Plunket Shield update - Round 2

At the end of round 2, I thought it would be good to do an update on the progress of the tournament, and look at some trends that have emerged.

One thing that I thought I would focus on is how the runs have been scored, rather than just how many.

I looked at each innings and looked at the total runs from boundaries, and the total other runs (I called them run runs, but they include no balls and wides, as they were too hard to separate).

I plotted them on a graph, to see if there were any interesting patterns emerge.

There were a couple of things that I noticed. Auckland, Otago, Wellington and Canterbury have all had similar rates across the different innings that they've batted, while Northern Districts and Central Districts have had more variety in how they've accumulated their runs.

The triangles seemed to be higher up the chart on average, with all of them being above the median boundary rate, so I thought that I'd see if there was a correlation between the rates and the total competition points gathered in a match.

There is a reasonably strong relationship between the boundary rate and the points earned in a match, however, there's almost no relationship at all between the speed of accumulation of non-boundary runs and the points earned.

There is a theory that regularly rotating the strike makes it easier to survive a match, as it doesn't allow the bowlers to settle. I certainly know that I hated batsmen hitting singles off my bowling, and I remember Dale Steyn saying in a press conference something to the effect of "I don't mind dropped catches that much. Dropped catches happen. But I get really upset when a fielder lets a batsman get off strike when I had him under pressure."

Of the 7 innings played by a losing side, 5 of them had a run-runs rate below the median. That made me wonder if there was a pattern there. I looked at the final innings by teams that batted out a draw or lost, and looked to see if there was a difference in the rates for the teams that lost vs the teams that drew.

This graph isn't particularly meaningful at the moment, with only 5 innings to look at, but I intend on building this up as the season goes on.

Looking at it as individual points makes it more clear:

I've circled the point at the bottom, because that was an innings where Canterbury lost their last wicket with only 6 balls remaining, and so it was very close to being a saved match. Interestingly the teams that have scored a lot of boundaries have lost, but it is a very small sample to be drawing too many conclusions from.

The final table, with other information, looks like this:

This made me wonder which correlation was stronger, scoring rate with total points, or the traditional value of Net Average Runs Per Wicket (batting average minus bowling average).

The Net Average Runs Per Wicket seems to be a better predictor of success, but there is a clear relationship with the scoring rate also.

I'll be interested to see how these develop as the season progresses, but for now we seem to have a separation between the sides, with Auckland, Canterbury and Otago all needing to find another gear for the next round.

Sharp work

Here's a little video I noticed recently.  This was from yesterday, day one of the four day match between Auckland and Canterbury.

Auckland had just been bowled out for 165 and Canterbury were at 6/1 in the 7th over. George Worker is facing Matt Quinn. Jeet Raval is out of shot, but he is at short leg, under the helmet.

 

There are three impressive things here.

Firstly the awareness of Raval to try for the run out. It's easy to just appeal. Especially when a player isn't that far out of his crease. But instead Raval, who must have been only just out of shot, was aware of the possibility of the run out.

Secondly how quickly and accurately he got the ball in. The stumps are hit about 1 second after the batsman hits the ball. It means Raval has gathered the ball and then released it to throw down the stumps in about a third of a second. That's scarily fast.

Thirdly the outstanding umpiring. Worker was given out without a replay. When I went through the video frame by frame, the bat appears to be on the line as the ball dislodges the bails. One frame later and the bat is in the crease. That's either some poor benefit of the doubt, or some very good umpiring. I think it's kinder to assume the latter.

Below is the frame where the ball dislodges the bails. Do you think it's out?

CricketGeek Player Profile: Jackson Bird

Jackson Bird

Jackson Bird is a tall right arm pace bowler from Australia.

He bowls into the wicket at a reasonable (if not express) pace, and bowls consistently in good areas. He moves the ball both in the air and off the seam.

I had the privilege to watch him make his test debut, and he looked like a very good prospect.

He was the top wicket taker in the Sheffield Shield in 2011/12 with 53 wickets and was high up the table again in 2012/13 despite only playing in 6 matches.

