Flight, guile and Santner

Mitchell Santner ran in to bowl in his typically graceful manner. He bowled slightly short of a good length, and the ball skidded off the pitch. Hamilton Masakadza diffused it comfortably, playing it out into the off side.

-

In his reply to David Hume’s argument about miracles, CS Lewis added in a chapter titled “A Chapter Not Strictly Necessary.” The idea was that it was a chapter that wasn’t really needed for his argument, but it gave him pleasure to write it, and so he added it into his book. His chapter was about the aesthetic beauty of nature.

Mitchell Santner is a very good bower. The fact that he makes what he does look good is a bonus, it’s not really necessary. If he took ugly wickets, it would look the same in the scorebook.

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

South Africa vs Zimbabwe - things to watch for

Here are 5 things I'm going to be watching for in this match.

1. I really enjoy watching Elton Chigumbura. He's the sort of player who plays to win the match, rather than playing to have a good average. He gives himself the difficult jobs, and then puts everything into them.

2. Will Zimbabwe get Amla early. The Zimbabwean attack is quite suited to most New Zealand grounds, but if they don't get Amla early, then they will struggle to get him at all.

3. Quinton de Kock - can he rein his game in against the slower paced (but subtle and tricky) opening attack of Zimbabwe.

4. Brendan Taylor - Has he regained his touch that made him one of the best batsmen in the world in 2011.

5. South Africa's movement off the ball in the field. De Villiers has made it clear that he wants to see his team moving around more off the ball, like the New Zealand players do. This will be a chance to see if his talk has worked.

Mini-session Analysis, 2nd test, Zimbabwe vs Pakistan, Harare 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the second test between Zimbabwe and Pakistan at Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe

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 Analysis, 1st test Zimbabwe vs Pakistan, Harare, 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between Zimbabwe and Pakistan at Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe

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 Brendan Taylor doing too much?

Happier times for Brendan Taylor: captain, but not keeper

Zimbabwe have just come off a convincing 5-0 series defeat to India. While that result was not particularly surprising, the lack of runs from Brendan Taylor, normally their best batsman, was a surprise.

Some of that may have been due to India having done their homework on him. Duncan Fletcher is a clever coach, and will have been aware that Taylor is capable of winning games almost single handedly with a big innings. In 128 innings against good opponents (test teams or Ireland) he has 6 ODI hundreds. To put that in context, at a similar point in his career, Jayasuriya had 5 ODI hundreds. It would have been, therefore, negligent of India to have not had specific plans for Taylor.

But as much as that may have been a factor in this series (and also potentially in the last two against West Indies and Bangladesh where Taylor was also ineffective) there was possibly something else going on. In the last few matches he has been keeping wickets and captaining the team. Some players thrive when given the gloves and the captaincy, but most players find their batting suffers when they are both captain and keeper.

Mini-session analysis 2nd test, WI Zim, Rosseau, 2013

Here is the mini-session analysis for the first test between West Indies and Zimbabwe at Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica

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	Zimbabwe 43/2 off 10.3	West Indies
1-1b	Zimbabwe 50/1 off 16.3	draw
1-2a	Zimbabwe 27/1 off 13	West Indies
1-2b	Zimbabwe 38/3 off 16	West Indies
1-3a	Zimbabwe 17/3 off 4.5	Zimbabwe
	West Indies 57/2 off 14
1-3b	West Indies 57/0 off 13	West Indies
2-1a	West Indies 33/1 off 14	Zimbabwe
2-1b	West Indies 54/1 off 17	draw
2-2a	West Indies 52/0 off 16	West Indies
2-2b	West Indies 42/0 off 16	West Indies
2-3a	West Indies 54/0 off 13	West Indies
2-3b	West Indies 32/4 off 14	Zimbabwe
3-1a	Zimbabwe 45/1 off 12	Zimbabwe
3-1b	Zimbabwe 32/3 off 14	West Indies
3-2a	Zimbabwe 59/3 off 14.5	West Indies
3-2b	Zimbabwe 5/3 off 1.3	West Indies

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


Summary West Indies win the match by an innings and 41 runs, and the mini-session count 10-4

I was mocked by a number of people for putting Shane Shillingford into my world test XI at the end of last year. He has again shown why I rate him highly. He takes wickets. Quite a lot of wickets. A few years ago West Indies vs Zimbabwe was quite a close contest. This series shows both how far West Indies have come under Sammy and how far Zimbabwe have fallen in the last 12 years.

