Arguing the toss

Nathan Leamon in Cricinfo


Will awarding the toss to the away team even up the playing field and deliver more away Test wins, or is this yet another case of received cricketing wisdom not stacking up with the facts?


You will rarely be criticised for choosing to bat. Batting is the default setting; bowling first is seen as the gamble © Getty Images



On the first morning of the first Test between Pakistan and England in Abu Dhabi, three events came to mind. One current, one recent, one infamous. The first was the conversation between Michael Atherton and both captains at the toss and the unanimity of all concerned. The second, the recent proposal from Ricky Ponting and Michael Holding amongst others, that the toss be done away with in Test cricket and the choice given instead to the away captain. The other was Brisbane 2002, and Nasser Hussain choosing to bowl first on a day almost as hot as the one in Abu Dhabi.

Let's start with the second. The suggestion of awarding the toss to the away captain was made by Ponting as a possible solution to the perceived problem of home teams tailoring wickets to suit their strengths. And the resulting domination of home teams. "It has never been harder to win away from home", we are told repeatedly.

Ironically, the decline of away wins is one of those facts that is assumed to be true without often, it would seem, being checked. In fact, it has never been easier to win on the road. More Tests are won by the away team now than at any time in recent history.


AWAY WINS IN TESTS

Decade     Win%
2010s        28.8
2000s        28.4
1990s        23.1
1980s        21.1
1970s        22.7
1960s        21.5


This is largely down to the decline in the draw. There have been more and more results in Tests and although the proportion of them that have gone the way of the visitors has shifted slightly in favour of the home team, this has resulted in a significant rise in away wins.

That said, there are other factors that suggest the balance of power is shifting slightly towards the home team. The gap between averages at home and averages away is growing, for example. So let's assume for now that the premise is true, and that home teams are increasingly dominant.

Holding and Ponting have suggested giving the toss to the visiting captain to prevent home teams stacking the conditions in their favour. I don't know whether this is a good idea or not. But there are three reasons that we should question whether it would achieve its aims.

Firstly, it assumes groundsmen can reliably bake certain characteristics into a pitch. In practice, pitch preparation seems to be an inexact science. I have stood before Test matches around the world and listened to groundsmen describe how the pitch is going to play, only to watch it do something completely different half an hour later.

It also presupposes that the interests of groundsman and home team are aligned, which is often not the case. In England for example, venues are heavily incentivised to maximise revenues from the Tests they host by ensuring five full days' play. So groundsmen, understandably, often pay less attention to the needs of the visiting circus than to the people who pay their salary for the other 51 weeks of the year.

Secondly, there is a law of unintended consequences in sporting rule changes that can often produce the opposite result to the one intended. If a home captain had control over the pitch, the framers of this law are assuming he would back away from tilting it in his favour. Is it not just as likely that he would go the other way and seek to produce a pitch so favourable that the toss was taken out of the equation? This after all is what MS Dhoni openly sought to do when England and Australia each last toured, produce pitches that turn big from ball one, and so take the toss out of the equation. Equally, you could imagine England or Australia producing genuine green-tops that would be as helpful to the quicks on day four as day one.

But lastly, and most importantly, it assumes that captains are able to use the toss to their advantage. This is not in any way proven. In fact the evidence suggests it just isn't the case.

At the time of writing, 1,048 Tests have been played since January 1990. During that period, the side that won the toss has lost slightly more (377) matches than it has won (374). Winning the toss in the modern era appears to give a side no advantage at all.

It wasn't always so. On uncovered pitches, batting first in almost all instances was a robustly successful strategy. If it rained during the match, the pitch would deteriorate, affecting the side batting second disproportionately. Until 1970, the side batting first in a Test won 36 per cent of matches, and lost 28 per cent.

But in the modern era, the advantage of winning the toss seems to have disappeared. This is, of course, stunningly counterintuitive. Test cricket is an asymmetric game. One team bats first, then the other. And the two teams' chances of winning are not equal. The team batting first has different requirements for victory to the team batting second, and the pitch changes over the course of the match, affecting the balance of power between bat and ball. Therefore, we would assume, teams that win the toss can choose the best conditions and so gain an advantage. But they don't. How can that possibly be?

Dropped catches and a sickening injury to Simon Jones didn't help Nasser Hussain after he chose to bowl in Brisbane in 2002 © Getty Images





Sometimes, a perfectly reasonable response to current circumstances becomes a habit, then a tradition, then an article of faith that outlives the circumstances that created it. We rarely question what we know to be self-evidently true. And so the bias towards batting first seems to have outlived the circumstances that created it by several decades.

"If you win the toss, nine times out of ten you should bat. On the tenth occasion you should think about bowling and then bat."

That was a very successful strategy to adopt for the first century of Test cricket. And one that is still the default setting for most captains. In the 700 Tests played since January 2000, nearly twice as many captains have batted first than have chosen to bowl. Is it still successful?

In a word, no. In that period, the side batting first has won 36 per cent of those Tests, the side bowling first 39 per cent. The bat-first bias at the toss would seem to be neutral at best, and probably counter-productive.

It is still hard to believe that captains aren't able to use the toss to their advantage. There are venues where the evidence is stark. Some pitches clearly favour the side batting first, some the side batting second. In the 40 Tests played in Lahore, the team batting first has won just three. Adelaide by contrast is a classic bat-first venue. It starts as a batsman's paradise, but by the fifth day can be very tricky to bat on, with considerable turn for the spinners. In the 74 Tests played at the ground the side batting first have won 35, the side batting second 19. Since 1990 averages in the first innings are 44.6, in the second 38.9, the third 30.1 and the fourth 27.1 and, as you would expect, in that period, 25 out of 26 captains have chosen to bat first, gaining a considerable advantage in doing so.

