The England Thread

[Richard]

Rubbish. If Loye does 'well' it's the difference between getting 260 and 265-270. When he does nothing again *if* we avoid getting bowled out we might get 250.

Ignore-list material, I'd say...

 

[albo97056]

I "seem to have it in" for a lot of people according to you...

You see plenty of perfectly good innings where batsmen make runs without let-offs - otherwise a faultless catching display (which occurs often enough) would always result in a low score.

I don't appreciate anything where let-offs were involved, because it's not been accumulated through the batsman's own skill, just the ineptitude of the fielders. Of course it's nowhere near the equal of an innings which has been played without let-offs.

As for who would I prefer - I'd prefer someone that's going to make 30s than someone who's going to give a chance in single-figures - because 90%+ of the time that chance will be taken. You can't just presume that someone's always going to get let-offs, because mostly they don't. Usually, if you give a chance, you're out. And I want batsmen that are going to score runs, not those that are going to get out cheaply.

For every chance given away there will be a dodgy decision or generally a wicket that wasnt the batsmens fault (like a shooter or one that pops up). Batmsmen who ride this luck and get centuries when it matters are better players than those who dont. You cant dispute that every player has some good luck and some bad. If you dont hold it against a player when he gets out unluckily, how can you hold it against him when he gets runs luckily!??
Thats being very inconsistent surely!

 

[Richard]

For every chance given away there will be a dodgy decision or generally a wicket that wasnt the batsmens fault (like a shooter or one that pops up).

That's absolute nonsense, quite aside from the fact that there's no certain way to say what was a RUD (realistically unplayable delivery for those who don't know that-'un), almost every batsman has far more good luck than bad throughout a career, and each person will have differing amounts.

Batmsmen who ride this luck and get centuries when it matters are better players than those who dont. You cant dispute that every player has some good luck and some bad. If you dont hold it against a player when he gets out unluckily, how can you hold it against him when he gets runs luckily!??
Thats being very inconsistent surely!

No, I do nothing of the sort. You may have noticed how I've been banging-on quite a bit about how Strauss wasn't actually anywhere near as poor in The Ashes as most think, because he got 3 bad decisions in a row.

 

[albo97056]

That's absolute nonsense, quite aside from the fact that there's no certain way to say what was a RUD (realistically unplayable delivery for those who don't know that-'un), almost every batsman has far more good luck than bad throughout a career, and each person will have differing amounts.

No, I do nothing of the sort. You may have noticed how I've been banging-on quite a bit about how Strauss wasn't actually anywhere near as poor in The Ashes as most think, because he got 3 bad decisions in a row.

You obviously know nothing of statistics. While it may be the case that there is more good luck than bad, the percentage of good to bad will be the same for all players. This is indisputable as everything averages out eventually.
If you are indeed using the correct definition of luck (which refers to completely random events - otherwise there must be some sort of skill or bias involved) then its just like tossing a coin, the more times you toss the more even the eventual result has to be. Ok as you say it may be weighted in ones favour, but it HAS to be even between players for it to be given the term luck. That is definition you cant dispute it! If there are say a million decisions of this nature in a career, the chances of it being just say 10% out are absolutely astronomical!
There may of course be some element of skill or bias involved due to umpires giving decisions on reputation etc, but thats not luck and certainly wouldnt skew the results greatly.
I really cant wait to see what you say to this. Youve dug yourself into a hole here

 

[Richard]

Not really: good-luck is a pretty straightforward thing: it's something which benefits the recipient without them having done anything to be credited for what they've received.

And to suggest that every batsman has to be equal because of the laws of probability is utterly absurd. Toss 40 different coins 100 times (equivalent of 100 visits to the crease for 40 different batsmen) and the chances of it landing heads or tails the same each time are precisely zero (or probably 0.0004% or something). And that's before we even consider that the toss of a coin is not comparable to batting luck, because that's a straightforward two-option case, let-offs aren't "you have 1 or you have 0", you can have innings' where you have no let-offs and those where you have 4.