Mini-session Analysis 1st Test, WI Zim, Bridgetown Barbados 2013

Here is the final mini-session analysis for the first test between West Indies and Zimbabwe at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

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	Zimbabwe 30/1 off 14	West Indies
1-1b	Zimbabwe 61/1 off 13	Zimbabwe
1-2a	Zimbabwe 38/2 off 15	West Indies
1-2b	Zimbabwe 33/2 off 15	West Indies
1-3a	Zimbabwe 34/1 off 15.5	draw
1-3b	Zimbabwe 15/3 off 3.5	Zimbabwe
	West Indies 18/2 off 11
2-1a	West Indies 63/1 off 9.3	West Indies
2-1b	West Indies 63/2 off 20.1	Zimbabwe
2-2a	West Indies 73/1 off 15.2	West Indies
2-2b	West Indies 48/1 off 15	West Indies
2-3a	West Indies 42/3 off 13.2	Zimbabwe
2-3b	Zimbabwe 41/3 off 14	West Indies
3-1a	Zimbabwe 36/3 off 16	West Indies
3-1b	Zimbabwe 30/4 off 10.2	West Indies
	West Indies 9/1 off 3

Final update, click here
West Indies win the match by 9 wickets and the mini-session count 9 - 4


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

A reasonable start from Mawoyo, it's good to see him hitting some form again. - Mykuhl

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

When Kyle Jarvis was playing for Central Districts he produced a couple of magic spells. This is certainly a good start from him.

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

Zimbabwe have an opening here. If they can wrap up the tail cheaply they could be back in this match.

Final drinks, Day 2: West Indies lead the mini-session count 6-4

Darren Sammy is an interesting cricketer. Not quite a batsman, not quite a bowler, and yet he's capable of turning a match with either. That was a sensational innings in the context of this match.

Stumps, Day 2: West Indies lead the mini-session count 7-4

Things are suddenly looking very grim for Zimbabwe. They desperately need a big partnership.

End of match, Day 3: West Indies lead the mini-session count 9-4

The big partnership never came. Shane Shillingford has done this to a couple of teams now, he's starting to look a little like West Indies version of Abdul Rehman, generally doesn't look particularly special, but has days where he is almost unplayable. Despite generally being good at playing spin, the Zimbabwe batsmen were all at sea against him here.

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.

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.)

Three Zimbabweans I have enjoyed, and one that I haven't

New Zealand and Zimbabwe have just about finished their rather one sided series. Martin Guptill has certainly enjoyed it, scoring 51, 70, 77, 85 & 91* so far in this tour.

However three Zimbabweans have stood out to me so far:

Brendan Taylor:

The captain and best batsman has not been in vintage form with the bat, but has still managed to average 42.33 at a strike rate of 92. If his team was not so awful, he would have been noticed a lot more for what he has done.

Elton Chigumbura:

If I was going to pick a player to watch from this series, it would probably be Elton. He has given his all in every match. He hasn't given up when his team was in a hopeless situation. There is a story about a MMA fighter who was in an arm bar and refused to tap out. His opponent broke his arm, and he still refused to tap out. The referee stopped the fight, and he complained, saying that he had just figured out how to win with one arm. Elton looks like the guy that would try to win with one arm.

Shingi Masakadza:

Less well know than his brother, Shingi has bowled his heart out, and batted with purpose. When he has had the ball in his hand he has been all about taking wickets. He has tried to hurry up the NZ batsmen. He has tried to bounce them. He's tried to move the ball off the seam. No backward step. With the bat he has refused to wave the white flag, instead trying to hit his team out of trouble.

And then the disappointment:

Tatenda Taibu:

Why bother turning up if you are going to play with an attitude like Taibu. His stats look reasonable, but they belie his negative contribution to the team. Here's what I have not liked:

1. In the first game Zimbabwe had a genuine chance, and he batted so slowly that there was no hope for the team once he got out. If you are going to bat slowly, make sure you are at least turning over the strike so the guy at the other end can score. 11 scoring shots out of 29 balls, with only 2 boundaries, is not good cricket.

