Reading the scoring summary

[rodk]

I'm a new follower, but I don't know how to read the scoring summary that appears on line and I am asking for a walk through.

As a for instance, I looked at the summary of the Ashes first test at England v Australia - Cricket - BBC Sport but could not tell if the entire first innings for either side was played on a single day or whether part of it carried over to the next day. I saw that the fourth test lasted four days but Australia only needed to bat once, so some of the innings carried over from day to day, but I could not see how that worked either. England v Australia - Cricket - BBC Sport

My particular interest is in figuring out how many bowls some of these guys tossed in a day, and how many times and how many bowls they tossed the day after bowling to see if there is any risk. My kid pitches baseball and there are huge issues about rest and counts because pitchers tend to get elbow and shoulder injuries, and I want to compare the cricket experience to see if something can be learned by the doctors for both.

Thanks.

 

[TNT]

Better to read the cricinfo summary here at the bottom it gives you the position of the match at the end of each day, just click on the tabs.

 

[rodk]

I saw that version too but could not make heads or tails of it. Is there some way to tell precisely if a bowler such as Starc, who had 27 overs in an innings in one of the tests did all that work in one day or more than one? 27 overs seems like a ridiculous amount, no pitcher would be asked to throw more than 125 pitches in a day, much less 162, and never would a pitcher be asked to pitch the day after he had more than about 40. They would get hurt.

 

[TNT]

For that level of detail you will need the scoresheet, I don't know if there is anywhere to find that information. Most people who follow cricket will have a good understanding of how the match proceeded.

 

[rodk]

Thanks. I am a little surprised that info is missing from the mass of other details such as who partnered with whom, the number of minutes individuals batted and so on, then again my purpose in having that info isn't exactly standard and probably not anticipated by the designer of the summary sheet.

Based on your familiarity and with the info at hand, and if you don't already know, could you guestimate the number of Starc overs on each day of that test in which he had 27 total (I think it was the fourth test)? If you do know, could you just tell me? Thanks.

 

[91Jmay]

More helpful to you would be this scorecard, as the match is playing currently and it is still just before end of day 1

SA 297/5 (85.2 ov, Q de Kock 10*, T Bavuma 16*, SCJ Broad 1/54) | Live Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

James Anderson has bowled 20 overs (120 balls) so far today, and will likely finish with 23 overs in the day. I would say that is a fairly standard amount for a pace bowler. Spin bowlers in some countries (India, UAE, Sri Lanka for example) will clock up 25-35 per day.

 

[Grumpy]

Pitching and bowling are completely different. You cannot compare the workload between the two. I'm no expert in biomechanics, but the two use completely different methods to exert momentum on the ball. Apart from using different muscles, bowlers also utilise a run up. A pitcher has to generate the energy required from standstill.

 

[Neil Pickup]

My particular interest is in figuring out how many bowls some of these guys tossed in a day, and how many times and how many bowls they tossed the day after bowling to see if there is any risk. My kid pitches baseball and there are huge issues about rest and counts because pitchers tend to get elbow and shoulder injuries, and I want to compare the cricket experience to see if something can be learned by the doctors for both.

Thanks.

You might be interested in reading the English Cricket Board's Fast Bowling Directives, which govern the number of balls a child or teenager is allowed to bowl in the course of a match or training session.

PS: We'd say "balls bowled" or "balls delivered" rather than "tossed".

 

[AndrewB]

I saw that version too but could not make heads or tails of it. Is there some way to tell precisely if a bowler such as Starc, who had 27 overs in an innings in one of the tests did all that work in one day or more than one? 27 overs seems like a ridiculous amount, no pitcher would be asked to throw more than 125 pitches in a day, much less 162, and never would a pitcher be asked to pitch the day after he had more than about 40. They would get hurt.

You can find the information on the Commentary pages (e.g. here), but it's a matter of scrolling around the relevant page to find the figures for each bowler.

