*Official* New Zealand domestic season 2022/23

[straw man]

Turned into a surprisingly good discussion, I agree with the general conclusions. NZ CW WAGs. Only things I want to add are:

IMO there's a spectrum on nature vs nurture even within cricket. There's the expression 'fast bowlers are born, not made' which rings true - you have to have those fast-twitch muscles and other physical attributes. It wouldn't matter how much training I had, I would never be able to bowl anywhere near 130km/h. I think fast bowling (and probably wrist spin) is further towards the 'nature' end of the spectrum, closer to running and swimming, while batting is more multi-dimensional. Yes you still have to have some natural ability, but there's a lot more room for nurture, training, coaching, environment etc.

Cricket is an extremely rare sport in that you see some players made to do something they're not necessarily any good at: bowlers have to bat. That's like a live laboratory of nature vs nurture. We often see bowlers that start as genuine #10s and #11s at international level develop their batting very significantly over a season or two with intensive coaching and practise. Even to the point someone like Ajaz Patel or Iain O'Brien can block the ball bowled at 140km/h, hang around at the crease, duck bouncers, pick spin bowling, hit a few bad balls, build a bit of an innings. A bowler, even one that bats number 11 (except Chris Martin) in international cricket, absolutely dominates with the bat in club cricket and I doubt they have a heap more batting 'natural ability' than those players. So this also supports the view that batting is more dependent on nurture/training/environment. And obviously 'son of's often get a heap of that from an early age.

 

[thierry henry]

Turned into a surprisingly good discussion, I agree with the general conclusions. NZ CW WAGs. Only things I want to add are:

IMO there's a spectrum on nature vs nurture even within cricket. There's the expression 'fast bowlers are born, not made' which rings true - you have to have those fast-twitch muscles and other physical attributes. It wouldn't matter how much training I had, I would never be able to bowl anywhere near 130km/h. I think fast bowling (and probably wrist spin) is further towards the 'nature' end of the spectrum, closer to running and swimming, while batting is more multi-dimensional. Yes you still have to have some natural ability, but there's a lot more room for nurture, training, coaching, environment etc.

Cricket is an extremely rare sport in that you see some players made to do something they're not necessarily any good at: bowlers have to bat. That's like a live laboratory of nature vs nurture. We often see bowlers that start as genuine #10s and #11s at international level develop their batting very significantly over a season or two with intensive coaching and practise. Even to the point someone like Ajaz Patel or Iain O'Brien can block the ball bowled at 140km/h, hang around at the crease, duck bouncers, pick spin bowling, hit a few bad balls, build a bit of an innings. A bowler, even one that bats number 11 (except Chris Martin) in international cricket, absolutely dominates with the bat in club cricket and I doubt they have a heap more batting 'natural ability' than those players. So this also supports the view that batting is more dependent on nurture/training/environment. And obviously 'son of's often get a heap of that from an early age.

I’m not sure I agree with the point about the lesser skill of cricketers. This is all anecdotal of course, but in my observation a ‘naturally gifted’ young cricketer is usually good at both disciplines. In fact, basically every gun cricketer I knew growing up was like this - at least until well into my teens, I don’t remember coming across a fast bowling kid who couldn’t bat at all, or a gun batter who couldn’t bowl at all. If anything I’d say it’s the opposite, that a relatively marginal difference between batting and bowling skill widens as the player goes up the grades and is increasingly told to specialise.

 

[jcas0167]

No, I'm disputing that these genes are simply passed down like animals (seriously what a braindead analogy) and so the sons of famous cricketers are naturally better at cricket. Rather than the more obvious reason that being a cricket guy affords you a much better understanding of the environment needed to train and become an elite sportsman than some random kid off the street.

Oh gotcha. Agree that having one parent who has particular cricketing ability doesn't mean their children will too (after they're not clones). That said, it does increase the *probability* that they will have those traits, especially if the other parent has similar traits too. So it's not a surprise if children of top sports people are slightly overrepresented amongst top sporting achievers in part due to this. It's a complicated subject though and I'm heading for a swim.