He did all this at with a very good average and strike rate. Part of those good figures is due to playing for Tasmania, and hence getting to play half his cricket on the Bellerive Oval, where he has taken 42 wickets at 16.19. However there are only 3 grounds where he averages more than 30 at, and at all of these he has only played one match.

A New Structure for International First Class Cricket?

An empty stadium - what this aims to avoid

The mauling of New Zealand by South Africa led to some people questioning why these teams should even be playing each other. "Surely New Zealand are just so bad that they should be in a second division" was the cry.

I personally don't think that this has merit. This series was particularly one sided. But it wasn't much different to Australia vs India last year. Or New Zealand vs Zimbabwe, the first two matches of Australia vs Sri Lanka, etc.

It also was less than twelve months ago that the same teams played out a 1-0 series over 3 matches. New Zealand were a worse team, without Southee, Ryder, Taylor and Vettori, and South Africa were better, on the back of a tour to Australia, and in familiar conditions.

The nature of test cricket, however, is that when teams are mismatched across the park, that the game can blow out quickly. Accordingly it is sensible to want teams to only play other teams of a similar ability.

It also seems ridiculous that the Kenyan team of the early 2000's never got to play a test, and yet the Zimbabwe team (who were vastly inferior) did. The path into test cricket is a political one, not a cricketing one, and that seems wrong.

However, there is a history to test cricket that is worth preserving. Records, like Don Bradman's 99.94 or Barnes' 49 wickets in a series, are part of the folklore of cricket, and while Barnes' record was against a particularly poor South African side, it is still more meaningful than if Ili Tugaga was to take 51 wickets in a 6 match series between Samoa and New Caledonia.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think have a possible solution that preserves the integrity of test matches, while allowing a path through for lower teams.

Firstly the top 16 teams in the world should broken up into divisions of 4 teams. However these should not be exclusive divisions. Test cricket should also be run on a 4 yearly basis. The first 3 years being the league phase and then the 4th year the championship year.

Teams in the top division would play a 5 match home and away series against each other every 3 years. This means one home series and one away series against a top opposition every year. They would also play 4 cross-over series against a second division team. These should be 3 match series, played either at home or away.

Teams in the second division would play a 4 match home and away series against each other every 3 years, as well as the 3 match cross over series against the top teams and also 2 match cross over series against the next tier of teams. These would all be considered test matches.

The third division teams would only have their matches against second division teams count as test matches. They would also play a 3 first class match series, home and away, against teams in their division, and also a 2 match first class series against teams from division 4.

Division 4 teams would play home and away series of first class matches against each other, the cross-over matches against division 3 teams and then also play matches against teams in their continental region.

This means that the major series (Ashes, Frank Worrell, D'Olivera etc) would still happen, but they would be every 4 years if there is a large difference between the team's playing abilities or twice every 4 years if the teams are both in the same division.

Here are some possible schedules for England, India and Afghanistan based on the current rankings on Idle Summers, (who I feel does a better job of test rankings than anyone else).

Year 1

England would tour South Africa for the D'Olivera Trophy (5 matches) and Sri Lanka (3 matches), and receive a visit from Australia for the Ashes (5 matches). They would end up playing 13 matches that year.

India would tour West Indies (4 matches) and Bangladesh (2 matches), and host New Zealand (4 matches) and South Africa (3 matches). A total of 13 matches in the year.

Afghanistan would tour Ireland (3 fc matches) and UAE (2 fc matches) and receive visits from New Zealand (2 tests) Bangladesh (2 tests) and Scotland (3 fc matches). They would play 4 tests and 8 first class matches.

Year 2

England would tour Pakistan and Australia (5 matches each) and host India and the West Indies for 3 matches each. They would play 16 matches that year

India would have a busy year, touring England (3 tests) and Sri Lanka (4 tests) and hosting West Indies (4 tests), Australia (3 tests) and Zimbabwe (2 tests). 16 matches in the year.

Afghanistan would tour West Indies for two tests, Bangladesh for 3 first class matches and Namibia for 2 first class matches. They would host Zimbabwe for 3 first class matches. 2 tests and 8 first class matches in the year.

Year 3

England would host Pakistan and South Africa for 5 tests each, and travel to New Zealand for 3 tests.

