slow was to get the singles, nurdle it about a bit. But England weren’t even going slowly, they weren’t moving at all.

Moreover, “playing yourself in” requires the batsman to feel bat on ball. To hit into the gaps, to get a sense for the pitch and the bowling. Shouldering arms for six overs does not do this. As we saw with the wickets of both Michael “I’m in” Vaughan and Ian “I’m seeing it like a beach ball” Bell. The first overs were just, quite literally, wasted.

Perhaps England were a little mesmerised by the Irish success against Bangladesh on the same pitch. The Irish openers stayed in for 25 overs for not much, and managed to launch a successful attack at the death. However, the key to Ireland’s victory was keeping those wickets. England’s failure just shows you how risky and even radical this strategy is.

If a useless blogger could have predicted this why couldn’t an entire team of backroom experts? Why the hell am I better than Duncan Fletcher? What is wrong with the world?

Slinging Goliath

Oh, the press are full of it this morning.

Gussy Fraser, as always, has produced an interesting article on England’s chances against Sri Lanka.His argument is that the Sri Lankan’s unorthodox method endows a flamboyance that provides the team with an edge in ODIs. Whereas England’s players are “over-coached”, making them too rigid and uncreative to excel at limited overs cricket.

“English cricket is continuously attempting to find reasons why the national side is not competitive in the one-day game. The quality of pitches and the scheduling of limited-over matches in domestic cricket are cited as reasons, but another widely held view is that it is a result of batsman being over-coached. Facing thousands of balls from a bowling machine and being told to play with a straight bat will tighten up a batsman’s technique, but there is a real danger that it turns him into a robot, possessing neither the flair nor the instinct to perform the unpredictable.”

I have spoken previously on this issue: I argued, and still believe, that talk of “England’s natural game” is nonsense. Technique applies to any version of the game. England are rubbish at all forms of cricket at the moment. That's why they're losing ODIs.

However, this issue of “unpredictability” is interesting. It stems, in the main, from bowling at the death. A bowler must surprise the batsman in the closing overs, as consistency can allow the batsman to get into position early. This issue was made more obvious with the advent of twenty20. Every ball, every stroke and every fielding position had to have some innovative element if you wanted to exert control. The MCC manual limited the realm of run-scoring opportunities, so had to be ditched for pressing expediency.

This slightly panicked attitude has, through osmosis, transferred into 50-over cricket. The mantra is now “runs anyway, anyhow and now”, and consequently fielding teams respond by also moving to the unorthodox to jar a batsman’s concentration and drag them out of their comfort zone. Yet, this is not a sustainable strategy over the longer period; unusual bowlers like John Iverson, Paul Adams and even Lasith Malinga eventually lose their novelty and therefore their impact. Once they are “found out” a key part of their threat is diffused, as Michael Vaughan stated today:

“Not many of us have faced [Malinga] but they tell me the first few deliveries are a little bit strange and if you get over them there are plenty of scoring opportunities.”

If bowlers are putting their energies into originality, once this has worn off, what do they have left? Darren Gough, in today’s Metro, says Malinga is:

“exciting to watch purely because he is very different. But I think he’s nothing for our boys to really worry about. I’m sure there are a lot better bowlers in the world than Malinga. In fact there are a lot better bowlers in Sri Lanka than Malinga. Chaminda Vass for one.”

The same Vaas who bowls orthodox and consistent medium-fast stuff for years and still takes wickets.

Those names that survive are those with the quality techniques. Sanath Jayasuriya, for all his panache, has a Test average of over 40, with a top score of 340. You don’t hit 14 Test hundreds by reverse sweeping all day.

I have already told the ECB how they can win, but I feel that England should have the confidence to stick to their game plan, and not become bededazzled by the ephemeral charms of the unconventional. Talk of pinch-hitters up the order, altering tested techniques is distracting and potentially destabilising to an already dubious outfit. But, by the very fact that such fundamental restructurings are being discussed at this juncture does not bode well. Gussy to finish:

“These plans should have been thought through months ago but, as is the case with England and one-day cricket, they appear to be winging it.”

Batting second

Ok – it’s the start of the Super Eight. So, I suppose I should do a follow up of the Batting Second issue. In my previous post on this subject, I examined Simon Widle’s thesis that sides batting second have an advantage. This seemed correct, as I found that 78% of chasing sides win*. Now that the first stage is complete, does this result still hold?

Adding to the list, there have been the following matches:

12. India beat Bermuda.
13. Zimbabwe lost to West Indies.
14. New Zealand beat Kenya.
15. Scotland lost to South Africa.
16. Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh.
17. Pakistan beat Zimbabwe.
18. New Zealand beat Canada.
19. Scotland lost to Netherlands.
20. Sri Lanka beat India.
21. Ireland lost to West Indies
22. Australia beat South Africa.
23. Kenya lost to England.
24. Bermuda lost to Bangladesh.

From this above list, on 6 occasions the chasing side won, whereas 7 times the side batting first had posted enough to win. Of all World Cup matches, sides batting first won 13, sides batting second won 10 and there was one tied game. Not decisive either way, but certainly not supportive of Wilde’s argument.

On the first blog, I eliminated all those matches involving minnows. I will do the same leaving numbers (20) and (22). In both these matches, the side batting first won: 100% record in intra-Big Fish battings. The reverse of my previous findings. However, if I integrated these results with my previous findings, which include warm-ups and upsets, this leaves 11 matches. Of these, seven times the chasers have won, whereas the side batting first has won on four occasions. That is to say, 63% of the time, the side batting second wins, which is a reduction from the original 78% found in the first analysis. Is the World Cup becoming friendly for those batting first?

