***Official*** New Zealand in the West Indies 2014

[SteveNZ]

Tom Latham clearly equates winning a test series with Slayer concerts. WAFG.

View attachment 21363

Full name Thomas William Maxwell Latham

Born April 2, 1992, Christchurch, Canterbury

All you need to know.

 

[Kippax]

 

[Athlai]

Looking forward to WW's post.

Predictions:

Concedes defeat.
Hates on the selectors
Lays out a challenge for next time.
Talks up the pace attack.
Hates on the selectors + Shillingford.
A wish for Narine.
Talks up one of Southee or Boult
Hates on the selectors

I'm going for 3 smileys as well.

 

[Hurricane]

Remarkably WW figured they would score around 260 max in the chase.

 

[hendrix]

Some pretty decent analysis from Danny Morrison there. As much as he can sound like a halfwit he knows his cricket.

 

[Slifer]

Looking forward to WW's post.

Predictions:

Concedes defeat.
Hates on the selectors
Lays out a challenge for next time.
Talks up the pace attack.
Hates on the selectors + Shillingford.
A wish for Narine.
Talks up one of Southee or Boult
Hates on the selectors

I'm going for 3 smileys as well.

I think WW already commented and as expected he was gracious (as are all of us WI fans). As for your list of predictions I think you'll find that most of what you listed applies to how many of us WI fans feel. I for one will never get over the dropping of Blackwood for Shillingford. Our pace attack should be talked up,especially when you consider the rabble that we sent to NZ earlier this year. They delivered unfortunately our batting seriously needs an injection and yes beating a dead horse again, dropping a batsman for an extra bowler is not gonna cut it.....jeez we must have the worst luck when it comes to selectors.

Ps just saw some highlights of Holder batting...not bad not bad at all...

 

[Blocky]

See, unlike most dour downcast NZ cricket commentators, Morrison worked out early on his audience wasn't really the typical NZ Cricket fan - his audience was the global Indian/Pakistan/Bangladeshian fan of which there were much more of. He's now got himself a much more lucrative commentary contract than any of the guys working for Sky TV. As much hate as NZ fans place on him, his over the top style appeals lots to the worldwide fans I know.

 

[Blocky]

I think WW already commented and as expected he was gracious (as are all of us WI fans). As for your list of predictions I think you'll find that most of what you listed applies to how many of us WI fans feel. I for one will never get over the dropping of Blackwood for Shillingford. Our pace attack should be talked up,especially when you consider the rabble that we sent to NZ earlier this year. They delivered unfortunately our batting seriously needs an injection and yes beating a dead horse again, dropping a batsman for an extra bowler is not gonna cut it.....jeez we must have the worst luck when it comes to selectors.

Ps just saw some highlights of Holder batting...not bad not bad at all...

Sigh... the thing is, the "gamble" worked in terms of batting. The problem isn't in what they got out of their replacements (Holder/Shillingford) with the bat. It's more so that they didn't get enough from their top five. Bringing Blackwood into the side wouldn't have contributed anything different to this match in my view, because between Holder and Shillingford, you saw them put on near 140 runs in the game and in both innings, showed fight that was sadly lacking in some of the middle order players.

Ramdin's captaincy was quite bad, but then its his first test series. I think this is the first series in quite some time that Chanderpaul has been kept to under 50 as an average and with exception to Braithwaite and a one-off innings from Bravo, no one else really fired for the Windies with the bat. That meant it was always down to whether or not NZ would collapse from their usual solid starts and how long it would take them to adjust to Roach, Benn and Taylor having not seen them in NZ.

I just don't get why people don't realise the difference in class in these two teams, because statistically, there is quite a gulf between the two sides.

 

[Maximas]

It's because cricket exists outside the realm of stats sometimes

 

[Blocky]

It's because cricket exists outside the realm of stats

Actually, Cricket is very much driven by statistics, simply so.

If you're able to take twenty wickets from the opposition for less runs than you scored with your twenty wickets, you win.

