A Cricketing View

A Documentary Based on Tehelka's Sting Operation in the late 1990s

2013-05-18T15:34:00.001-07:00

A Must Watch

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

On Spot Fixing In The IPL

2013-05-17T01:59:00.002-07:00

There are several well written commentaries on the revelations about spot fixing in the IPL. In this post, I will take a more skeptical view of the morality play that we have seen in the last 24 hours. Expressions of shock and devastation from Rahul Dravid and others, wall to wall coverage on cable news (jostling with an story involving Sanjay Dutt returning to prison), discussions about "education" (as if taking money from illegal bookies in return for doing something crazy like bowling badly is some complex ethical grey area!), and the standard quota of blame that is reserved for BCCI (but not for the IPL, which has its own CEO, just like the individual franchises do). The CEO of the IPL was brief in his response to the episode. The IPL's official website and its editors must be inspired by Pravda. The Rajasthan Royals are slightly better. Of the four stories that flash in sequence on their main page, one is a statement by the Rajasthan Royals which basically says that they knew nothing (of course, if they knew something and did nothing - now that would be worth a statement!), another is a statement by Rahul Dravid about how his team is hurt. Its always nice to have a seriously great player to be the face of your grief after you've been caught with in an embarrassing situation. The Royals are well endowed in this respect. Not only do they have Dravid (as opposed to, say the inexperienced Virat Kohli), they also have a glamorous owner.

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On The Figure Of The Cricket Geek

2013-05-14T22:33:00.001-07:00

When I was in school, there was this perennial distrust of the "scholar". The "scholar" was the kid who actually bothered to study. It was cool to make fun of this person. Even kids who did reasonably well in school tried hard to play down their scholarship by doing things like sitting in the back of the class and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Taking school work seriously was seen as a sign of elitism.

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DRS, ICC Cricket Committee, And Siva's Election

2013-05-08T15:07:00.001-07:00

In the aftermath of the apparently controversial election of L Sivaramakrishnan to the ICC's Cricket Committee, Cricinfo has published an FAQ about the Cricket Committee. Neil Manthorp reported that there were two votes for the position, the second one was necessary because the first one elected Tim May. He also suggests that this maybe because BCCI is unhappy with the ICC's attitude to DRS. My post here is concerned with one question on Cricinfo's FAQ and the relationship between this controversial vote and the future of DRS. This is important because I think there is reason to be cautious about connecting BCCI's actions to DRS, and assuming that the Cricket Committee has been doing good work on DRS - work which BCCI is trying to stymie. First I reproduce the relevant question and the answer in the FAQ below. The emphasis on the second paragraph of the answer is mine. I will then show that content of the answer is substantively wrong. This can be shown not based on speculative, informal or anonymous sources, but based on the ICC's reporting of its meeting.

T20 Is Not Cricket, Neither Is IPL, On Couch Talk

2013-05-07T11:26:00.001-07:00

Subash invited me on Couch Talk to discuss T20 Cricket and the IPL this week. This is the third time I've been on Subash's show. The interview ended up being focused on the matter of T20 not being cricket. It didn't get into the IPL much, and several things which easily belong in a reflection on what T20 is and isn't, and what the IPL is and isn't - such as the IPL's attitude to women viewers, women presenters, women cheerleaders - as a group with a decidedly second class status, its claims about nurturing talent and its intrusion on the international calendar, to name just three, did not come up. Such a discussion would require multiple hours.

See a transcript of the interview here

Here are a few posts which provide some context for the interview:

After 130 odd years of international cricket, a team lost a game without losing a wicket in the T20 format. This hadn't happened in over 5000 international Test or ODI games.

