Here's are some Net Run Rate calculators. I've tried to make them so that only relevant cells can be edited, but it's a shared document so please don't vandalise it if your team loses.
Group A
Group B
Showing posts with label Champions League T20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Champions League T20. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Friday, 14 June 2013
Combinations to Decide Group A
The final round of Group A in the Champions Trophy is gearing up as a really interesting couple of games. New Zealand and England just played 2 very good ODI series, the first won 2-1 by England in New Zealand, the second won 2-1 by New Zealand in England. Australia and Sri Lanka have played each other a lot in the last 2 and a half years. They have played 18 ODI matches and both teams have won 8 each (with 2 no results).
So recent form has nothing to suggest who is likely to win. But both games are crucial.
There were 6 possible options as to which two teams went through at the start of the round. Five still remain. Here's a quick guide to what the different results would mean:
If you're looking for a calculator to test the possible outcomes, try this link.
Every combination except for Australia and Sri Lanka is possible. The question now is which of the 5 remaining combinations will go through.
So recent form has nothing to suggest who is likely to win. But both games are crucial.
There were 6 possible options as to which two teams went through at the start of the round. Five still remain. Here's a quick guide to what the different results would mean:
If you're looking for a calculator to test the possible outcomes, try this link.
| Result | England | ||
| Australia | England go through first and then the runner up will be either New Zealand and Australia again determined by NRR. It will take something quite remarkable for Australia to get past New Zealand, but both teams are quite capable of being involved in one-sided matches, in either direction | ||
| No Result | England win the pool, the runners up is decided between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on NRR. New Zealand would have to lose significantly to England for Sri Lanka to go through | ||
| Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka and England go through. The winner of the group will be decided by NRR. England are likely to go through first, unless Sri Lanka have a very convincing win over Australia |
Every combination except for Australia and Sri Lanka is possible. The question now is which of the 5 remaining combinations will go through.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Net Run Rate calculator Group A
Today there are 2 potentially interesting matches in the Champions League.
There are 3 basic outcomes possible from these matches (as well as a couple of unusual ones)
Option 1 - Auckland lose
Regardless of what happens in the second match if Auckland lose, both the Titans and the Daredevils are through to the semi-finals.
Option 2 - Auckland and Delhi win
If this happens then Auckland and Delhi are both through to the semi-finals.
Option 3 - Auckland and Titans win
It this happens then the Titans are through, and the team with the best net run rate out of Auckland and Delhi go through.
Additional options - rain stops play
If the first game is rained out, then Delhi are automatically through to the semi-final. Then if Delhi beat the Titans by a significant enough margin to cause the Titans' NRR to drop below Auckland's, Auckland would go through, otherwise the Titans would. Given that the Titans would know the formula, they would be likely to go for the lower target to ensure qualification.
If Auckland win the first game and the second is rained out, then again it would come down to NRR between the Aces and the Titans.
For any of those situations you can use this Net Run Rate calculator here:
There are 3 basic outcomes possible from these matches (as well as a couple of unusual ones)
Option 1 - Auckland lose
Regardless of what happens in the second match if Auckland lose, both the Titans and the Daredevils are through to the semi-finals.
Option 2 - Auckland and Delhi win
If this happens then Auckland and Delhi are both through to the semi-finals.
Option 3 - Auckland and Titans win
It this happens then the Titans are through, and the team with the best net run rate out of Auckland and Delhi go through.
Additional options - rain stops play
If the first game is rained out, then Delhi are automatically through to the semi-final. Then if Delhi beat the Titans by a significant enough margin to cause the Titans' NRR to drop below Auckland's, Auckland would go through, otherwise the Titans would. Given that the Titans would know the formula, they would be likely to go for the lower target to ensure qualification.
If Auckland win the first game and the second is rained out, then again it would come down to NRR between the Aces and the Titans.
For any of those situations you can use this Net Run Rate calculator here:
Thursday, 18 October 2012
6 reasons I'm not surprised by the Auckland Aces success
The Auckland Aces seem to have taken many people by surprise by being so competitive this far into the Champions League T20.
I predicted that they would make the semi-finals at the start of the tournament. Here's why:
1. Completeness.
The Aces have not lost any players to any other teams or injury. Every player was available for them. This is something that most teams can not say.