2. In the second game he gave up on winning, and tried to lose with dignity. The team needed 8 an over when he arrived. He hit 18 off his first 34 balls. The powerplay was on and he did not once try and hit over the top. He instead defended, left the ball, checked his drive and pushed it back to the bowler. I drove almost 3 hours to see that match. It was the worst case of a batsman batting for his average rather than trying to win a match I have ever seen. (With the possible exception of Shane Thompson defending the last ball of an ODI innings back in the Rutherford era.) The scorebook shows Taibu scored a 50. What it doesn't show so much is that it was possibly the worst 50 in the history of cricket. (possibly a slight exaggeration)

3. In the third match Taibu again came in with the team needing about 8 an over. Again he set about making sure his team had absolutely no chance of scoring that. At the other end Taylor was attacking, scoring 65 off 62. Taibu defended roughly half the deliveries that he received, racing along to 26 off 45. A low scoring rate does not imply a lack of intent. Chigumbura scored 16 off 30 in the same match, but he was not good enough to get hold of Nethula, and despite trying to attack him was often not even able to connect with the ball. It's one thing to be not good enough, it's another to show no intent.

If Zimbabwe are to get back to the heights that they achieved with Alistair Campbell, the Flowers, Streak, Olonga, the Whittals, the Strangs etc they need players with the attitude of the first three, who try to win every game, rather than trying to lose with dignity.

Mini-session analysis for only Test NZ ZIM 11/12

Here is the mini-session analysis for the test between New Zealand and Zimbabwe at Napier.

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.

Session	Score	Winner
1-1a	New Zealand 68/0 off 14	New Zealand
1-1b	New Zealand 30/0 off 14	New Zealand
1-2a	New Zealand 33/2 off 12	Zimbabwe
1-2b	New Zealand 63/0 off 16	New Zealand
1-3a	New Zealand 56/2 off 14	Zimbabwe
1-3b	New Zealand 81/1 off 21	New Zealand
2-1a	New Zealand 53/0 off 14	New Zealand
2-1b	New Zealand 8/0 off 1.2	-
3-1a	New Zealand 94/2 off 18.2	New Zealand
3-1b	Zimbabwe 20/5 off 15	New Zealand
3-2a	Zimbabwe 30/3 off 13	New Zealand
3-2b	Zimbabwe 13/5 off 10	New Zealand
3-3a	Zimbabwe 51/3 off 14	New Zealand
3-3b	Zimbabwe 80/4 off 25.3	New Zealand

New Zealand win the match by an innings and 301 runs, and the mini-session count 11-2. I didn't award either team a mini-session for the 8 deliveries in 2-1b. I also awarded Zimbabwe 1-3a. That mini-session was right on the border, and fell on NZ's side in my normal formula by 1 run, however I felt that Zimbabwe slightly edged it.

Zimbabwe's tail wagged well today, but their top order was appalling twice. Both innings their final 5 wickets provided more than their first 5. Chris Martin looks like he is well in form. Pity for him that it is the only test in the series.

A quite remarkable innings

Kane Williamson was somewhat overshadowed again in hitting his second ODI hundred.

His first came in a loss against Bangladesh. He was the last wicket to fall, caught at deep midwicket, with New Zealand needing 9 runs of the last 4 balls. His strike rate was a fairly disappointing 81.81

His second was in the same innings as Ross Taylor scored 119, and it was done without much big hitting or fanfare. Which really made it more remarkable.

His chances of a hundred looked dead and buried when Taylor got out, and Nathan McCullum was in strike in the last over. Williamson needed seven to get to his hundred, and there was only one ball left. But Ncube obliged, bowled a beamer, which Williamson hit for 4, and then (after a change of bowler due to repeated beamers) Williamson manages to run 3 on a push to mid on, requiring a dive to make his ground.

His innings was the second fastest century by a New Zealander (off 69 balls) and the second fastest by anyone to not have a majority of runs scored in boundaries (after MoYo's 68 ball 100 against Zimbabwe in 2002). This was the thing that really impressed.

