Cricket World Cup 2019

[Satchmo Distel]

But video review is a cancer that is ruining sport . . .

I'm not sure it's as controversial in cricket as in football, as the sports have different flows.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm pulling for Australia because my first proper introduction to cricket - other than trying to understand it on TV on a trip to the UK in 1985 - was a cassette copy of The 12th Man that friend of mine brought back from her semester abroad in Queensland. I didn't know who was being parodied, but I still understood why it was funny because the similarity to baseball commentary was so obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC0A...VjvUic&index=2

[ursus arctos]

Of course, but a number of the other objections cited on the VAR thread are equally applicable to both sports.

[Ray de Galles]

Best catch I've ever seen live, that was.

I meant to ask, are you actually at the match then?

[Hot Pepsi]

To a certain extent certainly, but accomplished batsmen ate also able to bat at different rates (it essentially being a risk/reward calculus). Bowlers also have a significant impact, as does the condition of the ball and the pitch (though less so for the latter in shorter forms of the game)

One of the sites I looked at - forget which - has a real-time % odds for either team winning. But at least once so far I've seen a team with a CRR below the RRR still be massively favored (I forget which match that was) so I guess that's based on other factors? Or is that just some kind of opinion poll?

[Ray de Galles]

Bugger.

[Southport Zeb]

Run rate tends to increase later in an innings, as the risk-reward calculus means there is increased advantage in going for big hits. As a rule of thumb, double the score after 30 overs to predict the final (50 over) score. Obviously this will vary depending on conditions/ batting lineup, etc.

[Ray de Galles]

Did someone already say that Australia are probably going to win this through the extras they got?

[diggedy derek]

Anyone else feel this World Cup hasn’t really caught fire? Lots of competitive games, but few thrillers.

HP, scoring a bit below the RRR isn’t a problem as usually you can accelerate a bit at the end with a few aggressive hits. So a team might be scoring below the RRR in full knowledge they have wickets left to safely step up the pace later.

My rule of thumb is that a CRR of up to two below the RRR is no great pressure, and a CRR of up to one below the RRR is usually very comfortable indeed.

[Hot Pepsi]

Good info.
I've noticed that the CRR and the last-five-overs RR is losing ground on the RRR, so that's bad for WI, obviously.

[Ray de Galles]

Anyone else feel this World Cup hasn’t really caught fire? Lots of competitive games, but few thrillers.

I've just been thinking how excellent it's been, especially since the weekend. I've been gripped by it so far and today's game, Bangladesh v NZ yesterday, SL v Afghanistan, Pakistan v England and SA v Bangladesh have been great.

[Kevin S]

I'm with Ray. Loving this tournament.

[diggedy derek]

Maybe it’s just that feeling of the overdog winning a bit more than I’d like. Or of the favourite half way through seeming to go on and win most of the time.


HP, there is no greater pleasure than seeing the RRR of your opponent creeping up to seven, eight, ten, then suddenly ratching up to twelve, fifteen, as overs run shorter.

[Hot Pepsi]

What's the record for most runs scored to win in the final over?

[Kevin S]

Not quite the final over but Australia chased down India in 2013 by scoring 30 runs in the 48th over. They began the 50th over still needing 9 more and knocked those off with three of the balls to spare.

As they began over 48 the RRR was 14.66.

[Southport Zeb]

I think it is the 25 runs that New Zealand scored in Sri Lanka in 2013 - they actually "only" needed 20 in the last over to win but the last ball went for six.

A notable last over comeback occurred in the final of the 2016 World Twenty20. England looked to have won, with West Indies requiring 19 off the final over. However Carlos Braithwaite had other ideas, hitting four straight sixes to give the West Indies victory with two balls to spare.

[Hot Pepsi]

That must have been distressing for the loser. Like blowing a big lead in the 9th inning.
Were those collapses at all to blame on the way the defending team managed their bowlers? My understanding is that nobody can bowl more than 10 overs in an ODI, but they can come in and out (unlike a pitcher in baseball). Is that right?

[longeared]

Australia v West Indies

At 38-4 I texted a friend heading to the Leicester ODI and said "this might be done before you start". West Indies were bloody good at first, real old school pace, aggression and chin music and Australia couldn't handle it. Their spinner Nurse isn't very good mind. England would have smashed them everywhere and been bowled out for 148, whereas Australia carefully worked their way back into the match, Carey played himself in and got an ironic cheer when he scored his first run then gradually expanded. Smith was awfully out of nick but hung in there. I'd forgotten how weird he plays in the flesh, expanding himself and his reach like Mr Tickle. That catch was absolutely astonishing even from the Fox Road on the other side of the ground, best catch I've ever seen (sorry Peter Trego). Coulter-Nile had some lovely clips and glances and almost got a ton. Gayle had a cameo (and I knew nothing of the no ball until I got home half an hour ago), Hope batted too slowly. They were always around the right rate and crept ahead of DLS at times but then they'd try and accelerate and lose a wicket. Russell was astonishingly irresponsible, he may have whacked won into the top tier of the Radcliffe Road but that was a situation that called for a controlled innings. Starc bowled really well, tight, lots of variations, but Cummins had more pace. After Holder and Brathwaite got out with four overs left the game rather petered out. Australia won because they won the big moments.

