World Cup simulation update - 26 June

Are the wheels falling off?

England have now got a 4 win, 3 loss record, and, with 2 difficult matches coming up, have a genuine chance of not going through to the semi-finals. They are still not relying on other results, but they're getting close to the point where they are.

There's been a significant change, with Australia going up, and England going down. England are now expected to get to 10 points. That might still be enough. But it also might not be.

England's ranking has now dropped well below India's, to the point where the expected probability of England winning against India has dropped by almost 10%. They're still ahead due to home advantage, but the difference is decreasing.

There's about a 15% chance that a tie-breaker (total wins or net run rate) will be required. This may count out Sri Lanka, who have had two rain affected matches, and so will probably be on fewer wins than anyone else with the same number of points.

We see a huge drop in the semi-final probability of England, and a resultant increase in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Australia have qualified now, and there are fewer options now for New Zealand to be knocked out also (only 35 out of 50000 trials saw New Zealand miss the semi-finals.)

The decrease in England, and increase in probability of lower ranked teams making the semi-finals has meant that there are a lot more semi-final combinations with more than a 0.5% chance of happening. West Indies vs New Zealand was an epic match in the pool play, and that's now a reasonable possibility for a semi-final. The ICC and Star Sports will be licking their lips at the prospect of the 8th most likely outcome - an India Pakistan semi-final would be absolute ratings gold.

This is the first time that England has dipped below India on the winning probability graph, but it's hard to win the final if you don't get out of the group stage.

World Cup Simulation update 24th June

 Here's the update after the South Africa vs Pakistan match

Firstly, this pushed Pakistan's ranking back above Bangladesh's ranking, although they are both so close that the match between them is now predicted as 50.2% to 49.8%.

 Looking at the expected points, Pakistan have now jumped ahead of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

It's looking fairly likely that 5th place will be on 9 or 10 points, while 4th will be on 10, 11 or 12 points.

My simulation only uses net run rate as the tie breaker. Accordingly, there's actually a slightly higher probability of Sri Lanka and Pakistan getting through than this shows, and a slightly lower chance of England and Bangladesh.

It's takes a lot of processor time to improve the simulation, and it's likely to be less than 1% difference, but I might have a go at improving it once we get to the last 5 matches.

England are still the overwhelming favourite to be the 4th team to go through. There were still 41 out of the 50000 trials where New Zealand hadn't made it. So nobody is guaranteed through just yet.

If you have semi-final tickets - this is who you're likely to see.

The probabilities for Bangladesh and Pakistan being so low here are understandable. They both have about a 5% chance of making the semi-final, but, given that they both have about a 1/3 chance of winning each match against the top teams, it gives them a roughly 0.5% chance of winning the tournament from here. However, if Bangladesh, Australia and Pakistan win the next 3 matches, that number will rise.

It's starting to look like England's style that is so effective in series may not be so effective in one off matches. It will be interesting to see if that trend continues.

World Cup simulation update

The group stage of the World Cup is now roughly half way through, and there are 4 clear favourites to be the semi-finalists.

Afghanistan is the first team to be eliminated (they may have a mathematical possibility, but they don't have a statistical one). At this point, Sri Lanka are not far behind.

The rankings of the teams have remained fairly consistent, suggesting that the extra weighting for world cup matches is about right.

The fact that almost all the teams seem to have gone up is due to them all being relative to Afghanistan. Afghanistan do not seem to be quite as good as they were seeming to be and so they have dropped, but as they are set to 0, it's pushed everyone else up slightly.

The semi-final probability is the most interesting. 

I personally feel that this is underestimating the chances of South Africa, but we will see as the tournament progresses.

The key point on this graph is match 5, where Bangladesh overcame South Africa. If South Africa had won that match, they would be on about 40% and New Zealand and Australia would both be a lot lower.

The simulation also puts out the points for 4th, 5th and the difference between them. This suggests at the moment that there's only a fairly low chance that net run rate will come into play. However, one more rained out match, or a Bangladesh upset of Australia, and this could change dramatically. This makes the expected lines to be 9 points for 5th place, and 11 points for 4th place.

So far of the teams that I've had as favourite to win, 14 out of the 17 have won. Given the probabilities that the models assigned them, that's slightly higher than I would have expected - I would have expected there to have been 4 upsets rather than 3, but it's still telling me that my model is working quite well. That may be due to teams not always playing their best combinations in every match between the world cup, adding extra uncertainty to the results than exist inside a world cup.

It will be interesting to see if it continues to have the same success rate after the cup is finished.

Finally, applying the same system to find the probable winner gets the following results:

England are still favourites, but India are not far behind them.

Preview - World Cup group match 3 - New Zealand vs Sri Lanka

This match is at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. It's likely to be cool and damp, but with no rain. That's likely to play into New Zealand's hands.

New Zealand are distinct favourites - Bet365 have them at 78%, Google has them at 79%, and my model has New Zealand at 81%. However, none of those are at 100%, and the match isn't played on paper - Sri Lanka are still capable of pulling out a big performance.

Sophia Gardens is an odd shape, similar to Eden Park in Auckland, so it's a shape that New Zealand should be comfortable with. However, New Zealand has a mixed record at the ground - it was host to the match where New Zealand famously lost to Bangladesh in the Champions Trophy. In the one previous match between the two sides there, New Zealand won by 1 wicket, only just managing to win despite bowling Sri Lanka out for 138.

Teams batting first have generally not done well at Sophia Gardens unless they get a very big score. It's likely that both teams will want to chase here.

Again a score of 290 would be below par based on historical data, but ICC events sometimes have the pitches in different conditions to normal matches, so there's a chance that a lower score might still be very competitive.

As with some of the other matches, one of the more interesting things here will be the selections. What combination of players will each team go for?

Whichever way it goes - matches at Cardiff have tended to be interesting, even when the teams have seemed to be mismatched on paper before hand, so this could be the first match that's actually interesting on the field as well as just in the lead up.

A simulation to see who will win the World Cup

One of the main purposes of statistics is to help inform decisions. Cricket statistics are often used when deciding on selection of players, or (more often) arguments about who is the best at a particular aspect. They can help decide which strategies are best, what an equivalent score is in a reduced match (with a particular case of Duckworth Lewis Stern) or which teams should automatically qualify for the World Cup (David Kendix). They are often also used by bookmakers (both the reputable, legal variety and the more dubious underworld version) to set odds about who is going to win.

I decided to attempt to build a model to calculate the probability of each team winning, based on their previous form. This was going to allow me (hopefully) to predict the probabilities of each outcome of the world cup, by using a simulation. It didn’t prove to be as easy as I had hoped.

My first thought was to look at each team’s net run rate in each match, adjust for home advantage, and then average it out. That seemed sensible, and the first attempt at doing that looked like it would be perfect. Most teams (all except Zimbabwe) had roughly symmetrical net run rates, and they fitted a normal curve really well. The only problem was that Afghanistan was miles ahead of everyone else. The fact that they had mostly played lower quality opponents in the past 4 years meant that they had recorded a lot more convincing wins than anyone else.

