tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/twenty20-16049/articlesTwenty20 – The Conversation2021-04-28T10:53:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1597372021-04-28T10:53:51Z2021-04-28T10:53:51ZA thousand runs in May – can cricket’s mystical milestone be reached once more?<p>For most old-school cricket traditionalists the new competition being foisted on them this summer – The Hundred – has only one redeeming feature. To make space for the new game, the season has been front-loaded with more traditional four-day county championship games, meaning a hectic schedule of first-class cricket in April and May before the shorter-form matches. Consequently, this year fans might see something not seen for over three decades – a batsman scoring 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May.</p>
<p>The cricket world likes to mark achievements in multiples of fives and tens: five wickets in an innings or ten wickets in a match, for example, are marks of bowling quality, while zero or 100 will spell triumph or disaster for batsmen. </p>
<p>More broadly, while the best batsmen in county cricket might routinely expect to score 1,000 runs in a season (excluding any scored in one-day cricket), these days bowlers rarely take 100 wickets. Kent’s Alfred “Tich” Freeman took more than 200 wickets in every season between 1928 to 1935, but such days are gone. In 22 years Freeman averaged about 26 first-class games a season; in a career only a little shorter, England’s Jimmy Anderson averages about half that number. In the last pre-COVID season of 2019, Simon Harmer from Essex came closest with 83 from only 14 first-class games, as cricketing calendars are increasingly filled with one-day cricket.</p>
<p>Chunkier bats and smaller boundaries are only two reasons why the modern game is felt by many to favour batsmen, and the ultimate indicator of a storming start to any season is to score 1,000 runs before May has ended. </p>
<h2>Weather permitting</h2>
<p>In reality, “1,000 runs in May” means all of May and a large chunk of April, but even so, this cricketing milestone, <a href="https://wisdenblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/a-grand-day-out/">notes cricket journalist Richard Whitehead</a>, has acquired mystic properties “simply because it has been done so infrequently”. And that’s because, as the Telegraph’s cricket correspondent Scyld Berry <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2021/04/26/race-score-1000-runs-may-remains-mystique-cricket/">suggests</a>, “like the annual race to be the first clipper to bring tea from China to London” or “like the race to sail through the Northwest Passage”, conditions are unforgiving and prohibitive.</p>
<p>Early in the season, in a contest between bat and ball, the ball often prevails. Batsmen are still blinking to acclimatise to natural light after a winter indoors, while bowlers at their friskiest are helped by damp pitches that haven’t yet hardened under prolonged sunshine and where the ball is more likely to behave unexpectedly.</p>
<p>The weather, indeed, might mean that matches will be affected by the rain; or, like this year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2021/apr/10/cricket-county-championship-yorkshire-glamorgan-lancashire-sussex-live">even delayed because of snow</a>. Cricket writer Martin Johnson – who died in March – <a href="https://www.thecricketpaper.com/features-and-columns/1529/martin-johnson-column-1000-runs-in-may-no-just-1000-goose-pimples/">noted</a> that while 1,000 runs before the end of May is unlikely, “1,000 goose pimples before the end of April is pretty well guaranteed”.</p>
<h2>A few good batsmen</h2>
<p>The milestone has been reached only nine times. A household name in the Victorian era, WG Grace was the first to do it in 1895. It was especially astonishing given that his 18-stone frame was being supported by 47-year-old legs. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Man with large beard and wearing a striped hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397356/original/file-20210427-15-dxytme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WG Grace was the first to achieve 1000 runs in May.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Grace#/media/File:WG_Grace_c1902.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next to hit the mark, in 1900, was Surrey’s Tom Hayward. A dedicated and reliable professional, he entered the season with ten days of intensive batting practice under his belt and showed early form “no other batsman <a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152484.html">could approach</a>”. </p>
<p>Walter Hammond – the most elegant batsman of his age - was the next to reach the target in 1927, followed by Lancastrian Charlie Hallows the following year. <a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/charlie-hallows-14002">Though much less famous</a> than any of the other of the May champions, “before radio and television blew the bubble of cricketers’ reputations, the name of Charles Hallows was a household word in the north”.</p>