More or less a sell out in the sunshine. You do get the real sense of being at an event, more so than at many Tests. A much different crowd from the average England game, loads of West Indies fans (though not many conch shells, maybe a different type of mollusc is a tournament sponsor), quite a few supporting the Aussies. I had a couple from Sydney behind me and next to them was a family who had come over from India to visit a relative and see some games. Very few pissheads (presumably being dicks in Portugal instead) and virtually no-one under the age of 25, which can reasonably be ascribed to it being a school day and exam season. Even so there was music played after every over (it always amuses me when they play really old stuff in this situation, the playlist included Jungle Boogie and Good Times, both of which are older than me, plus that Elvis song that topped the charts during the 2002 football World Cup. Elvis!!) Failed to sample the Bira 91 produce, the chap next to me had a pint of it and didn't bother with a second, suppose he may have been driving in fairness. Plus there were a couple of ground presenters who would line up occasional features in an effort to develop "fun". I'm at cricket, that's fun in itself. I can quite happily sit through an hour when ten runs are scored and be enjoying myself without these fripperies. Also I suspect the cricket bat guitar chap is going to annoy me more at future games.

Anyway it was a cracking day, now I'm off to buy some MRF Tyres and an Oppo.

[E10 Rifle]

The Bira IPA was Ok. Ray de Galles has a thing for the white beer, which I'm not so fussed by. The cricket bat guitar guy is a bit of a pain, but no more than music-between-overs habitually is. The thing I enjoyed about Bangladesh's support was just how multi-generational it was: grandparents, toddlers, men and women, as well as the groups of noisy lads you might expect.

It's exceeded my expectations so far, and there have been some unpredictable results (both of Pakistan's for instance) as well as a pleasing reassertion of bowlers in a batsman's age

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

I'm loving the tournament so far. There are plenty enough close games and a couple of shocks. I mean, the Saffers on 0 for 3 - it's a national crisis (my telly feed is from South Africa).

But what's an OPPO?

[Kevin S]

"Oppo is a Chinese consumer electronics and mobile communications company headquartered in Dongguan, China, known for its smartphones, Blu-ray players and other electronic devices."

How set in is the rain? Are we likely to have the 3-ish hours needed for 20 overs a side today? I'm not sure a no-result helps either side really.

Current table -

		PLD	PTS	NRR
	NEW ZEALAND	2	4	2.279
	AUSTRALIA	2	4	1.059
	WEST INDIES	2	2	2.054
	ENGLAND	2	2	0.900
	INDIA	1	2	0.302
	BANGLADESH	2	2	0.008
	SRI LANKA	2	2	-1.517
	PAKISTAN	2	2	-2.412
	SOUTH AFRICA	3	0	-0.952
	AFGHANISTAN	2	0	-1.264

[Nocturnal Submission]

Afghanistan wants a word.

[E10 Rifle]

Pissing down relentlessly in Bristol and looks set in.

[Kevin S]

Afghanistan wants a word.

Duly corrected after an appalling copy and paste fail there, thanks.

The rain has led me to play around trying to model outcomes for the final table to see how many wins you need to get through. Except, ironically, I forgot to factor in the possibility of 'no result' into the model, so I might have to go back to the drawing board. I used the ODI rating as a proxy for quality - so the probability of a team winning is their ODI rating divided by the sum of the two ratings. So for example in England v Afghanistan you give England a probability of 125 divided by (125 + 63), which is 0.66. I don't know if that is skewed enough, but at least it's reasonably objective and probably as good as anything the win predictors have come up with so far.

Anyway after running it 20 times, here's what I found.

Win 9, 8 or even 7 of your matches and you get through every time.

Win 6 matches and you get straight through 18 times out of 20 (90% chance). The other couple of times you need to beat another team on 6 wins by NRR, and overall 93% of teams with 6 wins made it through.

Win 5 matches and you get straight through 5 times out of 20 (25% chance). However in 11 scenarios (55%) one or more teams get through ahead of one or more other teams on NRR. And in 4 scenarios (20%) all teams with 5 wins or fewer are eliminated. The overall percentage of teams who got 5 wins and made it through was 65%, a better chance than I thought.

Win 4 matches and you go home every time. Not a surprise as that would be a net losing record.

[Kevin S]

For those who like doomsday scenarios, the couple of instances where someone went home with six wins were where the final tables ended up like this. Five teams with similar winning-but-not-dominating records, and five teams with losing records.

team	wins
Team B	7
Team H	7
Team C	6
Team I	6
Team A	6
Team D	4
Team G	3
Team E	2
Team F	2
Team J	2

team	wins
Team C	6
Team G	6
Team A	6
Team B	6
Team H	6
Team F	4
Team D	4
Team J	3
Team E	2
Team I	2