Only 2 reviews in West Indies-England series

The ICC announced today that there will only be 2 reviews per innings per team during the upcoming West Indies v England tests.

In the ICC's own words

It has become clear during the trial so far that three unsuccessful reviews per innings is too many as there is potential there for frivolous or unnecessary reviews to be made by one side or the other.

I find this bizarre. So is there only 1 frivolous appeal every inning? Are teams appealing for the third review just to get it out of the way? I suspect not!

If anything, this increases the possibility that the umpire makes a howler which the players can't appeal against. Doesn't that contradict why this system was introduced in the first place?

Imagine if the test match or series was up for grabs, with the last pair at the crease and an appeal for lbw was made, but the umpire ruled not out even though it was quite plumb. The bowling team finds to its agony that it has exhausted all its reviews. The batsmen go on to save/win the test. I'm guessing that it isn't an altogether unlikely scenario. So why should a team be penalized for using up its reviews even as an umpire getting it wrong totally costs them a test/series?

Unfortunately, I don't see any indication of time restrictions being placed on players & umpires to prevent abuse of the system or pretty much bring play to a standstill. In addition, there is no mention of other technology being made available to the TV umpire.

I believe that there should be an unlimited number of reviews, with run penalties for failed attempts. What about you? Vote and tell us!

PS: Is the West Indies-England series still called the "Wisden Trophy" or is it now called the Bloomsbury Trophy?

Labels: england, icc, reviews, umpires, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:29 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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ICC's "best ever" rankings

Yesterday, the ICC announced that Matthew Hayden was ranked 10th in the all-time 'best ever rating' list. I thought the announcement was rather unwarranted, except perhaps as a retirement present, for there wasn't really any other reason to make this announcement. Maybe visits to the ICC's website were dwindling. Perhaps Google AdSense wasn't giving them enough revenue.

Anyone could have visited the player rankings site and found out which batsmen or bowlers had the highest ratings. Any "all-time" list that doesn't include Sachin Tendulkar is bound to be viewed as casus belli by India's news-hungry media & clueless 'fans'. Thankfully, the BCCI hasn't reacted so far. Following the 'outrage', the ICC put out a clarification.

The original media release said "Such outstanding ratings can only be achieved by players who display consistent excellence over a prolonged period of time". The clarification said "The rankings give an indication of how players peaked during their careers but do not give a full picture of those players' level of consistency or longevity in the game" I'm fairly sure the two statements are contradictory when they refer to the correlation between the ranking & longevity.

Let's set the record straight - the 'best ever' ranking is a value for the peak performance of a player. It doesn't imply that is his career mean or median. All it provides is a rating, a value at a point in time (say after a test series). Based on the ICC's all-time list, it seems like ratings of 900 and above are very difficult for people to achieve (Tests: 25 batsmen, 19 bowlers & ODIs: 8 batsmen, 5 bowlers). It's the sort of rating you get from having multiple brilliant performances in the time gap between the ratings getting updated.

Sample this: Don Bradman had test scores of 132, 127*, 201 & 57* to help him get the all-time high rating of 961. Joel Garner had ODI bowling performances of 3/29, 2/26, 0/6, 2/16 & 4/10 (3/29 in 10 overs being his costliest effort) to help him get to a #1 rating of 940. Syd Barnes had test bowling performances of 3/26, 5/102, 7/56 & 7/88 for a #1 rating of 932 (and never played test cricket again!). Viv Richards had ODI scores of 51(50), 80*(39), 53(57) & 66(39) to get a #1 rating of 935.

With a huge "We told you so" smirk on my face, let me point out that nearly 2.5 years ago, just after the ICC Player Rankings site was launched, we wrote

To determine the 'best ever' batsmen and bowlers, the site uses the highest rating at a given point in time. Wouldn't it have been better, and a fairer judgement of who the best really is/was, if the players' ratings had been averaged over their career? If Sunil Gavaskar is ahead of Lara, Miandad, Haynes & Tendulkar in the all-time one-day batting list, Peter May and Matthew Hayden are ahead of Richards, Gavaskar & Lara in the all-time test batting list and Tony Lock is ahead of Warne, Lindwall and Trueman in the test bowling list and Ewen Chatfield is ahead of Kumble, Vaas & Wasim in one-dayers, then David Lloyd's backside is indeed a fire engine.

