Dire Times Ahead For England

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Also being dropped is bad play not bad luck.

Having a batsman dropped is bad luck... for the bowler.

 

[Richard]

But the batsman is surely still very lucky, because a few inches the other way and he is gone. It is not a smaller piece of luck

He's done well enough to avoid getting out. When getting a let-off, he has not got out through no skill of his own.

 

[Richard]

No such thing as luck Gents. Everyone has their good and bad breaks...it is the superior player who capitalizes on his good ones.

Football managers and bad gamblers are always talking of bad luck...they NEVER mention their good luck. To use an example people tend to lose in Casinos because the house has the % advantage...luck doesn't come into it...%s are all that matter and if you are the right side of them then you will profit in the long-term.

Better players score more runs because they are better players...its that simple.

No, it is the superior player who doesn't need good breaks to score runs.
Somone averaging 40 will almost certainly be a better player than someone averaging 30. However, someone averaging 40 will not neccesarily be better than someone averagin 38.
A decent average will take into account all good and bad luck, so if you just remember the circumstances surrounding dismissal and should-be-dismissal you will get an exact summary of who is better than who, exact to as many decimal-places as you want.

 

[Richard]

I agree Nass got some shockers but this was followed by a ton vs Sri Lanka when he should have been given out 4 times, mostly to bat/pads if I remember right. Swings & Roundabouts.

Also being dropped is bad play not bad luck. How many times does Butcher drop catches? Why on earth does he field where he does? When he was put in the covers for the Oval test this year he was impressive. When he is in the cordon he is nothing short of a disgrace...made even worse by having that stupid grin on his mug after he has spilled another . If I was a bowler I would insist on him not fielding there.

So what? Being dropped is bad play on the part of the fielder, good luck on the part of the batsman.
Nasser was out twice, in fact, in the century at Kandy, bat-pads to Muralitharan, one in the 50s and one in the 60s.

 

[Richard]

Having a batsman dropped is bad luck... for the bowler.

Only if it was off a wicket-taking ball.
If it wasn't it's just poetic justice. A ball that didn't deserve a wicket didn't get one. Just the same as if it had been left to the 'keeper or blocked into the ground.

 

[Tom Halsey]

No such thing as luck Gents. Everyone has their good and bad breaks...it is the superior player who capitalizes on his good ones.

Football managers and bad gamblers are always talking of bad luck...they NEVER mention their good luck. To use an example people tend to lose in Casinos because the house has the % advantage...luck doesn't come into it...%s are all that matter and if you are the right side of them then you will profit in the long-term.

Better players score more runs because they are better players...its that simple.

This is exactly what I am saying, it evens out, but Richard keeps contradicting himself, first he says it evens out, then he says some batsmen are luckier than others.

 

[Richard]

No, I do NOT keep contradicting myself.
Certainly one thing that is not true is that "it evens itself out". Because if you think about it, inside-edges are irrelevant to this notion anyway, because it's ALL about good luck. The fact that most batsmen inside-edge past the stumps about the same, and far more often than they edge onto the stumps, has no reflection on "it evens itself out".
And anyway, as I have recently stated and you have totally ignored, I am not talking about small slices of luck like inside-edges when I dispel the "it evens itself out" notion, because the batsman has done well enough to avoid dismissal when inside-edging past the stumps. When being dropped, missed stumped or lbw, the avoidance of dismissal represents no credit to the batsman at all, hence they are very lucky.
In terms of real luck, it is not true that bad luck (bad Umpiring decisions giving you out when you're not, run-outs where it's not your fault) evens-out good over a career; most batsmen get dropped, missed stumped or lbw more than they get sawn-off through no fault of theirs. And inevitably, because there are so many batsmen and so many games, it's going to be different for everyone. Hence I place high value on the first-chance and all-chance averages, because they take all of this out of the equation and simply give an assesment of runs which the batsman has scored without getting out, which, it seems to me, is the point of batting.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Anf you ignored my statement that the batsman is still very lucky as it had about a one in 3 chance of hitting the stumps. I agree that a drop is usually a bigger slice of luck, but not always. There are such a thing as hard chances. :P

 

[Richard]

If you want you can actually work-out a formula for the chance of an inside-edge hitting the stumps (remember an inside-edge doesn't have to go behind the wicket).
I'm no mathematician but I'll bet it's far in excess of 1 in 3. Think: area of a cricket-ball; area occupied by a potential inside-edge (you'd need to look at the distance from bat to stumps, the number of degrees occupied in the area of stumps and ball); and area occupied by stumps.
Someone who's done A-level maths, please take-up the challenge.
As for the "hard chance" thing, don't get me started. The word "chance" is bandied-about far too often. For instance, it was said that Butcher dropped Jayawardene at gully in The Third Test. What rubbish. There was never a cat in hell's chance that anyone was going to catch that ball. It wasn't a hard chance, it simply wasn't a chance.
There are easy chances, there are sitters and there are tough chances. But a tough chance is something like the one taken by Andrew Hall to get Sanford, and the one dropped by Giles off Flintoff with Jayawardene on the hook in the same game as above.
A chance is something that should be out; it is not something that touches a fielder. Ie if someone slams the ball into a short-leg, that's not a chance either.