My most recent argument against supporting the IPL
On Commentary in the IPL
On Rahul Dravid's international debut
On the 2010 IPL Final
On Holland "upsetting" England
On a dismissal by Anil Kumble
On some reporting of a bowling spell by Rohit Sharma
On AB deVilliers batting against Dale Steyn
On a spell by Morne Morkel
On Ambati Rayudu's "Miandad moment"
On an innings by Tendulkar in T20 cricket
On the propensity for home wins in T20
On a brutal stand between the Pathan brothers

Five wickets in Six Balls in T20 over
An attempt to describe the logic of a T20 contest
An attempt to see how T20 innings develop

On what I consider to be the classic T20 apology

On the role of the IPL in India's tour of England 2011

On Commentary in the IPL

2013-05-03T10:42:00.001-07:00

On April 22, Harsha Bhogle, Jarrod Kimber, Sharda Ugra and Nitin Sundar appeared in a video podcast on Cricinfo's show "The Huddle". The subject of the show as it's title indicates was commentary, in the IPL in particular and more generally. I suppose Kimber's experience at Test Match Sofa makes him a good addition to this broadcast.

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Tendulkar at 40

2013-04-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

On his 40th birthday, I saw Sachin Tendulkar play down the wrong line to a flighted off-break from the Trinidadian off spinner Sunil Narine and get bowled. He faced six balls over 5 overs. The ball that got him was flighted well above his eye line and the great man found himself reaching for it, off balance. He was beaten in the flight and the fact that blocking with a dead bat was not a realistic option in the 20 over match did not help.

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Test Match Ratings, April 2013

2013-04-12T12:51:00.001-07:00

The ICC publishes Test Match Rankings which are based on Ratings developed by David Kendix. The method used in the ICC's rankings has also been used to develop historical rankings. I have periodically published ratings (see a modestly interactive chart here) developed using a different approach. The basic difference between the approach I use and the approach the ICC uses is as follows:

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Murali's Wickets and McGrath's

2013-04-04T02:02:00.000-07:00

Muttiah Muralitharan ended his Test career with 800 wickets at 22.72. Glenn McGrath ended his with 563 wickets at 21.64. I've been curious about the quality of batsmen the each of them dismissed. There are multiple ways to find this out. Ideally, you would want to know who McGrath bowled every single delivery to in Test Cricket, and what the batting average of the batsman facing him was before every delivery.

Cricinfo tells us that McGrath dismissed Michael Atherton 19 times in Test Cricket for an average score of 9.89. It also tells us that McGrath took 95 wickets at 19.88 in 17 Tests in which Atherton also played, and 70 wickets at 15.78 in 15 Tests in which he dismissed McGrath 19 times. For his part, Atherton averaged 20.51 in Tests against McGrath. Against another of his great adversaries, when McGrath first dismissed Lara in a Test (the famous 1995 Test at Bridgetown, Barbados), Lara averaged a mighty 57 in Tests. When he dismissed him in the 1st Test of the 2000 series (at Brisbane), Lara averaged 49.

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On the Ryder Assault And Alcohol

2013-04-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Over at the Cordon, Samir Chopra insists that the incident that included a violent assault on Jesse Ryder had "everything to do with alchohol". This is a real person he is talking about, one who got beaten within an inch of his life in an attack eye witnesses described two days ago as an ambush. The wonders of twitter give us a lot of context about Mr. Chopra's argument. As he reveals here, it was "the rush to say 'this has nothing to do with booze'" that set him off. He saw this rush on the part of the NZCPA (the players association) and Cricket Wellington - two groups who have a clear interest in protecting Jesse Ryder, as a move borne out of sensitivity to Ryder's past problems with alcohol abuse. I know the feeling. I've often found myself writing blog posts on impulses of this kind. It is the best type of motivation for an argument.

Mr. Chopra is right to point to out the double standard in the way alcohol is treated in professional sport compared to say marijuana. I broadly agree with him on this. It is a fairly standard argument made by advocates for legalizing controlled substances like marijuana that some controlled substances like alchohol or cigarettes are legal, while others are not despite convincing evidence about the harmful communal effects of the former, and the lack of evidence of harmful communal effects of the latter.

Where I disagree with Mr. Chopra in his use of the Jesse Ryder incident. He makes the abductive inference that alcohol must have been involved in the matter based on the following facts as I understand it.