This was clearly a problem. India and England both had negative net run rates, while Afghanistan, Bangladesh and West Indies were all expected to win most of their matches.

I then tried a different approach, based off David Kendix’s approach of using each result to adjust a ranking. But rather than having a ranking that was based off wins, I based it off net run rate. So if a team had an expected net run rate of 0.5, and another had an expected net run rate of 0.6, the first team would have an expected net run rate of -0.1 for their match. If they did better than that, they went up, and if they did worse than that, they went down.

However, I found that some results ended up having too much bearing. If I made it sensitive to a change in the results, it ended up changing way too much based off one big loss/win. England dropped almost a whole net run per over based on the series in the West Indies. So this was clearly not a good option.

Next, I decided to try using logistic regression, and seeing how that turned out. Logistic regression is a way of determining probabilities of events happening if there are only two outcomes. To do that, I removed every tie or match with no result, and set to work building the models.

My initial results were exciting. By just using the team, opposition and home/away status, I was able to predict the results of the previous three world cups quite accurately using the data from the preceding 4 years. (I could not go back further than that, as they included teams making their ODI debut, and there was accordingly no data to use to build the model.

The results were really pleasing. I graphed them here, grouped to the nearest 0.2 (ie the point at 0.6 represents all matches that the model gave between 0.5 and 0.7 as the chance for a team to win), compared to the actual result for that match. It seems that they slightly overstate the chance of an upset (possibly due to upsets being more common outside world cups, where players tend to be rested against smaller nations), but overall they were fairly reliable, and (most importantly) the team that the model predicted would win, generally won.

I could then use this to give a ranking of each team that directly related to their likelihood of winning against each other. The model gave everything in relation to Afghanistan, with the being 0, and any number higher than 0 being how much more likely a team was to win against the same opponent as Afghanistan. (Afghanistan was the reference simply because they were first in the alphabet).

This turns out to be fairly close to the ICC rankings. So that was encouraging.

I tried adding a number of things to the model (ground types, continents, interactions, weighting the more recent matches more highly) but the added complexity did not result in better predictions when I tested them, so I stuck to a fairly simple model, only really controlling for home advantage.

Next I applied the probabilities to every match and found the probabilities of each team making the semi-finals.

The next step was to then extend the simulation past the group stage, and find the winner.

After running through the simulation a few more times, I came out with this:

A couple of points to remember here: every simulation is an estimate. The model is almost certainly going to estimate the probabilities incorrectly, but it will get them close, and they will be close enough to give a good estimate of the actual final probabilities. It is also likely to overstate Bangladesh’s ability due to their incredible home record; overstate Pakistan’s ability as a lot of neutral matches for them they have had a degree of home advantage in UAE; and understate West Indies, due to them having not played their best players in a lot of matches in the past 4 years. But these are not likely to make a massive difference to the semi-finalist predictions.

Given this, I’d suggest that if you are wanting to bet on the winner of the world cup, these are the odds that I would consider fair for each team:

I will try to update these probabilities periodically throughout the world cup, and report on their accuracy.

A closer look at Guptill's innings vs Sri Lanka

Yesterday, I witnessed one of the most unusual innings I've seen. Martin Guptill hit 58 off 34 balls opening the batting against Sri Lanka at the Bay Oval in Mt Maunganui.

It wasn't a particularly fast innings, nor a particularly slow one. It was a little faster than the average 50 in T20 internationals. (The median strike rate for 50's by openers in T20 internationals is 151.3, Guptill scored at 170.6. The upper quartile is 171.4, so Guptill's innings is in the second quartile). Here's a graph showing his innings compared to all fifties in T20I's scored by openers.

We can see that Guptill's innings doesn't really stand out from the pack. So why was it so interesting?

Updated QF prediction chart

In my previous post I ran a simulation to find out potential quarter-final places. I received some criticism for having England so low, and Bangladesh so high, but events over the past 48 hours have shown that the respective probabilities of the two teams qualifying may not have been so far off.

The program that I wrote to do the simulation was corrupted when my computer crashed and I foolishly hadn't saved it, so I've written a different one to re-calculate. This time I made a couple of modifications. I moved from an additive model for run rates to a multiplicative one, as that seemed to be more sensible (teams are realistically a % better than other teams, rather than a fixed number of runs better. We would expect the margins to blow out more in terms of runs on better batting pitches than on difficult tracks).

I also slightly reduced the standard deviation of the simulation by moving it to one quarter of the mean rather than one third. This again made the results seem more sensible. There were too many teams scoring over 400 or under 100 previously.

Here are the new results. This table shows the probability of each team qualifying in position 1, 2, 3 or 4 in their group, and then the total probability of qualifying. Again I have not factored rain into this, and with Cyclone Pam heading towards New Zealand that may be a little optimistic.

Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Quarters
New Zealand	1	0	0	0	1
Australia	0	0.976	0.024	0	1
Sri Lanka	0	0.024	0.9725	0.0035	1
Bangladesh	0	0	0.0035	0.9965	1
-	-	-	-	-	-
India	1	0	0	0	1
South Africa	0	0.976	0.024	0	1
Pakistan	0	0.017	0.664	0.1165	0.7975
Ireland	0	0.007	0.312	0.1405	0.4595
West Indies	0	0	0	0.743	0.743

The potential group results look like this:

Group A

NZ Aus SL Ban	0.9725
NZ SL Aus Ban	0.024
NZ Aus Ban SL	0.0035

Group B

Ind SA Pak WI	0.5295
Ind SA Ire WI	0.1985
Ind SA Pak Ire	0.1345
Ind SA Ire Pak	0.1135
Ind Pak SA WI	0.011
Ind Pak SA Ire	0.006
Ind Ire SA WI	0.004
Ind Ire SA Pak	0.003

The three interesting potential quarter final match-ups to watch for here are

SA vs Aus	4.7%
Ind vs SL	0.35%
Ire vs Ban	0.02%

In reality the probabilities of Ireland vs Bangladesh and Australia vs South Africa are higher, as they are both much more likely if rain starts to fall.

World-cup quarter finals simulation

After Pakistan's tremendous win over South Africa, and Ireland's remarkable victory over Zimbabwe, the make up of the quarter finals is not really much clearer.

They question as to who is likely to be going through, and who will play whom has been the subject of many, many twitter conversations.

I thought it might be helpful to run a simulation to look at some of the possibilities.

I used Microsoft Excel as it's quite convenient. I used the scores already made in this tournament to decide the probable scores. For each team I got their average rpo scored in relation to the overall group run rate, and their average conceded in relation to the overall. Hence if a team in group A averaged scoring 5.5 rpo and conceded 5.3 rpo, they got values of +0.4 for batting and +0.2 for bowling (as the average rpo in group A has been 5.1 so far). From that point I then used an inverse normal, with a random number between 0 and 1 for the area, the group run rate plus the batting run rate modifier and the other team's bowling run rate modifier as the mean. For the standard deviation, I used the smallest of one third of the mean and 1.6. This allowed me to make sure there was (almost) no chance of a team getting a negative score, but that the scores weren't going to blow out too much.  I used 1.6 as that's the standard deviation of all innings run rates this tournament..  This gave me a 50 over score for each team, and so which ever was ahead got the points for the win.

