Luckiest and Unluckiest batsmen

[marc71178]

And if anyone can be bothered to do that, I'd offer them my every encouragement.

Until it is done, then it renders these ratings that are already flawed as worthless.

 

[Camel56]

Nope, it's not - and given that there aren't remotely close to 1000 specialist-batsmen who've had decent length Test-careers in the last 40 years, you're wrong about that-'un again.

Nope, I got someone else to do a task which has an identical outcome.

Richo you ignorant gnome, please find me any statistician who reckons that a sample of 15 is significant. You cant can you? Thats right, you're wrong again.

 

[Son Of Coco]

True.
But the thing is if you get dropped 4 times on 0 and still score 0 your f-c and scorebook score are the same.
I've not discounted those dropped catches just because they don't matter, but nonetheless they don't affect anything.

But aren't you looking at luck? Not the effect luck has on a score....regardless of what a player scores after they are dropped they've still been lucky the same number of times.

 

[Son Of Coco]

It took long enough as it was - if it'd taken 3 times as long I'd still be doing it!

Not sure about that.
Luck might be random in where it occurs but like most random things they do tend to form patterns eventually - if you have some amount of luck in one 3-year period you'll probably have about the same amount in another.

Exactly - you need to learn your stuff - once you know how to interpret certain reporters you're laughing.
And that doesn't just apply to those that are still writing.

Once something forms a pattern it is not longer random - it becomes predictable. Luck is not quantifiable, and you cannot accurately assume that seeing as though a player has had x amount of luck from period A through period B they'll have the same amount of luck from Period C to period D. It simply will not work like that. What if that player plays a large majority of their games against poor fielding teams etc over that three year period and then plays a greater number of games against better fielding teams the next three years? What if the catches simply stick for a long period of time? You cannot say that if a player is dropped 25 times in a 3 year period there's reason to expect he'll be dropped 25 times in the three years after that, it's an impossible assumption to make. If something you've described as 'luck' does become a predictable event then there's a fair chance that it never fell within the boundaries of this variable in the first place and it being there was an error on your behalf.

As for the newspaper articles, you're interpreting what is originally something that's subject to observer bias. If you watch the dismissal yourself then it's fair enough as you can interpret each dismissal equally, however taking someone else's view on what happened and then interpreting it yourself as to whether it was a genuine dismissal or not is a bit of a double whammy.

Put it this way, with all the flaws present in your methodology when coming up with these findings if this was a published study into luck in cricket it wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Nothing's 100% random - it's almost impossible to achieve that.
The nearest you'll usually get is 80% IIRR (from my own memories of stats lessons) - so I presume that's all I got.
I'm not trying to pretend my survey was faultless in every way - same way anything else isn't.

It is very difficult yes, but there are steps you can take to make it as random as you possibly can - you haven't done this. You can't presume you achieved this level of randomness as you haven't followed any of the steps necessary to make it as foolproof as you can. You also can't throw your hands up and say "Well, nothing's perfect" when trying to present this as a valid method to assess who's lucky and who isn't, the difference being that in the case of your findings there are too many glaring errors in randomising samples etc for anything that comes out of it to be meaningful. The idea with any sort of experiment like this is to eliminate as many confounding variables as possible (imperfections if you like) and then explain how the others could have effected the data negatively. As you said, nothing is perfect, but it has to be as perfect as it can be to actually mean anything at all.

 

[Camel56]

Luck might be random in where it occurs but like most random things they do tend to form patterns eventually.

You really do have no idea do you? a series of events is random for just that reason - there is no patter to it. From dictionary.com

ran·dom ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rndm)
adj.
Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements. See Synonyms at chance.
Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely, as in the testing of a blood sample for the presence of a substance.


By its definition if something is random it has no pattern. If there was a pattern to something then it isnt random. Also, you can not possibly have chosen these 15 players totally at random. The only possible way you could have would have been to put all their names in a hat and then pick out 15 one by one without looking at their names before hand. Did you do that? I suspect not.

 

[Pinkline Jones]

Random

Yes Camel some people really are nothing but card carrying members of the Plod Squad

 

[Zinzan]

Umpire just don't like having to make the key decision to give Gilchrist LBW early on. I'm sure Vettori can sypothise with Rana.

 

[Richard]

Until it is done, then it renders these ratings that are already flawed as worthless.

In your opinion.

 

[Richard]

Umpire just don't like having to make the key decision to give Gilchrist LBW early on. I'm sure Vettori can sypothise with Rana.

Indeed.
It's something I've noticed several times.
Not just with Gilchrist, either.

 

[Richard]

But aren't you looking at luck? Not the effect luck has on a score....