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Hirsch Index For Test Batting: An Update And A Modification

2013-04-01T15:01:00.003-07:00

In 2012 I proposed a way to use the Hirsch index for Test batsmen. A Test Batsman's H-Index is the highest number h such that he has produced h innings of at least h runs. Suppose a batsman has played 10 Test innings and his scores in these innings are 8, 0, 72, 14, 45, 148, 30*, 3, 90 and 1. This sequence includes exactly 7 scores of at least 7, giving the batsman a H score of 7.

A Test Batsman's H score is such that he has produced h innings of at least h runs. Suppose a batsman has played 10 Test innings and his scores in these innings are 8, 0, 72, 14, 45, 148, 30*, 3, 90 and 1. This sequence includes exactly 7 scores of at least 7, giving the batsman a H score of 7.

The longer a player plays (i.e., the more innings he plays), the higher his H score is likely to be. TheH value has the property that it can never reduce. For example, if the batsmen in the above paragraph follows this sequence of scores with 6 consecutive innings between 0 and 3, his H score would still be 7 after those six consecutive failures. It thus becomes necessary to normalize the Hirsch index to account for different length of career. See David Barry's post on the H-Index for batsmen here. In my latest calculation I've normalized the Hirsch index by dismisals in addition to the usual method of doing it by innings.

On McGrath v Tendulkar

2013-03-30T16:05:00.001-07:00

Over at Cricinfo's new Cordon, Mahesh Sethuraman recently pointed out that Sachin Tendulkar changed his guard from leg stump to middle stump to middle stump against Glenn McGrath in the 2nd innings of the 2001 Test at the Wankhede stadium. He continued this against the great Australian fast bowler at Kolkata and was out LBW. This is keenly observed. At first I didn't think it was the case that Tendulkar had moved guard in this way, since it is rare for batsmen to try this, especially against bowlers who are known to be able to attack the stumps. By 2001, McGrath had already dismissed Tendulkar LBW twice, at Adelaide and Sydney. The first one was a bouncer that didn't rise, but the other one was a length ball that tailed in, which Tendulkar, in a very aggressive mood, missed and was given out rather harshly. From the start of his career until February 2001, McGrath had dismissed more batsmen LBW than bowled, and done so disproportionately early in a batsmen's innings. Given Tendulkar's reputed ability to remember each and every one of his Test match dismissals (this must have been even more acute in 2001 than it perhaps is in 2013), that McGrath possessed the ball that came back in to stump would not have been a mystery to Tendulkar. McGrath's (rather predictable) response - to work almost exclusively on bringing the ball back into Tendulkar - worked in the 1st innings at Kolkata (the dry Kolkata pitch probably had something to do with this. At Wankhede, Waugh had put India in on a damp wicket). Only fast bowlers who cannot move the ball back into the stumps will concede the line of off and middle stump to a batsman. This is why left handed opening batsmen are most often seen batting on off stump or middle stump (Hayden against Srinath, and Cook against Ishant Sharma are two examples) because it is the rare right arm over the wicket bowler who can swing the ball back in to them.

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Why I won't watch IPL 6

2013-03-29T23:58:00.002-07:00

The sixth edition of the Indian Premier League will begin in the coming week. Even the Guardian has now made its peace with it. Well, Barney Ronay has on a blog hosted by that great newspaper. Every year when the IPL comes around, one hears rumblings about the consequences of the tournament for cricket. These days, when a Test match shows signs of an exciting 5th day conclusion, the standard excited observation is not "what a tantalizing finish", it is "what a tantalizing finish! Take that T20!". Just today, Michael Lumb, the English T20 batsman, expressed dismay at having to miss the IPL since it clashed with the start of the County Championship.