India would tour New Zealand (4 tests), Pakistan (3 tests) and Afghanistan (2 tests), and host Sri Lanka for 4 tests and Ireland for two. They would play a total of 15 tests in the year.

Afghanistan would host Ireland for 3 first class matches, Kenya for 2 first class matches and India for 2 tests. They would tour Zimbabwe (3 fc matches) and Sri Lanka (2 tests).

There may have to be games played outside of countries for matches that they are hosting. For example, teams may be unwilling to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan due to safety concerns, so those matches might be scheduled in the UAE for Pakistan and Bangladesh for Afghanistan (for example). Matches that are unable to take place due to political reasons (ie if Fiji made the grade, NZ currently has a sporting boycott on matches in Fiji, and on Fijian sportsmen who have relatives in the military regime.) either a compromise could be worked out or the teams could split the points.

At the end of the cycle the top team in each division would be promoted, the bottom team relegated. The winner of the inter-continental cup would be promoted to division 4 in place of the team that was at the bottom of that division. The only exception would be that the winner of the world test championship would always be given a spot in the top 4, so if a team from outside there made it in, every other team would move down one position.

The ICC would have to fund teams in division 3, paying a proportion of their costs, and completely fund teams in division 4 for travel and accommodation. Television rights would cover the costs of teams in the top 2 divisions without any assistance.

While this format wouldn't eradicate sides getting destroyed, it might mean that it happens less often, and we would get more high quality cricket between those matches. It would also mean that there would be a level playing field for every team, and every player to succeed.

Form is temporary?

Faf du Plessis

“Form is temporary, class is permanent.” It’s a cliché that is fairly frequently repeated. But can we measure form.  But can we measure form, and are some players more prone to big swings in form than others?  In the press conference after day 2, Faf du Plessis said

“It’s nice to average 110. But I understand it’s a good time for me and I need to score as many runs as I can because there’s going to come a time when you don’t score as many runs.  I’m in a little bit of good form and just have to make the most of it.”

It made me wonder if du Plessis was actually a player who had been prone to streaks of form.

To do this I had to find a method that would differentiate between a player being streaky and a player being inconsistent. 

An inconsistent player might have scored: 108, 41, 8, 0, 29*, 37, 6, 114*, 5, 4, 102.   

Whereas for a streaky player that might have read:  6, 0, 37, 108, 41, 102, 29*, 114*, 5, 4, 8.  

One of them has had a hot patch, while the other one has just occasionally scored runs.

In order to test for this I looked at the 15 innings rolling average, and compared it to the cumulative career average.  (both of these terms are explained in the glossary) I found the difference between these two averages at every point in a career where they both existed and then averaged this out.

What this gave me was how far away (either above or below) from the career average a players recent average was. This then gave me a number to describe how streaky a player was.  The difficulty then was knowing how to interpret this number.  Players who tended to get a larger variation in scores would get a higher average difference than a player who was equally streaky, but much more consistent.

As a result I then found what that number was for 1000 random arrangements of the batsman’s innings, and how the average difference compared to those.  This allowed me to accurately look at a player’s streakiness.

I decided to look at first class innings, as du Plessis hasn’t played sufficient tests to be able to tell anything yet.  Also there is a purity to first class results that comes from the similarity of situations that a batsman find themselves in.  In limited overs cricket, there are often times where the requirements of a batsman are significantly different, while in first class cricket it’s rarely a bad idea to just score as many runs as possible, at whatever pace suits the player.

I wanted to have some players to compare him to, so I asked some of the South African journalists in the box who they felt was a streaky player.  The first suggestion was Morne van Wyk. A suggestion of another inconsistent player was Neil McKenzie.  I also wanted to look at a particularly consistent player, so I chose Stephen Fleming. The first thing that I did was to look at their 15 innings averages.  I also looked at 7 innings averages, but they seemed too random to be useful. Here are some graphs of each players 15 innings averages and cumulative averages:

We can see that Faf has had a remarkable run recently, and also why I was suggested to look at Morne Van Wyk. He went on some remarkable streaks of both good form and terrible form.

While McKenzie was obviously inconsistent, there weren't many extended patches of good or poor form.  Instead it looked like he was just an inconsistent batsman.