There are a few limitations with this method. I didn't take into account the quality of the teams that each side had faced. England has played Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, but has yet to play Bangladesh or Afghanistan. Their numbers are not going to necessarily show how well they will do against less fancied opponents. Likewise no adjustments were made for the pitch that the match is being played on. We know that South Africa have tended to favour playing on bouncier tracks, so an innings at the 'Gaba won't necessarily tell us much about how they would go in Dunedin. I also haven't taken into account player strengths. Bangladesh's batsmen tend to struggle against tall bowlers, such as Finn and Woakes. England can expect that those two bowlers will perform better than average against Bangladesh, and hence their team is likely to do better than the numbers would suggest.

Another major limitation is that I haven't made provision for rain. That would obviously throw off all calculations. However, given the limited information I felt that a more simple model was best.

I decided to do 2000 trials, so that I could feel that the major source of uncertainly was the assumptions rather than the natural sampling variability.

First I found the probability of the different teams making the quarter finals with my simulation:

Team	Probabiity
New Zealand	100%
Australia	100%
Sri Lanka	99.95%
Bangladesh	82.51%
England	17.54%
-	-
India	100%
South Africa	100%
Pakistan	74.71%
Ireland	61.82%
West Indies	63.47%

We can see that Pool A has one crucial match (England vs Bangladesh)
Pool B, however, is still wide open. Ireland vs Pakistan is the last game of the round robin, and it's shaping up to potentially be one that has 3 team's fortunes riding on the result.

If West Indies make the final 8, they will almost definitely face New Zealand. It's very unlikely that New Zealand will not end up on top of Pool A, and impossible that West Indies will end up 3rd or higher in pool B.

Here's the full results for all possible matchups

Pool A	Pool B	Probability
New Zealand	Pakistan	14.99%
New Zealand	South Africa	0.35%
New Zealand	Ireland	21.23%
New Zealand	West Indies	63.44%
Australia	India	2.30%
Australia	Pakistan	43.11%
Australia	South Africa	27.57%
Australia	Ireland	27.02%
Sri Lanka	India	18.18%
Sri Lanka	Pakistan	15.83%
Sri Lanka	South Africa	53.75%
Sri Lanka	Ireland	12.19%
Bangladesh	India	64.74%
Bangladesh	Pakistan	0.75%
Bangladesh	South Africa	15.88%
Bangladesh	Ireland	1.15%
England	India	14.79%
England	Pakistan	0.05%
England	South Africa	2.45%
England	Ireland	0.25%

I'll redo this after tomorrow's results, and then again on Monday.

The most likely scenario at the moment is India to play Bangladesh, Australia to play Pakistan, South Africa to play Sri Lanka and New Zealand to play West Indies.

I've updated this here

Mini-session Analysis, 2nd test, New Zealand vs Sri Lanka, Basin Reserve 2014/15

Here is the mini-session analysis for the second test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Basin Reserve, Wellington

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Is it game over if you lose more than 2 wickets in the powerplay?

I recently observed this conversation on twitter:

It immediately made me wonder if Aakash was correct. Do you lose if you are more than 2 wickets in the power play of a T20 International.

I decided to find out. I felt that it was probably best to only look at situations where a team had batted first, as there is not any external scoreboard pressure (or lack thereof) interfering with the batsmen's mind sets.

I looked at every match where there was a result inside 20 overs (I ignored matches that had ended in a super-over or bowl-off) and looked at how many wickets down the team were after 6 overs. I didn't count "retired hurt" as a wicket, despite there being a change of batsmen and the batting team losing momentum similar to when a wicket falls.

Once I did that I came up with some quite interesting numbers.

Wickets Down	Wins	Loses	Winning %
0	41	18	69.5%
1	74	48	60.7%
2	52	51	50.5%
3	11	36	23.4%
4	5	10	33.3%
5	0	3	0%

It's fairly clear here that losing wickets early hurts the probability of winning. This is not really a surprise, often teams bat their best batsmen at the top, and the subsequent batsmen have to take fewer risks if there are not many wickets left above them. However while there are a lot of incidents of teams losing 1 or 2 wickets, our sample size is quite small for the other number of wickets. I've graphed it, adding in a 95% confidence interval. This indicates what range we can expect the actual winning probability to lie in per wicket loss: The shorter the line, the more reliable the data.

We can clearly see the trend here. But we also notice the huge gap between being 2 down and being 3 down. There does seem to be a difference between losing 2 wickets or losing more than 2 wickets.

Accordingly I broke it down into 3 groups. Less than 2 wickets, 2 wickets or More than 2 wickets. Here's how that looks:

Roughly teams win two thirds of the matches where they lose less than 2 wickets, half of the matches where they lose two wickets and about a quarter of the matches where they lose more than 2 wickets.

I also broke it down further by team, and this holds true for almost every team. The only team that has won more than half of their matches when batting first and losing more than 2 wickets in the power play is Ireland. (Interestingly Ireland has the 4th best winning record of any team batting first, and then they are not far behind Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa).

Sri Lanka win just under 80% of t20's when they lose 2 or less wickets in the power play, but 20% when they lose 2 or more wickets. England win just over 60% if they keep their wickets in hand, but only 20% when they lose 3 or more in the power play.

With the World T20 getting underway, how the teams approach the first 6 overs could be a fascinating thing to keep an eye on.

Mini-session Analysis, 2nd test, Pakistan vs Sri Lanka, Dubai 2013/14

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the second test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

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.

Result	New Zealand	No result	England
Australia	New Zealand go through first and Australia goes through as runner up.	New Zealand top the pool, and then the runner up will be decided between England and Australia on Net Run Rate(NRR). Unless Australia win by about 100 runs this will be England	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	New Zealand go through as first, Sri Lanka go through as runners up.	New Zealand go through first, England go through as runners up	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	New Zealand go through as winners and Sri Lanka go through as runners up	New Zealand go through as winners and Sri Lanka go through as runners up	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.

More Net Run Rate issues

In my last post I looked at the problem with using net run rate in games where both teams lose a number of wickets. Only 2 days later the tournament threw up possibly the best counter-example to the net run rate system yet. New Zealand won an absolute cliff hanger over Sri Lanka. Even on the last ball there was a question of if the game was a tie or a New Zealand win. However, on the points table New Zealand were the most dominant of any team.

Because the game ended in the 37th over, New Zealand are recorded as winning with a net run rate of +1.048. The most comprehensive victory of the round, (England over Australia) only got +0.96. This is clearly not right.