These are not isolated cases. Many pitches have similarly skewed characteristics. Galle and Old Trafford for example, both have similar records to Adelaide. Karachi is as bowl-first friendly as Lahore.



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Captains' behaviour at the toss seems to be yet another example of received cricketing wisdom not concurring with the evidence. Where what teams do doesn't seem to maximise their chances of winning. Why is this the case?

Well, part of the story involves how our brains handle information. There has been a great deal of research into memory and perception, and the results are both surprising and illuminating when it comes to our decision-making in sport. For a start, our memories don't work as you might expect. They are not akin to a videotape; we don't record a series of events and then play them back as and when they are needed.

The disturbing truth is that our unaided recall is not very good. The human brain encodes less than 10 per cent of what we experience, the rest it simply makes up. Our minds construct a narrative around the coded memories we do have that fills in the gaps with a plausible story. Faced with a huge number of random or near random events (a cricket match, for instance) our brains pattern-spot, even when there is no pattern. Our minds look for those events that they can form into a pattern or story, and that becomes the meaning or lesson that we take away from the match. Even if the vast number of events that occurred didn't fit the pattern, we disproportionately remember the ones that did.

At their best then, our memories seem to work along the lines of Albert Camus's description of fiction, they are the lie through which we tell the truth. What we remember didn't actually happen, what we remember is a story that our brains have fabricated, but one that we hope contains the essential truth of what happened in a way that we can understand and retain.

Our fallible memories are only part of the reason captains and coaches behave the way they do. There is another, far more powerful reason to make the choices they make and one which is harder to argue against. For this we need to go back to Brisbane in 2002, and Nasser Hussain choosing to bowl.


"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald



It was the first Test of the Ashes, an Australian team were at the peak of their powers and playing at home in 'Fortress Brisbane', the hardest ground in the world to win at as an away team. No visiting team had won in the last 26 Tests played at the 'Gabbattoir'. Hussain won the toss and chose to bowl, Australia were 364-2 by the close of play and went on to win comfortably.

It is no use looking back with hindsight and using that to determine whether a decision was right or wrong. I am sure that if Nasser had known that choosing to bowl first would bring a host of dropped chances, the loss of a bowler to injury and Australia piling up the first-innings runs, he would have chosen to have a look behind door B and strapped his pads on.
But he didn't know, and in evaluating a past decision, we shouldn't know either. We need to remain behind the veil of ignorance, aware of all the potential paths the match could have taken, but ignorant of the one that it did.

One way we can do that is to simulate the match. There are various models that allow us to simulate matches given the playing strengths of the two sides and give probabilities for the outcome. When we do this for that Brisbane Test, we get the following probabilities for England:


Decision                  Win                  Draw                 Lose
Bat First                   4%                     3%                   93%
Bowl First                 4%                   10%                   86%



Every batsman in Australia's top seven for that match finished his career averaging over 45 (three averaged 50-plus), none of the English players did, only two averaged 40. England had a decent bowling attack. Australia had Warne, McGrath and Gillespie with 1,000 wickets between them already.

England were a pretty good side, they'd won four, lost two of their previous 10 matches. But they were hopelessly outgunned, and in alien conditions. Steve Waugh, the Australian captain, was also going to bowl if he had won the toss. If he had done then Australia would almost certainly have won the match as well. Australia were almost certainly going to win regardless of who did what at the toss.

But none of that made any difference. Hussain's decision to bowl first was castigated by the public and press of both countries. Wisden described it as "one of the costliest decisions in Test history". One senior journalist wrote that the decision should prompt the England captain "to summon his faithful hound, light a last cigarette and load a single bullet into the revolver".

For Nasser in Brisbane, read Ricky Ponting at Edgbaston in 2005, another decision to insert the opposition that has never been lived down. Yet, if either of them had batted first and lost, no one would ever remember their decision at the toss. You will rarely if ever be criticised for choosing to bat. Batting is the default setting; bowling first is seen as the gamble. And remember, the side that bats first loses significantly more than it wins.

Test cricket is one of the greatest contests in sport, a brilliant, multi-faceted contest for mind and body. But it is also a game of numbers. If you can tilt the numbers slightly in your favour, get them working for you, not against you, plot a slightly more efficient path to victory, then you are always working slightly downhill rather toiling against the slope.

As I write this, Pakistan are about to go out and bowl for the fourth consecutive day of England's first innings in Abu Dhabi on a pitch that you could land light aircraft on. They have home advantage, have made the orthodox decision, played well, and yet there is only one team that can win the match from here, and it isn't them. If this is what home advantage and winning the toss looks like then they are welcome to it.

It is all but certain that if they had ended up batting second they would now be in a considerably better position. Reverse the first innings as they have happened and Pakistan would now be batting past an exhausted England side and about to put them under the pump for a difficult last three sessions. And in the alternative scenarios where one side or the other got a first innings lead, as we have seen, those work disproportionately in favour of the side batting second.

But, we all do it. We look at a pristine wicket, flat, hard and true, and batting seems the only option. It is written into our cricketing DNA. The evidence may suggest there is a small marginal gain in bowling. But small margins be damned. If the marginal gain erodes your credibility and authority, then that is probably not an exchange you are willing to make. There are tides you can't swim against.