 

[Daemon]

Yeah, go the cricinfo commentary and scroll around to when the bowler last bowled before the end of play (make sure its the day that he started bowling). His cumulative figures should be there.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Most pace bowlers tend to bowl a pretty similar number of overs in a day anyway.

If you bowl for 90 overs you're going to want your best bowler bowling as much as he can handle. As he can only bowl from one end at a time, this becomes a maximum of 45 overs. In practice, pace bowlers generally rest for as long as they bowl for, and this is especially true if they have a 90 over day. So this cuts the maximum workload you'd ever realistically see for a pace bowler down to about 22-23 overs a day.

It would be very rare to see a pace bowler bowl 25 overs or more in a day (150 deliveries). This would really only happen if there were two new balls in a day.

Of course, for strategic reasons you don't want your pacemen bowling less than that if you can help it.

The vast majority of bowling loads for pacemen for a full day in the field would be 18-20 overs I reckon.

 

[AndrewB]

Of course, things were different in the old days, e.g. Tom Richardson bowling a 42.3 over spell at Old Trafford, 1896. (That was 5-ball overs, so 213 deliveries).

 

[Stapel]

Well, this is quite an interesting topic, me thinks.

One doesn't need to be a biomechanics expert to see that both (top level) fast bowling and pitching are prone to bring injuries. Hence, careers need to be manged carefully from a medical point of view. A rather famous example is Glenn McGrath (@OP, one of the greatest fast bowlers ever in Cricket) cutting down on his pace, to prolongate his career.

Is is true that professional MLB top pitcher's careers are far shorter than bowler's careers? I think I once read somewhere it averages at 6 years......

 

[rodk]

Well, this is quite an interesting topic, me thinks.

Is is true that professional MLB top pitcher's careers are far shorter than bowler's careers? I think I once read somewhere it averages at 6 years......

I don't know but it seems plausible. Don't forget that baseball is structured very different from cricket. There are no second and third tier teams to fall back upon to continue a career at a low level, no relegation, etc. You come up and play in the major leagues or not at all, with the exception that a small number of guys won't give up and will try their luck in independent minor leagues or in places like Japan or Korea. But that is very limited.

In a sport like soccer and I believe cricket too, there are lesser teams in lower leagues that a less than top caliber player can land at safely to continue a career as long as he is healthy. This is categorically untrue in baseball; once you are not major league quality anymore, you are done. The MLB affiliated minor leagues are specifically for training new talent not for hangers on. Someone whose game is growing will be far safer than someone who has peaked and isn't capable.

There is also tremendous competition. There's mention on the board of cricket being the second most popular sport in the world, maybe that's true, but there are tens of millions of kids playing baseball in about 20 countries and they are competing for only X number of jobs that pay millions of dollars a year, so there is a huge amount of competition for those spots and a tremendous formal system of feeder teams that produce ten times the needed number of players, and getting bounced out of pro ball is pretty easy.

 

[91Jmay]

^ Soccer yes, cricket absolutely not. Australia has 6 professional teams for example. Bangladesh has 8 teams for 300 million population who don't really play many if any other sports.

Additionally international cricket is the real elite tier of the sport, and there are 11 starting roles for each country; 6 batsmen, 4 bowlers and a wicket keeper batsmen(like a catcher). So in terms of competition for places it is harder in cricket. There is far less money in cricket though, that is for sure.

 

[rodk]

^ Soccer yes, cricket absolutely not. Australia has 6 professional teams for example. Bangladesh has 8 teams for 300 million population who don't really play many if any other sports.

Additionally international cricket is the real elite tier of the sport, and there are 11 starting roles for each country; 6 batsmen, 4 bowlers and a wicket keeper batsmen(like a catcher). So in terms of competition for places it is harder in cricket. There is far less money in cricket though, that is for sure.

Aren't there semi pro regional and county teams in those countries to keep a career going? The UK and Ireland have county teams that form top domestic leagues; I thought that's what the question was all about. That kind of thing is rare in baseball and participating in that would not be considered part of one's "career" as a professional player.