Fleming was remarkably consistent at the start of his career.  He was described as someone who averaged 40 by regularly scoring 40.  Later on in his career he started getting more big scores, but generally he remained a batsman who was fairly consistent.

We can also look at their consistency by looking at their 15-innings averages in a box and whisker graph.

We can see here that du Plessis has the largest range, by quite a margin, but that Morne van Wyk has a significantly larger interquartile range.  

After applying the randomisation technique, there are a couple of interesting results. The randomised results all came out with a very close approximation to a normal curve, so I’ve used mean and standard deviation to find the probability of a batsman being prone to high swings of form. A player who is always on a streak will have a value of 1, while a player who is completely consistent will have a value of 0.  Here are the 4 batsmen that we have the graphs of.

Stephen Fleming	0.135
Neil McKenzie	0.136
Morne van Wyk	0.984
Faf du Plessis	0.783

However, if we remove the start of du Plessis’ good run of form and re do the analysis, it comes out completely differently: 0.212  

In other words du Plessis was a quite consistent player until he started on his incredible run where he has averaged over 99 for the past 17 innings. It might be that he is finally having a hot spell, or it might be that he has actually just got a lot better.  This might actually be part of a new, consistently good career.

It will be interesting to find out. I hope for his sake that any time where he doesn’t score as many runs will be shorter than the times he spends at the top.

CricketGeek Player Profiles: Colin Munro

Colin Munro is a left handed batsman and right-arm medium pace bowler from Auckland. He was born in Durban, South Africa, but moved to New Zealand as a teenager. His brother played youth cricket with Hashim Amla, but it wasn't until he came to New Zealand that Colin started to make a name for himself as a cricketer.

He played 5 matches for the New Zealand under 19 team, and then was picked in the Auckland team as a specialist bowler, batting at number 11. He has a strange delivery stride with his bowling, that causes the ball to skid onto the batsmen somewhat. As a result he has been an effective holding bowler, doing jobs like bowling into the wind, keeping things tight at the other end to a spin bowler, and seeing in the new ball.

Due to his aggressive batting style, and defensive bowling, he was typecast as a limited overs player, and he was worried that he had been pigeon-holed, and wouldn't play any first class cricket. He didn't play a single first class match between November 2010 and February 2012, and was stuck with a record of having played 6 first class matches, with a highest score of 37 and an average of 14.29.

However during this time he did start to score in the t20 and list A matches for Auckland, playing 18 t20 innings at an average of 30, and 18 list A innings at an average of 38.4. As a result the Auckland coach decided to give him another try in the first class team and he did not disappoint.

He hit a hundred in his first match back, and has averaged 77.54 in his 10 matches since his comeback as a batsman, with 4 hundreds and 4 fifties in 14 innings. The highlight of that time was a sensational 269* off 252 balls against Wellington, with an attack featuring 3 international bowlers.

Due to an injury to James Franklin, he's been picked to play in the 2nd test between South Africa and New Zealand at St George's Park in Port Elizabeth. It will be interesting to see if he can translate his domestic form to the international game.

Jesse Ryder's comeback

In his comeback innings to first class cricket Jesse Ryder hit 117* off 113. That's pretty impressive. But it's how he scored them that was impressive.

He hit 13 boundaries. Which means that he hit 65 runs off the 100 balls that he didn't hit to the fence. This is a particularly easy to calculate activity rate of 0.65. Which is more like a t20 activity rate. In fact it's more than his actual t20 activity rate, which is closer to 0.55.

I believe that a high activity rate is one of the best signs of a batsman being in form. It shows that they are scoring off a lot of the deliveries they are facing, and therefore they are seeing the ball well.

117* off 113 with 10 sixes and 5 fours would possibly be more dramatic, but would be a lot less of a sign of a batsman who is really ready to return to international cricket.

While the opposition wasn't a full international line up, Doug Bracewell and Taran Nethula are international players and Kieran Noema-Barnett and Ben Wheeler are both capable bowlers. It was a fantastic innings, and one that if he continues to play like that, should see him return to international cricket soon.

The live scorecard for the match is here.