Which brings us back to Alastair Cook and Misbah-ul-Haq, standing in Abu Dhabi in the baking heat. Both are men of considerable character; brave, implacable and preternaturally determined to win. Each has withstood the slings and arrows of captaining their country through some fairly outrageous fortunes. Each is ready to bat first without a second thought. Because while they are certainly brave, they are not stupid. And you would have to be really stupid to make the right decision.
And there of course you have the central problem of much decision-making in cricket. This pitch is slightly different to all the other pitches that there have ever been. And you don't know for certain how it is going to play, or how that will influence the balance of power in the match. There are those who would argue that this is why stats are useless, or at best very limited.

I would agree entirely that stats are never sufficient to make a decision. There is nuance and subtlety to weigh; the brain and eye have access to information that the laptop doesn't. The feel and instincts of coaches and players, the hard-wired learning from decades in the game, contains incredibly valuable information and will always be the mainstay of decision-making that must be flexible and fluid through changing match situations. But if we are honest, we must also accept that the sheer weight and tonnage of what we don't know about how cricket works would sink a battleship. To use stats and nothing else to make decisions would be incredibly foolish, and as far as I am aware no one ever has. But equally, to insist on making decisions on incomplete information, without ever reviewing the effectiveness of those decisions would seem almost equally perverse.

I'm not saying that everyone was wrong in Abu Dhabi. I'm not saying that Misbah should have bowled. The weight of opprobrium heaped on him doesn't bear thinking about. It's the sort of decision that ends captaincies. No, Misbah had only one option and he took it. But maybe, just maybe, one day there will come a time when it isn't such an obvious choice.

Cricket - Is home advantage two extra players?

Tom Fordyce in The BBC


One of the wonders of England's 3-1 Ashes triumphthis summer is that it emerged from such carnage: that ghastly 5-0 Pomnishambles in the preceding series 18 months ago, the second whitewash Australia had inflicted in three Ashes series down under.

That itself followed a 3-0 win for England the summer before, part of a run that has seen them win four consecutive Ashes series at home for the first time since the 19th century.

To think Home and Away used to be so popular. Ashes cricket, supposedly the fiercest contest the sport can offer, is in danger of becoming dangerously predictable.

Playing at home? You'll probably win. Playing away? Good luck.

In the 14 years since Australia last won in England, only one of the eight Ashes series has been won by the touring side.

Recent Ashes series results
England's home form	Australia's home form
2015: England lead 3-1	2013-14: Australia won 5-0
2013: England won 3-0	2010-11: England won 3-1
2009: England won 2-1	2006-07: Australia won 5-0
2005: England won 2-1	2002-03: Australia won 4-1
2001: Australia won 4-1	1998-99: Australia won 3-1

It is a significant twist in the longest running rivalry in international cricket. In the 14 years and seven series before that, more than half were won by the away team.

The long-term numbers back up that dramatic trend. Prior to 2002, according to Test Match Special statistician Andrew Samson, 117 Ashes Tests were won by the home team, 98 by the away team. That's a win/loss ratio, in games that saw a result, of 1.19.

Since 2002, 25 Ashes Tests have been won by the hosts and seven by the visitors. That's a win/loss ratio of 3.57.

A little of that reflects the decreasing number of draws as Test cricket has speeded up. Before 2002, draws accounted for 29% of Ashes contests; since then, only 18%.

Much more it reflects more serious concerns: the inability of players, particularly batsmen, to adapt their game to the different conditions overseas; the lack of time and opportunity today's short tours give them to even try; the increasing temptation to win an advantage before a ball has even been bowled by producing pitches designed to favour your own skills rather than an even contest.

"For me it is quite simple," says Graeme Swann, part of the only Ashes team in those 14 years to win an away series. "In England the wickets are getting slower so the batsmen are not being exposed to fast bouncy wickets. When they go to Australia it is a culture shock. They can't deal with these guys with raw pace on fast, bouncy wickets.

"Then, when you come to England and the ball still swings, even the visiting batsmen that play county cricket don't face the highly skilled swing bowling they do in Tests. Batsmen don't like the ball moving laterally through the air. It is bad enough when it is jagging about off the pitch.

"The Aussies come here and nick everything. We go there and get bumped out. That is it in a nutshell."

Modern tours, designed to maximise revenue rather than ease players in, are shorter than ever before. Test series rattle past with back-to-back matches rather than pausing for other contests to allow players to refine and practise technique.

This summer, Australia began with just two three-day matches, both against weakened Kent and Essex sides. Once the Tests began, a mere fortnight after their arrival, they then had only one more three-day match before the series was decided at Trent Bridge.

England in home Test series
Opponent	Dates	Result
Australia	July-August 2015	Won (lead 3-1)
New Zealand	May-June 2015	Drew 1-1
India	July-August 2014	Won 3-1
Sri Lanka	June 2014	Lost 1-0
Australia	July-August 2013	Won 3-0
New Zealand	May 2013	Won 2-0

In that tour match against Derbyshire only five players who would make the team for the next Test at Edgbaston were picked, because the others - after back-to-back Tests in Cardiff and at Lord's, and with back-to-back Tests to come in Birmingham and Nottingham - needed rest and recovery.

In England's hammering in 2013-14 there was even less respite. There was only one other tour match once the Test series had started, a meaningless two-day tourist trip to Alice Springs to play a scratch side that included a 16-year-old, on a pitch that bore no resemblance to the ones where Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris were rattling them out in the Tests.

These are tours barely recognisable to the recent past. In the summer of 1989, when Australia won the Ashes in England to begin a run of 16 years without a series defeat on English soil, they played five three-day county games before the series began and another nine interspersed between the six Tests.