<p>The freakish Donald Bradman – by far the most prolific batsman of his time, and any other time - did it twice, plundering county bowlers in 1930 and 1938 when Australia toured England. Englishman Bill Edrich also did it in 1938, but it would be 35 years before it was repeated. </p>
<p>In 1973, the slightly built Glenn Turner – on tour with New Zealand but already well used to playing cricket in England with his time with Worcestershire - had the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2021/04/26/race-score-1000-runs-may-remains-mystique-cricket/">benefit of more innings than usual</a> as the tourists “went round the country gently warming up”. No such feat would be possible nowadays, as touring teams play so few county games. </p>
<p>The small matter of a single innings of 405 was pivotal for the most recent man to do it, in 1988. Zimbabwe-born Graeme Hick was another Worcestershire batsmen who made county bowlers “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/31691452">look like cannon fodder</a>”, albeit he was never quite consistent enough to secure a regular England spot after qualifying to represent the country in 1991.</p>
<p>In 2021, though, the elusive 1,000 runs in May is still possible. The new Hundred competition and an increasingly chaotic fixture schedule <a href="https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/cricket/adam-lyth-sprints-towards-a-thousand-runs-as-joe-root-and-yorkshire-ccc-take-control-at-kent-3205007">has meant more championship games</a>. And, with the whole of May still to come, several county batsmen are well poised to become forever part of cricketing folklore, 33 years after it was last achieved. Should it happen, the great shame is that with spectators not yet part of domestic cricket’s post-COVID recovery, the much-merited cheering and applause is likely to be recorded and piped in over a PA system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Thomas receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for academic research not connected to this article.</span></em></p>Only eight batsmen have achieved the feat, will another join their ranks this May?Richard Thomas, Associate Professor, Journalism, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/755202017-04-06T09:11:27Z2017-04-06T09:11:27ZCricket: more Twenty20 may sow seeds of demise for the quintessential English game<p>A city-based franchise competition of Twenty20, cricket’s shortest (20-over) format, is due to be launched in 2020 in a bid to give the English domestic game a financial boost. It is the latest plan from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) <a href="http://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12140/10815888/ecb-reveal-plans-for-franchise-style-twenty20-competition">aimed at</a> increasing the number of people watching the sport. The teams are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/03/26/ecb-ask-counties-vote-change-could-pave-way-twenty20-tournament/">expected</a> to be based around well-known grounds such as Lord’s and the Oval in London, Trent Bridge in Nottingham, Old Trafford in Manchester and Headingley in Leeds. </p>
<p>Cricket’s audiences are thought to be ageing and may not be replenished. In other parts of the world, match-day attendances for the longer formats of the game, particularly international Test cricket over five days, have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/dec/31/big-bash-league-crowds-continue-to-beat-test-match-attendance-figures">declined</a> – although <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/943185.html">not in England</a>. </p>
<p>Reception to the ECB’s <a href="http://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12140/10815888/ecb-reveal-plans-for-franchise-style-twenty20-competition">franchise</a> competition proposal has been mixed. Former England captain, Michael Vaughan, said he viewed Twenty20 as “the saviour” and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/03/27/twenty20-league-exactly-cricket-needs-become-relevant-attract/">predicted</a> that it would have huge success in attracting new, younger fans. But he also warned that the new competition could eclipse other forms of the game, including international matches.</p>
<p>So, is the commercialisation of cricket a friend or foe to the game?</p>
<h2>Many iterations</h2>
<p>Cricket has been dealing with these tensions for longer than most sports have actually existed. Since its laws were first standardised and committed to paper in the mid-1700s, cricket has <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Globalizing_Cricket.html?id=0VpMAQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">witnessed</a> numerous incarnations in the name of progress and modernisation. Concerns about the economic model began in the 19th century, but the commercialisation of cricket in England experienced a step change in 1963 with the introduction of the first “one-day” competition, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/may/01/fifty-years-gillette-cup-anniversary">Gillette Cup</a>. </p>