He scored 11 4's and 1 6, meaning that he got 50 runs in boundaries, and ran 50. His activity rate (runs per ball removing boundaries) for the innings was 0.877 - quite remarkable really. It was a triumph for placement, timing and running between wickets, rather than the less effective brutality coming from the other end.

And yet very few people will remember it, for 2 reasons. 1. It was against Zimbabwe. And they are rubbish. 2. It was in a losing cause, in a dead rubber. But regardless, it was a beautiful innings, that perhaps is a sign of things to come from a prodigious young batsman.

Misbah-Ul-Haq and Australia's bowling in Sri Lanka

A gritty test match is happening in Zimbabwe as I type this. Two teams are scrapping for every inch, a veritable Battle of Verdun - where both sides are defending stoutly, and generally resisting the opposition advances. It is likely to end in a tame draw, but this does not give credit to the commitment and courage that some of the batsmen (and tired bowlers) have shown in the 3 days where the score has advanced by 780 runs in 270 overs. In only his third test, Tino Mawoyo took 453 deliveries for his 163 runs, Azhar Ali took 193 deliveries for 75, and Younis Khan (who normally scores at a reasonable rate) took 265 deliveries to score 88. All of them had a strike rate under 39.

Then along came captain slow. Misbah-ul-Haq. Possibly the slowest batsman since Mark Richardson - one of the few recent players to have a higher average than strike-rate (along with the likes of Chanderpaul, Dravid, and Richardson.) Only 6 times in his career before this game has he scored at a strike rate higher than 50 (and one of those was 12 off 23 and only included 4 scoring shots). So the conditions were perfect for a stodgy defensive innings. What was less expected was 66 off 110 - at a strike rate of 60. While 60 would be positively slow for the likes of Sehwag or Dilshan, it is 50% more than he normally scores at. This would be the same as Sehwag scoring at 122.4. In a game where his usual pace would have seemed reasonable, he chose to attack, and did it well.

The second interesting thing from the past week, was the Australian demolition of Sri Lanka. Earlier in the week, over on Poshins World I commented on the dominance that Sri Lanka have had over their opponents at home over the last 5 years, and in particular their batsman not finding anyone too difficult. The only exception was medium paced bowlers and spinners that don't really spin the ball much. And it seemed to be the same again when Watson picked up 3 wickets, and Lyon picked up 5 in the first innings (4 wickets from Lyon were balls that didn't spin, only the Sangakkara wicket turned appreciably).

The difference here was two fold. Watson was bowling quickly. He used to bowl mid to high 120's, but he seems to have been doing a lot of work in the nets, and is falling over a bit in his action, but has increased his speed appreciably, now bowling high 130's. Secondly, Lyon got the wickets with the ones that didn't spin, because he had put the batsman into survival mode with great spin bowling leading up to that, and crucially with great fielding. I am more convinced than ever after that game that the number one thing that defines how well Australia go is their fielding. I was only keeping a rough count, but as far as I remember every single ashes match in the last 4 series that has had a result has been won by the team that has dropped the least catches. There might be one or two exceptions as it was more from gut feel observation than statistical analysis, but the principle remains - when Australia field well, they win matches.

Time to bet on Goliath?

The story of the young boy David felling the giant Goliath has resonated across many cultures for hundreds of years. The thought of the underdog triumphing over the gloating giant somehow warms our hearts. It has inspired artists to paint pictures, authors to write books, and musicians to write songs. One of my favourite is by Steve Apirana here, which I would recommend you play in the background, to provide some theme music to this preview.

So can Zimbabwe's David defeat the Goliath of Sri Lanka? Probably not.

However they do have some things going for them.

1. The match is at Pallekele. This ground looks like the real deal. A genuine Cricket ground, up in the mountains, with a nice bank, good facilities and an excellent pitch. It's a pitch that favours batsmen that take their time to get their eye in, and one that allows poor bowling to be punished.

