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Best & Worst Declarations
- Thread starter BoyBrumby
- Start date
wellAlbidarned
International Coach
Scaly, I don't think you're acknowledging that enforcing the follow on on a flat pitch against a side known for racking up massive scores is a huge risk in itself, if you don't roll them twice very quickly you can easily end up running your bowlers into the ground. They're not machines ffs
Spikey
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Jamee999
Hall of Fame Member
I'm not sure I like declaring when Clarke did if you have two guys in and scoring quickly, I think that it's far far easier to get 50 quick runs then than it is batting third.
I don't hate the declaration, at all, but it seems like they were in a pretty risk free situation to hit out and try and get some more quick runs and get to 500+.
I don't hate the declaration, at all, but it seems like they were in a pretty risk free situation to hit out and try and get some more quick runs and get to 500+.
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straw man
Hall of Fame Member
Clarke's declaration said:
- he had no fear this SL bowling attack would knock Australia over second innings on this wicket, leading to Australia losing the game. That seems fair.
- he was not completely confident his bowling attack could take 20 SL wickets on this deck. That seems fair too. So he wanted to give them as much time as possible.
I often agree with Scaly's logic on not declaring early but that's more relevant for evenly matched sides - here SL's bowling (on this wicket) is just too weak to dictate the outcome of the match.
- he had no fear this SL bowling attack would knock Australia over second innings on this wicket, leading to Australia losing the game. That seems fair.
- he was not completely confident his bowling attack could take 20 SL wickets on this deck. That seems fair too. So he wanted to give them as much time as possible.
I often agree with Scaly's logic on not declaring early but that's more relevant for evenly matched sides - here SL's bowling (on this wicket) is just too weak to dictate the outcome of the match.
Redbacks
International Captain
To play the math card, Spark's point is valid because the casino analogy isn't what he is suggesting.
If you put the money on red your expected return is ~49%. Play the same move enough times and you will get that return on average. So if you expect half your money you are making a 'rational' decision (as silly as that would be).
In the case of the declaration you could say: given the conditions, bowlers, opposition, time etc. an expected value of sending them in is 3/4 wickets. In that case I think there is grounds to suggest it is a reasonable decision for a captain and doesn't involve simply hoping for the best.
Tom Halsey
International Coach
Yeah to be clear I'm not necessarily saying it was a bad declaration - I'm not watching the game. Maybe the combination of weather/fatigue/mental energy etc means it was a good declaration, I don't know. My point was that judging a declaration based on a single one-off result isn't a good way to go about it.
Scaly piscine
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Unless the conditions were particularly favourable for bowling on Day 2 afternoon/evening then you would take the same wickets bowling some of those overs a little later in the match. So that doesn't really matter when you declare morning, noon or night from that point of view. When you had uncovered pitches and the like then declaring to force your opponents to bat in difficult conditions was a factor. These days apart from the odd bit of weather coming over to make a road into a swing bowler's paradise the declaration is 99% about the maths of the scorecard.
Scaly piscine
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Regardless the Test has followed a fairly standard pattern and the declaration clearly hasn't been advantageous in these circumstances. The important thing to note is that it would been a disadvantage to declare early for virtually every way the Test could have played out.
benchmark00
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Deary me.
Spark
Global Moderator
I think the idea that there is any kind of "maths" in that there's some kind of formula you should follow when it comes to a declaration is the main fallacy here.
It should be done on intuition on feel, because the captain will be best placed to make a judgement on the match situation, the pitch, the opposition and the conditions, and let's face it, the captain will know faaaaaaar more about those than us armchair captains here.
It's not about a strict runs vs. time remaining formula. It's clear to me that Clarke felt that, given that time might be lost, his best chance of winning the match would come by making inroads into the SL middle order before stumps and put them under pressure going into Day 3. It's more about gut feel than about maths.
And I say that as a mathematician.
It should be done on intuition on feel, because the captain will be best placed to make a judgement on the match situation, the pitch, the opposition and the conditions, and let's face it, the captain will know faaaaaaar more about those than us armchair captains here.
It's not about a strict runs vs. time remaining formula. It's clear to me that Clarke felt that, given that time might be lost, his best chance of winning the match would come by making inroads into the SL middle order before stumps and put them under pressure going into Day 3. It's more about gut feel than about maths.