<p>The shorter format became more frequent and more dominant, but various iterations were tried in the search for a commercially lucrative formula. Kerry Packer’s <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/worldseries/content/story/72632.html">World Series Cricket</a> in Australia in the 1970s, which saw players in coloured clothes (rather than the traditional whites) playing under floodlights with a white (not red) ball, would <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/arts-theatre-culture/sports-studies/cambridge-companion-cricket?format=HB&isbn=9780521761291">ultimately</a> convince the market of cricket’s commercial potential.</p>
<p>The broadcast of one-day cricket enabled the game to become a “mediasport” – funded by and structured for media consumption – as our <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sport-Media-and-Mega-Events/Wenner-Billings/p/book/9781138930391">research</a> has highlighted. Yet, despite considerable success, shorter variants continued to emerge, such as New Zealand’s <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/67577.html">Cricket Max</a> in the late 1990s and Australia’s <a href="http://mncjcc.nsw.cricket.com.au/files/15121/files/Game%20formats/Super%208s%20rules.pdf">Super Eights</a>. </p>
<p>But Twenty20, in which each team bats for 20 overs and the highest score wins, would become king. Ironically, given England’s role as the guardian of the traditions of cricket, Twenty20 <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/579245.html">was invented</a> there in 2003. </p>
<p>Such was the immediate commercial success of Twenty20 that multiple domestic-based and internationally resonant competitions subsequently emerged: the <a href="http://www.iplt20.com/">Indian Premier League</a> (IPL), <a href="http://www.bigbash.com.au/">Australian Big Bash</a>, <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh-premier-league-2016-17/content/series/1063043.html">Bangladesh Premier League</a>, <a href="http://www.cplt20.com/">Caribbean Premier League</a> and <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-super-league-2016-17/content/series/1075974.html">Pakistan Super League</a> currently exist. In the meantime, the English became victims of their own innovation. Their version, the <a href="https://www.ecb.co.uk/t20-blast">T20 Blast</a>, remained stuck in the traditional structures of county cricket and so lacked global appeal. </p>
<p>Enter the ECB’s new plan. The new city-based competition is set up for eight new teams – all owned by the ECB – with centrally-allocated pots of money for players and coaches. Each team will have a squad of 15 players, selected by draft. Teams will choose 13 players split across six salary bands and have two further wildcard picks – including a maximum of three overseas players to increase the tournament’s glamour. A play-off style system of 36 matches scheduled over 38 days will provide four home matches per franchise with eight matches shown <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/03/26/ecb-ask-counties-vote-change-could-pave-way-twenty20-tournament/">live</a> on free-to-air television. </p>
<p>Incomes should match those achieved by similarly global Twenty20 competitions. An annual IPL season in India, for example, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2011.620372">generates</a> more than double the gross income of a 50-over Cricket World Cup, which happens every four years. </p>
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<h2>Both innovative and conservative</h2>
<p>Such innovations always have a wider social impact. It’s unclear how the addition of the planned franchise competition will affect the existing one-day county and T20 Blast competitions, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/26/ecb-regional-t20-tournament-plan">which will continue to run</a>. International Test matches will also be scheduled alongside the new competition, so which will draw England’s best players: cheque book or country? </p>
<p>Beyond logistics, there lies a more fundamental question. Twenty20 has become emblematic of the mediatisation and commercialisation of the game. While all sports have adapted to suit the needs of television and sponsors, the extent to which cricket has changed in the last 50 years is unprecedented. And yet, while Twenty20 incorporates the game’s fundamental elements – it is still contested between 11 men or women on a 22-yard strip of grass involving bat and ball – there remains much more room for innovation with the format. For instance, why insist on teams having five bowlers or limiting them to bowling 24 balls each?</p>
<p>The truth is that cricket is paradoxically innovative, yet conservative. The “inventors” of one-day cricket wanted it to look like the “real” thing – keen that short-term commercial goals <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Betrayal.html?id=l3x2JQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">should not</a> betray the game’s inheritance. The English traditions epitomised by the longer form of Test match and county cricket are what make the game stand apart from other sports in the global marketplace. As a result, the commercial and media opportunities made possible by Twenty20 also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sport-Media-and-Mega-Events/Wenner-Billings/p/book/9781138930391">bring with them</a> a series of threats. </p>