Mini-session Analysis 2nd Test, Sri Lanka Bangladesh, Premadasa 2013

Here is the mini-session analysis for the second test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, Sri Lanka

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	Bangladesh 31/1 off 14	Sri Lanka
1-1b	Bangladesh 31/1 off 13	Sri Lanka
1-2a	Bangladesh 45/1 off 15	draw
1-2b	Bangladesh 48/2 off 13	Sri Lanka
1-3a	Bangladesh 41/1 off 16	Sri Lanka
1-3b	Bangladesh 44/4 off 12.3	Sri Lanka
	Sri Lanka 18/1 off 4
2-1a	Sri Lanka 34/2 off 12	Bangladesh
2-1b	Sri Lanka 29/1 off 12	Bangladesh
2-2a	Sri Lanka 51/0 off 16	Sri Lanka
2-2b	Sri Lanka 43/0 off 14	Sri Lanka
2-3a	Sri Lanka 56/0 off 15	Sri Lanka
2-3b	Sri Lanka 63/2 off 20	Bangladesh
3-1a	Sri Lanka 35/2 off 14	Bangladesh
3-1b	Sri Lanka 17/2 off 4.3	Bangladesh
	Bangladesh 23/0 off 7
3-2a	Bangladesh 50/0 off 15	Bangladesh
3-2b	Bangladesh 20/1 off 17	Sri Lanka
3-3a	Bangladesh 35/1 off 14	Sri Lanka
3-3b	Bangladesh 30/2 off 16	Sri Lanka
4-1a	Bangladesh 44/3 off 12.5	Sri Lanka
4-1b	Bangladesh 63/3 off 18.5	Sri Lanka
4-2a	Sri Lanka 46/1 off 9.1	Sri Lanka
4-2b	Sri Lanka 57/0 off 13.5	Sri Lanka
4-3a	Sri Lanka 47/2 off 14	Bangladesh
4-3b	Sri Lanka 10/0 off 4.4	-

Latest update, click here
Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 15 - 7


End of match, Day 4: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 15-7

This was quite a good test match. There were two decisive things in it. First the partnership between Sangakkara and Chandimal that put Sri Lanka into a dominant position, then the bowling of Herath in the second innings. Bangladesh are certainly improving as a test team. This was a genuine match, and while Sri Lanka were the better side, they are a very good team at home. - Mykuhl

Mini-session Analysis 1st test SL Ban Galle 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at Galle International Stadium, Galle, Sri Lanka

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	Sri Lanka 60/0 off 11	Sri Lanka
1-1b	Sri Lanka 72/1 off 15	Sri Lanka
1-2a	Sri Lanka 55/1 off 15	Sri Lanka
1-2b	Sri Lanka 60/0 off 18	Sri Lanka
1-3a	Sri Lanka 64/1 off 17	Sri Lanka
1-3b	Sri Lanka 50/0 off 9.3	Sri Lanka
2-1a	Sri Lanka 32/1 off 17.3	Bangladesh
2-1b	Sri Lanka 68/0 off 15	Sri Lanka
2-2a	Sri Lanka 97/0 off 14	Sri Lanka
2-2b	Sri Lanka 12/0 off 3	Sri Lanka
	Bangladesh 23/1 off 9
2-3a	Bangladesh 42/1 off 15	draw
2-3b	Bangladesh 70/0 off 19	Bangladesh
3-1a	Bangladesh 49/2 off 14	Sri Lanka
3-1b	Bangladesh 40/0 off 16	Bangladesh
3-2a	Bangladesh 61/0 off 17	Bangladesh
3-2b	Bangladesh 45/0 off 16	Bangladesh
3-3a	Bangladesh 56/0 off 18	Bangladesh
3-3b	Bangladesh 52/0 off 12	Bangladesh
4-1a	Bangladesh 45/1 off 15	draw
4-1b	Bangladesh 63/0 off 15	Bangladesh
4-2a	Bangladesh 43/2 off 14	Sri Lanka
4-2b	Bangladesh 49/3 off 16	Sri Lanka
4-3a	Sri Lanka 44/1 off 12	Sri Lanka
4-3b	Sri Lanka 72/0 off 18	Sri Lanka
5-1a	Sri Lanka 51/0 off 14	Sri Lanka
5-1b	Sri Lanka 63/0 off 16	Sri Lanka
5-2a	Sri Lanka 53/2 off 16	Bangladesh
5-2b	Sri Lanka 52/1 off 7	draw
5-3a	Bangladesh 51/1 off 15	Bangladesh

Final update, click here
Sri Lanka take the mini-session count 16 - 10

First drinks, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 1-0

Sri Lanka have started off with a hiss and a roar. Dilshan is treating it almost like a T20 match. This could get messy. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 2-0

A wicket fell, 72 runs were scored, but for me the highlight was when Karunaratne came back out at the fall of the first wicket. I really enjoy watching him bat, and wasn't very happy with the idea of him not being able to play. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 3-0

I have watched an entire ODI series where there was not a single innings that went at this run rate. Sri Lanka going at slightly more than a run a minute, despite Bangladesh bowling less than 14 overs per hour. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 6-0

Sri Lanka roll on. They have scored at over 4 an over, and more than a run a minute. Sangakkara was immense, as usual. When he's in Sri Lanka he is just outstanding. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 6-1

A good hour for Bangladesh, but it could have been a very good hour as Chandimal was dropped twice. How costly could that be. He's not a batsman that you really want to give extra chances to as he is really capable of punishing teams. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 7-1

Normal service resumes. Bangladesh spend another hour chasing leather. It might be a reflection of the quality of the bowling and batting, but this pitch doesn't seem to have offered a fair enough contest between bat and ball. With Sri Lanka having Eranga in their team and Bangladesh's batting being dominated by right handers, it might have been more sensible for the groundsman to have left some more grass on the wicket. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 8-1

It seemed like a bad idea at the time to drop Chandimal. It now seems like a very, very bad idea. Sri Lanka are giving the Bangladeshi bowlers what some people pay a dominatrix a lot of money for. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 9-1

The declaration was probably slightly earlier than normal, but 570 runs is probably going to be enough. Bangladesh are going to have to bat very well here. They are already one down, and it was Eranga that struck. He seems to have added something to his bowling in this innings, bowling a little quicker, and getting some to move in, rather than out. He may well be turning into a genuinely classy test opening bowler. Hopefully the Sri Lankan groundsmen don't work him into the ground by giving him too many mud pitches to bowl on. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 9-1

It would have been Bangladesh's hour if it wasn't for the last ball where Anamul Haque was deceived by a Mendis googly. As a bowler who never quite had enough control to rely on a stock delivery, and so bowled a number of variations, I do like it when Mendis gets a wicket, especially when it's with a googly. The batsman sets up for the off break, notices that the ball's actually been delivered with a leg-break action, so adjusts, only for it to come in anyway. It's a brilliant double cross by the bowler. However, it only works if the batsman is watching closely, but not quite closely enough. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 2: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 9-2

An interesting hour there. Ashraful was going for it in order to get through to his fifty. He had 54 off 68 balls, but then went into his shell, and actually started playing like a test batsman who wanted to see out the day. He scored only 11 runs off the last 40 balls. If he continues to bat like a batsman, and has some success it might actually (finally) be the making of him. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 3: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 10-2

When Mahmadullah played as a bowler, the thing that really impressed me was how serious he was about his batting. He approached it like a real batsman, waiting for the right ball to hit, knowing his areas. It was something that most of the Bangladeshi batsmen couldn't really be accused of. Now that he's primarily playing as a batsman he comes down the track and has a wild heave fifth ball. I guess if he was going to bat like a batsman when he was a bowler, he probably felt he could bat like a bowler now that he is a batsman. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 3: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 10-3