2. Composure.
The Aces have 12 players in their squad with international experience. This makes a big difference as they are more used to playing in different conditions, and in front of bigger crowds.
3. Conditions.
South Africa at this time of the year is similar to New Zealand in late November. The pitches are a bit unpredictable, the weather is changeable and the outfields are a similar pace. Not many other teams are comfortable in these conditions.
4. Competition.
The HRV Cup has only 6 teams in it. This means that the player pool is not diluted much. Most teams in the New Zealand competition have at least 6 international players in them, if not more. There are no easy games, and not many players that you can target. The proof of this is that most NZ players have significantly better averages when playing domestic cricket overseas than when playing at home (batting and bowling).
5. Collecting.
The Aces have a raft of players who are outstanding at fielding and running between the wickets. This is often the difference between teams in close matches. With Kitchen, Hira, Guptill and Vincent they have 4 of the best fielders in world cricket. There are less easy runs against Auckland, and they are so quick between the wickets that they find runs that many other teams can't score, by hitting the ball straight to a fielder and running.
6. Closeness.
For the last couple of years the Aces played a short walk from a good friend's place, and so I saw a lot of them play. This naturally results in me having a certain bias towards them. But at least I can admit it.
I predicted that they would make the semi-finals at the start of the tournament. Here's why:
1. Completeness.
The Aces have not lost any players to any other teams or injury. Every player was available for them. This is something that most teams can not say.
2. Composure.
The Aces have 12 players in their squad with international experience. This makes a big difference as they are more used to playing in different conditions, and in front of bigger crowds.
3. Conditions.
South Africa at this time of the year is similar to New Zealand in late November. The pitches are a bit unpredictable, the weather is changeable and the outfields are a similar pace. Not many other teams are comfortable in these conditions.
4. Competition.
The HRV Cup has only 6 teams in it. This means that the player pool is not diluted much. Most teams in the New Zealand competition have at least 6 international players in them, if not more. There are no easy games, and not many players that you can target. The proof of this is that most NZ players have significantly better averages when playing domestic cricket overseas than when playing at home (batting and bowling).
5. Collecting.
The Aces have a raft of players who are outstanding at fielding and running between the wickets. This is often the difference between teams in close matches. With Kitchen, Hira, Guptill and Vincent they have 4 of the best fielders in world cricket. There are less easy runs against Auckland, and they are so quick between the wickets that they find runs that many other teams can't score, by hitting the ball straight to a fielder and running.
6. Closeness.
For the last couple of years the Aces played a short walk from a good friend's place, and so I saw a lot of them play. This naturally results in me having a certain bias towards them. But at least I can admit it.
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Why and How the Champions League format needs to change
I'll start out by saying that I love the concept of the Champions League T20.
There needs to be more focus on domestic cricket, because that is a much more reliable way of growing the game than trying to grow it at the international level. Strong clubs/provinces will pick up players from lesser nations, and give them a chance to develop and succeed. A couple of examples of this from football are George Weah, who is from Liberia, but managed to win a Serie A title with AC Milano and obtained significant recognition for his skills that would not have been possible if he had only been playing for Liberia (who only twice even managed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations during Weah's 19 year career.
Likewise the New Zealand football team managed to go unbeaten in the 2010 Football World Cup, mostly thanks to a solid defense of Winston Reid, who had learned his football playing for a Midtjylland in Denmark, Ryan Nelsen, who had played for DC United and Blackburn Rovers Tommy Smith from Ipswich Town and Ivan Vicelich who had played for Roda JC and RKC Waalwijk in the Netherlands. It is hard to imagine those three players being as compotent if they had just played domestically in New Zealand, for the likes of North Shore, Christchurch United and Auckland City. New Zealand had such a solid defense largely due to the strong club nature of football.
The problem I have with the current Champions League is that it is not a fair competition.
Firstly every first class team is not able to compete, secondly the rankings are arbitrary, and not result based, thirdly the competition is set up in a way that has to much of an element of luck involved.
The Mountaineers from Zimbabwe won the Stanbic Bank Cup quite comfortably. But that is as far as they can go, despite having at least 7 current or former international players in their squad. Likewise the Dhaka Gladiators won the Bangladesh Premier League, contain 9 international players, but were not invited to the tournament.