How much easier to pass an exam when you attend that many tutorials first.

England in away Test series
Opponent	Dates	Result
West Indies	April-May 2013	Drew 1-1
Australia	November 2013-January 2014	Lost 5-0
New Zealand	March 2013	Drew 0-0
India	November-December 2012	Won 2-1
Sri Lanka	March-April 2012	Drew 1-1
Pakistan (in UAE)	January-February 2012	Lost 3-0

Neither was that an unusually long tour. Australia's next Ashes tour in 1993 saw them arrive in May and leave in September. The first ball of the Test series was bowled on 3 June, and the last two and a half months later on 23 August.

The entire 2015 Test series can, even if The Oval Test bucks the summer's pattern and goes the full five days, last no more than seven weeks from start to scheduled final day. There are five Tests in this series rather than the six of 1989 and 1993. Yet this time the tourists rocked up in late June and will play their last day of first-class cricket with at least a week of August still to go.

It is less a learning process than a frantic cramming. And that's if you actually want to adapt techniques.

On this tour, Australia's batsmen have continued to play attacking shots even as conditions at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge demanded something entirely different. Neither is this a one-off. They were hammered 4-0 in spin-friendly conditions in India in 2013, and then 2-0 by Pakistan on dead wickets in UAE in 2014.


And they are not alone in failing to understand how to adapt for different surfaces. In the 13 Tests England have played on the hard, bouncy tracks of the Waca in Perth, they have lost nine and won one.

"It's not easy playing away but it's something we have to get better at," Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland admitted after the defeat at Trent Bridge at the weekend. "We want to be the best cricket team in the world and to do that we have to be better at playing away."

Because this is not just an Ashes issue. Test cricket across the world has the same problem.

The increasing advantage of playing at home
1980s: 87 home wins, 56 away, 122 draws, one tie, home win/loss ratio 1.55
1990s: 142 home wins, 80 away, 124 draws, ratio 1.77
2000s: 215 home wins, 134 away, 114 draws, ratio 1.6
2010s: 110 home wins, 61 away, 58 draws, ratio 1.8
Since start of 2013: 60 home wins, 22 away wins, 25 draws, ratio 2.72

As the table indicates, Test cricket is becoming weighted in favour of home sides like never before.

"It is like when Australia play in India and vice-versa - that's very one-sided too," says former Australia fast bowler Glenn McGrath. "Batsmen learn to play in their own conditions and struggle to adapt.

"In Australia the wickets used to have their own character so you had to adapt. Now every wicket is the same, so the batsmen get used to playing on one type of wicket and aren't challenged by another type."

Sydney is no longer a spinner's paradise. The MCG uses drop-in pitches. Adelaide is increasingly primarily an Aussie Rules venue. The Gabba at Brisbane is flatter than ever before.

"As soon as they face another wicket they can't adapt," says McGrath. "But that is the difference between a good and great player: being able to adapt."

It is changing the dynamic within individual series too.

Eighty-three Test series have been completed since the start of this decade. Just over 50% (42 series) have ended in a whitewash, where one side has won every single match.

In the decade from 1990 to 2000, only 12% of series ended in a whitewashes; in the 1980s, 7%.

This partly reflects the rise of the two-Test series. It is also a serious concern for the game.

England's next series comes against Pakistan in the UAE. On their last trip there in the winter of 2011/12 they were whitewashed 3-0, having that summer themselves whitewashed India 4-0.

Test cricket is about cut and thrust. It is at its best when each side, with their own idiosyncrasies, comes together on a surface that offers both the prospect of reward for application and accuracy.

When there is cut but no thrust, when the outcome feels inevitable, it is a weaker contest and a weaker sport. Who wants to watch a procession?

 

The menace of the last-wicket stand: Come in, No. 11!

Simon Barnes in Wisden India

It’s time to resurrect the Campaign for Real Number Elevens. We are in danger of losing touch with one of cricket’s most ancient traditions. One of the last Test series in England in which both teams included a classic No. 11 involved India, in 1990. And it was all the more inspiring for the contrast between them.

India had the leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani – a wee sleekit cow’rin tim’rous beastie of a batter, convinced that every ball was an explosive device best negotiated from square leg. In 17 Tests he scored 54 runs at 5.40. During that series, when India required 24 to save the follow-on at Lord’s, Kapil Dev launched Eddie Hemmings for four sixes in a row, rather than trust Hirwani to face a delivery. He was right, too: Hirwani fell first ball next over.

England countered with Devon Malcolm, a fast bowler convinced of his own immortality: a mighty, wide-shouldered swiper who never let his own poor eyesight – in his early days he played in Hank Marvin horn-rims – get in the way of his belief that every ball bowled to him belonged on the far side of the boundary. This approach brought him 236 runs in 40 Tests at 6.05.

But these guys are history. The contemporary No. 11 can bat. It’s not that every clown now wants to play Hamlet; they always did. These days, every clown can play the attendant lord, infinitely capable of swelling a progress, or starting a scene or two as circumstances require. As a result, the fall of the ninth wicket is no longer the signal to put the kettle on. The last-wicket stand used to be one of cricket’s brilliant jokes. Now it’s got serious.

In the First Test at Trent Bridge last summer, the Indian first innings concluded with a last-wicket stand worth 111, between Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami. These days, though, substantial last-wicket stands come along like the No. 49 bus, and the next arrived one innings later, as Joe Root and Jimmy Anderson put on a Test-record 198; Anderson was disappointed when he got out for 81.