It's utter nonsense to suggest that every batsman has the same amount of luck as the next one over a career - or to suggest that the good and the bad even each other out. Anyone who's studied the situation, rather than looking at unrelated probability laws, will realise that.

 

[albo97056]

Not really: good-luck is a pretty straightforward thing: it's something which benefits the recipient without them having done anything to be credited for what they've received.

And to suggest that every batsman has to be equal because of the laws of probability is utterly absurd. Toss 40 different coins 100 times (equivalent of 100 visits to the crease for 40 different batsmen) and the chances of it landing heads or tails the same each time are precisely zero (or probably 0.0004% or something). And that's before we even consider that the toss of a coin is not comparable to batting luck, because that's a straightforward two-option case, let-offs aren't "you have 1 or you have 0", you can have innings' where you have no let-offs and those where you have 4.

It's utter nonsense to suggest that every batsman has the same amount of luck as the next one over a career - or to suggest that the good and the bad even each other out. Anyone who's studied the situation, rather than looking at unrelated probability laws, will realise that.

Im afraid everything youve just said contradicts mathmatical theory involving probability. I do know a bit about this, i did stats alevel and my degree involves quite a bit of stats too.
Over a short period like 2 innings, chances are one batsmen will be more lucky than another. Once you play about a years worth of games it will all draw together quite closely. It follows a normal distribution, which is bell shaped. As you move further away from the mean (which lets say in this case is 2 pieces of good luck to 1 bad - doesnt really matter, you can say whatever) the chances of a batsmen having that amount of luck decreases. The more instances you add to the sample, the more perfect it will become. If you call the phenomenon of drops and edges etc LUCK then it has to follow this normal distribution. There is no argument here, its stone cold fact. Doesnt matter what ratios you put on good luck to bad. Its actually a very simple example of this, much like the coin toss.
This is certainly not unrelated, any mathmatician will tell you this. Luck has to follow this phenomenon, unless youd like to call this case something other than luck?

 

[Richard]

Cricket - and dropped catches - is not something which follows any mathematical theory. What you're saying about "luck has to follow X pattern" makes precisely no sense whatsoever.

Seriously - carry-out a sample. If you pick, for example, 5 batsmen with decent-length careers there's no way on Earth they'll have had an idential net-result (ie let-offs - sawn-offs) luck. Obviously, the more you add to the sample the less each case will affect the cumulative, but to suggest that every batsman with a decent-length career will have had the same net luck is so utterly ludicrous I struggle to believe someone is suggesting it.

 

[albo97056]

Cricket - and dropped catches - is not something which follows any mathematical theory. What you're saying about "luck has to follow X pattern" makes precisely no sense whatsoever.

Seriously - carry-out a sample. If you pick, for example, 5 batsmen with decent-length careers there's no way on Earth they'll have had an idential net-result (ie let-offs - sawn-offs) luck. Obviously, the more you add to the sample the less each case will affect the cumulative, but to suggest that every batsman with a decent-length career will have had the same net luck is so utterly ludicrous I struggle to believe someone is suggesting it.

They obviously wont be axactly the same, but the more you add to a sample the lower the standard deviation becomes, until it reaches a point of saturation. There will be a variance of a few percent after an entire career. Luck DOES have to folow a pattern, thats why its called luck, it has to be completely random. UNLESS ITS NOT LUCK, but you continue to call it that, so i will too. It always averages out to a mean value in the end, unless you wish to dispute the few % either way due to natural variability.

Talk about obstinate! You can argue over who does what and how the game should be played etc ec, but this is one arguement there is no way you can argue it. Go read a maths text book....

 

[Richard]

Random = something which follows no pattern.

Luck = random.

Luck = something which has no gurantee of anything, in any way, shape or form. There is no way of predicting it, there is no way of influencing it. No two cases of batsmen will be the same. Therefore, you cannot simply dismiss a let-off as "everyone has them". That's simply not good enough.

I couldn't care less what the mean and s.D are for batsmen and let-offs. Neither figure is remotely relevant. Each case should be treated independent of all others.

 

[albo97056]

What standard of maths have you reached? Im intrigued.