Anyway, not particularly interesting, really. But I’ll take another look at this after the next stage is complete.

* In matches between Big Fish or upsets.

Batting first

I think we are far enough into to the tournament to begin looking at the “Simon Wilde Thesis”. The Sunday Times cricket correspondent argues that the side batting second should expect a greater chance of victory:

"Figures show 57% of all one-day internationals are won by the team batting second, and the figure is higher in matches in the West Indies."

So let’s test the hypothesis. So far, I count 11 completed matches. The full list is as follows:

1. West Indies beat Pakistan
2. Australia beat Scotland
3. Canada lost to Kenya
4. Sri Lanka beat Bermuda
5. Ireland tied with Zimbabwe
6. England lost to New Zealand
7. South Africa beat Holland
8. India lost to Bangladesh
9. Pakistan lost to Ireland
10. Australia beat Holland
11. England beat Canada

From the above, the side batting first has won six games, the chasing team has won four games and one match has been tied. 60% of the total victories has been won by the side batting first – which is a result which flatly contradicts Wilde’s thesis.

However, considering the large number of minnows in this data-set, we cannot hope to glean much useful information for aiding our predictions over Big Fish matches. I shall, therefore, refine the analysis a little more. So, let me eliminate all those games involving minnows and the keep only intra-Big Fish matches and the upsets. Preserving, in the above list, numbers (1), (6), (8) and (9), with the following additional warm-up matches (in accordance with the above criteria):

a. New Zealand lost to Bangladesh
b. West Indies lost to India
c. South Africa lost to Pakistan
d. New Zealand beat Sri Lanka
e. England lost to Australia

Of this nine, only twice has a side batting first won. 78% of the time chasing sides win. Far greater than the originally percentage predicted by the theory, and a dramatic departure from the previous conclusion.

I’m not sure whether my cleaning of the data has been legitimate, but if these results are prescient, it may create a horribly predictable World Cup. No one really wants the Final to be determined by the toss of a coin. I hate it when Simon Bloody Wilde is right.

Nevertheless, although I will revisit this issue in the future, I do not believe there to be enough results to produce meaningful statistics. A conclusion on the Wildean Hypothesis will remain on hold until I have seen more Big Fish on Big Fish action.

England rediscover their natural game

Yes. We lost again. Just like the good old days. I can’t say that many of us our surprised. But it’s a pity as their performance was rather spineless. The Kiwis didn’t really do anything special. They just turned up, bowled some good balls and tapped the ball around. Nothing spectacular. They just waited for England’s inevitable slump.

And what a slump: England lost four wickets for five in a rather nostalgic middle order collapse. There was some nice batting at the death from Paul Nixon and Plunkers, but 209 was never enough. A slow pitch and poor fielding saw New Zealand ease home.

This doesn’t mean the World Cup is over for the English - they still will go into the Super 8 (albeit with less points). However, the great “Play Slow” plan was not productive. As I predicted (sorry, smugness getting me again) this strategy is dangerous if you lose quick wickets - as you have not accumulated a buffer of runs. If you invest batsmen’s energies in “getting their eye in” you are totally reliant on them staying in to covert this into a decent score. England’s batsman failed, and thus the innings was a disaster.

More importantly, they need to work out how to play on the St. Lucia ground and, ultimately, develop of game that is well-suited and productive on Caribbean pitches. Otherwise, the dynamic Kenyans will have us for breakfast.

Vaughan: Back to Basics

I notice that the BBC stole my Michael Vaughan picture in the post below. Should I sue them? Best not draw attention to myself, really… Anyway, sorry for the repetition, but here’s some more Vaughan.

In a recent interview, Vaughan has claimed that England’s recent success is due to their “back to basics” approach. I normally associate back to basics with John Major’s desperate attempts to hold a divided and toppling government together in the face of inevitable annihilation. But I’m sure it’ll all be cheery for Vaughany.

Anyway, in this interview, the England captain believes big-hitters are not central to the England plan:

“Paul Collingwood is not that explosive, but he’s very, very valuable. JD [Jamie Dalrymple] is very explosive towards the end, Belly is a nice little player who knocks it around and KP [Kevin Pieterson] is coming back. These guys are all going to play their part.”

This cerebral, clear-thinking approach for Vaughan is really refreshing. It rejects the contemporary obsession with rope-clearing; it is not the only tactic worth considering. Building an innings in a deliberate and methodical way is just as effective when compiling a score. Rather like the old adage: “It’s not how, it’s how many”.

For Vaughan, England won in Australia because of

“…going back to basics, working together as a team, trying to prepare in a way that was specific to one-day cricket and then just having that little bit of luck. We got together and talked about every aspect of one-day cricket as a team – we left no stone unturned.”

This is a very interesting comment. It shows that England are willing to scrutinise their approach and diversify their tactics. One-day cricket is not about predictable variation (rotating bowlers and field settings for the hell of it) it’s about conforming to a carefully constructed plan and being flexible in the use of tactics. Similarly, when batting you must look to your team’s particular skill-set, and build a plan that emphasis and even exaggerates this natural advantage.

I have now convinced myself: Pinch-hitting is not the only method to victory.

It seems, rather like me, Michael Vaughan is challenging the hegemonic discourses that many take for granted. Is there nothing the man can’t do?