The previous year the Ashes had begun with Australia’s last-wicket stand of 163 – also at Trent Bridge, also a Test record – between Phillip Hughes and Ashton Agar. Agar, the No. 11, was out for 98; it turned out he was a far better batsman than bowler. And, in 2012, Denesh Ramdin and Tino Best hit 143 for the tenth wicket for West Indies at Edgbaston.

So let’s savour a few stats. In last summer’s England–India series, the average tenth-wicket stand was 38, higher than for any series of more than three matches. The previous-best was 33 – for the 2013 Ashes. The last wickets of England and India contributed 499 runs, another record; third, with 432, is the 2013 Ashes. Second and fourth in the list are the 1924-25 and 1894-95 Ashes, outliers from pre-history. The current numbers appear to indicate a trend – and 13 of the 26 last-wicket hundred stands have come this century.

A decent last-wicket stand is less of a surprise than it used to be. But its increasing regularity makes it even more irritating for the fielding side. It’s a combination of free runs and derisive mockery of the opposition. It’s a classic win double: the batting side feels better and better, while the bowling side feels ghastlier and ghastlier. It’s not as if someone has stolen an advantage: it’s more as if God Himself has taken sides.

It’s a time when the team that are more batted against than batting tend to lose their head. They start a bumper war; since these stands usually happen on flat pitches, that tends to be a doomed project. Or they try to get only one batsman out, which means that the man higher up the order can focus freely on scoring runs. And the longer the No. 11 stays in, the more capable he feels about looking after himself, and the more he can take annoying singles.

A terrible feeling gathers in the bowling side: this ought not to be happening. It’s a freak, and it’s freakishly unfair. In truth, it’s a freak no longer. The spectacle of tired bowlers running in on flat pitches to jubilant tailenders while infuriated fielders dive about in vain is becoming one of cricket’s staples.

This can be doubly difficult for the bowling side if the captain is an opening batsman, such as Alastair Cook for England: mentally preparing to bat at the drop of the next wicket, but unable to take that wicket, and unable to think with absolute clarity about how best to do so. It’s captaincy as a classic frustration dream: on a par with running for the train through a sea of treacle, or opening the exam paper and realising you don’t understand the questions, still less know the answers.

It’s not hard to work out how this has come about. Ever since the one-day game became part of cricket, bowlers regularly bat in important match situations. They know that, when it comes to selection between two bowlers of apparently equal merit, the nod goes to the better batsman. Bowlers work at batting. They have nets, they have coaches, they have batting buddies.

Meanwhile, protective equipment, especially the helmet, has made it much easier to be brave against fast bowling, while modern bat technology means that even mis-hits reach the boundary. And if this were not enough to tip things in favour of more and bigger last-wicket stands, the tendency to produce chief executives’ wickets has made these former oddities into statistical certainties. Three of those recent monster stands were at Trent Bridge; their pitch for the India match was rated “poor” by the ICC.

So among the general hilarity of the last-wicket stand – and they are gloriously funny to everyone not bowling or fielding at the time – there is a point that is serious, not to say sinister. It’s not just that tailenders have learned how to bat: it’s that the essential balance between bat and ball has made a significant shift.

It’s easier to bat and score runs than it has been at any time in the history of cricket. The proliferation of huge last-wicket stands indicates that something has gone seriously amiss. Take that England–India game at Trent Bridge. One can be regarded as good fortune. Two looks like misgovernment on a global scale.

Making Test cricket interesting

By Girish Menon

Recently most commentators seem to justify lifeless pitches from a commercial point of view i.e. to make the test match last a minimum 4 days if not the full 5. I wondered if there is no other way to have exciting cricket and make it last 4-5 days as well. Then I had an idea which I wish to share with you and which, I hope, will make for exciting test cricket on lively pitches.

If a team collapses in any innings thereby enabling their opponents to win a test match in say 2/3/4 days then the losing team can invoke a third innings wherein it has to score more runs than their opponents whilst taking thirty wickets within the time left in the test match. If the team that invoked the third innings fails to take 30 wickets whilst scoring more runs than their opponents then the victorious result after the second innings will stand.

I look forward to your comments below:

What's a good pitch anyway?

 Michael Jeh

The 2013 Delhi Test was finished in three days. Ergo, was it a poor pitch?  © BCCI

Enlarge

Cricket is one of those games where a question does not necessarily require a definitive answer. Merely exploring the parameters of the question provokes enough meaty debate to justify the question being asked in the first place. So on that basis, in the wake of the Ashes Test in Sydney, I pose this question: what defines a "good" Test pitch?

As this is a truly global forum, I expect a varied and sometimes passionate response from the four corners of the world. Assuming we can put aside the obvious patriotic bias, what are some of the qualities of a pitch that define it as good, bad or indifferent? Is it ultimately a question that can only be answered retrospectively, at the end of the game when the result is known, or is it possible to make a judgement call on it on the very first day (or relatively early in the match)? 

 Not long ago, a talkback caller on my weekly radio programme on the ABC was scathing in his criticism of all the pitches in India on Australia's most recent Test tour there, and similarly disdainful of most pitches in England on the last Ashes tour. When I pointed out some facts, he reluctantly conceded that his bias had been fed by lazy cricket writers who were looking for a populist audience, and we then enjoyed a more useful debate about how easy it was to succumb to an argument based on jingoism rather than cricketing knowledge.

So what defines a good pitch then? Is it a pitch where:

Plenty of runs scored at a rate of 3-plus?

Barring bad weather, a game reaches a conclusion some time after tea on day four?

