*Official* First Test at the Gabba

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Howe_zat

I'd agree that this "psycological boost" and "moral voctory" natter is by and large bull****. Both sides had personal wins and losses.

However, Australia will come out of this Test with more worries than England. Their bowling has some serious problems and it is rightly Australia, not England, that are considering serious changes to their side.

Heh, I think TEC brings up an interesting point though. If you believe that neither team is playing their best eleven (as I do, and as TEC does) then Australia will theoretically benefit from the game as North, Johnson and Hilfenhaus are closer to being replaced and they haven't dropped a Test. England on the other hand had their worst player take 6 wickets in an innings and book his spot for the series without even going one up.

I think that sort of analysis leaves the human element out of cricket completely though. It'd be a great point if this series was simulated and you knew Tremlett had a better simming average than Finn, but as it stands I think it's the other extreme to all the psychological advantage posts we've seen.

[Uppercut]

Haha yeah, it's true. The flipside to a draw feeling like a defeat is that teams typically learn more from defeats than they do victories.

What really makes me think the psychological edge stuff is hugely overstated is that it can all be rendered irrelevant if a wicket falls in the first five overs of the next match.

[Son Of Coco]

Originally Posted by zaremba

Because all that matters is that the pitch flattened out a bit and (wow!) the Kookaburra doesn't do much after the shine wears off.

I always though the Kookaburra was the best ball to use in our conditions (we moved on to using the 'Gabba' ball due to sponsorship though,,,it dies completely and the seam disappears after 15 overs, so the Kookaburra was vastly superior). Seemed to stay hard and you could always move it around, even after 50-60 overs.

Mind you, I never had to move it enough to beat these guys, and our pitches were probably a little more bowler-friendly.

Certainly, watching this test, there wasn't a lot there for the bowlers after the early swing.

[zaremba]

WRT the "psychological boost" / "momentum" business, good points have been well made in several of the above posts.

But the people who place faith in "psychological momentum" and suchlike are the players and the ex-players, who talk about it all the time as being highly significant. Are they imagining it? I find it hard to believe that they are. From my own much less vaunted experience of playing club cricket, I think that the mental state with which you enter a game is hugely important to how you perform, and your recent results play a big part in shaping that.

The fact that "momentum" doesn't always produce results pointing one way, or results that are entirely predictable, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. We can all point to teams that have bucked the psychological odds, but it's easy to overlook the examples where they didn't. It happened to England teams in the Ashes for years, as is acknowledged by all those who played on both sides. For instance the 2006/7 series, post-Adelaide, was slaughter because one team was mentally broken and the other was mentally cock-a-hoop.

Now I'm not pretending that the draw at the Gabba 2010 was comparable with the holocaust of Adelaide 2006. Except perhaps for Village Mitch who, if he plays on Friday and starts to do badly again, may well (to use an expression which some optimistic Aussies were using before the series began with regard to the English) find old scars opening up again.

And finally... I recognise that all the above might be complete crap. Any cricket fan, and any cricket player, will tell you with complete certainty that "form" exists, and that it is a powerful force, but statistical research tends to show that it may be completely illusory. Research on baseball players' "hitting streaks" has shown that they basically don't exist, but rather are a creation of our innate tendency to see patterns where none exist. Likewise someone on CW did a quick analysis a year or so ago, taking Tendulkar as a random example, showing that his score in one innings was effectively useless as a predictor of how he would score in the next. And just as "form" might be an illusory concept, so might "momentum".

[pasag]

England don't have Ashes momentum - Jonathan Trott | Cricket News | ESPN.co.uk

[Jono]

Originally Posted by zaremba

You're spot on. Neither of these teams can possibly recieve any psychological boost or blow by reason of the fact that England avoided likely defeat at Australia's favourite ground, scoring 517-1, with their top 3 all getting big runs, none of the main Aussie bowlers taking a single wicket in 2 days despite having a big lead and the ability to set attacking fields, and their lethal hard-man fast bowler looking like the only member of the Village People who wouldn't get in the village cricket team.

And more importantly, you're quite right that it's a mystery why anyone would want to offer opinions about such matters in the "First Test at the Gabba" thread.