<p>Each new iteration of cricket contains unresolved tensions. City-based Twenty20 will attract a new, younger audience, but perhaps they will be attracted for different reasons. Twenty20 packs stadiums drawn by cricket’s global superstars, but there is little evidence that it has the capacity to sustain audiences across the sport’s longer formats. You cannot breathe economic life into Test cricket by selling the audience something else so, at best, these latest plans create the need for further tinkering and, at worst, plant the seeds of Test cricket’s future demise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is the 20-over format a friend or foe for English cricket?Thomas Fletcher, Senior Lecturer, Events, Tourism, Hospitality and Languages, Leeds Beckett UniversityDominic Malcolm, Reader in Sociology of Sport, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/543282016-03-08T02:46:09Z2016-03-08T02:46:09ZWe need a fairer system for deciding rain-affected games in Twenty20 cricket<p>The sixth <a href="http://www.icc-cricket.com/world-t20">World Twenty20</a> cricket tournament begins in India this March and the competition comes at a time when the shortest version of the game is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/cuts-and-glances-big-bash-popularity-has-other-sports-worried/news-story/ddb3120c52031e5c602494e209350013">gaining popularity at a remarkable rate</a>.</p>
<p>But there’s a potential dark cloud hanging over the tournament’s intrinsic fairness – literally – when it comes to deciding who’s the winner if a game is cut short.</p>
<p>In all versions of cricket, a team’s ability to score runs is limited by two factors: the number of wickets remaining and the maximum time available. In Test cricket, the time is limited by a clock and a calendar.</p>
<p>In shorter versions of the game, it is limited by a maximum number of possible deliveries. Difficulties arise in limited-overs cricket when sides have their innings shortened, usually because of a rain delay or bad light. </p>
<p>In the history of limited-overs cricket, various formulae have been used to calculate what is intended to be a fair total for a team to reach when (at least) one innings is truncated.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, a system first proposed by <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v49/n3/abs/2600524a.html">British statisticians Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis</a> has been accepted as standard for all major competitions. Despite generally being seen to produce fewer unfair or absurd outcomes than some of its predecessors, the Duckworth-Lewis method (sometimes the <a href="http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-series/cricket-news/69983/introducing-duckworth-lewis-stern-method">Duckworth-Lewis-Stern</a> method after its later revision by Steve Stern) is not without its critics.</p>
<p>Adding to the confusion is the fact that <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/england-in-india/top-stories/When-Yuvi-gets-going-he-is-the-toughest-Dhoni/articleshow/3756528.cms">several international captains</a> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11672338/England-v-New-Zealand-Eoin-Morgan-bemoans-Duckworth-Lewis-as-rain-ruins-thrilling-run-chase.html">have gone on record</a> to admit that they don’t fully understand how the method works.</p>
<h2>Stumped by statistics?</h2>
<p>The Duckworth-Lewis System <a href="http://www.tcuandsa.org/Doc/dldocs/DL%20Resource%20Chart%20New.pdf">combines the remaining wickets and deliveries into a single resource</a>. In the event that the regulated number of overs cannot be bowled, the target that a team needs to reach is recalculated to account for the resources lost during the break.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113329/original/image-20160301-4083-1gyl4fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graph showing the Duckworth-Lewis calculation for combining remaining wickets and deliveries into a single resource.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, consider a 50-over game in which Team A bats first and scores a total of 200 runs in 50 overs. Team B then begins its innings, and scores 50 runs in ten overs while losing three wickets. The game is then abandoned for whatever reason with Team B unable to complete its innings.</p>
<p>The Duckworth-Lewis method would say that Team A had used 100% of its available resources (since it faced all 50 possible overs) whereas Team B had used only <a href="http://www.tcuandsa.org/Doc/dldocs/DL%20Resource%20Chart%20New.pdf">30.4%</a> of its resources. The game would then be decided by which team had scored the most runs, allowing for Team B’s lost resources.</p>
<p>Team A’s score of 200 would then be multiplied by the ratio of each team’s available resources (30.4/100) to give a target of 60.8 runs to be reached by Team B. As Team B scored only 50 runs, Team A would be declared the winners.</p>