Fast bowlers and spinners have equal opportunities to take wickets (proportionately of course, given that it's usually three quicks and one spinner)?

A few centuries but not too many are made?

The ball carries through to the keeper until about day four, after which uneven bounce becomes more prevalent? (And if there is no uneven bounce late in the game, is that a sign of a poor pitch?)

Conditions do not favour either side to any great extent (keeping in mind the accusations of "doctored" pitches sometimes levelled at home teams)?

The toss of the coin doesn't effectively determine the outcome of the match?

I personally believe home teams are entitled to prepare pitches to suit their strengths. It is up to the visitors to select a team that can cope with those conditions. If the game goes deep into day four and beyond, it suggests a relatively even contest, not necessarily in terms of an outright victor but at least the possibility of a draw. The common thinking that associates "good" with bounce, carry, pace is one of the great misnomers. Cricket's complex global appeal lies in the fact that trying to tame Mitchell Johnson at home on a bouncy deck is as much of a challenge as coping with wily New Zealand seamers on a greentop, or using your feet against three slow bowlers on a pitch that turns from the first day. The notion that it should do plenty for the fast bowlers through the match but shouldn't turn for the spinners from the outset is a theory clearly propounded by those unable to bowl spin or bat against it.

Let's look then at the most recent home Tests played by every country and leave it up to the readers to decide which of these Tests were played on "good" pitches. Remember that this is only a small sample size and invariably favours the home team, but is that enough of a reason to refer to the pitches as "doctored"? Don't most teams struggle to win away from home? In this list (below), not one visiting team won a game but how many of the local media outlets made excuses about "home-town" pitches?

Bangladesh v NZ, Mirpur. Match drawn. Bangladesh 282 all out, NZ 437 all out, Bangladesh 269 for 3. No play on day five.

Zimbabwe v Pakistan, Harare. Zimbabwe won by 24 runs. Zimbabwe 294 all out, Pakistan 230 all out, Zimbabwe 199 all out, Pakistan 239 all out. Match concluded just after lunch on day five.

West Indies v Zimbabwe, Dominica. West Indies won by an innings and 65 runs. Zimbabwe 175 all out, West Indies 381 for 8 decl, Zimbabwe 141 all out. Match concluded after lunch on day three.

Sri Lanka v Bangladesh, Colombo (Premadasa). Sri Lanka won by seven wickets. Bangladesh 240 all out, Sri Lanka 346 all out, Bangladesh 265 all out, Sri Lanka 160 for 3. Match concluded late on day four.

South Africa v India, Durban. South Africa won by ten wickets. India 334 all out, South Africa 500 all out, India 223 all out, South Africa 59 for 0. Match concluded after tea on day five.

England v Australia, London (The Oval). Match drawn. Australia 492 for 9 decl, England 377 all out, Australia 111 for 6 decl, England 206 for 5 (21 runs short). Match concluded day five, close of play.

India v West Indies, Mumbai. India won by an innings and 126 runs. West Indies 182 all out, India 495 all out, West Indies 187 all out. Match concluded before lunch on day three.

New Zealand v West Indies, Hamilton. New Zealand won by eight wickets. West Indies 367 all out, New Zealand 349 all out, West Indies 103 all out, New Zealand 124 for 2. Match concluded after lunch on day four.

Pakistan v Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi. Match drawn. Sri Lanka 204 all out, Pakistan, 383 all out, Sri Lanka 480 for 5 decl, Pakistan 158 for 2. Match concluded day five, close of play.

Australia v England, Sydney. Australia won by 281 runs. Australia 326 all out, England 155 all out, Australia 276 all out, England 166 all out. Match concluded after tea on day three.

At first glance, I would nominate The Oval, Harare, Colombo and Durban as examples of excellent pitches, but does that necessarily make the others poor? Sydney, for example, barely lasted three days and clearly favoured the home team, but there should rightly be no talk of doctored pitches. England inspected the pitch, selected their best team, won the toss and were still thrashed by a vastly superior Australian outfit. Despite fine centuries from Steve Smith and Chris Rogers, 24 wickets fell on the first two days. Would the Australian media have been silent if that happened in Galle or Chennai? The resoundingly better team triumphed in Sydney, regardless of conditions that clearly favoured their strengths. Similarly when Australia toured India in 2013, despite winning all four tosses, they simply weren't good enough on pitches that suited India's skills. Delhi was the only venue that saw a result late on day three, and was labelled a disgrace by the Australian media, who will now be deafeningly silent about the early finish in Sydney, no doubt. Hence my earlier question - do we only judge a pitch retrospectively after we see who wins?

The recent Ashes series in England was written up by many in the Australian media as being played on "blatantly doctored pitches". Most of these cricket writers are journalists who never really played cricket to any significant level and are therefore sucked into the trap of making excuses that they think will resonate with readers who are supposedly dumb and easily seduced by an appeal to blind patriotism. But they misjudge us badly - the true Australian cricket fan understands the nuances of this great game and can appreciate skill, however it is wrapped, pace or spin. There will, of course, be that small vocal minority that only wants to read about good news (or excuses) but fortunately they are unlikely to be reading a global cricket website like this - the local tabloids will cater adequately to their coarse needs and hoarse voices.

Cricket - Let's tonk for all our worth

Matt Cleary in Cricinfo
(The Editor wonders if such an article would have been written if cricket's ancien regime had scored similar runs in 43 overs! It's a bit like the MCC limiting the number of bouncers per over after the West Indies pace attack. Yet, Matt has a point.)

