Richard's First Chance Average theory

[Richard]

About being out off a no-ball, the bowler was that much closer to the batsman, which means he had less chance to react to it, so surely being out off a no ball shouldn't count as a dismissal, especially because off a slow bowler a batsman might see/hear the no ball call and chance his arm.

With spinners, yes - and you can usually tell when someone has. With seamers it's very, very occasional that you can hear the call.
If a no-ball is way, way over the line, then maybe you might have a point, but most no-balls have an inch or so in it at best, and that really doesn't make any difference to the reaction-time. That's why I always say bowlers should be about a foot behind the popping-crease with their front-foot - because then they'll never bowl no-balls and the batsman's reaction-time won't actually be increased.

 

[Richard]

Why? What about about poor the bowlers were? Fielding isn't all about catching - good fielders can cut off boundaries, save singles, restrict a possible 3 to just 2, etc., it all has an effect. Not that I worry about it - but why worry about first chance average and not everything else?

I don't worry about first-chance averages and not anything else - all averages need to be taken in context.
Difference is, chances can be quantified - misfields, quality of bowling etc. can all just be taken as general things.

 

[Pratters]

Not really - examining how he earned those runs is a slightly different matter altogether - never mind that 12 isn't really a particularly significant score.

12 was used for the example.

Examining how he scores the runs is not a different matter BECAUSE you are trying to find the worth of the runs.

If a player offers a chance at 50 and then goes on to score 250, you say he deserved 50. But then the 50 composes of various factors - good strokes, runs off bad delivery etc. So you cant really quantify in terms of standard norms.

 

[Richard]

Richards 'first chance average theory' = baseball-esque statistics ( ie, great bowlers averaging 14-15, good ones 15-20 and really really shyte ones 20-25, great batsmen averaging 35, good ones 30 and really really shyte ones like 5.00)

True.
What's wrong with that?
Different statistics have different contexts - a good scorebook-average at present is 40, just as a good scorebook-average in the 1870s was 30, maybe even less.
Why is it essential to take everything in the same context as the scorebook-average?

 

[andyc]

Yes, it is. Is the sky really blue? No, it's gngiuhurehg if someone calls it that.

You mean it's not gngiuhurehg!!??

 

[Richard]

12 was used for the example.

Examining how he scores the runs is not a different matter BECAUSE you are trying to find the worth of the runs.

If a player offers a chance at 50 and then goes on to score 250, you say he deserved 50. But then the 50 composes of various factors - good strokes, runs off bad delivery etc. So you cant really quantify in terms of standard norms.

You can - if you watch the innings. You can tell if it was a sparkling 50, where the batsman never looked in any trouble at all and got a fine ball after reaching it, or it can be a terrible one full of edges and mi***** where he looked all at sea and finally got out to a dreadful stroke.

 

[Richard]

You mean it's not gngiuhurehg!!??

Well... it might be.
Just most English-speaking people call the colour it appears as "blue".

 

[C_C]

True.
What's wrong with that?
Different statistics have different contexts - a good scorebook-average at present is 40, just as a good scorebook-average in the 1870s was 30, maybe even less.
Why is it essential to take everything in the same context as the scorebook-average?

Because it is an exercise in futility.
Unless you want to turn cricket into baseball ( where the ball overwhelmingly dominates the bat), there is no way to legislate your ideology.
In short, cricket wont be cricket !

 

[Robertinho]

I don't worry about first-chance averages and not anything else - all averages need to be taken in context.
Difference is, chances can be quantified - misfields, quality of bowling etc. can all just be taken as general things.

That's not what I mean - I mean, why bother with one relatively pointless statistic? Why not go the whole nine yards? "Bradman, ooh, he was good, but look at his average when facing a bowler at the start of his over. 36.09? Good, but not great."

That's just my whole objection to first chance averages - valid, but useless.

 

[Pratters]

You can - if you watch the innings. You can tell if it was a sparkling 50, where the batsman never looked in any trouble at all and got a fine ball after reaching it, or it can be a terrible one full of edges and mi***** where he looked all at sea and finally got out to a dreadful stroke.