The rankings are completely wrong. Every time Trinidad and Tobago have been in the tournament they have finished ahead of the South African teams and at least one of the Australia teams. Every time there has been an English team there, their top team has finished ahead of the second South African and Australian team. And yet South Africa and Australia get two teams in the main draw, while the English and West Indian teams need to qualify. This ranking system is ranking teams on how much money they can pull in, rather than how good they are. That is inherently wrong.
The third problem is with the tournament structure. The nature of T20 cricket is that the best team does not always win. However they will win more games over the course of a series. This makes it difficult to have a fair system that is concise enough to not drag on for months. However the current system is far from fair.
The big problem is the qualifying stage. A three team single round-robin is possibly the worst way to decide qualification imaginable. To demonstrate this I ran a simulation using the Pakistani domestic results from the last 3 years. I chose Pakistan because they were the competition that had one team being the most dominant.
The Sialkot Stallions have a formidable record. In the last 3 years they have lost only one match in the Pakistani competition. They have averaged 8.35 runs per over in that time, while their opponents have only averaged 7.23 runs per over. In a fair competition they should almost always make it through the group stages.
The only time they didn't win was the time where Pakistan also used the 3 team single round-robin method of qualification.
I took the Sialkot Stallions' results and then made 3 other teams who were all significantly less strong, but roughly equal to each other. They were all roughly average for other Pakistani teams. I then ran a simulation 1000 times. First with a 3 team single round robin, then with a standard 4 teams pool, where two go through. (if anyone would like a copy of the simulation that I used, just email me)
In the first option (3 team single round-robin) Sialkot went through 62.4% of the time. This means that they missed out in more than one in 3 of the tournaments, despite being a vastly superior team. In the second option, (4 team standard group) Sialkot went through 786 times. This meant that they missed out only 21.4% of the time.
With these numbers the 3 team single round-robin was 76% more likely to eliminate the best team.
I believe that the 3 team single round-robin should be avoided at all costs. Here is the format that I would like to see:
Teams: 3 from India. 2 from Australia, South Africa and England. 1 from West Indies, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. This makes 15 teams. The extra team then is either the team that won the previous competition, or if they already qualified the next best team from their country. For example, the last champions league winners were the Mumbai Indians. Mumbai lost the elimination final in the IPL, so they were effectively 4th overall. Hence they qualify for themselves. If instead RCB had won the final of the Champions League last year, then they would have gone through instead.
This then results in 16 teams. If we were to then have 4 groups of 4, going into 2 groups of 4 then to semis and finals we would need to play 39 matches. The matches could be played 3 per day for the initial round. (One morning, one afternoon and one night, with one double header and one played at another stadium). The second group round could be played 2 matches per day, and then (following a rest day (which would probably be used for travel for some teams) semi-finals and finals.
The whole tournament would easily fit within the 20 day window that the tournament has been using so far, and could even be squeezed to 16 days. (This would require the use of 2 stadiums that are quite close together - like Lords and the Oval, Chandigarh and Mohali, Centurion and the Wanderers, Eden Park and Seddon Park. etc)
It would also be a much fairer system. Each team would have exactly the same mountain in front of them. If anyone can win 8 in a row, they win the cup. In the current system Yorkshire could win 6 in a row, and only be in the semi-finals, where if (for example) KKR win 2 and lose 2 they could also potentially make the semi-finals. Something doesn't seem right about that.
So that's my take on the Champions League. Eventually I'd like it to get to a system where the champion from each country go through, then the next 6 are based on performance at the previous Champions League. So a team coming in the top 6 qualifies an extra spot from their country. (Similar to how the Basketball World Championships work.)
There needs to be more focus on domestic cricket, because that is a much more reliable way of growing the game than trying to grow it at the international level. Strong clubs/provinces will pick up players from lesser nations, and give them a chance to develop and succeed. A couple of examples of this from football are George Weah, who is from Liberia, but managed to win a Serie A title with AC Milano and obtained significant recognition for his skills that would not have been possible if he had only been playing for Liberia (who only twice even managed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations during Weah's 19 year career.