 

[marc71178]

A chance is something that should be out; it is not something that touches a fielder. Ie if someone slams the ball into a short-leg, that's not a chance either.

But if Short Leg holds it, it's out, so therefore there was a chance of a wicket there.

 

[Tom Halsey]

It varies for different batsmen. A batman with a good technique will ardly ever hit the stumps with an inside edge, because the bat is near the pad. A batsman with a bad technique will hit the stumps far more often. But that doesn't make him a bad batsman. He might have a brilliant eye, or something. Or he might have brilliant timing. Or he might be powerful. All meaning he will probably get his runs quickly, then get out.

 

[Richard]

But if Short Leg holds it, it's out, so therefore there was a chance of a wicket there.

No, short-leg is never going to hold something that is hammered from 2 yards away. Maybe it'll bounce up or get stuck somewhere, but he is not going to catch it without good fortune.
There is a chance of a wicket anywhere; there is a realistic chance of a wicket only under certain circumstances. If there is no realistic chance of a wicket, nothing can ever be correctly called a chance.

 

[Tom Halsey]

I agree, but I never even mentionedshort square leg in my arguement. :P

 

[Richard]

It varies for different batsmen. A batman with a good technique will ardly ever hit the stumps with an inside edge, because the bat is near the pad. A batsman with a bad technique will hit the stumps far more often. But that doesn't make him a bad batsman. He might have a brilliant eye, or something. Or he might have brilliant timing. Or he might be powerful. All meaning he will probably get his runs quickly, then get out.

Jayasuriya drags-on a hell of a lot more than most people. But he gets more inside-edges than most people.
The inside-edge:drag-on ratio remains constant, no matter how good or bad the technique or the number of runs scored per inside-edge.

 

[iamdavid]

It varies for different batsmen. A batman with a good technique will ardly ever hit the stumps with an inside edge, because the bat is near the pad. A batsman with a bad technique will hit the stumps far more often. But that doesn't make him a bad batsman. He might have a brilliant eye, or something. Or he might have brilliant timing. Or he might be powerful. All meaning he will probably get his runs quickly, then get out.

Ponting gets out choping on more than most , are you disputing his abilities :wow: .

Particularly in last year's Ashes series he chopped on 3 or 4 times off Craig White , occasionaly the ball gets on to him a tad quicker than he expects & he'll get caught on the crease , the result being an edge onto the timber.

 

[Tom Halsey]

No, if you play with the bat away from the body, your ratio will be higher, because the pad isn't in the way. If your bat is close to your pad, it usually goes on to the pad, mostly not out, apart from the odd bat pad catch.

 

[Richard]

Ponting gets out choping on more than most , are you disputing his abilities :wow: .

Particularly in last year's Ashes series he chopped on 3 or 4 times off Craig White , occasionaly the ball gets on to him a tad quicker than he expects & he'll get caught on the crease , the result being an edge onto the timber.

Chalky is a very good exponent of inside-edges from right-handers, whether to the 'keeper or the stumps, because he's a natural inswing-to-the-right-hander bowler and a trifle quicker than he looks. He also uses the crease very well.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Ponting gets out choping on more than most , are you disputing his abilities :wow: .

Particularly in last year's Ashes series he chopped on 3 or 4 times off Craig White , occasionaly the ball gets on to him a tad quicker than he expects & he'll get caught on the crease , the result being an edge onto the timber.

Ponting doesn't have a great technique, but he has such a good eye, and he is pretty powerful, too, so it doesn't matter. Ponting has easily been the best batsman of 2003.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Chalky is a very good exponent of inside-edges from right-handers, whether to the 'keeper or the stumps, because he's a natural inswing-to-the-right-hander bowler and a trifle quicker than he looks. He also uses the crease very well.

Exactly right. Very underestimated all-rounder.

 

[marc71178]

No, short-leg is never going to hold something that is hammered from 2 yards away. Maybe it'll bounce up or get stuck somewhere, but he is not going to catch it without good fortune.

Good fortune or not, it is still a wicket, therefore a ball hit at the short leg is a chance.