Okay so we should analyse each and every ball a cricketer faces and decide:

Ball 1 of the over was good so the run scored was good
Ball 3 was crap so the boundary scored shouldnt count

!??????????

So out of the 250 runs scored, only 26 runs were good. (according to me) According to Mr x it was 37 and accprding to you 14.

Dude these are humans playing the game, not robots, I reiterate.

Thank god you dont watch tennis, Else Richards unforced errors theory would make me cry.

 

[shankar]

No, no-one debunked it. It was probably the discussion with shankar. And the conclusion we came to is that all averages have faults - the scorebook one the biggest faults because it acts as if luck were non-existent.

We came to no such conclusion! I agreed that the scorebook average overrates the batsman a little. But I've always held that the scorebook average is preferable to your first-chance average because while it may overrate a little, doesn't neglect any data in its analysis. But the latter neglects actual runs made by the batsman and hence I might end up with a diff. picture of the batsman's quality.

 

[Tom Halsey]

I'll say I see merit in the First Chance theory - but I don't completely agree with it. I think the average chance theory is slightly better, as that gives credit to someone dropped on 0 who goes on to 200. Still needs work though.

 

[Pothas]

The first chance theory i actualy see as pretty academic as luck broadly evens out anyway, i also think it can favour defensive players in some ways who dont play risky shots, players like Pieterson tend to have a few streaky shots that could be considerd chances but that is just the way they play

 

[marc71178]

what defines a chance?

The eternal question which is the first major flaw.

 

[marc71178]

No, the chances are we will agree.
Occasionally, we will disagree.

No, people do not.

 

[Richard]

The first chance theory i actualy see as pretty academic as luck broadly evens out anyway

That's one of the most commonly quoted pieces of rubbish that mostly people use to try to brush-off the effects of luck.
Facts are, and it's incredibly obvious to anyone willing to open their mind and eyes, every batsman will have slightly differing amounts of luck, some will have lots more than the regulation (Trescothick, Gilchrist, Hayden, Sehwag, Lara) and almost every batsman will have far more good luck than bad in their careers.

 

[Richard]

Because it is an exercise in futility.
Unless you want to turn cricket into baseball ( where the ball overwhelmingly dominates the bat), there is no way to legislate your ideology.
In short, cricket wont be cricket !

It will.
It will merely be cricket as most people don't know it.
Fact is, a set of statistics won't change the game.

 

[Richard]

That's not what I mean - I mean, why bother with one relatively pointless statistic? Why not go the whole nine yards? "Bradman, ooh, he was good, but look at his average when facing a bowler at the start of his over. 36.09? Good, but not great."

That's just my whole objection to first chance averages - valid, but useless.

And some stats have more value than others.
In the case of Bradman-at-start-of-career, that just shows that he wasn't a super-player at the start of his career.

 

[Richard]

Okay so we should analyse each and every ball a cricketer faces and decide:

Ball 1 of the over was good so the run scored was good
Ball 3 was crap so the boundary scored shouldnt count

!??????????

So out of the 250 runs scored, only 26 runs were good. (according to me) According to Mr x it was 37 and accprding to you 14.

Dude these are humans playing the game, not robots, I reiterate.

Eh? You can watch an innings and work-out how good the bowling was, but fact is runs are hardly ever scored off good balls, most runs come off bad balls and the skill is in waiting for these, not scoring off good ones.

Thank god you dont watch tennis, Else Richards unforced errors theory would make me cry.

I do watch tennis, and of course unforced-errors are the biggest part of the game. I don't really have a first-chance-score-style theory on it, though.

 

[Richard]

We came to no such conclusion! I agreed that the scorebook average overrates the batsman a little. But I've always held that the scorebook average is preferable to your first-chance average because while it may overrate a little, doesn't neglect any data in its analysis. But the latter neglects actual runs made by the batsman and hence I might end up with a diff. picture of the batsman's quality.

All right - the conclusion I came to after discussion with you on the issue that was more educated than with most.
I was actually talking about the all-chance average - and the faults of that are that it treats every ball after a chance as if it were the 1st ball of the innings. IMO that's the least faulty of the three.