<p>Critics of the Duckworth-Lewis method in Twenty20 cricket focus on two issues. First, by focusing on preserving resources, the system does not directly attempt to preserve winning probabilities.</p>
<p>That is, a team’s chances of victory before and after a delay might be greatly different because of the formula alone. This is seen by many critics as rather a perverse idea, but it is one that Duckworth and Lewis admit was intentional and have <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v56/n11/full/2601994a.html">vocally defended</a>. Alternative metrics, including some that seek to <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/%7Euctp100/rainjrss.pdf">preserve winning probabilities have been proposed</a>.</p>
<p>The bigger issue with applying the Duckworth-Lewis method to Twenty20 is more simple: it was not developed or calibrated for this shorter version of the game. The calculations assigning relative importance to wickets and remaining deliveries have been developed for the 50-over format.</p>
<p>It is often argued that <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/459431.html">wickets are relatively less valuable in Twenty20</a>, as most teams are ultimately limited by the number of deliveries before they run out of wickets. In longer versions of the game, the need to avoid losing wickets is more important.</p>
<h2>What do the record books say?</h2>
<p>The issues and criticisms discussed are all reasonable in theory, but we wanted to see whether the history books supported these concerns. </p>
<p>Breaking out our <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-interest/wisden/">copies of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack</a>, we looked at the results of of more than 1,700 recent Twenty20 matches. </p>
<p>Excluding a small number of matches that ended in ties or were abandoned, we analysed the results of every game from the World Twenty20 (since 2007), Australian Big Bash League (since 2011-21), Indian Premier League (since 2008), English t20/t20 Blast (since 2010), South African T20 Challenge (since 2011-12) and Australian Women’s Big Bash League (since 2015-16.) </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SS3nU/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="420"></iframe>
<p>From this dataset, we calculated what proportion of games had been won by the team batting first and proportion by the team batting second. If the order of the teams’ batting does not bias the winning probabilities, then the observed proportions of wins should be close to 50/50.</p>
<p>Even in cases where one team is clearly stronger than the other, whether or not they bat first is decided by a coin flip and a subsequent captain’s decision.</p>
<iframe src="https://charts.datawrapper.de/KvIN0/index.html" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>For the 1,628 games that did not require the Duckworth-Lewis method to be employed, we found that approximately 51% were won by the side batting first. From a sample of this size, there is insufficient statistical evidence to reject the belief that these games were unbiased.</p>
<p>For the 84 games that required the Duckworth-Lewis method, the picture was very different. For the rain-affected games, barely more than 39% of games were won by the first team to bat. </p>
<p>So the history books support the critics’ view that the current adjustment formula is unfair and ripe for review. The records show that the win rate of teams batting second is more than 50% greater than that of the team batting first when Duckworth-Lewis method is required.</p>
<h2>What improvements can be made?</h2>
<p>A full examination of ball-by-ball datasets for recent Twenty20 matches should shed some light on exactly how scoring patterns and rates differ from the longer version of the limited-overs game. </p>
<p>As Twenty20 grows ever more popular, it clearly demands its own adjustment system, not the ill-fitting hand-me-down from the 50-over game.</p>
<p>Whatever methods might be developed, such revisions will not be implemented in time for this year’s tournament. In the interests of sporting fairness, you might have to simply cross your fingers are hope for clear skies over India.</p>
<p>If the rain clouds arrive, the most influential figures in the tournament might turn out not to be the game’s premier batsmen or bowlers, but two ageing British statisticians.</p>
<p>That, as they say, is just not cricket.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Honours student Ignatius McBride co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Woodcock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When a cricket match is cut short there’s a way to work out how many runs are needed in any reduced over game. That’s okay for the long form game but it doesn’t work for the shorter matches.Stephen Woodcock, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405092015-04-21T05:19:22Z2015-04-21T05:19:22ZJames Anderson record will stand test of time – here’s why<p>Fast bowler, James Anderson has just become England’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/32371710">all-time record wicket taker</a> in test match cricket. When Fred Trueman, a previous record holder, was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/2339668/Action-man-Trueman-was-the-greatest-of-the-great.html">asked in 1964</a> if anyone would ever beat his achievement he said “whoever does it will be bloody tired”. </p>