Mohammad Ashraful is playing the sort of innings that we've been waiting to see. Not a swashbuckling run-a-minute flight of fancy, but a proper innings where he punishes the bad balls, and accumulates when the ball is in his area. It's all rather exciting, even if it has 45 test after he should have. I guess it's better late than never. Hopefully this innings informs how he plays from now on. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 3: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 10-4

This is good cricket from Bangladesh. They are fighting hard. Mushfiqur Rahim is a real fighter with the bat. In his last 10 innings this is the 7th time he's made it past 35. He's not prepared to throw his wicket away. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 3: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 10-5

Sri Lanka are not bowling particularly badly. They have had some bad luck, with a number of balls going past the edge. While this partnership is fantastic, it still feels like a devastating collapse is possible any second now. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 3: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 10-7

This is now Bangladesh's highest partnership, Ashraful has the highest score by any Bangladeshi batsman, and Mushfiqur Rahim is only 6 runs off second spot. Bangladesh are now in a position where they might even be able to consider declaring behind, to make Sri Lanka give them a target. They wouldn't want to do that until they have some more runs on the board, and have used up some time, but an attacking option like that may be a very good one for their future. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 4: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 14-8

Bangladesh managed to bat themselves into what looks like a no-lose position. Unfortunately it's also probably a no win position also. Perhaps the decision of the board to offer draw bonuses was a good one. Suddenly there is an incentive for their players to play for time, and, in putting a value on their wicket, they started to look like a proper test team. They still have a lot to thank the groundsman for, but they have folded on good batting tracks in the past, so it's good to see them actually applying themselves. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 5: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 15-8

Another hour of bowlers getting dealt to. It's not like the Sri Lankan batsmen are slogging, or going particularly crazily. It's just that they are scoring 30% faster than normal test batsmen would, and doing it without many risks. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 5: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 16-8

Another relentless hour of Sri Lanka batting. They have now scored 800 runs for the loss of 5 wickets. To put that in context, Bangladesh just had their best ever innings, and scored 638 runs for 10 wickets. If Sri Lanka keep batitng at this rate for another 14 overs then declare, Bangladesh would need to get 222 runs off 44 overs. Bangldesh have a history of crumbling in run chases, so that might be an option that Mathews might consider. Sometimes you need to use some bait if you want to catch a fish. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 5: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 16-9

Sri Lanka batted well in this match, but they have batted the result out of contention. Baring a miracle new ball spell from Kulasekera and Eranga, Bangladesh will hold on for a draw, but they are not going to chase this target. - Mykuhl

End of the match, Day 5: Sri Lanka take the mini-session count 16-10, but the match is drawn.

Bangladesh get a creditable draw. Sri Lanka could have made a game of it by declaring at drinks. However if they wanted to do that they should have come out and really attacked the bowling during that hour between lunch and drinks.

There's no dishonour in the draw for either team, but there are questions over both teams heading into the next match. Can Sri Lanka improve their execution, take their missed chances and find a way through the Bangladesh line-up? For Bangladesh: can they back up one good performance with another?

Whatever happens, I hope the groundsman is going to prepare a pitch with some life in it at Premadasa. - Mykuhl

CricketGeek Book Review: Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew - Shehan Karunatilaka

As a former mystery wrist-spinner, I was eager to read the story about a Sri Lankan mystery spinner, even if he did bowl with his left arm. I was expecting a good cricket book, but instead got a very good book, that happened to feature cricket.

The book came highly recommended, and it did not disappoint. I believe that the best novels are ones that take the reader into a different time/place. I loved Crime and Punishment because when I read it I became Raskolnikov. When I read Live Bodies, I became Josef Mandl. Jane Eyre and The Bronze Horseman had a similar effect. While reading Chinaman, I was so transfixed that I could almost smell the Sri Lankan streets.

The characters have a richness that is hard to find in other novels. The three main characters all have twists and reveal new sides to themselves regularly. The lead character, WG Karunasena, undertakes a moral journey that would feel at home in a Dostoyevsky novel.

Often books with exceptionally deep characters sacrifice the plot. While there was moments where the book dragged, it generally moved quite quickly, and some of the twists in the plot were both unexpected and interesting.

Overall this is one of the best books I've ever read. The three books that it feels the most like are three of my favourites, A Painted House by John Grisham, Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones and Live Bodies by Maurice Gee. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Mini-session Analysis 3rd test, Australia vs Sri Lanka SCG 2012/13

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the third test between Australia and Sri Lanka at SCG, Sydney, Australia

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	Sri Lanka 42/1 off 13	Sri Lanka
1-1b	Sri Lanka 38/1 off 13	draw
1-2a	Sri Lanka 52/0 off 15	Sri Lanka
1-2b	Sri Lanka 37/2 off 13	Australia
1-3a	Sri Lanka 80/1 off 18	Sri Lanka
1-3b	Sri Lanka 45/5 off 15.4	Australia
2-1a	Australia 71/1 off 12	Australia
2-1b	Australia 56/0 off 15	Australia
2-2a	Australia 67/1 off 14	Australia
2-2b	Australia 47/1 off 14	Sri Lanka
2-3a	Australia 49/2 off 17	Sri Lanka
2-3b	Australia 52/1 off 16	Australia
3-1a	Australia 50/2 off 13	Australia
3-1b	Australia 40/1 off 6	Australia
	Sri Lanka 18/0 off 4
3-2a	Sri Lanka 55/1 off 13	Sri Lanka
3-2b	Sri Lanka 57/0 off 14	Sri Lanka
3-3a	Sri Lanka 47/3 off 16	Australia
3-3b	Sri Lanka 48/3 off 15	Australia
4-1a	Sri Lanka 38/2 off 13	Australia
4-1b	Sri Lanka 10/1 off 6.2	Sri Lanka
	Australia 13/1 off 5
4-2a	Australia 48/1 off 15	Draw
4-2b	Australia 75/3 off 21	Draw
4-3a	Australia 5/0 off 1.5	N/A

Final update, click here
Australia win the match by 5 wickets and the mini-session count 11 - 8

First drinks, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 1-0

My new formula says that Sri Lanka needed 43 runs to have won that hour, by I think that given it's a green pitch, Australia have chosen 4 quicks, and then elected to bowl, to have only lost 1 wicket for 42 runs is a great start. It was also an uncharacteristically slow start from Sri Lanka. They are showing some impressive restraint. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 1-0

A good even first hour of cricket. Sri Lanka are slightly on top, but not by much. Having Thiramanne in now is probably a good thing, as he's normally an opener, and probably has the right temperament for this pitch. If the rest of the match continues to be as even as the first hour this could be a fantastic test. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 2-0

That was the first hour that was won unequivocally by a team. Sri Lanka are probably making Clarke regret his decision to bowl first. This is Jayawardene's first 50 outside Sri Lanka since 2009. He went on to score a double century that day. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 2-1

And now Australia have a good hour. Two wickets and only 37 runs, with 10 of them coming in the first over. This is a crucial partnership for Sri Lanka. If these two can last at least another 10 or 15 overs and put on at least 50 runs, they will be in a good position to unleash Chandimal on some tired bowlers. Any score over 300 is a great score if you're put in. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 3-1