A paradox is brewing. On the one hand, the consequences of the IPL and its massive paychecks for bad quality cricket are there for everyone to see. Whether these consequences are disruptive or not, depends on where you are watching from. But they are there. On the other hand, people have grown exhausted of arguing about franchise based tournaments. The tournament has been squatting on cricket's property for so long now, that cricket's shareholders have become conditioned to think of its presence as being normal. One ought not to be surprised. Corporations, in the lamentably triumphant history of their ilk have tended to squat in style. The tournament steals cricket's power and it inflicts its poverty on its neighbors. But one cannot (must not!) be bothered, it seems, to see the IPL as one is all too willing to see a poor family of seasonal migrants that does the same kind of stuff.

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Best Wishes To Jesse Ryder

2013-03-27T15:19:00.001-07:00

Its a terrible thing to be assaulted. Cricket has been touched by these things too often for comfort in recent times. It is an even more terrible and poignant thing that David Hookes is probably the player who most people would be reminded of when they think of Ryder. I hope Ryder's arduous encounter ends better, and the attackers are identified and prosecuted.

I hope we get to see this batsman play again.

On Being Tendulkar In 2013

2013-03-25T16:35:00.001-07:00

As I've watched India play Australia at Chennai, Hyderabad, Mohali and Delhi, I've been struck by Sachin Tendulkar's play. Between this series and the England series we have seen a mortal Tendulkar, below his all-time-great best, the balance that marked his precise stroke production only sporadically achieved, the run output, modest. In 13 Tests since January 2012, Tendulkar averages 26, and has reached a half century only thrice. His batting average just dropped below 54 for the first time in 1999. The cause, at that time was Shoaib Akhtar, who bowled him with the perfect reverse swinging yorker first ball in the first innings, and then ran into him at the non-strikers end causing him to be run out in the second.

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On Dhoni's Press Conference, BCCI and the Press

2013-03-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

These two accounts of MS Dhoni's post-match press conference at Mohali leave one with the impression that MS Dhoni and the Press have an inherently adversarial relationship. While Sharda Ugra tells us that Dhoni "chose to toss a few hammers towards the written press ", Wisden India's saw the Indian captain in a "chilled out, jovial mood". Both accounts of the press conference report that (1) Dhoni's team worked on building partnerships, (2) Dhoni thought the newer players did well, (3)Dhoni took jabs at the press.

It must have been a mind numbingly stupid occasion, only distantly related to any actual cricketing matters. If we hold, for now, however naively, that the role of the press is to report facts, provide information, and in general, leave us knowing more about a thing after we see what the press contributes than we did before, then the press abjectly fails both us and MS Dhoni. Here's a sample of questions I wanted to ask both captains after yesterdays match:

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(Atleast) Two Ways of Seeing Cricket

2013-03-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

We often see what we want to see in the world. Sport, especially episodic, team sport which provides scope for community and time for reflection, is one area of life in which we do this more often than we realize. India's cricket fans are as one eyed as any in the history of popular team sport. Test Cricket, more than other sports, provides opportunities for different people to see different things in the same game. I will suggest here that there are two basic ways in which seeing sport works.

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A Debut Innings For The Ages

2013-03-16T17:16:00.001-07:00

Shikhar Dhawan must be a fastidious man if his careful attention to facial hair is anything to go by. His batting on Day 3 at Mohali was just as precise. 185 undefeated runs in 168 balls perhaps says at least as much about Australia's bowling and the quality of the pitch as it does about Dhawan's batting. One cannot help but observe that his partner Murali Vijay faced more deliveries (181) and score less than half the runs (83). Statistically, Dhawan's achievement is without question outstanding. He has made the fastest century ever on debut (96 batsmen had made Test hundreds on debut before Dhawan) and the highest century score (without turning it into a double) on debut. Only R E Foster, who made 287 on his Test debut at Sydney in December 1903 found the boundary more than Dhawan did (35 - 33 fours and 2 sixes) at Mohali. Dhawan has made the highest score by an Indian batsman on Test debut surpassing GR Viswanath's 137 against Australia at Kanpur in 1967.