Likewise the New Zealand football team managed to go unbeaten in the 2010 Football World Cup, mostly thanks to a solid defense of Winston Reid, who had learned his football playing for a Midtjylland in Denmark, Ryan Nelsen, who had played for DC United and Blackburn Rovers Tommy Smith from Ipswich Town and Ivan Vicelich who had played for Roda JC and RKC Waalwijk in the Netherlands. It is hard to imagine those three players being as compotent if they had just played domestically in New Zealand, for the likes of North Shore, Christchurch United and Auckland City. New Zealand had such a solid defense largely due to the strong club nature of football.
The problem I have with the current Champions League is that it is not a fair competition.
Firstly every first class team is not able to compete, secondly the rankings are arbitrary, and not result based, thirdly the competition is set up in a way that has to much of an element of luck involved.
The Mountaineers from Zimbabwe won the Stanbic Bank Cup quite comfortably. But that is as far as they can go, despite having at least 7 current or former international players in their squad. Likewise the Dhaka Gladiators won the Bangladesh Premier League, contain 9 international players, but were not invited to the tournament.
The rankings are completely wrong. Every time Trinidad and Tobago have been in the tournament they have finished ahead of the South African teams and at least one of the Australia teams. Every time there has been an English team there, their top team has finished ahead of the second South African and Australian team. And yet South Africa and Australia get two teams in the main draw, while the English and West Indian teams need to qualify. This ranking system is ranking teams on how much money they can pull in, rather than how good they are. That is inherently wrong.
The third problem is with the tournament structure. The nature of T20 cricket is that the best team does not always win. However they will win more games over the course of a series. This makes it difficult to have a fair system that is concise enough to not drag on for months. However the current system is far from fair.
The big problem is the qualifying stage. A three team single round-robin is possibly the worst way to decide qualification imaginable. To demonstrate this I ran a simulation using the Pakistani domestic results from the last 3 years. I chose Pakistan because they were the competition that had one team being the most dominant.
The Sialkot Stallions have a formidable record. In the last 3 years they have lost only one match in the Pakistani competition. They have averaged 8.35 runs per over in that time, while their opponents have only averaged 7.23 runs per over. In a fair competition they should almost always make it through the group stages.
The only time they didn't win was the time where Pakistan also used the 3 team single round-robin method of qualification.
I took the Sialkot Stallions' results and then made 3 other teams who were all significantly less strong, but roughly equal to each other. They were all roughly average for other Pakistani teams. I then ran a simulation 1000 times. First with a 3 team single round robin, then with a standard 4 teams pool, where two go through. (if anyone would like a copy of the simulation that I used, just email me)
In the first option (3 team single round-robin) Sialkot went through 62.4% of the time. This means that they missed out in more than one in 3 of the tournaments, despite being a vastly superior team. In the second option, (4 team standard group) Sialkot went through 786 times. This meant that they missed out only 21.4% of the time.
With these numbers the 3 team single round-robin was 76% more likely to eliminate the best team.
I believe that the 3 team single round-robin should be avoided at all costs. Here is the format that I would like to see:
Teams: 3 from India. 2 from Australia, South Africa and England. 1 from West Indies, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. This makes 15 teams. The extra team then is either the team that won the previous competition, or if they already qualified the next best team from their country. For example, the last champions league winners were the Mumbai Indians. Mumbai lost the elimination final in the IPL, so they were effectively 4th overall. Hence they qualify for themselves. If instead RCB had won the final of the Champions League last year, then they would have gone through instead.
This then results in 16 teams. If we were to then have 4 groups of 4, going into 2 groups of 4 then to semis and finals we would need to play 39 matches. The matches could be played 3 per day for the initial round. (One morning, one afternoon and one night, with one double header and one played at another stadium). The second group round could be played 2 matches per day, and then (following a rest day (which would probably be used for travel for some teams) semi-finals and finals.
The whole tournament would easily fit within the 20 day window that the tournament has been using so far, and could even be squeezed to 16 days. (This would require the use of 2 stadiums that are quite close together - like Lords and the Oval, Chandigarh and Mohali, Centurion and the Wanderers, Eden Park and Seddon Park. etc)
It would also be a much fairer system. Each team would have exactly the same mountain in front of them. If anyone can win 8 in a row, they win the cup. In the current system Yorkshire could win 6 in a row, and only be in the semi-finals, where if (for example) KKR win 2 and lose 2 they could also potentially make the semi-finals. Something doesn't seem right about that.