Randomness doesnt follow a pattern, but it will always even out over time, its from this that we base things such as radiocarbon dating. The emission of radiation is completely random, but if it didnt follow that it evened itself out over time then half life would not be relavent. It is only incredibly accurate because of the millions of decays that occur over time, just like millions of chances will even out in cricket.
It would be very intresting to look at this over a career, unfortunately i doubt anyone has any data on chances given etc, so its not gonna happen. Things such as umpire bias could well affect the results, depending on them favouring different styles of play etc.. but this is not random so it cant be lucky if this is important factor.

I like the way when something completely factual gets in the way of your argument you just start saying "I dont care", it shows you have no intrest in what the answer to the question is, just so long as you stubbornly maintain you are right, whatever is thrown back at you.
There is absolutely no point in disscussing it futher if you simply ignore things because of convienience, anybody can make a good argument if you ignore things that dont fit.

 

[Richard]

I couldn't care less because they are not relevant to what I'm saying, whether they're factual information or not.

The comparison you are trying to make is wrong. Let-offs and sawn-offs will not come out to a 50:50 ratio. Never, not a cat in hell's chance, over a long career. Yes, you could indeed, if you studied the matter, construct a ratio of what the average batsman's let-off:sawn-off ratio was. Even that, of course, would mean precisely nothing. The whole point of the coin-toss excercise is that there are just 2 options: one side or the other. Hence, the more you do the experiment, the more the ratio will home-in on 50:50. But let-offs and saw-offs aren't like that, there are too many factors that influence them. For instance, you could construct a ratio in 1902 and it might be 72:28; while you could do the same in 1903 and it might be 58:62. Whereas if you tossed the coin the same number of times (say the batsmen in question played 1000 innings in each year), it'd be close to 50:50 on both occasions.

Even if you did construct a ratio, also, it would have no meaning as to predicting the future, either immidiately or more long-term. The whole point of the coin excercise is that the 50\50 chance never changes, every time you flip the coin it's always a 50\50 chance which way it's going to land. An innings and a flip of the coin aren't comparable - you can, for instance, only get one saw-off in an innings, whereas there's no limit to the number of let-offs.

What's more accurate is to compare each coin-flip to each career - and even then it'd tell you nothing. Just because the mean let-off:saw-off ratio in Test-cricket history might be 69:31, it doesn't tell you a thing about what the batsman who's just starting his career is likely to experience. Not a thing. He could completely defy the thing - in either direction. Marcus Trescothick, for instance, must've had 60 or 70 let-offs in his career, and I struggle to think of 5 times he's been sawn-off. Equally, Andrew Flintoff can't have had more than 10 let-offs, and must have had nearly that many saw-offs. Treating those 2 cases as the same just because "luck evens itself out in all cases" would be so stupid it'd defy belief.

The fact that you could make a mean of those two and they'd "balance-out" each other (would still result in let-offs vastly exceeding saw-offs) doesn't mean a thing, either. There are many who don't experience such extremes, but still have far more good luck than bad in a career.

I really don't know that I can make it any clearer than that.

 

[albo97056]

I couldn't care less because they are not relevant to what I'm saying, whether they're factual information or not.

The comparison you are trying to make is wrong. Let-offs and sawn-offs will not come out to a 50:50 ratio. Never, not a cat in hell's chance, over a long career. Yes, you could indeed, if you studied the matter, construct a ratio of what the average batsman's let-off:sawn-off ratio was. Even that, of course, would mean precisely nothing. The whole point of the coin-toss excercise is that there are just 2 options: one side or the other. Hence, the more you do the experiment, the more the ratio will home-in on 50:50. But let-offs and saw-offs aren't like that, there are too many factors that influence them. For instance, you could construct a ratio in 1902 and it might be 72:28; while you could do the same in 1903 and it might be 58:62. Whereas if you tossed the coin the same number of times (say the batsmen in question played 1000 innings in each year), it'd be close to 50:50 on both occasions.

The 50 50 ratio doesnt matter.
It also doesnt matter which things constru to create the ratio. You could have 100 different things to make up the let offs and just 1 for the sawn offs and it wouldnt matter. Time may well have an effect, but we are talking about comparing 1 career of today to another of today, you never said anything about 1902 (of which thered be no data anyway). You yourself have already said in previous posts that it is useless to compare careers over different eras, so why should this be any different. Im talking about one time period here.