 

[Maximas]

Yes but analysing things by only looking at the stats won't tell you the whole story, take Jerome Taylor's career average for example

 

[Blocky]

Yes but analysing things by only looking at the stats won't tell you the whole story, take Jerome Taylor's career average for example

Right, but if you dig into the statistics a little more... we know history indicates his best performances of the series generally come in the first test match and he dwindles from that point onwards - excluding 4th match of the series outliers as the sample size of innings bowled is too small. We also know that Jerome Taylor averages much lower at home (very close to what he ended up averaging this series) and struggles away from home.

Again, statistics will tell you the true story if you look deep enough, it's why the fields of Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics are the most highly invested fields in the business world at the moment because metrics give great indicators of performance and allow you to plan accordingly. Cricket is probably without exception the most deepest statistical game there is, it trumps Baseball due to certain nuances like how many balls per innings you can face in Cricket.

Not to be pedantic here, but NZ should have been favorites in this series despite it being played at home and in my view, despite ****ing up on multiple occasions they were still able to beat a West Indian side who performed probably beyond the wildest dreams of what supporters could have expected - i.e both Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach coming back from extended periods and performing better than their career averages to date, Kraigg Braithwaite performing an anomaly of a series performing much better than he ever has at test, the abilities uncovered in Holder, Edwards earlier in the series chiming in with good runs.

If you'd said upfront that the Windies would have two bowlers averaging mid twenties and three batsman not named Bravo, Chanderpaul or Gayle topping the series averages ( low sample size, but even if we combine Holder and Blackwood together) - combined with NZ having Taylor average less than 40, McCullum less than 20 and Boult averaging more than 35 with the ball - you'd definitely have taken it.

Despite this, NZ still managed to win. And we're still trying to pretend like these two teams are equal in talent?

 

[hendrix]

statistics will tell you the true story if you look deep enough

no.

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it:

Statistics, even if used absolutely perfectly (i.e. not like how you use stats*) by eliminating a whole range of variables including opposition strength, team composition, conditions and a myriad of other more complicated and obscure factors, are still only an indication of what happened in the past. Now, what happened in the past is usually a very, very good indicator of what is going to happen in the future, but it is not the actual future.

So yes, statistically NZ dominated the home series and the away series to a lesser extent. But that doesn't mean that these teams are miles apart in talent looking ahead.

*One key stat you seem intent on ignoring is the fact that both Roach and Taylor were returning from injury.

 

[Athlai]

I think WW already commented and as expected he was gracious (as are all of us WI fans). As for your list of predictions I think you'll find that most of what you listed applies to how many of us WI fans feel. I for one will never get over the dropping of Blackwood for Shillingford. Our pace attack should be talked up,especially when you consider the rabble that we sent to NZ earlier this year. They delivered unfortunately our batting seriously needs an injection and yes beating a dead horse again, dropping a batsman for an extra bowler is not gonna cut it.....jeez we must have the worst luck when it comes to selectors.

Ps just saw some highlights of Holder batting...not bad not bad at all...

Na he hasn't posted since the loss. I'm interested in his post series write up.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Right, but if you dig into the statistics a little more... we know history indicates his best performances of the series generally come in the first test match and he dwindles from that point onwards - excluding 4th match of the series outliers as the sample size of innings bowled is too small. We also know that Jerome Taylor averages much lower at home (very close to what he ended up averaging this series) and struggles away from home.

Again, statistics will tell you the true story if you look deep enough, it's why the fields of Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics are the most highly invested fields in the business world at the moment because metrics give great indicators of performance and allow you to plan accordingly. Cricket is probably without exception the most deepest statistical game there is, it trumps Baseball due to certain nuances like how many balls per innings you can face in Cricket.

As someone who works with statistics a bit, this is pretty wrong. I don't think you understand how bad using historical data can be in predicting future performance. Cricket is even harder, there are literally hundreds of variables you have to consider before you can even begin trying to make a predictive model. Cricket statistics are so far removed from actual analysis that businesses use, they can barely be considered the same thing.

Let's take your Boult-Wagner comparison of top-order wickets. Boult has 21/41, Wagner has 20/31. According to you, it means Wagner is far better at taking top-order wickets. But when I do a crude two-tailed Z-test of proportions, the p-value is 0.25. Statistically there's no difference between the two.