And I say that as a mathematician.
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flibbertyjibber
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No point arguing with him, he still thinks Monty is a donkey. Clarke was fully justified in this match to do what he has done given the weather forecast was dodgy. Obviously wasn't going to lose the match from there and all he has done is maximise the victory chance which will probably happen midway through day 5. Quite exciting as a neutral to see a captain prepared to take the odd risk even when he hasn't got an all conquering team like they were when he started playing.
centurymaker
Cricketer Of The Year
^^ agreed
was a great positive declaration, unlike dhoni's today
was a great positive declaration, unlike dhoni's today
Scaly piscine
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The scorecard tells you how quickly a team is likely to score, how many they're likely to score and so on.
Clarke's intuition is clearly a load of horse**** in this instance. You can use some cricketing intelligence to factor in that maybe you're a bowler down, or they're a batsman down and that sort of thing. But really you're getting most of the intuition from seeing the game play out and the scores on the board.
Ultimately whether the pitch is doing a lot, will break up and so on doesn't really have a impact in most declarations. The conditions don't tend to change much - which takes away most of the strategy and intuition.
The numbers dictate roughly when you should declare. You cannot get away from that.
All of the responses about Clarke pulling off a masterstroke because the team took a couple of early wickets after a declaration, these people need to GTFO of the thread (not talking about you, but one or two members posting in this thread).
It's like when Australia used to have a good cricket team and whether they batted first or second they made it work - because they were better than the other team. Not because their captain made a genius call at the toss, or the other captain made a bad one. This sort of **** goes on so much in all sport. A captain is a genius when he's revolving his bowlers in limited overs cricket and they happen to take a wicket. It's like the way good teams appear to be 'lucky'. Australia used to be lucky because it looked like they were bowling on a bowler-friendly pitch and batting on a batting-friendly pitch.
In sport there is apparently no such thing as coincidence. Everything has to be apportioned to inexperience, lack of concentration, great captaincy, good/bad form and the like. The same happens with any major decision they make. People can't just look at the big picture and balance the pros and cons, no a lot of the commentators are too stupid to do that - so instead we have this preposterous situation where they go purely by instinct or the end result and that is followed through by many on these forums. There are no grey areas, marginally good or bad decisions. It's black and white, right and wrong. A lot of it reminds me of Deal or No Deal the way decisions that are essentially as justifiable as each other are made into something else, and a whole load of bull**** is trotted out.
In the end scoreboard maths should dictate 99% of a declaration. Virtually all of the other factors end up being fluff, like on Deal or No Deal.
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Red
The normal awards that everyone else has
Why do those people need to gtfo? Because it happened? And the wickets were lost (big wickets) on that day? And Sri Lanka are now in a precarious position. None of which supports your assertion that it was a bad declaration?
Maybe (gasp), it was an excellent declaration?
(insert mumblings from you about mathematics and chance and not predicting what might happen....)
Could it be you're being proven wrong? Perhaps you need to gtfo? But I wouldn't be rude enough to suggest that to you...
Says who? Sri Lanka have a couple of guys in their side who have the small matter of 10000+ Test runs each, and some fair batsmen around them. Sure, their bowlers are absolute cake but it runs some sort of risk.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the declaration - I thought there was perhaps a touch of misguided arrogance about it but good on them for having a hunch and going with it. But to say they obviously weren't going to lose is wrong, otherwise every side in the world would declare at 450.
Scaly piscine
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Did you actually read anything I posted?
To momentarily drop down to this level of argument - 27-0 off 14 overs - how many runs do you think Australia would have taken off 14 overs with licence to go for it from 450-5? This sort of thing would happen in well over 90% of games if you kept re-running the game from 450-5.
uvelocity
International Coach
test cricket doesnt happen in a vacuum, nor in fantasy land
Red
The normal awards that everyone else has
I understand your point. But at the moment, the game is fully live. If we'd batted on, I'm not sure that would have been the case. You could argue that we could have batted on to 500 or 600 or 700, but as it stands, we're in a good spot to win this match, but very unlikely to lose it. So, yeh...