The Sehwag and Watson show

This week has witnessed a quite remarkable innings. Sehwag has achieved a score of 214 in a One Day International. That's quite a lot of runs. And scored at a good clip too. So how does it compare to other scores this year?

Well obviously he scored more than everybody else, but the nature of ODI's is that just scoring runs is not the only thing. As well as wickets, deliveries are also a vital resource. One way that I like to check on the effective score is to square the runs scored and divide by the deliveries faced. This way someone that scores faster than a run a ball gets benefit, while someone that scores slower gets their score reduced. This allows us to compare innings like 114 off 121 vs 89 off 75. Which is the most effective. 114 x 114 / 121 = 107.40 while 89 x 89 / 75 = 105.61 so the 114 is better, but only a little bit. While this method is not perfect, I think it is quite easy to understand, and is an interesting metric for analysing scores.

So here are the top 20 scores this year, sorted by this method:

Name	Runs	Balls		Effective score
SR Watson (Aus)	185*	96	v Bangladesh at Dhaka	356.51
V Sehwag (India)	219	149	v West Indies at Indore	321.89
V Sehwag (India)	175	140	v Bangladesh at Dhaka	218.75
KJ O'Brien (Ire)	113	63	v England at Bangalore	202.68
AB de Villiers (SA)	134	98	v Netherlands at Mohali	183.22
SR Watson (Aus)	161*	150	v England at Melbourne	172.81
AJ Strauss (Eng)	158	145	v India at Bangalore	172.17
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	65	25	v New Zealand at Christchurch	169.00
KA Pollard (WI)	94	55	v Ireland at Mohali	160.65
TM Dilshan (SL)	144	131	v Zimbabwe at Pallekele	158.29
YK Pathan (India)	105	70	v South Africa at Centurion	157.50
IJL Trott (Eng)	137	126	v Australia at Sydney	148.96
KS Williamson (NZ)	100*	69	v Zimbabwe at Bulawayo	144.93
PR Stirling (Ire)	101	72	v Netherlands at Kolkata	141.68
LRPL Taylor (NZ)	131*	124	v Pakistan at Pallekele	138.40
DPMD Jayawardene (SL)	144	150	v England at Leeds	138.24
BRM Taylor (Zim)	128*	120	v New Zealand at Harare	136.53
RD Berrington (Scot)	56	23	v Ireland at Edinburgh	136.35
PR Stirling (Ire)	113	95	v Scotland at Edinburgh	134.41
KA Pollard (WI)	60	27	v Netherlands at Delhi	133.33

Watson, Sehwag, Pollard and Stirling all have two entries on the list. Interestingly Pollard's century is not there, but two fifties are. Unsurprisingly most of the scores are at grounds that have a history of being batsmen friendly, but Jayawardene's innings was at Heddingly, which has the opposite reputation, so it is to be singled out as being quite an extraordinary innings. The Williamson knock was one that probably passed most people by, but the fascinating thing about that one was the he was on 93 when he faced the final ball of the match. He managed to hit a no ball for 4 and then hit the bonus delivery for 3.

Mini-session analysis for the first 2 days and a look at day 3

Day three of the NZ-Aus test at Bellerive is looking like the most cruical day in recent New Zealand cricket history. But before I look at that, let's quickly go through the mini-sessions and see how they stack up:

Day 1

Mini-session	Score	Mini-sesssion winner
session 1a	NZ 35/3 off 11	Australia
session 1b	NZ 38/3 off 12	Australia
session 2a	NZ 61/1 off 17	New Zealand
session 2b	NZ 16/3 off 5.5	Australia
session 3a	Aus 12/1 off 4.2	New Zealand

Day 2

Mini-session	Score	Mini-sesssion winner
session 1a	Aus 46/4 off 20.4	New Zealand
session 1b	Aus 23/2 off 11	New Zealand
session 2a	Aus 50/2 off 12.5	Australia
session 2b	Aus 5/1 off 2.1	New Zealand
	NZ 29/0 off 10
session 3a	NZ 44/3 off 13	Australia
session 3b	NZ 66/0 off 21	New Zealand

New Zealand lead the mini-session count 6-5 at the moment. They are slightly ahead in the game, but day three looms as a difficult proposition. The weather forecast is for overnight and early morning rain. I'm not an expert on Hobart's weather systems, but in most coastal places the weather changes with the tide, and the tide changes at about 8:30, so I'd say it is likely that either the rain stops then, and the game should start on time or it continues throughout the morning session, and we hardly get any play until after lunch. Either way the pitch should freshen up again in the first session, with sweating likely to occur under the covers. However the pitch has had a couple of days of use, so it should dry out quite quickly. It is likely to be quite difficult to play on for the first 30 minutes or so, and then for the first 2 or 3 overs after any rain breaks.

Williamson seems to be particularly vulnerable straight after a break, so this could be to Australia's favour. If there are no wickets fall in the first 30 minutes, and no rain round, then it could be a long day in the field for Australia. One real key on this wicket will be the confidence of the batsmen and bowlers. When the batsmen start getting tentative because of a couple that move significantly, their footwork tends to become less assured, and they get in the wrong place to play the ball. The ball moving has a similar effect on the bowler, except that they start bowling more attacking lengths and allow the batsmen to play bad shots. We have just witnessed two days of this phenomenon.