I'm looking at both.
It's vital to do so.

 

[Richard]

Richo you ignorant gnome, please find me any statistician who reckons that a sample of 15 is significant.

Depending on the size of the overall sample (the size of the same I've used, for instance), easy enough.

You cant can you? Thats right, you're wrong again.

Wrong again, eh?
Sorry, dumbaess, you've been defeated on every turn and now you've been banned - let us hope it will become perminant.

 

[Richard]

You really do have no idea do you? a series of events is random for just that reason - there is no patter to it. From dictionary.com

ran·dom ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rndm)
adj.
Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements. See Synonyms at chance.
Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely, as in the testing of a blood sample for the presence of a substance.


By its definition if something is random it has no pattern. If there was a pattern to something then it isnt random. Also, you can not possibly have chosen these 15 players totally at random. The only possible way you could have would have been to put all their names in a hat and then pick out 15 one by one without looking at their names before hand. Did you do that? I suspect not.

No, it's just the only one you in your rather limited mind can think of.
There are all sorts of ways of random-selection.
If you actually took some notice of the matter, meanwhile, you might notice that the only random part of the matter was the selection - there the randomness ended and identification of patterns began.

 

[Richard]

It is very difficult yes, but there are steps you can take to make it as random as you possibly can - you haven't done this. You can't presume you achieved this level of randomness as you haven't followed any of the steps necessary to make it as foolproof as you can. You also can't throw your hands up and say "Well, nothing's perfect" when trying to present this as a valid method to assess who's lucky and who isn't, the difference being that in the case of your findings there are too many glaring errors in randomising samples etc for anything that comes out of it to be meaningful. The idea with any sort of experiment like this is to eliminate as many confounding variables as possible (imperfections if you like) and then explain how the others could have effected the data negatively. As you said, nothing is perfect, but it has to be as perfect as it can be to actually mean anything at all.

There is never a study which cannot be improved.
In anything, in fact, you can look at it and work-out how it could be made better.
You cannot point-out the flaws in mine and say therefore it's meaningless. And no, I'm not going to do the thing all over again, it took me long enough last time. Even if I did, as I say, there would still be things that could be done better.

 

[Richard]

Once something forms a pattern it is not longer random - it becomes predictable. Luck is not quantifiable, and you cannot accurately assume that seeing as though a player has had x amount of luck from period A through period B they'll have the same amount of luck from Period C to period D. It simply will not work like that. What if that player plays a large majority of their games against poor fielding teams etc over that three year period and then plays a greater number of games against better fielding teams the next three years? What if the catches simply stick for a long period of time? You cannot say that if a player is dropped 25 times in a 3 year period there's reason to expect he'll be dropped 25 times in the three years after that, it's an impossible assumption to make. If something you've described as 'luck' does become a predictable event then there's a fair chance that it never fell within the boundaries of this variable in the first place and it being there was an error on your behalf.

No - it is not perfect.
If you wanted to achieve anything close to that you'd have to look at every reasonable-length career from about 1960 onwards (the earliest date that it'd really be possible).
And that'd take a year or so - of doing nothing but the study.
Something no-one, ever, would be prepared to undertake.

As for the newspaper articles, you're interpreting what is originally something that's subject to observer bias. If you watch the dismissal yourself then it's fair enough as you can interpret each dismissal equally, however taking someone else's view on what happened and then interpreting it yourself as to whether it was a genuine dismissal or not is a bit of a double whammy.

Look, I don't think you quite understand.
I have looked at different people, different interpretations of different dismissals, and compared them with my own - then I have formed an idea of what forms comparable descriptions.
And I've put that to use in this sort of study.

Put it this way, with all the flaws present in your methodology when coming up with these findings if this was a published study into luck in cricket it wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on.

I wouldn't dream of saying it was - if I truly were asked to do something for such a prestigious purpose, I'd look at entire careers, regardless of how long it took. It'd be more than worth it.

 

[marc71178]

In your opinion.

Except it's far from just mine.

 

[Richard]

Really?
How many people have, like you, been willing to totally write the thing off (out of those I've spoken to about it).
I'd say Neil, Rich and SOC, really (plus a few other less regular correspondants). Even they've normally been willing to discuss it in a rather more grown-up way than you.

 

[marc71178]

When I've tried to discuss the flaws you've dismissed them in spite of several people making the same point...

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Come on children. Let's not toss the toys around the play pen.

 

[Richard]

When I've tried to discuss the flaws you've dismissed them in spite of several people making the same point...

I've done nothing of the sort, I've talked them down - the same way you've tried talking them up.