Of course this test is stupid and violates several assumptions, but my point is you can't just claim statistics as some sort of proof, nor can you use it as an accurate performance predictor unless you're aware of some amazing neural network or something.

 

[Blocky]

no.

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it:

Statistics, even if used absolutely perfectly (i.e. not like how you use stats*) by eliminating a whole range of variables including opposition strength, team composition, conditions and a myriad of other more complicated and obscure factors, are still only an indication of what happened in the past. Now, what happened in the past is usually a very, very good indicator of what is going to happen in the future, but it is not the actual future.

So yes, statistically NZ dominated the home series and the away series to a lesser extent. But that doesn't mean that these teams are miles apart in talent looking ahead.

*One key stat you seem intent on ignoring is the fact that both Roach and Taylor were returning from injury.

Taylor was returning from isolation - he hadn't played in six years.

Statistics give you more than just the past, it's why things like WASP exist and can to a reasonable level of accuracy predict what the future is likely to be based on any match situation. The imperfections of the WASP come down more so to things like weather conditions, differentiating the value of batsmen in the same position (i.e Amla being considered the same as Edwards in the eyes of WASP)

All recent statistics indicate to the dominance NZ should have over this team and realistically, it was only daft selection and a total collapse during an innings that gave Windies a victory in this series.

 

[Blocky]

As someone who works with statistics a bit, this is pretty wrong. I don't think you understand how bad using historical data can be in predicting future performance. Cricket is even harder, there are literally hundreds of variables you have to consider before you can even begin trying to make a predictive model. Cricket statistics are so far removed from actual analysis that businesses use, they can barely be considered the same thing.

Let's take your Boult-Wagner comparison of top-order wickets. Boult has 21/41, Wagner has 20/31. According to you, it means Wagner is far better at taking top-order wickets. But when I do a crude two-tailed Z-test of proportions, the p-value is 0.25. Statistically there's no difference between the two.

Of course this test is stupid and violates several assumptions, but my point is you can't just claim statistics as some sort of proof, nor can you use it as an accurate performance predictor unless you're aware of some amazing neural network or something.

You obviously don't work with statistics in this day and age if you assume that they can't be used to give indicators on performance in future settings - WASP is a great example of this, it does nothing more than use the averages across all games of cricket to work out what is likely to be the case based on a particular match situation and does so to pretty good accuracy. Cricket statistics are no different to business statistics, the reality is that sport has the most to gain from advanced analytics because it can adapt so quickly and change the way it is operating in real time to take advantage of those statistics.

Why do you think "past performance" is used so heavily to indicate how hard 4th innings batting usually is? If you saw Don Bradman compile a century and watched it against say Brian Lara compiling a century, would you have any idea or understanding who the better player was? It's the consistency of performance over a history of games that give us that perspective, likewise, it's the history of performance of players, in most cases, the recent history of performance that helps us understand and unravel how players are performing.

Taking a view that statistics have no meaning in a game like Cricket and can't be used to assess where people sit seems to forget the fact that almost everyone in cricket is compared on the basis of their average - one very basic statistic. When you start to look at runs per over, strike rate, types of wickets taken - you get a much deeper understanding that most businesses would kill to have about their own performance.

 

[Maximas]

Was arguably a daft selection, a late order collapse and a missed chance that handed you guys the series

 

[Blocky]

And the reality here, is that the argument for statistics is absolute.

We see that a good number of NZ players under performed versus their career statistics before this series ( Rutherford/Fulton, McCullum, Taylor, Boult ) and it's even worse when you view it in context of their most recent performances.
We see that a good number of Windies players over performed versus their career statistics ( Braithwaite, Taylor, Benn, Roach) and yet, based on overall ability of the two teams and how many players could be counted on to give something of note, NZ won two tests and really only lost in my estimation three to four sessions in the entire three tests.

 

[Blocky]

Was arguably a daft selection, a late order collapse and a missed chance that handed you guys the series

Was arguably a daft selection, middle order collapse and missed chances that handed Windies a win at all in this series.