 

[straw man]

I’m not sure I agree with the point about the lesser skill of cricketers. This is all anecdotal of course, but in my observation a ‘naturally gifted’ young cricketer is usually good at both disciplines. In fact, basically every gun cricketer I knew growing up was like this - at least until well into my teens, I don’t remember coming across a fast bowling kid who couldn’t bat at all, or a gun batter who couldn’t bowl at all. If anything I’d say it’s the opposite, that a relatively marginal difference between batting and bowling skill widens as the player goes up the grades and is increasingly told to specialise.

My point is partly dependent on 'how much batting talent does an international fast bowler have vs a fair-good grade cricketer?', which is debateable, yes. It's hard to know how much latent batting ability they have, we only have anecdotes.

I'm also swayed by my belief that while there's a cutoff of bowling 130km/h to be an international fast bowler (which very few people can do), good or very good hand-eye coordination (for batting) is much more common. And that 'very good' but not 'absolute top tier' hand eye coordination can make you a good international batsman as long as you do a heap of other things right (bloody-mindedness, footwork, shot selection, strength, concentration, all of which are more learnable than bowling 130km/h). Obviously I'm thinking of your standard bloody minded defensive three-shot left handed opening batsman like Mark Richardson.

 

[thierry henry]

Yeah, my anecdotal observation is that a bowler/tailender who has reached the top level will more often than not have been the best batter in the team growing up too, with that falling away as they specialise, until circumstances require or encourage a focus on their batting again (as with Mark Richardson).

This begs the question as to why batting and bowling talent (that is ‘natural’ talent as opposed to learned skill) would go hand in hand despite being such different things. My observation/guess is that ‘natural talent’ in sport tends to be broadly applicable and good batters tend to be good batters because they’re just good at sports.

I think then, that I might have a marginally higher belief in both ‘natural/genetic’ ability and in the component of natural ability that goes into batting, than some of you. Probably splitting hairs a bit as we all acknowledge that nurture is a massive component, just a question of degree.

 

[Nintendo]

Really interesting discussion the last few pages. I remember Jarrod Kimber talking about his younger days as a leg spinner growing up in the era of warne and how all his coaches wanted to bowl the flipper or the legbreak that ripped a mile, but he just didn't have the biometrics/natural build to make it work consistently.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Birth months are also a factor in sporting success (heaps of books/studies on this). There are higher percentages of sportspeople born in certain months (start of the year etc) for rep teams done on age as older can mean bigger/stronger/faster as teens. Once they make rep sport and get better coaching etc they succeed and get known by selectors etc

 

[Athlai]

Classic Aries thing to say

 

[SteveNZ]

At that younger age, to me it's very much natural ability. You haven't had the time or the necessary attention span to be coachable so the best performed kids generally do both batting and bowling because they have the physical movement skills (partly nurtured but no doubt at this age a bit of nature). Then those kids tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy because they're identified, picked in the rep teams, given access to coaching etc.

 

[SteveNZ]

Birth months are also a factor in sporting success (heaps of books/studies on this). There are higher percentages of sportspeople born in certain months (start of the year etc) for rep teams done on age as older can mean bigger/stronger/faster as teens. Once they make rep sport and get better coaching etc they succeed and get known by selectors etc

Yep, this is what my post above alludes to. The classic study was on Canadian ice hockey players, who were far above average likely to be born in Jan/Feb/March because those kids in age groups had slightly more time to mature, therefore were picked and identified early, and therefore pushed further ahead.

On what Flem said earlier, a lot of club players could make it to domestic 'A' level or FC if they trained hard enough and had access to good coaching. But who can commit to that above employment/study etc when cost of living is so dire? Not many. At the moment, the 'professionalism' in club cricket has never been better. Guys train hard, eat better, drink less, gym more etc than any other era. But that's not raising FC standards or international standards, and never will. All it is doing is producing a better depth of domestic A players. Hardly any FC and basically no international players play club cricket or train with them, which was different 15 years ago. And as I said, these guys train hard maybe until they're early 20s or so through study, and if they haven't made it they might keep playing, but their employment gets in the way of the required focus.