<p>Trueman is both right and wrong in his assessment of the toll Anderson’s achievement has had on his body. There is no doubt that fast bowling is a hazardous business with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3781856/">about one in five</a> fast bowlers out on any given day due to injury. That’s an injury rate comparable to contact sports such as Rugby Union and Australian Rules Football. </p>
<h2>Extreme stress</h2>
<p>The extreme trunk movement involved in bowling fast means that front foot hits the bowling crease with a force of around eight times a bowler’s body weight. So it is not surprising that lower-back stress fractures account for the most lost playing time in world cricket. Fast bowlers are also susceptible to abdominal muscle (side) and hamstring strains, knee and ankle pain. </p>
<p>The most important injury risk factors are bowler workload and physical preparation. While a consistent, moderately high bowling workload is likely to be protective against injury, sudden increases in workload, for example at the start of a season, or when coming back from injury, pose a high risk. </p>
<p>Resistance training, which builds up strength through repeated exercises, is a relatively new, yet essential element of fast bowling preparation programmes. Improved muscle strength, particularly of the legs and trunk will not only allow a bowler to deliver the ball faster for longer, but larger, stronger muscles are also efficient at absorbing the injurious forces produced during the delivery stride. </p>
<p>Other risk factors that are relatively easy for coaches and players to control include ensuring appropriate footwear selection and maintenance, training surfaces, nutrition (a lack of enough calories <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25748470">is a leading cause of bone stress injury</a>) and recovery between bowling spells. </p>
<h2>Careful planning</h2>
<p>Elite England bowlers are encouraged to adopt a 7-4-2 bowling schedule whereby during the majority of seven-day weeks they bowl a maximum of four times (the four) and on only two consecutive days (the two) once a week. Ensuring some non-bowling days per week allows the body to recover and adapt to bowling stress. </p>
<p>All professional fast bowlers will sustain their fair share of injuries – Anderson certainly has, including a career-threatening <a href="http://www.lccc.co.uk/lccc/players/jamesanderson">lower-back stress fracture in 2006</a>. Thorough rehabilitation, building and maintaining trunk and leg strength and carefully planning his bowling schedule have been key factors in allowing him to consistently play at the highest level over the past ten years, culminating in the breaking of Ian Botham’s England wicket-taking record. </p>
<h2>Modern support</h2>
<p>What is evidently the difference between Anderson’s achievement and Trueman’s effort is the emergence of evidence-based exercise and sports medicine support programmes targeted at protecting the game’s most valuable asset – in the modern game, as in the past, there is no substitute for out-and-out pace. </p>
<p>In Trueman’s day, managing a bowler’s workload amounted to nothing much more than on-field conversations between captains and their willing (or not so willing) workhorses: “Come on Fred, can you give me a few more overs?” The longest-known bowling spell in test cricket <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/637661.html">was by Indian leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani</a>. Though the lower impact and rotational forces of spin bowling reduce the propensity for injury, after bowling the same way (except for scheduled breaks) for 354 balls (59 overs) at the Oval in 1990, he would no doubt have been, in Trueman’s words, “bloody tired”. </p>
<p>A brief comparison shows <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/8608.html">that Anderson has bowled</a> 22,114 test match deliveries since his debut in 2003, and has a current total of 80,803 deliveries in first-class cricket. This is an annual average of 1,923 test match deliveries. <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/21600.html">Trueman bowled</a> 15,178 test deliveries between 1952-65, an annual average of 1,167. In his career he bowled a total of 115,865 deliveries in first-class cricket. Given that Trueman’s career was slightly longer, the overall figures actually suggest similar bowling loads. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78615/original/image-20150420-25708-pv3iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A true Yorkshireman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/atoach/5594497899/in/photolist-krakfC-b7qmt8-2upqQB-5v76bA-d3GoEj-bkehKX-azNcoW-9pNG9K-9pRJUb-9wngjk-ki6URb">Tim Green</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is dissimilar is that a support network is constantly at hand to help monitor Anderson’s physical condition. It is unlikely that the curmudgeonly Trueman would have tolerated such an intrusion to suggest when he might do more or less work. In stereotypical Yorkshire fashion, when Trueman was asked by his biographer, John Arlott, what the title of the book should be, Trueman <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/2339668/Action-man-Trueman-was-the-greatest-of-the-great.html">said that it should be called</a> the definitive biography of “t'finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath.”</p>