This is a fantastic day's cricket. Sri Lanka look like they are on target for at least 350 now. Thiramanne has really paced his innings well. He was very cautious at first, at one point he had 16 off 59. He now has 90 off 145, so he has scored at a strike rate of 86 since then. Quality stuff from Sri Lanka. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 1: Sri Lanka lead the mini-session count 3-2

This was a really good days cricket. It had almost everything, a fierce opening spell with the batsmen being defensive, a counter-attack from the captain, a stunning innings from a recently recalled player, that was cut short by a brilliant catch, a lower order collapse and then a tail-end slog between number 10 and 11. Then it ended with the match roughly even. If anything Sri Lanka are probably slightly ahead, Australia would have probably wanted to bowl them out for less than 250 on this pitch, but they haven't made it to 300, so any advantage is only a slight one. Bring on day 2. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 2: The mini-session count is tied up, 3-3

It's interesting how a strength can sometimes be a weakness. David Warner has hit 29 runs off the 29 balls that haven't gone to the boundary. His running between the wickets has been sublime. Except for the way that he ran Ed Cowan out. To be fair to Warner there probably was a second run there, and it was probably the hesitancy that cost Cowan, but the running between the wickets has been the feature of that hour, for good and bad reasons.

It is remarkable how Warner has done this, as all 3 batsmen have had balls that they've edged or been squared up by. The bowling hasn't been as bad as 71 off 12 would indicate. It hasn't been consistent enough, but they have created some false shots. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 4-3

How many times will the bowlers trouble the batsmen before they manage to take a wicket? And how long before Rangana Herath come on? While the bowlers are asking quite a few questions, the Australian batsmen are scoring off almost every ball that isn't exactly on the mark. David Warner is really in a purple patch, this is his 5th score over 50 this season, in only 9 innings. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 5-3

Herath came on and immediately the tempo of the match changed. Dilshan has done a lot of bowling so far, and has been rewarded with the wicket of Warner. It wasn't exactly a spitting searing off break that took the inside edge and ballooned up off the pad to silly point, more a wide half-volley that Warner smashed to a fielder, but a wicket is a wicket. Australia continue to score at break-neck speed. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 5-4

Once Warner and Hughes were out, the game returned to normal test match pace. Clarke has really tried to hit Herath, while Hussey has been content to defend him. We'll see what the best tactic is, but I think Clarke has the right idea. Herath showed against New Zealand and England that if he is allowed to settle he becomes a real handful.

Australia are in the lead here, but not by much. A good spell could tilt this game very quickly back in Sri Lanka's favour. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 2: The mini-session count is tied up, 5-5

Sri Lanka have managed to pull things back well here. I think Australia need about 370 to be in the lead in this match. They are probably even money to get there. However Herath is starting to look dangerous. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 6-5

Australia are in the lead, but not by much. I think chasing any more than 200 on the final day and a half will be very tricky. This test is shaping up well. It's just a pity Sri Lanka couldn't hold on for a draw in Hobart. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 7-5

A very frustrating tail wag by Australia for the Sri Lankans. There isn't much that drops the head like not being able to get the bowlers out. - Mykuhl

Lunch, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 8-5

What a fantastic knock by Matthew Wade. There is a real art to batting with the tail, and Matthew Wade did it very well. Jackson Bird will go off the field feeling good about having guided Wade through to his 100. Australia are in the lead now, Sri Lanka will need to bat very well now to set the right sort of target. - Mykuhl

Middle drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 8-6

When I first saw Karunaratne I though he looked like a player who I was going to get some real pleasure out of watching in the future. Today he looks like he is in the mood. If he keeps batting like this he could swing this match very quickly in Sri Lanka's favour. This game is starting to look like one that we may remember for a long time. A depleted Sri Lankan attack fighting hard and really taking the match to Australia. - Mykuhl

Tea, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 8-7

Sri Lanka are almost back to being level. Not just in terms of runs scored, but also in terms of the position in the match. The one concern that they will have is that the pitch doesn't seem to be breaking up as much as they would have hoped. Sri Lanka will probably need a lead of at least 250. That will be a tricky target for Australia to chase against the trickery of Herath. - Mykuhl

Final drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 9-7

A good hour from Australia. There have been calls for Jayawardene to retire. His last 15 innings have come at an average of 23.5 and he's generally struggled outside of Sri Lanka in recent years (leading into this test he'd averaged less than 18 away from home since 2010). Now is the time for him to send a message that it's not time just yet. He needs a big score. However it won't be easy. The Australians have managed to get the ball reversing, and conditions are not easy. Sri Lanka need this partnership between Matthews and Jayawardene to be a big one. - Mykuhl

Stumps, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 10-7

And in the space of 2 hours the game goes from being very even to being very much Australia's to lose. This partnership now takes on epic importance for Sri Lanka, given that they only have two Chris Marinesque batsmen to come. While the last two put on 21 runs for the final wicket in the first innings, there was probably only 2 balls where either of them looked like they even knew which end of the bat they were supposed to hold.

The Australian bowling has been very effective. Once they got the ball reversing they have asked a lot of questions that the Sri Lankans really didn't have any answers for.

The day ended with a nice touch from Michael Clarke, giving the ball to Michael Hussey to bowl. - Mykuhl

First drinks, Day 4: Australia lead the mini-session count 11-7

At the end of day 4, Dimuth Karunaratne indicated that a lead of 150-175 might be a good enough to be relatively competitive, given that the pitch is taking turn. Unfortunately, after some resistance initially, Herath and then Lakmal, to a shot which is the definition of agricultural, did not appear to feel the same way. Chandimal reached a well deserved 50 with some excellent and intelligent counter attacking with the tail which swelled the lead to a respectable 125. If Sri Lanka are to have any chance of setting Australia a decent target you would have to think that they need to bat at least until lunch. With only 1 wicket left, it's still Australia's game to lose - Damith

Lunch, Day 4: Australia lead the mini-session count 11-8

Sri Lanka got within 30 minutes to lunch with some defiant batting from Pradeep and further excellence from Chandimal. However, with Pradeep playing and missing more often than not, the second ball of the 2nd new ball put paid to the 12 over 41 run 10th wicket stand. With a target of only 140, Sri Lanka opened the bowling with Dilshan but it was the unlikely Lakmal who picked up David Warner for a first ball duck in the second over. Cowan and Hughes then took Australia to lunch with Sri Lanka knowing that it will only take one decent partnership to finish their game. Twitter was a flurry with a 118 run chase of Australia v SA where Australia were bowled out for 111 with Fannie De Villers taking 5. A repeat today against this Sri Lankan attack is highly unlikely - Damith