Just sample these to get an idea of how moronic this 'best ever' ranking is: Botham is a "better" test bowler than Marshall, Hadlee, Warne, Donald, Lillee, Gibbs, Holding, Kumble, Akram, etc. Gary Kirsten is a "better" ODI batsman than de Silva, Mark Waugh, Ganguly, Jayasuriya, Gilchrist, Ponting, Azhar, Inzamam, Symonds, Sehwag, etc. Maninder is a "better" ODI bowler than Akram, Bond, Bracken, Saqlain, Kumble, Warne, Imran, etc. Botham is a "better" test batsman than Zaheer Abbas, de Silva, Thorpe, Mark Waugh, Langer, etc.

Just take the entire ranking with a large bucket-ful of salt. May the farce be with you!

Labels: hayden, icc, rankings, tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:40 pm | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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India to play 3 tests in New Zealand

After India cancelled the tour of Pakistan, the situation was such that the players would have had no international cricket between Dec 24 and Mar 3 and only some of them would have featured in the Ranji Trophy semi-finals and final. The BCCI was hit significantly by the cancellation of the tour in terms of revenues from TV and hence started talks with New Zealand's cricket board to include an extra test in that tour.

It is likely that the original request from the BCCI was for making it a 2-test 7-ODI series. I guess Cricket NZ shot down the idea. In any case, credit to both parties for the revised schedule.

The original schedule comprised of 1 T20 game, a warm-up game, 2 tests and 5 ODIs. Under the new schedule, India will play 2 T20 games, 3 tests and 5 ODIs, which means the warm-up game has been scrapped. I'm not too concerned about the absence of a warmup game since the bulk of the Indian team would have featured in the ODIs, the only exceptions being Dravid, Laxman & perhaps Mishra.

Labels: bcci, india, new zealand

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:18 pm | Sledge/Read 3 sledge(s)
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Hayden announces retirement

A few hours ago, as we noted on Twitter, Matthew Hayden announced his retirement from all representative cricket, including book cricket. You can also see the video of his press conference.

As has been made obvious far too often on this blog, Hayden ranks pretty high in our list of "must-hate" cricketers. So that pretty much guarantees we aren't going to waste too much time in nostalgia.

Is it good riddance? Naah, we'll miss the verbal diarrhea for sure!

Labels: australia, book cricket, hayden, retire

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:25 am | Sledge/Read 11 sledge(s)
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Exclusive: ICC to appoint Ricky Ponting to umpires panel

In a dramatic revelation exclusive to Cricket 24x7, an ICC source who preferred not to be named has announced that the ICC is considering appointing Ricky Ponting, Australia's captain, as an umpire in their panel. An agreement has been struck with Cricket Australia which will allow Ricky Ponting to be the first player to umpire even though he has not retired from the game. Although Ponting has never publicly expressed interest in the role, his comments last January about umpires being stressed out and the need to expand the panel do offer a hint.

There are apparently multiple reasons for this move by the ICC:

• The ICC umpires panel has taken a hit in the recent past, with the exits of Darrell Hair, Ian Robinson and Peter Parker. In addition, Simon Taufel had spoken about the possibility of quitting and Steve Bucknor didn't have a great start to the year.
  
• The ICC, and the other cricket boards, are encouraging former players to take up umpiring and Paul Reiffel has moved up the Australian umpiring ranks to now become an ODI umpire. Ricky Ponting is part of the natural progression. His appointment isn't expected to impact his media commitments. As for impacting the captaincy, Cricket Australia sources revealed that it couldn't possibly get worse anyway.
  
• The ICC is embarking on a cost-cutting measure. So we could potentially see some of the bad umpires replaced over a period of time by players and the individual cricket boards would pay the bills.
  