Even if you did construct a ratio, also, it would have no meaning as to predicting the future, either immidiately or more long-term. The whole point of the coin excercise is that the 50\50 chance never changes, every time you flip the coin it's always a 50\50 chance which way it's going to land. An innings and a flip of the coin aren't comparable - you can, for instance, only get one saw-off in an innings, whereas there's no limit to the number of let-offs.

What's more accurate is to compare each coin-flip to each career - and even then it'd tell you nothing. Just because the mean let-off:saw-off ratio in Test-cricket history might be 69:31, it doesn't tell you a thing about what the batsman who's just starting his career is likely to experience. Not a thing. He could completely defy the thing - in either direction. Marcus Trescothick, for instance, must've had 60 or 70 let-offs in his career, and I struggle to think of 5 times he's been sawn-off. Equally, Andrew Flintoff can't have had more than 10 let-offs, and must have had nearly that many saw-offs. Treating those 2 cases as the same just because "luck evens itself out in all cases" would be so stupid it'd defy belief.

Where the hell did i say you could predeict the future? This is the same as looking at the past. The game has changed since then and therefore so has the ratio in all likelyhood. The ratio will be the same for players of any 1 generation however. Im afraid im not going to trust a biased source (ie your head), as to what a players ratio is. I very much doubt you can remember hundreds of examples just like that. You are just making up figures to fuel your argument.

The fact that you could make a mean of those two and they'd "balance-out" each other (would still result in let-offs vastly exceeding saw-offs) doesn't mean a thing, either. There are many who don't experience such extremes, but still have far more good luck than bad in a career.

I really don't know that I can make it any clearer than that.

Again, give me some evidence of this strange extremely lucky people and and unlucky people with actual figures and it might show that there is some bias towards certain styles of play, but that would not be "luck"

You continue to use the word luck, if there is indeed an inbalance between players, then luck has nothing to do with it. It is a biased situation, where one player is favoured. THIS IS NOT LUCK. Kindly refrain from calling it this if you wish to continue saying that one player is biased in his decisions, catches etc...

 

[Richard]

The 50 50 ratio doesnt matter.
It also doesnt matter which things constru to create the ratio. You could have 100 different things to make up the let offs and just 1 for the sawn offs and it wouldnt matter. Time may well have an effect, but we are talking about comparing 1 career of today to another of today, you never said anything about 1902 (of which thered be no data anyway). You yourself have already said in previous posts that it is useless to compare careers over different eras, so why should this be any different. Im talking about one time period here.

The 1902, 1903 thing was simply plucked from air. It could just as easily have been 1992 and 1993. Which, for all intents and purposes, is no different. But season-to-season the amount of catches dropped can change hugely.

Where the hell did i say you could predeict the future? This is the same as looking at the past. The game has changed since then and therefore so has the ratio in all likelyhood. The ratio will be the same for players of any 1 generation however. Im afraid im not going to trust a biased source (ie your head), as to what a players ratio is. I very much doubt you can remember hundreds of examples just like that. You are just making up figures to fuel your argument.

I'm not, you just don't like the fact that I've taken account of these things, because it disproves what you, for some extremely bizarre reason, seem to think. No-one else in my entire time of talking about this, to hundreds of people, has made such a claim. There is no reason whatsoever that the ratio would be the same for 2 players of the same generation. Let-offs and saw-offs are not stratified, they're random. There's no reason at all to assume that each case is going to be the same or even, in some, remotely similar. There are going to be cases which differ wildly.

Again, give me some evidence of this strange extremely lucky people and and unlucky people with actual figures

I have - but you mistrusted it because it didn't fit your idea.

and it might show that there is some bias towards certain styles of play, but that would not be "luck"

You continue to use the word luck, if there is indeed an inbalance between players, then luck has nothing to do with it. It is a biased situation, where one player is favoured. THIS IS NOT LUCK. Kindly refrain from calling it this if you wish to continue saying that one player is biased in his decisions, catches etc...

