Richard's First Chance Average theory

[greg]

Is it just a coincidence that all these players are atacking batsmen that go at the ball hard? i think not, when you play like that you are bound to take more risks and it may apear as a result you apear to get mor luck

The reality of cricket is that dropped catches are an inevitable part of the game, with a perhaps surprisingly large percentage put down. Saying a player is luckier because he has a greater number of catches dropped off his batting ignores this fact.

If on average 30% of 'chances' are dropped then you could just as well argue that any batsman who survives more than 70% of the chances offered is a 'lucky' player, whereas one who survives less is unlucky. Richard's theory (the more chances dropped the luckier the player) assumes that the figure above (30%) is 0%.

NB: outside the world of averages, there is no doubt that individual innings can be described as lucky or unlucky, based on chances offered and many other factors.

 

[honestbharani]

Without reading most of the posts in this thread, my own opinion on this issue is this:


I am opposed to the first chance rule as such. What I do like though, is, if we were once able to establish what constitutes a "real" chance, divide the runs made by the batsman and the chances he has given. For instance, there were 3 clear chances in SEhwag's 309. So, that helps in establishing how good he is, the fact that he didn't make so many runs without giving a chance. Compare this with Lara, who gave 0 chances on his way to 400*. So, it is an useful way of comparing individual innings. Beyond that, though, I don't think it is too useful. If the fielders are not good enough to take a catch, it is the same as a batsman not being able to play a shot to make use of a loose delivery, or a bowler not being able to bowl the right line and length to make use of the batsman's weakness. In other words, it is their problem, not the batsman's.

 

[honestbharani]

LOL.

What a post though! Obviously won't be the last word on the subject, but it's likely the definitive word on the subject.

I concur.

 

[greg]

Without reading most of the posts in this thread, my own opinion on this issue is this:


I am opposed to the first chance rule as such. What I do like though, is, if we were once able to establish what constitutes a "real" chance, divide the runs made by the batsman and the chances he has given. For instance, there were 3 clear chances in SEhwag's 309. So, that helps in establishing how good he is, the fact that he didn't make so many runs without giving a chance. Compare this with Lara, who gave 0 chances on his way to 400*. So, it is an useful way of comparing individual innings. Beyond that, though, I don't think it is too useful. If the fielders are not good enough to take a catch, it is the same as a batsman not being able to play a shot to make use of a loose delivery, or a bowler not being able to bowl the right line and length to make use of the batsman's weakness. In other words, it is their problem, not the batsman's.

Nah. Every English fan will tell you he was caught behind on nought

 

[honestbharani]

Nah. Every English fan will tell you he was caught behind on nought

But he wasn't. David Gower and the rest of the commentary team said that they weren't sure even after those 17 replays. He mentioned the exact same words to Darrell Hair in an interview and congratulated him for getting it right and allowing the world record to happen.

 

[greg]

But he wasn't. David Gower and the rest of the commentary team said that they weren't sure even after those 17 replays. He mentioned the exact same words to Darrell Hair in an interview and congratulated him for getting it right and allowing the world record to happen.

Who did? David Gower or Brian Lara?

 

[Eclipse]

Richard wouldn't a better average to guage a batsman be average runs per chance given?

 

[Isolator]

There are batsmen who drive uppishly, mistimed mind you and not intentional, bang between the fielders at cover and point and get boundaries while Harsha Bhogle screams "shot to die for"

Muahahaha, classic.

 

[Hit4Six]

batsmen are crap unless they make their runs on a wearing fifth day pitch against a bowling line up including murali, warne, mcgrath, ambrose, lillee and wasim. It must be a not out, the knock should not have a single chance in the entire innings all shots must be beautiful drives along the ground, no incorrct lbw decisions, no plays and misses and no run out chances.

 

[Pratters]

.

Thought the theory was Hit4six when I saw that name next to the thread

 

[marc71178]

Richard wouldn't a better average to guage a batsman be average runs per chance given?

It still adds in a factor that allows for opinion.

 

[sledger]

very few realise that from the perspective of the batsman's ability there is no difference between a chance that is dropped and one that is caught.

10 years on and people still don't seem to realise this.

 

[Shri]

Go ahead and create robots who can bowl like you would like them to too then. Because even bowlers bowl poorly and had it not been for the poor balls, the batsmen would have scored less.

Most improved poster on cw.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Richard was always right in that this was a pretty decent idea (though you really need to account for more variables than he ever did), he just had no idea how to interact with human beings properly and had no bit of compromise in him, so it just destroyed CC for years while he butted heads with other equally stubborn people who couldn't see shades of grey.

In unrelated news, I forgot about Shounak. Gun poster.

 

[Prince EWS]

My biggest gripe with it was that he never actually calculated it for context. He'd just, every so often, come out with a FCA average statistic for a player over a short period. This was always a player he'd already decided he didn't rate. No-one actually knew what a 'good' FCA or a 'bad' FCA was because we had no point of reference; it really just came across as if it was a thin veil he'd created to justify his biases. Whether it was or not is not something I'm privy to, but that's why it grated some people. That and the fact that it just took over every thread.

 

[GIMH]

My biggest gripe with it was that he never actually calculated it for context. He'd just, every so often, come out with a FCA average statistic for a player over a short period. This was always a player he'd already decided he didn't rate. No-one actually knew what a 'good' FCA or a 'bad' FCA was because we had no point of reference; it really just came across as it was a thin veil he'd created to justify his biases. Whether it was or not is not something I'm privy to, but that's why it grated some people. That and the fact that it just took over every thread.

He did it for Trescothick I believe. It's linked from the fifty thread of OS's if you want to find it.

Point stands nonetheless because doing the stat for one player only achieves nothing, but.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Yeah I mean that's the crux of the issue, it'd be very interesting to actually see what a good or bad FCA was but absolutely impossible to ever calculate, at least for anything before the modern age where live commentaries and full videos of games don't exist.

 

[Prince EWS]

He did it for Trescothick I believe. It's linked from the fifty thread of OS's if you want to find it.

Point stands nonetheless because doing the stat for one player only achieves nothing, but.

Yeah, he did it for Trescothick because he didn't rate him. But he didn't do any context calculations so we had no idea what Trescothick's FCA meant. Trescothick might have actually had the best FCA of all time for all we knew; he wanted us to compare it to other players' scorecard averages which was absurd.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, he it for Trescothick because he didn't rate him. But he didn't do any context calculations so we had no idea what Trescothick's FCA meant. Trescothick might have actually had the best FCA of all time for all we knew; he wanted us to compare it to other players' scorecard averages which was absurd.

Aye. It proved that Trescothick lost 10-15 from his average but what else?

My other problems were:

- he didn't believe in half chances
- he counted no-ball wickets as out in terms of FCA, as in if a bowler overstepped and then bowled the batsman, he considered it out

I mean there were other flaws but he at least had counterpoints for them. These two though were never justifiably answered for me.

 

[Bahnz]

I have problems with FCA though as it assumes a hypothetical scenario, but then treats the rest of the match plays out as if that scenario had never happened. For instance, if a guy is dropped on 5 and goes on to make a big hundred (say 150 out of 350), then in his second innings he would likely to come out and bat in completely different circumstances to what he would've encountered if he'd been dismissed on 5. I guess it's not a big deal for drops that occur in the second innings of a match, but it does muddy things.