<p>Anderson has a good chance of keeping the record even if greater medical attention is given to the health and longevity of the next generation of England fast bowlers. The reason for this is not related to injury prevention but due to a decline in test cricket and the gradual specialisation of bowlers. </p>
<p>The next generation of emerging fast bowlers are likely to find their niche in different forms of cricket, where Twenty20, which has shorter bowling periods, is likely to take a greater share of the total amount of elite cricket on offer. In such a changed cricketing landscape, if you are a fast bowler, what’s not to like about Twenty20? A day’s “work” involves only four overs compared to a five-day test where you are often one of three fast bowlers undertaking extended spells.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Ranson is head of Cardiff Metropolitan University's sports injury research group that provides injury surveillance services to the England and Wales Cricket Board</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alun Hardman is affiliated with Cricket Wales as a member of their insight and innovation group</span></em></p>Anderson’s achievement in modern-day cricket is a feat but the next generation of fast bowlers may do something different.Craig Ranson, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityAlun Hardman, Senior Lecturer in Sports Ethics, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/399972015-04-13T03:02:47Z2015-04-13T03:02:47ZCricket, commentary and the dollar: Benaud’s legacy is complex<p>Around 150,000 deaths are registered in Australia every year, but few receive the “end of an era” tribute accorded Richie Benaud. He was with us as a player, journalist, author, consultant and commentator for so long that he witnessed the cricket order passing from <a href="http://www.cricketweb.net/victory-to-the-bad-guys-or-was-it/">neo-feudal</a> to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/why-australias-cricketers-are-on-millionaires-row-20150220-13k4e7.html">hyper-capitalist</a>. He played no small role in the game’s transition, and a reading of the life of Richie Benaud is also a tale of the changing relationships between sport, media, economics and society.</p>
<p>Benaud’s conspicuous success as a leg-spinning all-rounder and captain has been <a href="http://www.howstat.com/cricket/statistics/Players/PlayerOverview.asp?PlayerId=0167">well-documented</a>. Of greater general note was his proactive approach to the game. This was widely interpreted as quintessentially Australian. More accurately, it stemmed from his conviction that Test cricket needed to renew itself or fail in the post-war “sportainment” industry.</p>
<p>Australia’s dashing captain, whose unbuttoned shirt sometimes bordered on the risqué, had little interest in the dour five-day draw beloved of cricket’s shrinking cohort of hair-shirt purists. This was the pragmatism of a teacher’s son born in Sydney’s outer west, relocated to the country, and who attended Parramatta High School with the Hollywood-bound Rod Taylor. </p>
<h2>A pioneer in the remaking of cricket</h2>
<p>At a time when even elite cricketers couldn’t survive just by playing, Benaud’s on-field flamboyance was underpinned by sober career planning, first in accounting and then in journalism. Combining professional cricket with Sydney Sun reporting rounds and advertised product endorsement, he went on to fast-track broadcasting training with the BBC in the heartland of the old Ashes enemy and to many decades as a columnist with the racy, now defunct, News of the World.</p>
<p>This was the internationalisation of a post-playing career that recognised new possibilities of making a good living from sport’s indispensable business partner: the media. It enabled a working life in two hemispheres, especially after Benaud began his long-running television work with Australia’s Channel Nine in 1977. </p>
<p>That was the year of the cataclysmic World Series Cricket ushered in by Kerry Packer. Benaud acted as his astute and <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/howzat_kerry-packers-war/">well-credentialled consultant</a>. </p>
<p>The “Packer Revolution” (disparaged by some as a “circus”) was certainly <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/farewell-richie-benaud-the-ultimate-professional/story-e6frg7rx-1227299204350">innovative</a> in many respects. It effectively utilised the still-new possibilities of colour television and introduced coloured clothing, night games, white balls, new camera angles, field restrictions, excitable commentary, high-pressure marketing and travelling bands of international cricketers for hire.</p>