 

[91Jmay]

Counties in the UK are just the name for the professional 'franchises' so to speak. Minor league players would be paid more than county players in England as well (and there are far fewer counties than there are MLB franchises).

 

[Howe_zat]

Counties in the UK are just the name for the professional 'franchises' so to speak. Minor league players would be paid more than county players in England as well (and there are far fewer counties than there are MLB franchises).

All Out Cricket claims that county cricketers earn between £20k and £100k a year depending on experience and role (which is a useful yardstick for me, puts them roughly on a par with teachers). USA Today says that minor league baseballers earn $3k-$7.5k for a five-month season which means they really don't get a living wage without having some other income, especially in the offseason.

 

[91Jmay]

Yeah, I guess I should have specified I meant full time professionals who get 'sent down' (of which there are quite a fair number). For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansby_Swanson this guy was playing minor league last year and got a $6.5 million signing bonus. I didn't think comparing semi-professional baseball players with full professional cricketers seemed like an apples to apples comparison.

 

[rodk]

Yeah, I guess I should have specified I meant full time professionals who get 'sent down' (of which there are quite a fair number). For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansby_Swanson this guy was playing minor league last year and got a $6.5 million signing bonus. I didn't think comparing semi-professional baseball players with full professional cricketers seemed like an apples to apples comparison.

Pay scales and the rules that are beneath them are complicated due to contracts and other legal issues, and thus hard to compare.

There are no academies as their are in soccer or other sports. Everyone is trained where ever and become eligible to turn professional at a designated age, usually about 18 in baseball (with some important exceptions), and 19-21 in other sports..

Suffice it to say that Dansby Swanson, a 22 year old college player, was the first draft pick (ergo the best amateur player) in 2015, which means he is exclusively available to negotiate and sign with one club during the year of his draft, namely the Atlanta Braves. His remaining options (same for other drafted players) if he doesn't like the money offered or the team that chose him are fairly limited; he has to wait for another team to draft him. Leagues in other countries won't take him (they will take basketball players in similar circumstances). In effect, the drafting team and the drafted player are locked into each other for a year.

This is not too bad if a player can go back to school for another year, but it is complicated if a player has graduated from college and can't go back there. If he chooses to play in an independent league, he could get hurt and miss out on the big money.

But the point of an inverse-to-last-year's results draft is to establish parity by preventing the hoarding of talent as happens in world soccer and in particular in the Spanish and English premier leagues (where the same kinds of laws that permit drafts don't exist).

All sides recognize parity is good for everybody, and the upshot is that the penalty on pro teams for restricting the movement of top amateur players is a negotiated agreement with the players' union that requires teams to pay its top few drafted players some minimum amount of bonus money collectively. In some respects, the top draft picks are competing with each other for that pot of bonus money in signing negotiations, and sometimes that becomes a problem, but usually not.

While the top draftees get big bonuses, lesser players, non-drafted players and youngsters from places like the Dominican Republic where the players are not subject to the draft get far less and many of them are indeed struggling to make ends meet. Many coach privately during the off season for extra cash.

Also, it is important to note that any number of drafted players don't project to have the talent to make it all the way. Those guys are place holders -- essentially the practice squad -- and they change year after year for there's no sense making a guy wait for years and letting him dream when he is only going to be a practice player with no shot and should start getting on with his life outside of baseball. With that kind of turnover, the league doesn't have to pay much for their services.

I don't know enough about cricket but in soccer, a guy who doesn't project to being in the EPL can still make a nice living on a fourth or fifth division team without being a hanger on. That's not the way it is done in pro baseball in any country that I know about. So that's the apples and oranges of "length of career." The historic average is that each MLB team finds room for three or so newbs a year from amongst the hundred or so of guys they sign and cut every year, and most of them don't last too long because of injury, competition and deals with established players.