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

[Days of Grace]

The sheer quantity of Blockey's posting scares me a little.

West Indies won the second match because they out-bowled and out-batted us. In fact, you could almost say there was a gulf between the two teams in Trinidad.

Blockey will reply with another 30 lines. I will get on with life.

 

[Blocky]

The sheer quantity of Blockey's posting scares me a little.

If you're going to make the sorts of statements I make that go against the grain of "We should all hold hands and pretend like both teams were equals going into this series and that's what made it close, rather than one team punching above their weight and another team making it much more difficult than it should've been" - then you need to back up your perspective.

Of course, actually qualifying and validating your opinions is rare here, where everyone thinks doing so is the sign of aggression and disrespect, rather than respecting people enough to both making the merits of your opinions known.

 

[Days of Grace]

No, it's just that I have better things to do.

 

[YorksLanka]

congrats to NewZealand on a fantastic away series win..I havent seen all of the series but I have been very impressed with the kiwi bowlers from what i have seen and the Kiwis looked the deserved winners..disappointing to see West Indies cricket where it is now compared to the great days of the 80s and 90s..

 

[Blocky]

No, it's just that I have better things to do.

Like sitting on a forum and commenting on the conduct of other members... OK.

 

[BackFootPunch]

Who is going to do a statistical analysis of Blocky's previous posts?

Perhaps if we did that then we'd have an idea of what he's going to post next, and could even save him the trouble of needing to write them

 

[hendrix]

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

I realise that you're providing a counter-punch to Blocky but...
The reason the Windies won the second test is because NZ ended the careers of Powell and Samuels in the first test. NZ wasn't handed this win by daft selection at all. They enforced those selections in the first place.

It looks like the Windies have done us the same favour in regards to Fulton and Rutherford.

 

[Binkley]

Who is going to do a statistical analysis of Blocky's previous posts?

Perhaps if we did that then we'd have an idea of what he's going to post next, and could even save him the trouble of needing to write them

I would suggest that the ratio of posts to "likes" would be informative.

 

[Days of Grace]

Making the odd comment/observation/analysis is generally considered healthier to a forum than arguing multiple points ad nausuem and making everyone else just shake their heads.

 

[Flem274*]

Who is going to do a statistical analysis of Blocky's previous posts?

Perhaps if we did that then we'd have an idea of what he's going to post next, and could even save him the trouble of needing to write them

After reading his business statistics and Morrison target market points I'd like to see what happens when you put Blocky and Muloghonto on a collision course.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

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.

Cool strawman, but I never said that statistics are meaningless, only that they aren't the be all and end all of analysis. You say that cricket statistics are the same as business statistics, so why don't we have Bayesian models for analysis and prediction purposes in cricket? It's because the simple metrics we use for cricket aren't the same as statistical models businesses use. If you want to get into that, then you have to dig even further than x>y therefore better. I'm not saying that things like averages are meaningless, in fact they're probably the best metric we have for comparing players. But there's no way you can hold them up as an authoritative proof that one player is better than the other because there's so much information missing.

You mention how accurate WASP is, but how did you evaluate it? Would love to hear how you came up with that conclusion, statistically of course.

 

[Maximas]

I realise that you're providing a counter-punch to Blocky but...
The reason the Windies won the second test is because NZ ended the careers of Powell and Samuels in the first test. NZ wasn't handed this win by daft selection at all. They enforced those selections in the first place.

But how do we know who is underperforming and who is simply not good enough? Both players mentioned scored hundreds the last time NZ toured

 

[Zinzan]

Congrats New Zealanders, a deserved win in what was a closely fought series. I thought the attitude from your guys was spot on today and we were found wanting against some skilful bowling.

From our point of view, but without wishing to be too hard on Ramdin, he basically dropped the test series at the end of day 3 (or rather let it fly just to his right....). That was a harsh lesson in taking your chances. I remember seeing that and thinking 'he's going to pay for that' and that's exactly what happened. If that catch is taken, we win the series, it's as simple as that.

I also think the 5 bowler ploy was a failed and flawed strategy that robbed us all of the chance to watch a class young batsman do his thing. Very irritating and these strange decisions keep happening. As I said during the 2nd test, I'm starting to lose faith with Gibson. He's the constant behind all this craziness. Captains change, CEO's change, presidents change, directors of cricket change but he keeps going on. He's now got a pretty talented team to work with so these mess ups must stop.

I enjoyed the series and think we have a lot of positives to take from it even though on the face of it a loss is a pretty bad result. I don't think there's much at all between the two teams, it's just that New Zealand are a year or so ahead in terms of developing a winning mentality. I think we now have our own version of Boult and Southee in Roach and Taylor and we will be asking all teams questions with the new ball at last. That can then be backed up by a very talented third seamer who can clearly bat in Jason Holder and a potentially match winning spinner in Narine. We're not far off having a pretty class bowling attack in any conditions.

The batting will clearly be our weaker suit, although again it's not far off. They need to give Blackwood and Braithwaite a run and I'm pretty sure they both have the goods to be test class performers. Darren Bravo needs to realise just how good he could be without these mental lapses (scarily, he averages 44 even with them!).

I'm pretty sure if they select the correct side against Bangladesh in August we will absolutely annihilate them, which will be good for confidence and we can then build towards competing at home and away against the other sides. Anyway, well done NZ, enjoy it.

Good post overall, but that point on the Williamson edge between keeper and slip categorically costing the Windies the series is way too simplistic and fickle for mine.