If Taylor and Williamson ride out this storm, then they will be transmitting calmness to Brownlie, Young (who is due a good score), Bracewell and Southee. A sensible batting effort could bring a score in the region of 350. That would probably be a bridge too far for Australia, who will be likely to have to bat twice in the tricky morning session in order to get there. However 2 quick wickets tomorrow morning could quickly turn into 7 quick wickets, and Australia having to chase 200 on an improving deck.

If New Zealand are to win this game the first hour of play will be vital. That's where the interest is for me.

Preview - NZ Aus 2nd Test

Test two at Bellerive Oval, and things are difficult to predict.

The pitch in Hobart looks like it is going to be a minefield, but I think that the looks are going to be deceiving. They have used couch grass on the pitch, which sometimes looks very green, but actually doesn't bounce as much, and only gets sideways movement from short of a length (when a bowler bowls into a pitch not along it) and is not as dangerous when bowlers bowl full.

I'd expect Siddle to be more effective on this pitch than on the 'Gabba, as he bowled very well for little result, and his natural length will be better on this pitch.

The other thing to look for will be the swing. The ball traditionally swings when the tide is high at Hobart (similar to the coastal grounds in NZ). This should mean that there are a few wickets early on days 4 and 5. (High tide is 9:08 on Monday and 9:52 on Tuesday) The weather forecast is for bad weather this afternoon and tomorrow, but with the good light in Hobart the days are likely to be able to be extended on days 3, 4 & 5.

This means that it could be quite a stop-start day. This is not good for slow starters like Hughes and Williamson. It also might be a bad sign for Ponting, who has been brilliant at Bellerive traditionally, but who has also tended to struggle against inswing early in his innings.

Vettori is batting like a genius at the moment, and he is likely to get a lot of bowling as the pitch flattens out. Australia are likely to try and attack him more in this game, so he could be a good option for some wickets and runs.

Betting options:
First innings overs - This pitch is likely to flatten out very quickly, so once the toss happens and the odds are offered for the first innings total, go over.

Vettori player performance. 120 or over $1.87 - likely to take wickets and score runs.

New Zealand highest opening partnership $2.10 - Hughes is not very solid against Martin.

Taylor to score more the Khawaja $1.83 - I still don't rate Khawaja, and Taylor averages over 50 in the 2nd match of a series.

Do New Zealand need to bat differently?

New Zealand's top 5 have been criticised by everyone who has a voice on the radio, TV and in the newspapers over the last few days following the Gabba gazumping. The usual suspects have been out: Nash, Crowe, Turner, Boock, all saying that we need to get back to having more spine, and stop trying to play so quickly.

So I though I'd look at how the current batsmen stack up. Rather than looking at their batting averages, I've looked at the median scores at 5 down and 6 down. Medians seem to be the in-thing in statistics at the moment. I've been to a number of university stats seminars recently, and medians are everywhere. There are a couple of advantages to a median in this situation, this really shows us what we can expect, half of the scores are better than the median, and half are lower. Not-out's are also not given special treatment, and extreme values are ignored. In a lot of ways the median is what we can expect a team to get. I've found the average score when the number 7 comes to the wicket, and also when the number 8 comes to the wicket. This shows the contribution of the batsmen, and so it is an interesting statistic for comparison.

Here are the results for all countries over the past 2 years. I've separated Zimbabwe as they haven't played many games, and their results don't seem to be realistic.

Team	5 down	6 down
SA	235	256.5
SL	227	271
Eng	220	257.5
Pak	195	176
Ind	183	240
Ban	167	196
NZ	166	216
Aus	164	206.5
WI	134.5	158.5
Zim	237.5	303
Overall	176	215

There is a bit of a discrepancy there with Pakistan, who average more for 5 down than they do for the 6 down due to having a number of innings finish 5 down with a large score.

New Zealand sit quite low at 5 down, but in the middle of the table at 6 down, due to the Vettori factor. (Vettori has averaged about 40 over the last few years, batting at 7) So the New Zealand top 5 have not exactly set the world on fire, but there are a couple of caveats there. Firstly New Zealand have to play on New Zealand pitches, which tend to swing and seam more with the new ball, making the early batsmen particularly vulnerable (only 16 batsmen in NZ's history have averaged more than 35, and 4 of those spent most of their career batting at 6 or 7)

So a better comparison is New Zealand through the years:

1975-1978	152	180
1979-1982	162	183
1983-1986	149	192
1987-1990	154	174
1991-1994	147	187
1995-1998	133	164
1999-2002	153	193
2003-2006	150	190
2007-2010	158	193

This shows that the last 2 years have been better than New Zealand's history would suggest. Perhaps the era of Wright, Edgar, Crowe and Coney were not quite as golden as they would like to suggest. Perhaps the New Zealand batsmen (despite the recent debacle) are actually not going so badly.