Video games can't match the action we saw in Jaipur  © BCCI

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And so to the slaughter at Sawai Mansingh Stadium the other night, in which both sets of batsmen flogged the bowlers as if they were unrepentant 18th-century horse thieves. In 93.3 overs of crazy-mad bludgeon, Australia scored 359 and India chased it down for the loss of one wicket. Entertaining? No doubt. A contest? It was not.

For while all this heavy-batted bashing was sort of interesting, and you can admire the timing and skill required to achieve such high-octane hammer, the game itself was not a contest in terms of bat against ball. It was an arms race in which batsmen bullied bowlers and bowlers were powerless to fight back. And one team of bullies were just better bullies than the other. It was a lot of things. But cricket it was not. 

Not cricket?

Not cricket. Cricket is mean to be a contest. A contest has two parts. In cricket's case it's a battle between batsman and bowler. And the other night all the various weapons and devices available to bowlers - line, length, seam, swing, pace, spin, bounce, sweat, spit, minty sweets - were rendered redundant because of a pitch friendlier to batsmen than girls were friendly to Elvis.

What could bowlers achieve on that deck? What could they do? Everything from toe-crushing heat to half-tracking "spin" was dispatched by batsmen confident the pill would do nothing untoward. Like, at all. There was nothing doing. The cricket ball was nude. It was an ex-parrot. You'd have more chance against Viv Richards with a tennis ball on a beach.

I mean, had India been allowed to keep batting and had scored at a not-implausible 20 runs per over, they would have got close to 500. That's all well and good. People could have gone home and said, "I was there the night India scored close to 500." That's great. But it's not cricket. And it worries me how little people care that it's not.

Look at the rapture in the stands in Jaipur. Look at the worldwide love of T20. People love big hitting over everything else. Tonking trumps fast bowling, spin bowling, acrobatic fielding, a run-out, a stumping, a tail digging in to save a match. Everything is second to bat smashing ball. People enjoy it more than even winning. They would rather see their team smash 400 and lose than win chasing down 230 on a green top.

So let's not fight it. If the People's lust for the tonk is so prevalent, let's flat out change the rules of cricket. For instance, why not have let India keep going the other night after they had passed Australia's total? Give the people Full Value. Instead of ending the innings once a team has "won", continue as an exhibition of tonking, and so excite the people.

If the Jaipur pitch is the new paradigm, why grow grass on cricket wickets at all? Why call them "turf" wickets? Get the boffins to create a scientific blend of synthetic space-mat to give a perfectly uniform bounce every time, allowing batsmen to confidently tee off unfettered by doubt the ball will do anything "bad".

Why should teams be able to select bowlers who are any good? They may as well save their best bowlers for Test cricket anyway, and throw out any combination of grade hacks and kids and backpacking Fanatics. If Mitchell Johnson, Clint McKay, Shane Watson and James Faulkner can be flogged for 239 runs in 28 overs, it doesn't matter who you throw at them. You may as well pick a pace pack of piss-pots from the press gallery.

Does cricket need bowlers at all? Why not have a bowling machine at each end that shoots out a mixture of slow-medium full tosses, half-volleys and long hops, all relayed to the batsman before the ball is fed in. Or have the type of delivery required designated by the batsman. Instead of Aaron Finch asking for guard from the umpire, he could instruct the ball-feeder guy, "Half-tracker outside leg stump please", and so blaze away.

Why have fielders? Such is the public's ravenous appetite for boundaries, aren't these speed bumps just getting in the way of the fun? And on these wickets are they not largely superfluous anyway? They are there to chase balls thudding into the boundary and going over their heads. People in the crowd have more chance of catching Virat Kohli when he's batting on 192.

Maybe we make cricket like those home-run exhibition things they have in baseball. And have guys like Dave Warner and Chrissy Gayle - who under the new rules of cricket can play for whichever country/franchise they wish - toss balls in the air and flog them high into the crowd for people to catch and then wave like crazy people on big screen.

No bowlers, no fielders, no winners, no losers. Just big tonks soaring over the fence and into the crowd.

Sure, it won't be cricket. But it's not now either.

Why Cook's right for England

Or: the merits of long-term character over short-term flashiness

Ed Smith

April 3, 2013

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	Cook: not a "natural" leader, and that's perfectly fine © PA Photos  Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Alastair Cook | Brendon McCullum Matches: New Zealand v England at Auckland Series/Tournaments: England tour of New Zealand Teams: England

Alastair Cook took on the job of England Test captain with a reputation as a man unlikely to spring many surprises. In fact, he has produced two shocks already: a series win over India, coming back from 0-1 down, and then a scramble to avoid series defeat against eighth-placed New Zealand.

Captaincy being what it is - a convenient mechanism for pundits to shoehorn their general opinions of a team into a judgement of a single human being, as though the captain actually is the team - Cook has already experienced an accelerated cycle of ups and downs. Lauded in India, he was immediately widely criticised for his tactics in New Zealand.

Both judgements were hasty and incomplete. India first. England did superbly to win the series. But it was, in fact, a moment of hubris that let them back into the series. India prepared an ultra-turning pitch for the second Test, in Mumbai, mistakenly believing they were attacking England's weakness. In fact, the decision empowered Monty Panesar, who helped swing the series. On flat pitches, as we later saw in New Zealand, Panesar would have been unlikely to challenge the Indian batsmen. If India hadn't got cute with their pitch preparation, England would have struggled.