Zimbabwe's batsmen certainly know how to take their time. 5 of their players have scored more than 100 runs at a strike rate of less than 60 in the last 2 years. But this big thing here is that it's a ground that seems to favour spin bowlers that get more bounce than spin. Bowlers like Price, Utseya and Lamb. Despite Sri Lanka being very good against spin, these are different spinners than they are used to.

2. Zimbabwe beat Sri Lanka recently. Within the last 12 months, the games have been 2-1 to Sri Lanka. And the one that Sri Lanka lost was convincing. Zimbabwe know that if things go well, then they are capable.

3. Chigumbura might actually fire. In the last 10 matches against Sri Lanka, Elton Chigumbura has scored 35 runs. 35 is a reasonable average, but a very bad total. However he has been beaten by spin in 7 of the 8 times that he's got out to a bowler. With spin less important in these conditions, It could be his turn. Finally.

However things are not all rosy. Here's some reasons that Sri Lanka can take heart.

4. The exception to the "spin bowlers don't take wickets at Pallekele" rule in Sri Lankan domestic cricket in Ajantha Mendis. He has not seemed to have the same worries. He also has an amazing record against Zimbabwe, averaging in single figures in 10 matches.

5. Nuwan Kulasekara Sri Lanka are known for their unorthodox bowlers, Mendis, Murali, Malinga, but Kulasekara hs the technique and patience that is perfect for undoing lesser players. And he bowls the sort of length that is likely to be rewarded in Pallekele. Watch out for him.

6. Upul Tharanga. Tharanga has seen Zimbabwe bowling as his meal ticket. He's scored 412 runs in 10 matches, almost 200 more than any other player in either team in those matches. And he looks hungry again tonight.

So my summary. There are reasons that Zimbabwe could win this game, but they are not convincing. If they are to win, they will need a good dose of luck.

If you are looking for somewhere to put your 20c, here are my suggestions. One almost sure bet would be for Sri Lanka to have the highest score after 15 overs, at $1.16. A slightly more risky, but at better odds is Tatenda Taibu to get 50 or more at $4.50. Taibu is good at playing when there is a bit of extra bounce, and so this pitch is likely to suit him.

Duckworth Lewis as a prediction tool

A few years ago I signed up with bet365.com to see how good my cricket prediction skills were. I'm not really a gambler, so I quite liked the fact that I could make 20c bets, where the aim was really to see how good my skills are.

I discovered that I'm quite good at betting on cricket, but terrible at betting on American sports, Rugby League and Football. Overall the different sports have canceled each other out, I put in $60, I've taken out $75, and I have about $7 in there at the moment. (As I said I'm not a big gambler). My highlight was probably my very first bet, Bangladesh to beat India at $8.00 at the world cup.

One thing that I found to be quite useful was a score predictor that I made using the Duckworth-Lewis tables. While they are not fool-proof, they are certainly better than any method that I've found. They just need to be applied using common sense. If New Zealand are playing bump the score up a little (given that New Zealand bowlers are better at batting than New Zealand batsmen), if a minnow is playing drop the score down a little (non-test teams tend to suffer terrible collapses - tail often starts at 5 or 6)

The tables are also not much use for the first 5-10 overs, but the scores normally start to be realistic about over 15.

For example, in the South Africa - India game last night, after 20 overs the DL predictor had South africa getting 273 (they eventally got to 289) while after 20 overs it had India getting 161 (they got 154). These are fairly good predictions after 40% of the innings.

Another interesting game is the first match between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe from December 1. After 20 overs Zimbabwe were 84/3, with a DL score of 219 (they eventually got 209). Bangladesh were cruising at 76/1 (DL score 270). However a Ray Price wicket followed closely by a run out left Bangladesh in trouble after 22 overs at 83/3 (DL score of 205) and this turned out to be the turning point, as they eventually were bowled out in the final over for 200, falling 9 runs short.

It is also a useful tool to quantify contributions of partnerships. Just after de Villiers and Duminy came together it was 82/3 off 14 (DL score of 247). Just after de Villiers departed it was 215/4 off 36 (DL score of 335). The difference that their partnership made was an increase of 88 to the DL score, which is really quite impressive.

> As a side note their partnership of 131 contained only 36 runs in boundaries, and yet it came at a run a ball. More evidence of the importance of running between wickets (and fielding)