 

[Nintendo]

Yep, this is what my post above alludes to. The classic study was on Canadian ice hockey players, who were far above average likely to be born in Jan/Feb/March because those kids in age groups had slightly more time to mature, therefore were picked and identified early, and therefore pushed further ahead.

On what Flem said earlier, a lot of club players could make it to domestic 'A' level or FC if they trained hard enough and had access to good coaching. But who can commit to that above employment/study etc when cost of living is so dire? Not many. At the moment, the 'professionalism' in club cricket has never been better. Guys train hard, eat better, drink less, gym more etc than any other era. But that's not raising FC standards or international standards, and never will. All it is doing is producing a better depth of domestic A players. Hardly any FC and basically no international players play club cricket or train with them, which was different 15 years ago. And as I said, these guys train hard maybe until they're early 20s or so through study, and if they haven't made it they might keep playing, but their employment gets in the way of the required focus.

Is it necessarily birth month causing this? I remember a book I read discussed something similar in the stock market where stocks across the board performed better in January than other months and I think that was hypothesized to be due to a random third variable I can't recall.

 

[Immenso]

In cricket, you dont want to be born in August.

 

[SteveNZ]

Is it necessarily birth month causing this? I remember a book I read discussed something similar in the stock market where stocks across the board performed better in January than other months and I think that was hypothesized to be due to a random third variable I can't recall.

NHL Totals by Birth Month - Career Stats

NHL Totals by Birth Month - Career Regular Season Stats.

www.quanthockey.com

https://www.nhl.com/news/study-suggests-nhl-has-bias-in-favour-of-players-born-earlier-in-the-year/c-657724

I'm far from a professor and don't know how to pick the bones out of studies, but it does seem based on that admittedly shallow dive, players born early in the year are advantaged in terms of making NHL rosters + playing And ones born later in the year apparently have more successful careers, because they had to have greater gifts than just a few months more physical growth?

In cricket, you dont want to be born in August.

This one hurts. Why so? I was generally the older one in my age group teams, from memory, and certainly was at secondary school/primary school in year groups.

 

[Immenso]

[QUOTE="SteveNZ]

This one hurts. Why so? I was generally the older one in my age group teams, from memory, and certainly was at secondary school/primary school in year groups.
[/QUOTE]
The cut off for U19s is 1st sep.

 

[ataraxia]

CD touring Canterbury were already pretty under-strength – light Ajaz, Young, Tickner, Bracewell, Rance, Field, and seemingly Rossco too (they better not have ****ing dropped him). There doesn't look to have been any official communications, but it looks like Bruce was ruled out of action too.

CD's reserve player was a bowler, meaning their side is now:

JCT Boyle /
BS Smith /
BD Schmulian / o
D Cleaver* + /
JA Clarkson / o
WJ Clark o /
BG Randell o
BM Johnson o
JR Lennox o
LR Dudding o
RL Toole o

They've got Sam Cassidy from their U19 setup to go from Lincoln to Hagley to be 12th man. Not the end of the world, but that's a lot of icing and little cake lol

 

[Athlai]

Aces vs Stags at the Outer Oval this Saturday. What if Ross hits one out of the ground? Naturally I'd find it

 

[ataraxia]

Old-fashioned sorta one-dayer that. So good to see McClure recalled and back in the runs

 

[NZTailender]

Aces vs Stags at the Outer Oval this Saturday. What if Ross hits one out of the ground? Naturally I'd find it

I want to go but the weather suggests it might be a fools errand

 

[Athlai]

Yeah I don't think I'll be going. But if Taylor smashes one out of the ground I'll be so gutted

 

[Neil Young]

Wellington U19s look strong this year. Obviously Abbas is a pretty good addition, but runs are coming from a few of them. Oscar Jackson has had a low-key tournament and he would have gone in as one of the key batsmen alongside Abbas.