• The most important criterion, and the clincher, is that Ponting has already displayed, twice within a year, his ability to be pro-active and one step ahead of the umpires. The ICC has been extremely impressed by Ponting's eagerness & willingness to declare out Sourav Ganguly in early 2008 and Jacques Kallis a couple of days ago, both at Sydney in controversial circumstances, when the on-field umpires, unsure about whether the ball had carried (to Clarke & McDonald respectively), had referred it to the TV umpire who was still taking a look at the replay for the 23rd time from the 7th possible angle.

It is expected that Ponting would first be drafted in to the International Panel and then promoted to the Elite Panel. It is not yet confirmed if Ponting will be allowed to umpire in games that he captains in, but it is likely to be the case if the ICC is really serious about cutting costs.

Labels: exclusive, icc, ponting, umpires

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Breaking news: Pietersen and Moores quit as England's captain & coach

According to Sky News, Kevin Pietersen has quit as England's captain. Cricinfo reports that Peter Moores, England's coach, has also resigned.

This follows the publicized clash of views between the two that required hurried intervention by senior folks at the ECB.

Pietersen had been named England captain 5 months ago.

I guess we'll have to await confirmation from the ECB, but this is about the worst thing that England cricket needs now with a tour of West Indies starting in a couple of weeks and a team that hasn't beaten significant opposition for 3 years now, the last one being the home win over Pakistan in 2006.

Now who'll be made captain? Strauss? But he isn't in the ODI team. Vaughan? Isn't that a retrograde move? Flintoff? He was cast aside after the 2006/07 Ashes thrashing. Collingwood? He gave up the job 5 months ago and I'm not sure how much of a certainty he is in tests because he seems to be in the team on a per-test basis. Cook? Far too early! My guess is that the ECB, if it does accept Pietersen's resignation, will opt for Strauss as test captain & persuade Flintoff or Collingwood to be the ODI captain.

As for the coach, that's a toughie because the main candidates that people have talked about are associated with either Pietersen or Moores. Andy Flower is a Moores pick while Graham Ford was being backed by Pietersen. I guess that also rules out Warne!

Do I love it when England cricket is in trouble? Of course!

Update: I just had a rather evil thought. Does it seem like Pietersen doesn't quite enjoy it when things don't work out the way he wants? He quit South Africa claiming that the system was unfair. Now he's quit as captain because he can't have his way with the coach.

Labels: breaking news, captaincy, coach, england, pietersen

Thus spake Jagadish @ 7:19 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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ICC ratings in 2008 - the gainers and the losers

While the way the ICC rankings work will be as much an unknown commodity as the Duckworth-Lewis tables, they are a reasonable pointer to the way a team performed across a slightly larger time period - say a year.

Using the test and odi rankings list for 2008, I charted out the performances of the top 7 teams (Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa & Sri Lanka). The results are interesting.

See the test ratings graph below. New Zealand & Australia are the biggest losers in terms of rating points (nearly 13% down for New Zealand & 8% for Australia) in December compared to January. South Africa (8.3%) is the biggest gainer, obviously because of their performances away, in India, England and Australia.

Pakistan (6.4%) is a gainer despite not playing a single test during the year! Go figure! Ignoring Pakistan's gain, India (6.3%) were the 2nd biggest story of the year, and (again) deservedly so since they beat Australia and England.



From the odi ratings graph below, India are the biggest gainers (8%) followed by Pakistan (4.6%). How is it that South Africa are #2 despite actually falling in rankings significantly (5.6%)? I'd say its because positions 2-7 are much more clustered together now (December) compared with at the start of the year. The other teams were neglibibly positive or negative in the rating change.



The combined ratings (a simple addition of the test & odi ratings) in the graph below indicates that if you take tests and odis as a whole, India are the team of the year (14.5% increase) while New Zealand's dip (13%) is a major cause for concern. Australia had a nearly 4% dip while Pakistan's numbers are artificially boosted by the test rating.

Labels: icc, rankings, statistic

Thus spake Jagadish @ 2:11 am | Sledge/Read 11 sledge(s)
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