<p>Packer’s World Series cricket substantially weakened the power of cricket’s international and Australian establishments, killed off the public broadcasting (via the ABC) of top-drawer men’s cricket, and made it possible for cricketers to become multi-millionaires. In advancing the popularity of one-day cricket, the World Series operation also paved the way for the sped-up, even flashier form of the game that is Twenty20 cricket. </p>
<p>By unleashing commercial forces in cricket as never before, the Packer-Benaud brains trust also laid the foundation for India’s political-economic domination of world cricket and the Indian Premier League’s Bollywood-spiced player meat market.</p>
<p>Benaud’s organisational acumen made him much more than an ex-Australia cricket captain with a talent for slow-cooked commentary and bone-dry wit. He somehow managed to be a moderniser cloaked in traditionalism, his stillness counterbalancing the noisy spectacle that he’d helped to create. </p>
<p>But Benaud’s predilection for change had its limits. He was keen, for example, to hold the line on the rules governing legal bowling.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Part of Richie Benaud’s authority as a commentator came from his clear-eyed calls, none better than this.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Having made the switch in 1999 from the BBC to commercial free-to-air Channel Four in following cricket’s broadcast contract, Benaud walked in 2005 rather than follow the money to its new BSkyB pay-TV home. He determined, rightly, that this exchange of big broadcaster money for a much-reduced live audience was one commercialising step too far.</p>
<h2>An unlikely recruit to celebrity culture</h2>
<p>Benaud watched the game with great clarity from his vantage point in the media centres of the cricketing world. But he could not have anticipated that Richie watching would become a popular diversion in its own right. </p>
<p>His slightly odd appearance, redolent of an outback cricket fan making an annual visit to a big-city Test match, and his eccentrically memorable and compulsively imitable voice, made him ripe for parody. </p>
<p>From his “appearances” on Billy Birmingham’s big-selling <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-10/12th-man-artist-billy-birmingham-pays-tribute-to-richie-benaud/6384870">Twelfth Man albums</a> to the swelling ranks of his impersonators, <a href="http://www.therichies.com.au/">the Richies</a>, Benaud somehow morphed into a postmodern celebrity. Once again he was an embodied sign of the cultural times.</p>
<p>It was quite a ride from 5 Sutherland Road, North Parramatta, to his homes in Coogee, London and the south of France. By journey’s end Benaud occupied the prime cultural role assigned to those dignified male Australian cricket commentators whose longevity makes them plausible bearers of nostalgia-tinged, old-school <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/australia/11526643/Richie-Benauds-death-robs-us-of-a-true-gentleman-he-was-not-merely-the-voice-of-cricket-he-was-Mr-Cricket.html">gentlemanliness</a>. </p>
<p>Only the late <a href="http://www.sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame/member-profile/?memberID=303&memberType=athlete">Alan McGilvray</a> could challenge him as the “Voice of Cricket” in Australia – and for Richie Benaud the magic of television meant that cricket followers could put a cream jacket and a slight squint to the voice. </p>
<p>Despite the sanctifying tone of many of <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/richie-benaud-obituary-farewell-to-a-cricket-legend/story-fnp050m0-1227298107388">his obituaries</a>, Benaud did not lead an unblemished life. His management of the 1976 International Wanderers touring team in apartheid-era South Africa was an obvious error of ethical judgement. He was also rather reluctant to reflect publicly on any negative ramifications of his alliance with Kerry Packer and the other ruthless forces of corporate-commercialised cricket.</p>
<p>But Richie Benaud did much that was admirable in his life. His death has now made permanent the beige suit-sized hole in the Channel Nine cricket commentary team that appeared after his car accident and skin cancer diagnosis. </p>
<p>Much has been made of his <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/11526836/Richie-Benaud-his-eight-rules-of-commentary.html">Eight Rules of Commentary</a>. One fitting Benaud legacy would be to see that wise guidance fully absorbed by the current crop of self-regarding ex-player commentators and their successors who have benefited from his trailblazing life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Rowe currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Projects 'A Nation of "Good Sports"? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia' (DP130104502)</span></em></p>Richie Benaud was a key figure in cricket’s transformation into an entertainment business. A reading of his life is a tale of the changing relationships between sport, media, business and society.David Rowe, Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.