You seem to misunderstand the definitions. Bias has to come from someone or something. Dropped catches etc. don't. They're just coincidence. Luck comes in differing amounts to different players. Luck is not uniform. "Kindly stop calling it so". Anyone who knows anything about cricket knows that different players will have different amounts of luck over short and long periods.

You're seriously saying that if someone plays 10 innings and is dropped 6 times, and someone else plays 10 innings at the same sort of time being dropped once, that one has not been luckier than the other? That there's some sort of bias involved from someone somewhere? Someone's deliberately dropping catches?

Such a notion is completely and utterly stupid - there's no other way to describe it.

 

[aussie]

Well Loye innings earlier this morning even though it wasn't a huge innings further proves why i think he should be partnering Joyce at the top in the world cup since they have the potential based on their contrasting battings styles to be a really good opening combination for the world cup.

Which means Strauss who has been fairly average in ODI's has to go to the bench & Bell unfortunately even though i really think he can end up having a good ODI career (he can easily come into the top or middle order if one of Joyce/Loye fails intially or Vaughan gets injured again) since when Vaughan comes back he will play.

So the starting XI IMO should be:

Joyce
Loye
Vaughan
KP
Collingwood
Freddie
JD
Nixon
Plunks/Panesar - based on pitch conditions
Lewis
Anderson

 

[Scaly piscine]

Loye's done nowt, even when he's hitting boundaries he's still scoring no quicker than anyone else. I'd be tempted to play Strauss instead of Dalrymple, KP can bowl spin and maybe Vaughan - dunno what the situation is with him. Bowlers would be Plunkett, Anderson and probably Lewis. Plunkett and Anderson must play based on what they've just done. Lewis would be just as effective at keeping runs down as Panesar and would take more wickets when the conditions suit.

 

[aussie]

Just going to pretend i didn't hear your comment on Loye, but your idea of playing another batsman (has to be Bell over Straus BTW) instead of Dalrymple & depending on KP & Vaughan once fit to bowl some off-spinners isn't such a bad idea.

My only worry is that a top order of Joyce/Loye/Vaughan/Bell looks a bit too classy for ODI's & depending on KP & Vaughan as the 6th bowler is a bit dangerous since Vaughan bowling is probably not as decent as before & i frankly don't rate KP bowling as boycott says ``thats money for old road``.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Just going to pretend i didn't hear your comment on Loye, but your idea of playing another batsman (has to be Bell over Straus BTW) instead of Dalrymple & depending on KP & Vaughan once fit to bowl some off-spinners isn't such a bad idea.

My only worry is that a top order of Joyce/Loye/Vaughan/Bell looks a bit too classy for ODI's & depending on KP & Vaughan as the 6th bowler is a bit dangerous since Vaughan bowling is probably not as decent as before & i frankly don't rate KP bowling as boycott says ``thats money for old road``.

It's Old Rope, ya dipstick. It's not very easy to rip up bits of the B3212 and sell that off on the black market...

Anyway, XV for me is today's eleven + Vaughan + Pietersen + Lewis + Anderson. Sorted.

 

[aussie]

It's Old Rope, ya dipstick.

So because you are moderator you can get away with calling people names just like that eh?.

 

[Scaly piscine]

So because you are moderator you can get away with calling people names just like that eh?.

I'm pretty sure it's in the forum rules somewhere that you're allowed to call Aussie names.


Anyway... Loye 20.28 @ SR:77.17 - pretty mediocre record and teams will get wise to his sweep shot. Haven't seen what his fielding is like but I imagine Bell's is better. Plus once Bell stops throwing his wicket away after getting a start he'll be a pretty decent ODI batsman. So my team:


Joyce
Vaughan
Bell
KP
Strauss
Collingwood
Flintoff
Nixon
Plunkett
Lewis
Anderson


Obviously the order is liable to change according to match situation.

 

[marc71178]

Relying on 10 from Colly is a bit risky IMO.

Dalrymple for Strauss doesn't really lose much (if anything) with the bat, but improves bowling and fielding...