Then, in New Zealand, though Cook clearly made some mistakes, I saw nothing to challenge my initial view that Cook possesses the tools to become a very considerable England captain. In fact, after one winter in the job, I think it is more likely than ever that Cook will prove to be the right man for the job. If the England management takes a single lesson from the tour, it should be to do everything possible to provide Cook with as much support as possible. Here are three reasons why England should feel optimistic about backing Cook:

A huge question mark about all captains is how office will affect their individual performance. A captain has a short shelf-life if he doesn't produce his fair share of runs and wickets (invoking the example of Mike Brearley does not buy much time in the modern game). Cook's form, if you take the whole winter as a whole, has been spectacular. Seven matches, four hundreds, all of them scored in critical situations.

Ah, but we always knew he could bat. Can he set a field? Many successful captains have been widely regarded as tactically unremarkable. Allan Border was never talked about as a captain who set innovative, surprising fields. He relied on leading by example through his personal resilience and tenacity. It worked. Andrew Strauss led England to two Ashes victories, throughout which time a standard view in the media was that he was "tactically naïve". I challenge anyone to reach 35 years old as a professional sportsman and remain "naïve". No, the word is "cautious", or, if you're feeling more generous, "conventional".

The crucial point here is that you never get everything with one captain. Imagine having to choose between two leaders. The first is a talented, adventurous tactician who is personally unreliable and a flaky performer. The second is a strong, reliable player and a courageous person but a cautious and unsurprising tactician. Give both captains 50 matches in charge with the full support of the management. I know where my money lies about who will achieve the better results.

	I asked Geoff Boycott if he could remember an England batsman who had a more admirable talent-to-performance ratio. Boycott had to go back to David Steele before he could think of someone who had squeezed more from his ability

The media generally overrates captains who are exciting and interesting to watch. That is partly because such captains provide more talking points, hence making the media's job easier. Alpha-male captains also receive disproportionate praise. Pundits are quick to credit the work of "natural captains" - by which they usually mean people with gladiatorial body language - even though a moment's reflection reveals that the whole concept of a natural captain is undermined by the extraordinary diversity of characters who have become successful captains.

We saw the "alpha male/pro-adventure" bias at work in the reaction to Brendon McCullum's captaincy. The experts loved him because he was bold, intuitive and original. And I would generally agree. But a bandwagon effect emerged in which everything McCullum tried was greeted with gasps of admiration, while many tactics Cook used were written off without first considering whether it was the fault of the tactic or simply the fault of the execution by the bowler.

Let me give two examples to balance the ledger. On the last morning of the final Test, in Auckland, McCullum, searching for a victory, opened the bowling with the part-time offspin of Kane Williamson rather than his best bowler, Trent Boult. The batsmen at the crease were Ian Bell and Joe Root, both accomplished players of spin. By that point in the series, however, it had already been decided that McCullum was "a brilliant tactician", so the mistake slipped by mostly without criticism.

A second example came in the over before the second-last one of the match. After the fourth ball, McCullum seemed undecided about whether to bring up the field or leave it out. It seemed to me that everyone in the New Zealand team had an opinion and McCullum was finding it difficult to navigate events. Finally, watch again the last over of the match. Many arms were waving around in the field, not all of them belonging to McCullum. Had it been Cook, this would have been taken as evidence that he was insufficiently "in charge".

My point, far from attacking McCullum, is two-fold. First, the incredibly challenging role of captaincy demands constant decision-making, not just "natural leadership". Secondly, any captain can be easily criticised if you are minded to search for mistakes.

We already know enough about Cook to be sure he is an exceptionally balanced and accomplished young man. At the age of 28, he has more hundreds than any other Englishman. More revealingly, he has batted with more prolonged calmness and self-awareness than any English player I have seen. In New Zealand, I asked Geoff Boycott if he could remember an England batsman who had a more admirable talent-to-performance ratio. Boycott had to go back to David Steele before he could think of someone who had squeezed more from his ability, and Cook, of course, has far more ability to squeeze.

In making predictions, we should be guided by past achievements. Cook has a proven record of self-improvement. After one winter of varied, difficult Test cricket, there is no evidence to overthrow the presumption that Cook the captain will follow a similar path to Cook the batsman. Put differently, English cricket should back long-term character not short-term flashiness.

****

A favourite theme of this column is the tension, in both sport and life, between rationality and intuitive judgement. There is no doubt about the orientation of Trouble With the Curve, Clint Eastwood's new film about baseball. It is a manifesto for homespun wisdom, experience and intuition, and a thinly veiled attack on data, innovation and novelty.

Eastwood's film is the inverse Moneyball. Michael Lewis' story was full of liberal optimism, how the scientific method could shine a light on sporting success. It lampooned the faux-wisdom of old baseball scouts, the crusty old men in baseball jackets with their arch-conservatism and imperviousness to the evidence. Now, with Trouble With the Curve, we have the conservative rejoinder. These flash guys with laptops: phonies, charlatans, lightweights. The old men in the stands: sages, gurus, keepers of the flame.

You do not have to take sides to enjoy both interpretations of sport. Indeed, perhaps not taking sides ideologically is a prerequisite for a full enjoyment of sport. Five years ago I wrote this in my book What Sport Tells Us About Life:

We are what we want to see when we watch sport. The angry fan finds tribal belonging; the pessimist sees steady decline and fall; the optimist hails progress in each innovation; the sympathetic soul feels every blow and disappointment; the rationalist wonders how the haze of illogical thinking endures.

What I failed to point out in that paragraph is that we all, to some degree, take on each of those perspectives within one lifetime. One individual sports fan can be all of those people, sometimes simultaneously.

Sport provides us with a never-ending conversation about the nature of experience. Not only do we constantly change our minds, we never reach a final judgement. We are right not to.