Middle drinks, Day 4: Australia lead the mini-session count 11-8

The first half of the hour easily belonged to Australia as Hughes and Cowan slowly built the partnership. Sri Lanka were unfathomably still bowling Lakmal, The only reason that makes any sense was to rough up the ball to the spinners. Mahela eventually brought on Herath which immediately made an impact when he troubled the Australians and when Mahela called for Dilshan, the double spin option worked well for Sri Lanka and fetched Hughes' wicket, following a brilliant over from Herath. The umpiring on this tour continued to be poor as something that looked plumb LBW was not given again. And a Mahela Jaywardene was visibly frustrated when he saw the replay following the overturning of the not out decision. Micheal Clarke smashed his first ball off Herath for four and he signaled his intention in not being tied down by the spinners. Cowan looked a bit at sea vs the spin which does not bode well for his Indian tour. Although it was an hour of even fortunes, Australia are only 80 adrift now and closing in on the whitewash. - Damith

Tea, Day 4: Australia lead the mini-session count 11-8

Australia have done enough in that hour to be closing in on the win, but Sri Lanka have not made it easy for them. Dilshan has done a good job for a part timer, but it's hard not to wonder how Randiv would have gone on this pitch. It would take something incredible for Sri Lanka to win from here, but sometimes when a quality spinner bowls to tail-enders incredible things happen. - Mykuhl

End of the match, Day 4: Australia take the mini-session count 11-8

A good win for Australia, but it's hard not to wonder what would have been if there was 50 more runs required. Australia deservedly win the series 3-0, but Sri Lanka can hold their heads high for the way they have dealt with such a horrendous injury toll and have continued to improve and fight. An extra couple of hours batting in Hobart and then an extra 50 runs here and the series could have been 1-1, but the essence of a good team is one that takes their opportunities. Australia are now a very good team, and they have clearly progressed from the South African tour. - Mykuhl

End of year Mini-session Analysis review 2

One of the advantages of the mini-session analysis is that it allows me to quantify how well or badly a team went in a match in a way that is reasonably even for both teams. As a result we can get a series score, and even an annual tally.

This wouldn't be CricketGeek without some tables summarising things, so here is the complete mini-session analysis tables for the year:

Team	Won	Lost	Winning %	Match w/l
Australia	145	100	59.18%	7.00
South Africa	133	97	57.83%	no losses
West Indies	116	108	51.79%	1.00
England	173	168	50.73%	0.71
Pakistan	65	69	48.51%	3.00
New Zealand	89	108	45.18%	0.33
India	87	108	44.62%	0.60
Sri Lanka	95	124	43.38%	0.60
Bangladesh	20	32	38.46%	0.00
Zimbabwe	2	11	15.38%	0.00

Interestingly Australia came out slightly ahead of South Africa, despite South Africa not losing any matches and Australia losing one. However South Africa drew half of their matches this year, while Australia had 7 wins, 3 draws and a loss, so it makes sense that both teams would come out at a similar level in the year.

The other big surprise was how high West Indies are. It has felt like there are three tiers of cricket at the moment, with Australia, South Africa, England and Pakistan in the top group, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand and the West Indies in the second group and then Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the third group. Each team is competitive with teams in their own tier and at home to teams in the group above. The only exception to that has been how badly England went in Pakistan and how easily South Africa seemed to cope with English conditions.

There is also something unfair in everybody not playing everybody else. For example, New Zealand thrashed Zimbabwe 11-2, but nobody else got to play Zimbabwe. As a result I produced a weighted score. Every team got a weighting based on their performance over the year, and then I used that to calculate a ranking. I don't think this is a ranking of how good the teams are, but it is an indication of how well they have played.

Another option would be to take a football style approach, where we award 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. Then we use the mini-session difference as the tie breaker. The problem with this is that England have played 15 matches, while Pakistan have only played 6 matches, so it is hardly fair to compare them with an overall score. As a result I've looked at points per match, and difference per match as the way of ranking the teams.

	Team	m	w	l	d	pts	diff	ppm	dpm
	Australia	11	7	1	3	24	45	2.18	4.09
	South Africa	10	5	0	5	20	36	2	3.6
	Pakistan	6	3	1	2	11	-4	1.83	-0.67
	West Indies	10	4	4	2	14	8	1.4	0.8
	England	15	5	7	3	18	5	1.2	0.33
	India	9	3	5	1	10	-21	1.11	-2.33
	Sri Lanka	10	3	5	2	11	-29	1.1	-2.9
	New Zealand	10	2	6	2	8	-19	0.8	-1.9
	Bangladesh	2	0	2	0	0	-12	0	-6
	Zimbabwe	1	0	1	0	0	-9	0	-9

This probably feels more like a fair summary of how the teams have gone this year.

A tale of two bowlers

I was chatting to someone yesterday, and mentioned that I thought Shaminda Eranga was the real deal. That we might be looking back and say "I saw him at the start of his career." Not long after I said that he was smacked at more than 6 an over by the Australian openers. Fortunately I had put a caveat when I was chatting. I said "but he's still not very good against left handers. He looks amazing against right handers."

He seems to get a little swing, but then seam movement away from the right handers. The small bit of swing means that the batsmen start to follow the ball with their hands, and then he takes the edge with the seam movement. He doesn't swing it enough that they play and leave, but rather just enough to draw them into the shot. (Most balls seem to only swing about 5 cm - it's the movement off the seam that makes him dangerous). However against the left handers this small swing means that if it's straight, they tend to defend it, and if it seams back, they just hit an inside edge into their pads.

So I thought I'd go through his (brief) career so far and see if my feeling is correct. Here are Shaminda Eranga's test statistics against right and left handed batsmen (prior to the Melbourne test):

Hand	Average	Strike Rate	Economy Rate
Right	24.00	39.4	3.65
Left	101.50	195.0	3.12

There is a significant difference.

Of players who have bowled in at least 20 matches, the best strike rate ever is Sid Barnes, with 41.6. Next is Dale Steyn with 42.0 and the Waqar Younis with 43.4. Eranga to right handers has a better strike rate than any of these.

However the other end of the tail we see a bunch of part timers. With a strike rate in the region of 195 are the likes of Shivnarine Chanerpaul (193.3) and Geoff Howarth (204.6). Even Geoffrey Boycott had a bowling strike rate of 134.8. These are good people to be compared to if you are talking about defensive technique when batting, but not so much if you're talking about bowling.

If Eranga wants to make the most of his obvious talent, he will need to figure out how to bowl to lefties. He is a fantastic prospect for Sri Lanka, but they can't keep picking him if he's going to be two bowlers: Steyn to the right-handers but Boycott to the left handers.

Mini-session Analysis 2nd Test, Australia vs Sri Lanka, MCG, Melbourne, Australia 2012/13

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the second test between Australia and Sri Lanka at MCG, Melbourne, Australia

A mini-session is (normally) half a session, either between the start of the session and the drinks break or the drinks break and the end of the session. Occasionally a long session will have 3 mini-sessions where it will be broken up with 2 drinks breaks.