So that's my take on the Champions League. Eventually I'd like it to get to a system where the champion from each country go through, then the next 6 are based on performance at the previous Champions League. So a team coming in the top 6 qualifies an extra spot from their country. (Similar to how the Basketball World Championships work.)
Thursday, 11 October 2012
CricketGeek Player Profiles: Anaru Kitchen
 | |
| Anaru Kitchen with a young Aces fan | |
| courtesy @sillymidoff |
He is extremely quick, and at times seems to sense where the ball is going before it even leaves the bat. The result is that he has saved a number of runs, and made a significant number of catches for Auckland. He took more catches last season than any of the wicket-keepers. In fact, he took double the number of catches of the most prolific (Kruger van Wyk).
Sometimes outfield catching is merely a case of being in the right place at the right time. In Kitchen's case it is more that he covered so much ground, so quickly, that he caught batsmen who thought they had safely hit the ball into a gap. In one game he took a catch at deep backward square leg, while fielding at a wide mid on.
His ability to take catches has seen him placed high on the list of the most consistent catchers in T20 history:
To go with his remarkable catching he is also a competent batsman. His career started with a hiss and a roar, scoring 33*, 31, 0, 31, 61* in his first 5 matches, followed by a slump as bowlers figured out where to bowl to him. This often happens to players who have immediate success when they make the step up to the next level. The difference between good players and the rest is how they respond. Kitchen has found a way to score runs, faster and more consistently after his lean patch. His career strike rate has risen above 125 and his average is now over 25 (as shown in the graph below. He still has some work to go before his batting alone would be a reason to select him, but when combined his fielding prowess, it resulted in his being named in the 30 man New Zealand training squad for World T20.
Anaru Kitchen is someone to keep an eye on in the Champions League T20, both with the bat and in the outfield.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
CricketGeek Player Profiles: Colin de Grandhomme
 |
| Colin de Grandhomme with 2 young fans. Courtesy @sillymidoff |
Likewise, Colin de Grandhomme has not scored nearly as many runs for Auckland as Martin Guptill, but when CdG walks out to the middle, there is a hush of expectation come over the crowd at Colin Maiden Park. Everyone knows that there is a chance that they will see something special from the big man. He is capable of making the largest grounds look ponderously small. When he hits a ball, they certainly stay hit.
I have been fortunate to have been able to see some of the biggest hitters in world cricket. I have seen the likes of Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Chris Cairns, Adam Gilchrist, Viv Richards and Mark Greatbatch; but I'm not sure I've seen anyone hit the ball as cleanly or as regularly as de Grandhomme. I once saw him hit the ball out of Colin Maiden park, over the embankment and trees, across the road, over the fence on the other side and into the university car park. I'm not good at estimating distances, but I would be very surprised if it was less than 120 metres.
His career strike rate for the Auckland in T20 matches is a fairly impressive 170.83. He has hit 42 sixes and 47 fours off only 360 deliveries. That's basically a boundary every 4 balls. He's done all this while averaging a respectable 20.
But he's not just a lucky slogger. It has been in the longer formats where he has really excelled. Last season he averaged over 70 in first class cricket, and 43.8 at a strike rate just over 125 for Auckland in the list A matches. In a lot of ways his List A and First Class numbers show how good a player he actually is.
These numbers led me to write a post about his selection for the New Zealand team pointing out that they had picked him for the wrong format. However, when those two games got to the super over, I was wishing we had CdG in the side.
The fact that he is playing for New Zealand at all is a story in itself. He was born in Harare into a Zimbabwian cricketing dynasty. Both his father and grandfather represented their nation (Bunny for Rhodesia and Laurence for Zimbabwe). He looked set to follow in their footsteps, having played for Zimbabwe under 19's (alongside Brendan Taylor, Elton Chigumbura, Tino Mawoyo, Prosper Utsya, Sean Williams, Graeme Cremer and Ed Rainsford) before going on to play first class cricket for the Zimbabwe A and Zimbabwe under 23.
However he had different ideas. Realising that Zimbabwe was not quite the land of opportunity that it had been, de Grandhomme moved to Auckland in 2006. It took a while for the move to pay off, but now "dutchie" makes the Auckland crowd move to the edge of their seats whenever he saunters to the middle. If he gets going in the Champions League T20, I would definitely recommend moving to the edge of your seat also.
If you want a brief introduction to his (rather understated) personality, watch this video.
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