Who knows, had he been dismissed at that point, what could have transpired.. McCullum or Taylor could have made hundreds. I'm not saying that wasn't a crucial miss, but at the end of a series, it's too easy to claim that such & such an instance made a difference across multiple dismissals/chances/dropped catches/umpiring decisions etc that happened.

I'm sure NZ fans could equally find a crucial chance/ marginal umpiring decision and claim that cost us the 2nd test, but that would be both lame and a case of sour grapes.

 

[Zinzan]

It still happened though, and it happens often enough to not just be written off as an aberration. It's part and parcel of this New Zealand team and it lets them down badly at times. "We lost because we played horribly for part of the game" really isn't mitigating; it just demonstrates an execution flaw - it's bad cricket. Teams shouldn't be judged by what they can do but what they actually do and are likely to replicate.

I disagree with you that New Zealand had the better of the first two Tests but I also disagree with hendrix that 1-1 would've been a fair result. New Zealand were conclusively the better side in the third Test IMO. It was a really good Test that ebbed and flowed, but when you a team scores 50 more runs for 3 fewer wickets it's hard to say they didn't have the better of the game. The result was made artificially close by rain; New Zealand still had a set batsman in on 160* with three wickets left - they could've added another 50 runs easily (or more, tbh) if they had more time and made the result look much more conclusive.

Yep, this one. Nothing like a neutral to provide some much needed balance.

 

[hendrix]

But how do we know who is underperforming and who is simply not good enough? Both players mentioned scored hundreds the last time NZ toured

The point is that we wouldn't even be in a position of considering a Blackwood selection had NZ's bowlers allowed Samuels to succeed in the first test, or NZ's batsmen allowed Shillingford to succeed in the final test. Hell, even Holder wouldn't have been selected had things gone the Windies' way.

Previous series indicated that Shillingford and Samuels would succeed. They didn't.

The second test indicated that Gayle would be a problem. He wasn't.
The second test indicated that Bravo would be imperious. He wasn't.
The second test (i.e. one test innings of 63) indicated that that Blackwood might have succeeded. He didn't play.

 

[Blocky]

Cool strawman, but I never said that statistics are meaningless, only that they aren't the be all and end all of analysis. You say that cricket statistics are the same as business statistics, so why don't we have Bayesian models for analysis and prediction purposes in cricket? It's because the simple metrics we use for cricket aren't the same as statistical models businesses use. If you want to get into that, then you have to dig even further than x>y therefore better. I'm not saying that things like averages are meaningless, in fact they're probably the best metric we have for comparing players. But there's no way you can hold them up as an authoritative proof that one player is better than the other because there's so much information missing.

You mention how accurate WASP is, but how did you evaluate it? Would love to hear how you came up with that conclusion, statistically of course.

Bayesian analysis is only useful when dealing with subjective or contradictory information, it works on how believable any particular information set or analysis set can be and also unknown events that causes new types of information to be generated. Cricket has absolute statistics and therefore has no need for Bayesian analysis - so who is using a Strawman? In fact, in this day and age, very few companies are using Bayesian Statistics in their predictive analytics or Business Intelligence programs - most are using historical/regression analytics to work out the accuracy of algorithms by constantly refining them based on what the previous week told them - time variance modelling plays much more of a part in modern statistics due to the ability to capture so many more points of information and store them in an intelligent way. The whole Big Data craze is based around "We can start to remove the lack of clarity that required us to use Bayesian statistics, by using new modelling techniques that help us understand in real time how accurate a source of information is, in correlation to a likely future event"

But thanks for playing pal.

As for WASP and it's accuracy, I know both Dr Brooker and Dr Hogan from the University of Canterbury and have previously worked with Dr Brooker in this very field. The accuracy of the modelling has been tested over the last five years, well before it was shown on Sky TV. Like the method I mentioned above, WASP is programmed to learn from the most recent point of information available to it - every single ball changes its calculations which helps it remain accurate over the course of an innings - but taking into account what it projects teams to score at the quarter point of an innings and also what chances a team has to win at a quarter point of an innings, it's highly accurate - regression testing confirmed this. It takes generally takes an outlier performance (.ie 60 runs off 30 balls ) to sway the result that WASP predicts.

 

[hendrix]

I may be the only person other than Blocky that enjoys WASP.

 

[Blocky]

I may be the only person other than Blocky that enjoys WASP.

I don't enjoy it, because I also realise how flawed it is and how much better it could be - if this was developed in a nation outside of NZ, it would have had millions thrown at it in investment, as it stands, this was just one clever guy doing a PHD thesis on Duckworth Lewis being a highly flawed method to set targets in a game of cricket. WASP started its life as a way of simulating what likely score would be struck if a team knew how many overs they were going to bat, based on their performance to date within an innings.

It still has this function built within it, the amount of models and analysis that it could provide, versus what SkyTV actually shows you is laughable - it's really only the fact that most people just don't get how to use statistics or even data visualisation to explain points.

 

[Hurricane]

I am going to force Blocky and hendrix to sit in a room with a pair of headphones on, unable to move, while Mark Richardson explains what WASP is over and over again.

 

[Zinzan]

God help us if Southee or Boult ever go down injured. Because as decent as his recent returns have been Neil Wagner is still trash. I seriously have no idea how this guy continues to pick up wickets. No accuracy, medium paced and he still can't land the ball on the seam to save himself. It boggles the mind.

Braces is way down the current pecking order for mine. Whilst I agree that Southee & Boult are a major reason for NZ's recent test improvement, I'm excited by the guys on the fridge such as Henry, McClenaghan, Bennett & Milne. I can't recall NZ have such promising pace options on the sidelines tbh.