Mini-Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	Sri Lanka 36/2 off 12	Australia
1-1b	Sri Lanka 43/1 off 13	Sri Lanka
1-2a	Sri Lanka 55/2 off 13	draw
1-2b	Sri Lanka 22/5 off 5.4	Australia
1-3a	Australia 90/0 off 16	Australia
1-3b	Australia 60/3 off 23	Sri Lanka
2-1a	Australia 47/0 off 15	Australia
2-1b	Australia 41/0 off 15	Australia
2-2a	Australia 60/0 off 16	Australia
2-2b	Australia 34/3 off 11	Sri Lanka
2-3a	Australia 51/1 off 16.3	Australia
2-3b	Australia 57/1 off 16.3	Australia
3-1a	Australia 20/2 off 5.4	Sri Lanka
3-1b	Sri Lanka 43/4 off 13	Australia
3-2a	Sri Lanka 59/2 off 10.3	Australia
3-2b	Sri Lanka 1/1 off 0.5	n/a

Final update, click here
Australia win the mini-session count 10 - 4

First drinks, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 1-0

Great start for Australia, after Sri Lanka chose to bat. Bird looks like a handy bowler. There is a little in this pitch, but I think it should settle down this afternoon, it doesn't look like the sort of pitch that will misbehave for too long.

Lunch, Day 1: The mini-session count is tied up, 1-1

Take a bow Kumar Sangakkara! He battled through reasonably difficult conditions and saw off some good bowling to bring up his 10000 career runs in the same number of innings as Tendulkar and Lara. He chose a good way to bring it up too, with a scorching square drive along the slow outfield to what is probably the longest square boundary in world cricket.

Middle drinks, Day 1: The mini-session count is tied up, 1-1

While Sri Lanka scored quickly enough that the formula almost gave them the hour, the two wickets were very big wickets. Australia are probably actually in the lead in this match. Sri Lanka need a very big partnership here, and probably one other if they are going to stay in this match.

Tea, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 2-1

Absolutely awful stuff from Sri Lanka. There was some good bowling and (particularly) good captaincy, but it was just brainless by Sri Lanka. Within 3 balls of every break Sri Lanka lost a wicket. And a lot of the wickets in the match have been to particularly poor shots. Sri Lanka have tried to attack, but I think they have been just too aggressive.

Final drinks, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 3-1

Sri Lanka are in a world of trouble. Eranga looks very poor against left-handers, Welegedera has had trouble with his length, Prasad has been erratic, and Warner and Cowan have been imperious.

I was asked earlier today who I felt the best batsmen I had seen were, and I mentioned Matthew Hayden. I don't think even Hayden had scored an attacking 50 while opening as good as this innings from Warner. The big feature has not been his power, but his placement. He has only faced 17 dot balls so far in his innings. Phenomenal batting.

Stumps, Day 1: Australia lead the mini-session count 3-2

Sri Lanka struck back well there. It started when Angelo Matthews removed Warner, and then Rangana Herath came on and started to build the pressure.

It could have been a lot better too. First Dilshan dropped Michael Clarke on 5 and then, 3 overs later, Sangakkara put down a relatively tough chance off Watson. If those two had been taken the match would have potentially been all square, but Sri Lanka couldn't take the opportunities, and are behind in the match as a result.

Australia are still well in control, but Sri Lanka are back in it.

First drinks, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 4-2

A good mornings cricket. Both batsmen were looking to attack, but the bowlers were bowling well enough to keep them honest. Eranga in particular put both batsmen under pressure. He hit Clarke on the head, and generally had him looking quite uncomfortable. Australia will be very pleased to have come out of this hour without losing a wicket and having scored at about 3 an over.

Lunch, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 5-2

Both batsmen brought up their fifties in that hour, but both were given lives in the same over by Herath. First Clarke should have been stumped, but Sangakkara couldn't gather cleanly. Then Watson edged a ball that hit Mahela in the chest, but was moving too quickly for him to grab. Sri Lanka are generally a good fielding side, and they will be very disappointed to have missed 4 chances so far in this innings.

Middle drinks, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 6-2

Michael Clarke is relentless. Despite the bowlers generally bowling very well in this hour, he has advanced the score, and brought up his hundred. Watson is almost fading into the background of this fantastic Clarke knock.

Clarke's innings hasn't been chanceless, however. Herath has really caused him some problems. In this hour he edged one between keeper and slip. Sri Lanka have now given him 3 lives. He's not often one to pass up such generosity.

Tea, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 6-3

Sri Lanka finally hung onto a catch. And it was contagious. After they got one they picked up two more. But it couldn't last: Hussey was missed by Sangakkara off the luckless Herath in the last over before tea. It was a good hour for Sri Lanka, but it's a long way back from here.

Final drinks, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 7-3

Another good hour for Australia, but with a significant highlight for Sri Lanka, a brilliant catch by Rangana Herath to dismiss Hussey. Australia batted quite cautiously, but managed to score relatively quickly regardless. The Sri Lankan bowlers are starting to look tired.

Stumps, Day 2: Australia lead the mini-session count 8-3

Mitchell Johnson is working his way towards being back for the ashes. He has been sublime in this innings, looking almost completely untroubled throughout. It was Australia's day today. Sri Lanka are going to need to bat very very well in order to get back into this game. They really need to bowl Australia out quickly, then score something like 500 to have any chance.

The pitch is not nearly as easy as the score would indicate. There have been a couple keep low, balls have moved off the seam (even with the old ball) and some have stood up and bounced sharply. This has really been a fantastic effort from Australia, and they deserve to be in the lead.

First drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 8-4

Sri Lanka have managed to clean up the tail for the addition of only 20 runs. Another right hander dismissed by Eranga, although this one was not in the usual manner of caught behind the wicket. Now they have the small matter of knocking off the 304 run lead then posting a target.

Lunch, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 9-4

If there was any doubt who was winning this hour has cleared it up. First Karunaratne was run out after turning blind. Next Dilshan hit a leg glance into his thigh pad and got hit at short leg. After that Mahela summed up his match by attempting to leave the ball, but just chopping it on instead. The final wicket in the hour was Samaraweera who was out plumb lbw. He reluctantly challenged, but it was to no avail. At the other end, Sangakkara is batting as well as anyone has this test. It was said of the New Zealand team's bowling in the 80's that it was like facing the World XI at one end, and the Illford 2nd XI at the other end. It must feel like that for the Australian bowlers at the moment.

Middle drinks, Day 3: Australia lead the mini-session count 10-4

Possibly the most futile drinks break in history, Sri Lanka effectively have only one wicket left. It looks fairly likely that Australia will win now.

End of Match, Day 3: Australia win the match by an innings and 201 runs and the mini-session count 10-4

And it only took 5 balls to wrap it up. This is the first time that a team has had an innings closed to lose a match after losing only 7 wickets. It's also Australia's biggest ever win over Sri Lanka. This match would have been much closer if the Sri Lankans hadn't been struck down with injuries (4 players injured, first Kulasekera in the warm up, then Jayawardene, Welegedera and Sangakkara), and also if they had taken their chances. It was really a case of poor concentration more than anything else. Sri Lanka lost wickets straight after every break except the final lunch break. They missed vital chances in the field. Then once the Australians got on top, they made the Sri Lankans pay.

Australia weren't as clinical or as comfortable as the scoreline would suggest, but they still played a lot better cricket than Sri Lanka and thoroughly deserved their win.

The news has come in that Sangakkara is out for 6-8 weeks, so this loss will have serious repercussions for the next test and the One Day Internationals.