Because all that matters is that the pitch flattened out a bit and (wow!) the Kookaburra doesn't do much after the shine wears off.

Nice sarcasm.

Nevertheless if you think the last 5 pages debating whether Ricky Ponting's 50 actually means the English are in trouble, or not, or that England gave their wickets away and actually bowled better than Australia or not, is good cricket discussion, go right ahead. I'll still laugh at it though.

Discussing whether Mitch bowled **** and why he's no longer effective is actually something worth mentioning about an Ashes test. As is Clarke's batting. But who has the psychological edge from a match like that is a horrible debate.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Jono

Nice sarcasm.

Thanks fella.

[Jono]

Nah it was genuinely good, because when I first read the post I thought you were agreeing with me

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Jono

Nah it was genuinely good, because when I first read the post I thought you were agreeing with me

Ah well, I suppose I agree with you often enough, it's only healthy that I make the odd exception.

[zaremba]

In the first Test at Lord's in 2008, South Africa began their 2nd innings well over 200 runs behind, and the top 3 Saffer batsmen scored centuries and comfortably saved the match. And South Africa then went on to win the next 2 Tests, and the series.

That's the kind of momentum I'm hoping for...

[vcs]

Originally Posted by zaremba

In the first Test at Lord's in 2008, South Africa began their 2nd innings well over 200 runs behind, and the top 3 Saffer batsmen scored centuries and comfortably saved the match. And South Africa then went on to win the next 2 Tests, and the series.

That's the kind of momentum I'm hoping for...

Nice location.

On this particular issue, I agree with Prince EWS that the sides are so evenly matched that the effects of carrying momentum over between matches is all but negligible.

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by zaremba

But the people who place faith in "psychological momentum" and suchlike are the players and the ex-players, who talk about it all the time as being highly significant. Are they imagining it? I find it hard to believe that they are. From my own much less vaunted experience of playing club cricket, I think that the mental state with which you enter a game is hugely important to how you perform, and your recent results play a big part in shaping that.

Although I've heard just as many ex-internationals say that once you're out on the pitch, none of the talk that's gone on before the game matters in the slightest. Actually I'm pretty sure I've heard Nasser Hussain use this exact phrase and directly contradict it by talking about the effect of momentum. Which supports this:

And finally... I recognise that all the above might be complete crap. Any cricket fan, and any cricket player, will tell you with complete certainty that "form" exists, and that it is a powerful force, but statistical research tends to show that it may be completely illusory. Research on baseball players' "hitting streaks" has shown that they basically don't exist, but rather are a creation of our innate tendency to see patterns where none exist. Likewise someone on CW did a quick analysis a year or so ago, taking Tendulkar as a random example, showing that his score in one innings was effectively useless as a predictor of how he would score in the next. And just as "form" might be an illusory concept, so might "momentum".

I find this quite easy to believe because it's almost exactly the type of mistake the human mind is particularly badly prone to- seeing patterns and significant causal effects in distributions that are almost completely random.

[GingerFurball]

Momentum certainly exists within a contest itself. Within the context of this series, given both England's second innings and Ponting's knock, I'd say the momentum lies with whichever side wins the toss and bats first at Adelaide. It's then down to the bowling attack to wrestle that momentum back as soon as the first ball is bowled.

[Howe_zat]

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

Momentum certainly exists within a contest itself. Within the context of this series, given both England's second innings and Ponting's knock, I'd say the momentum lies with whichever side wins the toss and bats first at Adelaide. It's then down to the bowling attack to wrestle that momentum back as soon as the first ball is bowled.

Momentum?

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

{X} certainly exists within a contest itself. Within the context of this series, given both England's second innings and Ponting's knock, I'd say the {X} lies with whichever side wins the toss and bats first at Adelaide. It's then down to the bowling attack to wrestle that {X} back as soon as the first ball is bowled.

Try any of "Form", "advantage", "strong position", etc. It's a near to meaningless word.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Howe_zat

Momentum?

Try any of "Form", "advantage", "strong position", etc. It's a near to meaningless word.

No, it certainly shades into "form" but it certainly has a meaning and a completely different meaning from "advantage" or "strong position".