Important Moments and Momentum

Test 1 between New Zealand and Australia was a complete rout on the scoreboard. Australia won by 9 wickets, and left the New Zealand public angry and their supporters bewildered.

But how much did Australia actually dominate the match?

Because I'm a bit of a NZ cricket masochist, I went through the game, mini-session by mini-session. (a mini-session is between a break and drinks) There were 22 of these in this game. Before analysing them I wrote up a set of criteria to decide who had won each mini-session and who had lost it. Some of them were quite close, but most of them were actually quite decisive to one team or the other.

Overall New Zealand won 7 of the 22 mini-sessions, with the most dominant being scoring 49/0 in 12 overs on the second morning, or taking 3/33 at the start of the final session on the third day. Australia won 15, but they slightly edged the majority of the close sessions. If I adjusted the criteria slightly it would probably be 13-9 or 12-10.

The big difference though was in three key mini-sessions The second mini-session, New Zealand lost 3 wickets for 50 runs. The second mini-session on the 2nd day New Zealand lost 5 wickets for 72 runs. And then the first mini-session on the fourth (and final) day where NZ lost 4/48 off 11.

Looking at that session, it was 48/1 off 10, and 0/3 off one over. That over made such a difference, and it was one of a number of moments that really defined the game.

Here are a few others: Ricky Ponting should have been run out for 0, but instead went on to score 78; Michael Clarke was bowled off a no ball on 23, he went on to score another 116 runs; Mitchel Starc was dropped on 0 and went on to score 32. That's 226 runs that were gifted to Australia.

To win a test match against Australia, New Zealand need to win the key moments. They can't afford to lose them, or else they will get beaten up again.

Same old...

4 dropped catches, 75 deliveries per wicket. Poor, poor cricket.

Preview - NZ Aus 1st Test

So it's time for the Trans-Tasman Trophy. I has been a long time since New Zealand actually beat Australia, but with the current Australian bowling lineup there is a slow dawning of hope in New Zealand that the boys can taste some success on the West Island.

The question is: how realistic is that hope?

New Zealand has been a graveyard for quality batsmen. There just have not been many come from here. At time of writing, only 10 players have played 10 or more games for NZ and averaged over 40. The rest of the world have produced 183. However of those 10, 2 are in the current team, as well as 2 more in the next 8 players. This is possibly the best batting line up New Zealand has ever had. The only possible exceptions are the team that contained Richardson, Fleming, Astle, McMillan and Cairns, or the team that contained Crowe, Reid, Wright and Coney. They are also all in form. In the last 2 matches every one of the top 6 have scored at least one hundred, and most have scored a fifty also. I read somewhere they over the last 4 innings they average 74. (I haven't checked this, but I'll trust the newspaper to be correct)

At the same time as New Zealand's batting is strong, Australia's bowlers are so inexperienced that some of the commentators are struggling to tell them apart. Because they have lost so many players it is hard to know how well they are going to play. What we saw in the warm up match was that despite New Zealand really going for their shots and playing risky shots they managed to score over 400 both innings. It will be interesting to see how this battle will go.

The other side is more settled. The Australian bating lineup has a couple of new faces, but is a lot more settled. The New Zealand bowling line up really only has one new face with only one of Bracewell or Boult likely to play. Bracewell has started his test career off encouragingly, while Boult has yet to make a debut, but has some good form in domestic cricket behind him. Southee enjoyed Brisbane last time, and is a much better bowler now. Martin has not been in a good run of form, but he has a very good record against left handers. Given that 4 of the top 6 batsmen in Australia are left handed, he might not be as ineffective as he has been in recent matches.

The Australian batsmen are generally high quality but under pressure. The scepter of all out for 46 will be hanging over their heads. Two of their batsmen (Hughes and Khawaja) average below 40, which is not something that we are accustomed to seeing from players that play the majority of their cricket in Australian conditions. The New Zealand bowlers will be smelling blood. However they may be going in confident, but they have not really demonstrated an ability to bowl teams out quickly. Over the last 2 years they have taken a wicket every 81 deliveries. To put this in context it means that it takes about 135 overs to bowl out a team. Given that there is about 450 overs in a test match, if New Zealand take 270 overs to bowl out Australia, there are only 180 left in the match for New Zealand to bat.

To add to this there is a forecast of rain for at least 2 of the days. If this forecast is correct the I see a result being entirely pitch dependent. Both teams having reasonable batting line ups and average bowling line ups means that they are both going to be unlikely to bowl each other out. Unless there is some real venom in the pitch then I think that $2.60 that Bet365 are paying for the draw is good money.

If I was looking for another couple of bets I'd look at Michael Clarke as the top run-scorer in Australia's first innings. He is right handed so nullifies Martin and (to a lesser degree) Boult. He bats at number 5, a position that New Zealand has great difficulty dismissing in recent time, and he has a great record against New Zealand, averaging over 60.

I would also look to put money on Williamson overs once he reaches 10. He gets out under 10 in more than half of his innings, but once he gets going it is rare for him to get out under 50.

So those are my thoughts and where I'm putting my 20c.