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On Shane Watson And (Australian) Cricket Today

2013-03-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Shane Watson is one of 4 Australian players who were withdrawn from consideration for the Australian Test XI for the third Test against India. As he was vice-captain of the side, this is a serious business. Whats more, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson, the three other players who were suspended alongside Watson, were likely to feature in the XI for the Mohali Test on cricketing merit given the expected pitch conditions in Mohali and Philip Hughes's poor form.

Both during the Tests and during this episode, one common refrain has been about how good Watson is as a cricketer. This puzzles me, since this is Australia we are talking about, not Bangladesh or Zimbabwe. It also marks, at least from my point of view, a subtle shift in what makes a "top" cricketer these days.

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When Is An Appeal Made?

2013-03-05T11:13:00.001-08:00

Recently, our attention has been drawn to the pressure that the review system places on the laws of cricket. New rules had to be invented in order to go from a system in which events on the field were available (from the point of view of making a decision), exactly once, at actual speed, to a system in which they could be gone over repeatedly, from multiple points of view, at multiple speeds. This made it necessary for it to be specified for example, that all possible modes of dismissal should be studied in such instances. I have previously wondered whether Law 27 will survive the review. An episode on the 4th day at Uppal re-opens this question.

What can an Umpire Refer To The Third Umpire?

2013-03-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

On two occasions in this Test Match, a catch has been referred, and in the process, whether or not the batsman got a touch has come into question. This is due to a subtle change in the ICC's Third Umpire Review regulations. See Appendix 4 here. (pdf)

On Two Types of Failure

2013-03-01T17:44:00.001-08:00

There is a reasonably strong correlation between a Test player's batting average in a particular batting position, and the frequency with which the player is dismissed for a score under 15 runs in a Test innings. In the chart below, I have plotted the batting averages of Test players in distinct batting positions (minimum 20 innings in a batting position) and their tendency to fail (i.e. score less than 15 runs in an innings). I consider positions - Opener, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

A Revealing LBW Against Michael Clarke

2013-02-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

Michael Clarke was given Out LBW to Ravichandran Ashwin in the 2nd innings of the Chepauk Test. Within the strict letter of the law however, he should not have been given Out. This case of Michael Clarke's LBW reveals very clearly two different modes of judgment at work in decisions - one when a decision is made by a human umpire in real time, and another, when it is made reflecting on video. I've written about this distinction previously. In brief, it rests (as Gideon Haigh identified so precisely) on the following points:

1. That Umpires do not reach decisions like a disembodied computing system does.
2. That this different method of making decisions means that in substance, the conclusions reached are different.
3. That marginal decisions are ones in which both Out and Not Out are equally reasonable decisions. Note, i say equally reasonable, not equally correct or accurate - the distinction is crucial precisely because an accurate decision is not possible.

Clarke LBW adds a wrinkle to this problem which is very interesting from my point of view, but is likely to infuriate DRS afficionados. Before I jump into this confounding situation, here are what I hold to be the different positions on the use of technology in cricket umpiring (or, in "DRS" as some people erroneously describe it):
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On The Current Difference Between England And Australia

2013-02-24T14:06:00.001-08:00

Having watched both England and Australia play in India within the space of a few months, it is clear that England have the more settled, experienced and capable batting line up, as well as the more balanced bowling attack. There will be plenty of talk about some new Indian approach (as though there is a shelf of approaches to batting that is stored only in the dressing room, and must be chosen by batsmen and batting teams before they walk to the crease) against Australia, but I see no evidence of this. India's struggles opening the batting continue, yet, the middle order has had room to breathe and establish itself against Australia's lopsided attack.

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Can Law 27 (Appeals) Survive DRS?

2013-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Jacques Kallis was given out LBW after he initiated a review of the original decision against him the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan at Cape Town today. According to the ICC, under DRS the decision ought to have been not out in Kallis's favor. The ICC released a statement about this incident, in which they said the following:

The umpires followed usual umpiring principles in giving Kallis out lbw on umpire’s call the review was for the batsman out caught. This is because the normal principle is that an appeal covers all forms of dismissal.